If You Have Reached The Bottom, Do Not Just Sit There, Climb Out!

If you have reached the bottom, do not let it scare you. If you have no strength left, if this last failure or disappointment has affected you more than ever, do not let it paralyze you, do not be ashamed and do not make yourself at home in this personal, psychological hole.

Push yourself upwards and make the brave choice: the choice to gather your dignity and refuse to fall.

Having “reached the bottom” is probably something we have all heard about. But even though it may seem strange  , medical practitioners do not like this expression at all. Every day, psychologists and psychiatrists talk to people who have reached their limit. These are people who are convinced that they only have a choice after reaching the bottom; they believe that the only choice is to make a change and get better.

But the sad truth is that this is not always true. Why? Because some people find themselves permanently stuck on the bottom.  There are also people who realize that there is an even darker, more complex level below it. So this well-known attitude can go wrong, ironically and sadly enough.

In fact, it often prevents people from seeking help. They are not looking for support because the problem does not seem serious yet. But it is at this point that it is easiest to find resources that can help you get better and make a change.

We have all probably reached the bottom at some point, and we all know how bad it hurts. A large part of the population has fallen to this place due to fear, desperation or failure. They feel stuck, trapped in amber like a fossil. They lose their balance, which can often lead to mood disorders.

The idea that only the deepest desperation is capable of helping you see the light and feel better is simply not true. In the same way, it is not true that you have to suffer to live an authentic life. Pain can only teach you and illuminate the circumstances if you have the willpower and resources required.

So even though it sounds nice  , there is no autopilot in our brains that puts us in a resilient position  when we reach the breaking point.

The philosopher and psychologist William James wrote a book called  The Religious Experience in Its Different Forms. In it he spoke of a cave of melancholy. There are people who, without knowing how or why, can reach the bottom and find a ray of light that they use to reach the exit.

On the other hand, there are also people who can not get out of this melancholy place. It’s a place full of shame ( how did I end up here? ) And a constant feeling of hopelessness  (there’s nothing I can do to make this better, it’s all over).

Reaching the bottom is to end up on the ground floor of discouragement. It’s obvious, but you should not want to go any further. Do not let yourself fall into desperation and go even further down, down into the basement. Reaching the bottom is being in a place of deep loneliness.

It’s like a cave where nothing happens. Your mind becomes bound and your thoughts tangled, strange and obsessed. But always remember that you have a return ticket. All you need to do is take a step back and see if there are new opportunities out there.

But climbing out is extremely difficult because it involves overcoming your fears. One way to deal with this is to use the downward arrow technique advocated by cognitive therapist David Burns.

According to his theory, many people end up here because they are blocked. They suffer and feel lost. Most of the time, they know they have to make a change to get past this deadlock. The problem is that they either do not have the courage or do not know how.

The main idea of ​​this technology is to get rid of all the irrational beliefs you acquire when you are in this motionless, desperate place. The therapist chooses one of the patient’s thoughts and asks a difficult question:  “If this thought were true and really happened, what would you do?”

The goal is to establish a series of questions that are like downward arrows that lead you to understand why these thoughts are wrong. They want you to be able to see your irrational ideas, get rid of them and find new ways of thinking. To make a change in other words.

We’ll give you an example. Think of someone who lost their job and has now been unemployed for a year. There are some important questions you can ask her to confront all her fears, one by one. What would happen if you got a job again? What would happen if your partner also lost his job? What would you do if you suddenly had no resources?

This can seem like a tough exercise to go through. It always makes you think of the worst case scenarios. But it also involves pushing and getting you to react, confront and debate possible strategies for dealing with desperate situations that have not yet arisen (and will not necessarily do so).

It basically tries to show that even if you have reached the bottom, there are always worse and more complicated situations. What this means is that you always have time to react. Once you have faced all these fears, you will actually see that there is only one option: to climb out.

It is the decision that will really change everything for you.