“However long the night, the dawn will break.” ~African Proverb
Were there times in your life where it felt anything that could go wrong went wrong? That was me five years ago.
In a span of nine months, my marriage to a partner of eight years broke down, I lost four family members to unexpected deaths, and I suddenly found myself hurtled from living the dream life to being jobless, penniless, and homeless.
To say life knocked the wind out of me would be an understatement.
Each time I picked myself up, another blow would send me sprawling toward a sense of utter defeat. It was as if a tornado swept through my entire being and left me empty and devoid of hope, strength, and any ounce of self-belief.
Shell-shocked, I spent that whole year crying. I would wake up crying in the mornings, run to cry in public toilets during the day, and end my days crying myself to sleep. It was a dark period of my life where everything was one blurry haze of tears.
As those days of hopelessness stretched on, the only thing I could focus on was taking baby steps every day to build a new life and a new future.
It was an arduous journey where I was often taking one step forward and two steps backward. Many times, I felt like I would never see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I struggled to find the strength to inch forward.
Five years on, I finally came out the other side. My new life and the new me are still under construction, but I now have in me a spring of strength to propel me forward, regardless of setbacks or how grim a situation seems.
This newfound capacity did not develop overnight. It grew gradually as I practiced and incorporated into my life the valuable insights below.
If you’re going through difficult times now, the following four reminders may help you be more resilient.
1. Remember that life always changes. Things can get better.
When troubles strike, it can feel like things will only get worse, but that is the pessimist in us talking. If we keep the faith and respond to the situation with positive and constructive actions, we can break out of the cycle and things can get better.
Sometimes all we need to do is to simply let time pass and to resist the temptation to overreact and aggravate the problem. During times like these, I would distract myself by actively engaging in other areas of my life.
2. Recall how you overcame similar struggles in the past.
When plodding through a challenging time, it’s natural to be gripped by fear, self-doubt, and pessimistic thoughts that we won’t be able to surmount the obstacles. We forget that it always feels impossible until it’s done, and that we have overcome similar struggles in the past.
A simple but extremely effective thing I did was to list down the occasions in my life where I busted through hurdles and rose above the seemingly insurmountable difficulties. As I penned out the victories, I found renewed faith in myself and in the unknown future, which may well bring the good instead of the bad like I feared.
3. Remember that things aren’t as bad as they seem.
Zoom out on the issue and focus on the grand scheme of things. More often than not, the raging fires in our lives hijack our attention and we fail to see the big picture. It’s rarely the case that every aspect of our lives went awry at the same time, and it’s critical to keep the right perspective when the going gets tough.
We need to remember that our problems are merely a subset of everything that’s going on in our lives and not let the worries, fear, and anxiety overtake our minds. Even if every area of our lives—namely health, relationship, work, money, and passion—went haywire, the fact that we’re alive means there’s hope for things to turn around.
4. Remember that there are still things to appreciate.
Do not let the darkness blind you from seeing the stars. It’s human nature to get caught up with the things that are not working out in our lives and forget the good bits. I’m a big believer of a grateful heart being a magnet for abundance and miracles.
No matter how terrible life may seem at any single point, there are always good things if we keep our eyes peeled for them.
Thanks to the challenges, I came to see who my true friends were, and I also learned to appreciate many of the blessings I had taken for granted. I might have lost a life partner, loved ones, money, and employment, but these setbacks are transient.
I would always have my degree, knowledge, skills, professional experience and network, and people who care deeply for me to fall back on and to get me back on my feet.
As I grew stronger in handling life’s curveballs, I was grateful that I had developed this invaluable life skill at a young age so I can have the rest of my life to benefit from it. While maintaining a thankful heart, I realized that even in dark times there are stars we can gaze upon if we view our plight through the right lens.
Which areas of your life are you struggling with right now? How do you cope and stay resilient?
About Sylvia Huang
Sylvia Huang is a blogger on life ideas that make everyday feel good. She writes about habits and productivity, health and wellness, emotional intelligence, and money matters. Her inspiration comes from her experiences living in Japan, France, Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia, working in the fund management industry and travels in over twenty-five countries. Read her other articles on her website, OhSunnyMornings.com.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.
The perfect article at this point! Needed some booster and all your points hit the nail! 🙂 thank you.
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Hi , Thank you for your article. I am in this “dark period”.
I actually worked extremely hard not to be here.
