Someone that I love is not doing well, what do I do?

Navigating this world is hard. All of the choices we have to make while navigating our daily lives is a lot. According to a quick google search, we all make approximately 35,000 decisions a day. That’s a lot! Makes sense why the challenges of the daily demands add up so easily.

All of our daily lives are packed with choices and decisions and let’s face it— we aren’t robots. We can have all the routine in the world AND we still face decision fatigue and overwhelm from the innerworkings of our daily lives. Then add the factors within our internal systems: physical health and abilities, stress, hormones, past traumas, neurodivergence, developmental delays or challenges, anxiety, or any mental health challenge, etc. According to the American Psychological Association (APA) six out of ten young adults report being overwhelmed by daily life. That means the majority of us feel overwhelmed even on our best days without a major life event occurring.

So we have our daily stressors, we have our internal systems… AND… our external systems. The world that we have no control over. Someone is sick, someone got in an accident, someone is having an emotional crisis, someone is mean, money is tight, someone died, ______________, etc. The unlimited challenges that we experience in this life is overwhelming and truly amazing. They keep coming. They don’t go away. They aren’t going away.

When something happens. How do you hold it all together? How do you hold the overwhelm and still adapt with the crisis, the challenge, the sorrow, the grief?

++ Deep breath ++

Humans are not designed to do this alone. The roller coaster of life is what helps us to grow and make us stronger. It brings about challenges so that we are forced to pause and redirect our thinking and learning so that we can grow. Holding it all inside doesn’t help. We have to do it together.

During my time as a social worker in the hospital, I supported people to navigate change on their hardest days. It was my job was to be there and listen, to help give them resources to help alleviate their suffering and navigate the complicated dynamics of a hospital system. I was able to be the professional and do my job to make their life easier so that they didn’t have to think about everything. They could pay attention to their loved one, or their needs and let the professional take on the navigation.

It is so easy to let the frustration of the “system” bring you down.

Who are you going to reach out to for support?

Therapy can help. Come join me.