What to do when the darkness gets too much

Hello, friends.

Something I do wish I knew a little less about is, catastrophe. Chaos. Unrest. I've moved more than three dozen times in my life, and I'm not done yet. I’ve had dozens of jobs, relationships, and ambitions. I've seen many of them dashed to bits.

And it seems like the world is absolutely chock full of such things these days.

So, I wanted to offer the meager advice that I'm able. Please bear in mind that these are all based off my own experiences, and that there is no such thing as a One Size Fits All, especially when it comes to the whims of the universe, and the ins and outs of mental health. I am also NOT a mental health professional.

(Please see one if you're having any trouble, or even if you're just lightly thinking you might be. Psychologists and psychiatrists are a game-changer.)

This all came to be because the handyman that my aunt and uncle employ asked me, “What do you do when the darkness gets too much?"<— thank you for that blog title 😊

I did not know how to respond at first, except to point to my dog and go, “He helps. Tremendously.”

It does seem like the darkness is getting too much lately. There’s been the great deal of unrest all over the States. There’s nothing on the news except horror, it seems, around the world. Atrocities heaped upon each other. The children, especially, is so hard to bear.

I recently read the book, “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” by Omar El Akkad, and there is a line within that I just could not get over.

“There is no such thing as someone else's children."

In my opinion, this barrage of horror, this continual destruction is meant, in many ways, to desensitize us to further evils.

So, when it all piles, I lean back on some of the things I've learned through my years of therapy and chaos.

What to do when it gets too much

1. TIPP - a therapy gold standard. TIPP stands for Temperature control, Intense exercise, Progressive muscle relaxation, and Pace breathing. These are four proven methods that, in moments of extreme stress and anxiety, can almost immediately bring you back to the present moment. They help you breathe. They help you remember who and where you are.
   
   
   1. Temperature control can be triggered through something like grabbing an ice cube or taking a cold shower.
   2. Pace breathing can be many types of repetitive breathing methods, I recommend trying apps like Calm or YouTube videos that follow those methods to help practice (you should definitely practice BEFORE you need it)
   
   
2. Play - one of the things that most adults lose in their years is a sense of whimsy and fun, of play. Play, I think, is something inherently natural to the universe and the shaping of things. Joy is infectious. See what happens if you go to a park and just, skip. Or spin in circles, use the swing, climb something tall. See the world from a different perspective. Take a moment and flip everything on its head. Because you're alive, and playfulness is inherent to that.
3. Do something - anything. Literally anything. Even if “all you can do” is write a poem about what you're seeing, or to describe it in a journal entry. Talk about it with a friend. Go find other friends to talk about it with signs on sticks in front of important buildings. There is a lot to be said about direct action, and you will personally gain a great deal from it to help bolster your mental health. Make art. Make bad art, good art, in-between art. Make up songs. Write blog entries. Create something. Make something. Do something. Action is the best counter for entropy, which is the playground of the darkness.
4. Sit with it - sometimes, the only thing you can do when confronted with the darkness and the voices lurking within is to sit down with it all. Feel the feelings. Acknowledge exactly what is there and how much it hurts. It’s not miring yourself in it or succumbing, it's simply allowing. Sometimes all the darkness needs is a little space to be, and then it recedes on its own. I think it’s important to attempt something like this, if you're able, at first in the company of someone accepting and loving like a therapist or a very trusted friend/family member.

As much as it hurts to live through this, live through it we must, and hopefully thrive out the other end.

I'm still trying for better, and probably always will. The reason this blog is called A Human in Progress is because that’s how I see myself, and many of us. Always in progress, always changing.

I don't have any great epiphanies in how we can actually fix the miseries of the world, other than direct action. We can each pull at the little threads available to us, and through the actions of millions we can unravel a tapestry that covers the world. Maybe some of what I've written can help. Maybe not.

We must try.