I took a long break from my university degree and moved away for awhile…(I am older, so this feels more of a hit). I had to switch to a different specialization; I wanted to study in what I was passionate about and I was so happy that I finally found it, so I took some time out to regroup and organize. When I came back -ie. moving back to the city with what I thought was proper organization, everything and everyone fell apart around me–my living arrangements, my personal life… I am now , living alone in a small little isolated apartment, struggling to keep my grades up because I have to work and make ends meet-uh… essentially you know, do things like feed myself, I got sick, and even hit my head and got a small concussion just when I thought it was getting better. It was just one thing after another…The man I loved can’t be there for me at all-and it is tough realizing that essentially , I am alone in this.
I am hoping that next semester, I can regain myself, but boy …do I just want to crawl away and sleep for days… and start over. But you are right, perspective is best when we look at the bigger picture. I am healthy, and I am resilient and other people, like you, have gotten through similar things and persevered. Lots of love to you. Thank you for your article.
Great article and so worth the read. We often need pick-me-ups to help us on our journey =)..
Thanks for a great article. The theme of your post seems to be to hold on to hope, and that alone can get us through some really tough times. I also find focusing on what I appreciate helps to see more of the light. If I’m feeling really down, I’ll write down 50 things I’m grateful for every day for a few days until the clouds lift and there’s more sunshine again.
I am in depression and social anxiety land since 3 years. Things didn’t really get better just yet. Also I lost all trust in my abilities to do anything which scares me the most. I am unemployed and living with my parents. Lost a boyfriend and friends hardly call any more. What keeps me going is my stubborness and a deep wish to help change the world for the better and to have a family one day. Sending starlight and winter air to you (it’s night currently in austria) ♡
i hope things got better for you. i am in your situation now and trying to find hope. it is comforting to know that i am not the only one to have dealt with this. well wishes and hugs to you.
No life doesn’t automatically get better. I’m sick of being told to be grateful, as a method to guilt me into someplace better. Sometimes life is as bad as it seems. It’s not always true that someone experiencing a bad time has some flawed perspective and just can’t see their life is really a-okay. Too bad if you’ve not struggled like this in the past. There goes your sense of capability. So, so tired of the same trite advice being dispensed like it’s wisdom of the ages. Typically by someone who has never had depression or anything close to it. If I hear I should keep a journal of gratitude one more time as the answer to an existential crisis I think I may pour bleach in my eyes.
Brilliant, you’ve solved depression. Please go ahead and collect your Nobel Prize for psychology. Writing down 50 fifty things you’re grateful for is just peachy when you feel mildly bored, or perhaps even slightly sad that your favourite TV show was cancelled. This kind of a stuff does not help someone in a serious state of depression.
I hope things are better for you now which they probably are but if not I hope you still have and can access the strength you have to continue going. You’re not alone. I love the bit at the end “sending you starlight and winter air” you like a great, soulful person 🙂 much love <3
Yup that’s the great thing in all this….meeting others who aren’t blind to it. Knowing that there is others out there who KNOW what you are going through….APPRECIATE the work you are putting…..and still give you HOPE that things can turn round and we’re not alone in this. All it takes is one person to come along and recognise your efforts, give you what you give them, and also to take a moment and step back and appreciate actually those who are there for us because if they wasn’t we’d surely know about it. Like I’m sure everyone here is here for each other, we’ve never met but we are all here for each other because we are technically going through the same thing. That fills me with hope. <3
John she’s not saying that…..she’s saying just try and look at things from a slightly different perspective. She’s not saying you are ungrateful but I know for a fact there’s people in your life that truly care for you and will be there if you need…..if these people weren’t no longer there it wouldn’t be the same and I know that. You probably live in a house that’s good. You have internet access, that’s good. Some people have none of this stuff and it actually can be a lot worse so what she’s saying is be grateful for what you have because it can always be worse and when we focus on ‘what we are actually grateful for’ it brings more of the things in our life that we are actually grateful for……..focusing on the good allows us to see it in a deeper life….life’s not all bad and I know for a fact there’s good in your life….don’t be mean to her just because you’re angry, it’s not fair man, I understand your frustration but I’m sure there’s other things here that did help, I understand you’re angry but everyone here is here for each other. Chill out a bit mate…
Ha ha John, you are funny man. You have a point. No one can be happy by just imagining oneself as happy. Many people just resign to fate and things start changing. Maybe we really are getting involved with a life too much. Just see we never signed a bond with anyone before we were dispatched to this earth, nor will we exist after death. Why take too much ownership of life then too….
