Your life is falling apart. You’re buried under your student loans, your job is hell with no real living wage in sight, and you haven’t had any sort of sleep or sex in you can’t remember how long. Then comes the worst of it. That one circumstance or predicament that completely tips the scales and all at once it all becomes too much to bear. How can you keep at bay your anxieties and fears in the midst of all the chaos?
I’ll have you know I have 23 years of first hand experience curbing my bad luck and nervous breakdowns to make things easier to exist. I’m willing to share my secrets with you now in order to try to help restore some peace, balance, and sanity back into your day to day hell.
Look Into All Possible Solutions
Just Google ideas of ideas of how to solve the most urgent problems at hand. Sometimes the overwhelming amount of information can cause a spur of the moment panic attack just from the sheer volume of probable ways you can strategize a formidable resolution. That’s okay. The most important knowledge you’ll take away from this is that there are solutions out there. They may take more time or effort than you’re currently able to give, but very scarcely is there only one way out of a predicament.
Take a Random, Impromptu International Trip
Trust me, this option is not only for the financial elite. Go directly to the airport with only the necessities, take the cheapest flight available and for a 48 hour adventure. Stay in a motel or hostel. Eat cheap, disgusting, unrecognizable food. Walk the streets, parks, and museums. You’ll see a whole lifestyle regardless of where you choose to go where you’ll be forced to make quick decisions in order to make the most out of your trip. In the moment handling pertinent issues like where you’ll stay for the night or how to get around in an unfamiliar area will demonstrate you are capable of facing a problem head-on (even if you don’t feel entirely up for it at the moment).
Make Yourself A Cup Of Tea
I was completely oblivious to the healing powers of tea until I moved overseas. I learned over time which brands I preferred, how much milk I liked, the perfect spoonful of sugar, and in what order to put them all in together. Making a cup of tea for yourself should always feel ritualistic. From the moment you start the kettle you know the exact steps needed to take in order to achieve the end result you’re searching for. The same is true of your f*cked up, dire situation. Start off slow by creating something comforting and take a moment to breathe.
Have A Reliable Reserve of Friends
You may have a childhood friend who know you inside out. Another who always knows how to break you out of your headspace. One more who intuitively knows how to make others feel special and needed. Give them all a call if you need to in order to help rationalize, brainstorm, and put some new perspective into your dire straits. You don’t need to give them all the details or invite them to join in on your wallowing. Just share what you can to lighten the load. They’ll be more understanding and glad you turned to them despite your brain telling you that no one wants to hear about your problems.
Go To Bed Early and Just Have A Cry
Then get yourself up the next day, make a pot of coffee, and start figuring out a course of action. Incrementally even you’ll feel measures better than lying around feeling totally crippled by overwhelming doubt. Sometimes though you’re going to need to let it all out in private while all your emotions feel like open wounds. If you can’t go to sleep right away just lie there and work on breathing normally (a much bigger feat that it sounds when faced against despondency). Most importantly calm yourself before making the next move. If something else goes awry or not exactly according to the plan you don’t want to end up once again feeling crushed.
Set Yourself A Schedule With An End Goal In Sight
Think about all the times that you missed an important deadline. I’m sure you didn’t feel any better after the date had passed, although you told yourself you had more pressing matters to take care of. The best part of setting deadlines is your in complete control of them. Hold yourself accountable to a schedule you can manage. Don’t worry yourself with all the messiness that comes in between you and what you need to get done. Effectively shut it down when you can and keep in the back of your head a date that you expect to complete your task. Make concrete plans to celebrate once you’ve hit a milestone. Think about what it takes to get to the point where everything would go back to being okay (not even good, just not this bad) and hustle your way to it.
Put Down Everything And Do Now What Could Distract You Later
I always need a clean space in order to be productive. Although my room or flat may be a complete wreck, looking at that unmade bed or papers scattered on the floor will only cause annoyance once I put my mind towards a goal. I’d rather tidy as quickly as possible and minimize any chance of snowballing later from washing the dishes, to watching TV, to finishing that book I got from the library. Take care of the little things that are weighing on your mind to re-establish a better balance between your obligations.
Plank
Yes Mindy Lahiri was correct in believing that lying on the floor of your office wasn’t such a bad way to deal with your problems. Find a place to just lay down for a moment. Stare at the ceiling while you ponder the meaning of life and give in to just a little bit of self pity. Then get back on your feet because girl you got this.
