Where do you go from the emotional basement that started with disappointment, then went downstairs to discouragement, distress, dejection, and depression?
Your options are very few. In fact, just three, but every one of them is a choice that you still have the power to make:
Option 1: Remain here. Remain depressed. If you choose this option, you won’t be able to function as a normal person. You won’t be able to keep a job. You can’t be there for your family, friend and others who look up to you or may depend on you. You can’t be functional, unless you take some kind of medication. But then you may soon get hooked on prescription drugs, with an ever-increasing strength of dosage needed to calm your nerves. A slippery slope into drug addiction, and all you really want is to be able to function at some semi-normal level.
Option 2: Regroup and rebound. You can rise up, stand up, walk out of that emotional basement and bounce back. But let’s admit it, you will need help to do this. And the odds weigh better in your favor, if you ask for that help much sooner than later. The shorter the time you spend in your emotional abyss, the greater the chances of you coming out alive and well.
Option 3: Commit suicide. Depression is the leading cause of suicide. Sadly, many take this dark path of no return. They prefer to go from the emotional basement to an irreversible grave. What a pitiful choice! What an unnecessary choice.
When you are not the one in the emotional basement, and if you have the opportunity to catch your friend or loved one squelching in this damnable hole, get ready to play hero. Whether you see yourself as savior or not, that’s exactly who you’ll need to become, because your loved one will need nothing less than a savior to rescue him or her from the emotional quicksand.
You may be that person’s only hope of ever returning to meaningful living or remaining alive. Start by going out of your way to be a close friend to the person. Your friendship will help shatter the person’s dejection, the faulty thinking that he or she is an unwanted loser and useless trash. When you become a friend to this depressed person, she may learn that she is wrong to feel unwanted. Suddenly, the person realizes, “Some body still wants me. I’m wanted. Not everyone has rejected me; at least, not this person!” That can be the birth of new life for that person, the dawn of hope, a living hope.
Your options are very few. In fact, just three, but every one of them is a choice that you still have the power to make:
Option 1: Remain here. Remain depressed. If you choose this option, you won’t be able to function as a normal person. You won’t be able to keep a job. You can’t be there for your family, friend and others who look up to you or may depend on you. You can’t be functional, unless you take some kind of medication. But then you may soon get hooked on prescription drugs, with an ever-increasing strength of dosage needed to calm your nerves. A slippery slope into drug addiction, and all you really want is to be able to function at some semi-normal level.
Option 2: Regroup and rebound. You can rise up, stand up, walk out of that emotional basement and bounce back. But let’s admit it, you will need help to do this. And the odds weigh better in your favor, if you ask for that help much sooner than later. The shorter the time you spend in your emotional abyss, the greater the chances of you coming out alive and well.
Option 3: Commit suicide. Depression is the leading cause of suicide. Sadly, many take this dark path of no return. They prefer to go from the emotional basement to an irreversible grave. What a pitiful choice! What an unnecessary choice.
When you are not the one in the emotional basement, and if you have the opportunity to catch your friend or loved one squelching in this damnable hole, get ready to play hero. Whether you see yourself as savior or not, that’s exactly who you’ll need to become, because your loved one will need nothing less than a savior to rescue him or her from the emotional quicksand.
You may be that person’s only hope of ever returning to meaningful living or remaining alive. Start by going out of your way to be a close friend to the person. Your friendship will help shatter the person’s dejection, the faulty thinking that he or she is an unwanted loser and useless trash. When you become a friend to this depressed person, she may learn that she is wrong to feel unwanted. Suddenly, the person realizes, “Some body still wants me. I’m wanted. Not everyone has rejected me; at least, not this person!” That can be the birth of new life for that person, the dawn of hope, a living hope.
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