After reading a news article on a mob in India setting fire to a baby elephant and her/his mom I felt utterly hopeless and overwhelmed. EVERYTHING felt so hard to accomplish. The feeling of wanting to find a way to stop it right this moment was incessantly scratching at my brain (it still is). What connected with me in this article is taking babysteps. So yes, I didn’t get on a plane to India, find that mob and stop what happened….. but instead of feeling helpless, overwhelmed and frozen by despair, I’ve contacted animal rights groups to find out what I can do to help. Then next “baby step” will be to follow up with the groups. Breath…
What non-depressed people don’t seem to understand is that when one is depressed, any suggestion about how to get out of this mood sounds loathsome and disgusting to the depressed person. Suggestions like, “Why not take a brisk walk?” or “Listen to your favorite music” hit the depressed ear with the impact that tissue paper would have if it were thrown into a roaring fire. No impact at all.
The depressed person doesn’t want to do anything. Can we all get this straight? Even the thought of movement is odious. The one thought pleasant to a truly depressed person would be something like an imagined button that, when pressed, totally eliminates consciousness and the ability to think. Depressed people prefer coma to movement, nothing to something. I have been depressed for years, and if what I am saying is not true, well, then, my name is Abraham Lincoln, and I’m still president of the U.S.
The American Medical Association KNOWS about certain compounds RIGHT NOW that can stop a depressed person from feeling even the slightest feeling of depression. I’ll tell you one, and you tell me if I’m wrong: DEXTROMETHORPHAN. If I had given Robin Williams a certain dose of this medication two hours before he killed himself, he never would have killed himself. Guaranteed. It makes Zoloft and Prozac and Paxil look, by comparison, like M & M’s.
You may scoff at this. Go right ahead. But I know what i’m talking about. There are literally hundreds of medical studies being conducted RIGHT NOW on this substance as an anti-depressant. Look them up for yourself, and you will see. For the love of God, I don’t know why it hasn’t been used yet. I truly believe it would end depression on a national scale.
“Everyone here is for each other” except you’re in here telling us that because homeless Ebola orphans exist we shouldn’t feel sad, which is insulting and invalidating.
You’re great! Your comments are so refreshing and make me laugh. Thank YOU.
I pray that as ypu have taken time to right what you feel it has made you better
but I tell you words like this are really depressing.
try saying the opposite of what you’ve just said now and say them as much as possible, when you all get back in and saay them again.
I lost my husband 9 months ago and everything has spiraled downward since. My car was repossessed and I have absolutely nothing money for anything. Where u live you can’t walk to a job because it’s too far and without a car I am dead in the water. All utilities are due for cutoff. I’m about to give up.
What sort of bleach works best?
Actually good comment!
You got to go down to be up, I think. It is OK to spend some time in the ‘valley of despond’ before you get sick of your grumpy Self and try something else. Never underestimate boredom as a motivating principal.
Just never forget…this too shall pass.
I am aware of that. Dextromethorphan by itself is not cough syrup; it’s a medication put into cough medicine.
I don’t mean to be critical or negative, but I don’t think the solution to depression is as simple a problem as “getting sick of your grumpy self and trying something else.” Please forgive me if I have misunderstood what you mean. But if I have your meaning right, you must understand that being depressed is a greatly different matter from being merely “grumpy.” A depressed person has hardly the passion in him to muster the energy required to be “grumpy.” The depressed person feels leaden. All is gray. The color of depression is not black, as many people wrongly think. Depression is a lead gray. All is gray. All is insipid, empty, desolate. In the throes of depression, I have thought, “Wishing this on someone would be only slightly better than murdering that person.”
That’s cough syrup dude
Dextromethorphan is a cough suppressant, but when combined with ordinary anti-depressants like Zoloft, it raises serotonin levels significantly, producing in the patient a feeling of well-being and happiness. Now, this must be done with care. Too much, and the patient would begin to feel euphoric (high). Lots of people abuse this drug recreationally, but this is no reason to prevent public access to it in a controlled tablet regulated by the FDA. Like other medications, it could be prescribed in various doses. There might be a 20mg dosage, a 60mg, a 100mg, depending on the size/weight of the person and the severity of his/her depression. I will say with absolute certainty that had I given Robin Williams a dose of this several hours before he committed suicide, he would have been doing stand-up comedy that night and would have forgotten all about what his problems must have been. Or, if he did remember, he would not care. He’d be too happy.
Since the original comment was deleted i do not recall what I was replying to.
Anyway call me shallow, call me animal, my experience with depression is short-lived. At age 22 i was a bit depressed. i chalked it up to too many drugs and my new status as a lonely adult in a sea of uncaring reality. But it passed, a very common experience for a 22 year old. But once my environment changed it disappeared.