Of course this isn’t really life advice as much as sharing with you my process of recovery when everything goes wrong. You probably do most of these things on your own and of course know you’re own resources that allow you to move on sensibly. Take away that you are not the only one who feels completely confused all the time. Everyone around you is struggling too and they all feel like they might be shattered from the inside out more often than they’d probably like to admit. When you feel like your life is falling apart do not feel ashamed. Do not feel empty. Figure it all out in your own time, in your own way.
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Take a trip? Are you kidding me? My life is on the rocks, I haven’t got a pot to piss in (literally, my toilet is broken) and you say to take a trip and drink tea? Pathetic
True non of this is helpful what so ever
Don’t knock the author that hard. When things fall apart as long as one has life there is hope. Once you lose hope you lose the will to life. Find the strength from within. Ignore bills and dept as much as you can, afterall all those are man made and the main reasons for the problem. Once you address your creditors if you can just ignore them because they can’t kill you unless you allow them to. Basically they can kiss your ass!!! The secret is to see it all coming before it does and if the last money you have left is enough to buy your flight then get out to a cheap safe country. Get yourself a copy of the SAS survival handbook make new friends and don’t look back. We are much more than just flesh and blood. TAP INTO YOUR NATURAL ABILITY TO SURVIVE !
I am there. I have no money, no job and bills, bills, bills. Trips and tea are useless. Friends, I have none. What did you do? I want to go to sleep forever. What did you do? Help me.
Its your fault you dont have anything.
pls stop being salty.people talking here most of them hav their lives devastated for some reason, and u here try to act like a champ n tell people to man up.for the least, spare us ur bs, and there no need to be the author’s advocate, like for real. Shaming people for their hard times couldnt b more unfair.this one is for u hope u v learned smtg
“Take an international trip”. Yeah, I don’t know the life of the person the author is describing but it must still be a pretty good one if it is “falling apart” and they still have the means to leave the country for a bit.
Take a International trip? Absurd!
Where do I go from here. God has an odd sense of humor. I trusted Him to hold me up. I’m loosing everything including my mind.
Can’t afford a trip to Walmart far less an international one…who wrote this mess?
Sell pc, you will have money atleast for few times to go to walmart
And plus god do not exist
Even when I was an atheist I was not dickish enough to tell someone that God did not exist. I realized that many need to believe in a divine creator and for some that belief is the only thing they have that stops them from killing themselves. There is a difference between not believing in God and needing someone to validate those beliefs.If you were confident your beliefs you wouldn’t need to constantly espouse them.
Belief in God does not entail a life not filled with hardships. Hardships are apart of living.
This woman is a kook! I have no money, family, friends because my world fell apart when I lost my daughter…and she says just go to the airport and hop a flight? Are you kidding me???
I’m so sorry
I’m sorry about your daughter
Life can be so cruel
I lost my wife to cancer in 89
Leaving me and her two young children I adopted because their selfish so called sperm donor ran out on them when they were little
I just had my last wife tell me she wasn’t happy after 24 years so I lost my home and everything I worked hard for and on top of that my dad died
Please accept my condolences and remember your not alone
Your kidding me?
School job that’s life’s problems???
On top of that no sex???
Get real
I’ll tell you what’s real life
Try losing your wife your dad your home
Your whole way of life
Now that’s life not the crap she bitched about
You young kids need to grow up!!!
Caitlin York you haven’t even lived yet
You have no idea what life is really about
Everyone is right your generation are a bunch of snowflakes
My dads generation at your age was charging gun fire in Europe
Yes lump every person in this generation in the same boat. That seems rational.
Well look at this generation
They run to safe spaces every time they have a problem
Hey fuckers, be nice. You guys probably lost those things because of your own faults . This girl is sharing her life story, how she managed to take her problems by her own way. And you fuckers only sit here and crying how fucked up your lifes are. So maybe its time to shut the fuck up and do something, as this girl did. ” Bunch of snowflakes”… Only snowflakes are you guys. Even if your problems are worst, you still got them. ” My father was charging gun fire in Europe”… Yea fucker, he was a killer. After Lithuania become ” free country ” its gets only worse. Less job, fucked up salary and so on.. I dont appreciate any people who goes to war for ” freedome” .
You really shouldn’t equate dealing with stress to your life falling apart. You have a job, a place to stay, and the ability to take an international trip. If you personally don’t then the people you are writing for do. However, when your life is actually falling apart an article like this won’t help. Which is why you have gotten so many negative reviews. The solutions you offered would help someone wanting to take a break from the stresses of life. They don’t help people dealing with actual tragedies.
Caitlin, please kill yourself. Literally, darling.
Wonderful advice. I sooooo needed this right now and it helped so much!
Spiraling out of control Nooo… my Google’s gone along with everything else connected to it. My life had fell apart.