Hence my solution is simple: depressed?
Here lets take a drive to nowhere, I’ll drop the patient off with a tent, a sleeping bag, and a five day supply of Ramen noodles.
I be back in five days.
The physical discomfort of camping(some call it self inflicted torture) will overwhelm the mental self referential resonance and once back in air conditioned splendor the depressive will be so glad they are physically comfortable they will compartmentalize the big thoughts into a spare part of the head.
But hey everybody is different, like i say I lean to the shallow and animal explanations of human behavior and i admit, I am not patient with the ‘deep’ view of life. So in all likelihood my little camping trip would not work for most.
I don’t mean to invalidate your concern for the elephants, but I have to ask if you feel the same way about the innocent unborn baby who is aborted in our country about 4,000 times each day. Do we really have to stop the foreign abuse of an animal when, probably twenty miles from any house in America, babies are being torn limb from limb by suction machines that pull them apart? Does it bother us that our land is literally sprinkled with plastic medical waste bags filled with fetuses soaking in their own blood?
Uh… wow. Since you were a couple inches above here worried about suicide, does it bother you that maybe someone read this and felt suicidal?
Actually it’s a myth that Robin Williams killed himself due to depression. He did take his own life, but he had Diffuse Lewy Body Dementia. This is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease that is eventually terminal, but in the meantime causes movement disorders, insomnia, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, panic, and — most horribly — the inability to recognize the faces of loved ones.
There is no cure, or even a treatment that works. Symptoms are intermittent at first, and Williams was aware that he had it and it would only grow worse over the course of several more years.
Before he had begun to show signs of the illness, he had been sober and without depression for a number of years. I’m sure he was “depressed” due to the illness, but it wasn’t the sort of depression that any amount of love, acceptance or medicine could cure.
He likely had realized he was beginning to be confused about who people were, and took his life when he was still lucid enough to do so.
Williams’s wife came out a few times to say this after he died.
I’m a survivor of a suicide attempt as well — the “regular” kind, from depression. But I really wish Williams wasn’t always brought up as an example of someone who could have happily survived if only he’d known how much people loved him, or if only he’d had the right medication, or whatever. Mental illness isn’t the cause for all suicides, and always “consigning it to the crazies” makes it always seem a problem “those people” have, and lets us avoid discussions around other factors in suicide like homelessness, domestic violence, unemployment, lack of health care and pain in terminal illness.
Sir, I stand justly corrected. I truly did not know that Williams suffered from this dreadful disease. Because of your response, I did some reading about it and learned many amazing things I had not known. I thank you for opening my eyes to something i did not know about and to the suffering of a man I thought I knew very well, though now it is clear I did not. For that I apologize, not only to him but to everyone wrongly diagnosed and overlooked. What a terrible shame. What terrible suffering. I certainly did not mean in any way to make light of his condition. I truly thought he was suffering from depression. I believe I got that information from one or more television news programs. Well, this just shows us once again that we all need to look more than a single time at someone who is having a problem or is showing signs of a disease we think we know about. We have to remind ourselves we do NOT know so much about diseases and symptoms, and sometimes it is easy for us to make a snap judgment and say, “Yup, he’s depressed.” And then we take the person to the doctor, get them some Zoloft and return to business as usual without a second thought. We have to be better than than this. I think one of the problems with the diagnosis of diseases like this is the still lingering stigma attached to anything even remotely resembling mental illness. It is almost as if the public perception of mental illness has not evolved one jot past the 18th century, while the science has moved on into the 21st century. Somehow, the “insane” are still coupled (unjustly) with those who are possessed or are suffering from haunting or demons. Haven’t we matured enough beyond the mentality of the torch-wielding mob crying out somewhere in the darkening forest of Transylvania, “Kill the Beast!!!”??? The longer we cling to this “default” setting (where mental illness is involved), the innocent victims of cruel disorders like Diffuse Lewy Body Dementia will go undiagnosed. And that would be a terrible tragedy.
Thank you so much for this — Please realize, MOST people thought the same of Williams’ death, because there was very little coverage after his wife went public with the situation. (If you didn’t see this: https://amp.livescience.com/56340-susan-schneider-williams-lewy-body-disease.html ) For whatever reason, his wife waited some time before making this public. By then, the “depression’ narrative was solidified.
And Williams HAD struggled publically, in the past, with addiction and clinical depression. So it was natural the public assumed this was the case.
So you are far from alone in this!
It sounds like you really do understand the distinction I am making here (not everyone has, when I have pointed this out). The problem, I think, is about extremes, between a very pro-psych model (Every unwanted emotion is a mental illness and should be fixed with a pill) and a very anti-psych model (There is no such thing as mental illness; everything was fine before the conspiracy between psychology and Big Pharma) You actually helped me to clarify this, so thank you!
[Only one thing: Is my profile photo visible…? Because you called me “sir” and I’m pretty obviously female, I think…?!]
Oh, my bad!!! I’m so sorry!!! Yes, your profile photo is visible. That’s just me being my typically oblivious self. Please pardon. Yes, you are clearly female. And I thank you so much for your kind and measured responses. You sound like a wonderful person, empathic, intelligent, and interested in just getting to the truth. I admire that greatly. So thanks for a wonderful back-and-forth here of the minds. I want you to know I have suffered from depression and some ongoing mental illness issues, so I am very acutely aware of these things. And that’s why I was so excited to learn about what REALLY happened to Robin Williams, one of my favorite human beings ever. Like you, I really want people to understand distinctions and not have an “all-or-nothing” attitude toward these very important mental issues. My own father suffered with Alzheimer’s, and it was very difficult for me to watch his memory gradually disappear. We all need to be mindful of the truths of this very complex and quickly evolving aspect of human health, and we need to be careful never to let stereotype or ignorance be our “default” setting when it comes to understanding what is truly wrong with someone. People are precious. The older I get, the more I value people above all other things. Thanks for helping me keep my eye on the prize. All the best!!!
Well, nice that someone benefitted from a difficult time at an early age. My life fell apart last may and i was sure i could get it back together. I’m 58, getting a divorce from someone who was my best friend and everybody thought he was a great guy until he got arrested as a sex criminal. I’m disabled and i get a monthly check that covers my mortgage and nothing else. I get food stamps, so i’m not going hungry. But there isn’t a way to pay electricity, propane, phone or any other regular bills. And even if i dold this house tomorrow, i won’t see a penny if it until my divorce is final in april. Winter is here and i had hoped to be moving to a warmer place in an affordable house by now. All i have to look forward to is a cold winter with my electricity and heat turned off.
OMG Gray Liddell your comments on camping get me laughing and is so true. All we got is first world problems. No one is sure what causes depression, if it is necessary, nor how to cure it. Doesn’t it suck that we are not at the pinnacle of human evolution at this point.
When there’s miles to go, and no end in sight; just look down at your feet, and take one step at a time.
Thank you for the article. I’m having a particularly bad day and reading it helped. Reading the comments, as usual there are opinionated jerks without a shred of empathy. Everyone is different and it’s not fair to write off people’s struggles just because you don’t feel that way or think it’s weak. I also don’t think it’s fair to say someone doesn’t have the right to feel sad if they aren’t homeless/jobless/orphaned etc.
in my teens I had depression. I was sad for no good reason and everything felt dark. Now I have reasons to be sad and I’m feeling hopeless and like there is always a big shadow over me. I’m not sure if that’s depression or sadness since I have valid (to me) reasons for feeling this way. I’m late 30’s, and yes I own my own home (well the bank owns some of it still) and I have a job, but I don’t have much else. Those things might be the most important to some people and sure, I appreciate that I have a home but I have no friends and haven’t had a boyfriend in 14 years. My family live an hour away and don’t make much effort. I only see them if I go to them or I call them. Although I am degree qualified and I work hard at every job I never progress, it’s like none of my bosses ever thought I had potential. But for me the worst part of my life is the loneliness. And yes you could say things will get better but I haven’t had a boyfriend in 14 years and a friend since I left high school in 2002. I try, and I don’t think I expect too much but I expect back what I put in and no one thinks I’m worth doing that for. So every day is like Groundhog Day , I go to work and come home to no one but my cats. I just really don’t see the point. See, it’s hard to make friends if you don’t have any because as you start to get closer you get questions about your life and people want to get your friends with their friends and at some point you have to admit you don’t have any. And you can’t find a partner if you don’t have friends because how are you to find the one person who wants to spend their life with you if no one wants to spend even a bit of their time with you? I’ve tried internet dating too but I’ve noticed men will happily go for a less attractive girl with a good body, none seem to be interested in a fairly attractive girl who is larger. Anyway I’ve rambled but the thing I’m trying to say is 14 years is a long time to wait for things to get better and people should stop judging others just because they don’t understand their POV.
More dumb advice that doesn’t do a thing to counter the hopelessness and despair that has emptied me out over the last 7 years.