Touching The Bottom: Going Up Is Difficult, But Possible

If you’ve hit rock bottom, don’t be scared. If you have reached the limit of your strength, if this last failure or disappointment has touched you more than ever, do not be paralyzed, do not be ashamed, do not continue to live in this personal and psychological abyss. Get back up! Get up and make the choice of who is brave, who finds the dignity to impose himself not to fall lower than his own heart. All of us will have heard the phrase hit rock bottom on more than one occasion .

Curious as it may seem, most professionals in the clinical world do not particularly appreciate this expression .  Psychologists and psychiatrists come face to face every day with patients who have reached their limit. People convinced that, after having hit rock bottom, they have only one option left: that of change and improvement.

The sad reality is that this rule doesn’t always work. The reason? There are those who stabilize on this fund .  There are those who discover that, under this fund, there is another basement that is even darker and more complex. So, this idea, this approach that is sometimes so shared by many, can ironically and perverse prevent a person from seeking help to move forward. When, on the other hand, the problem is not so serious and it would be possible to take advantage of simple resources that allow a change or improvement to be made.

Everyone has hit rock bottom and it’s not easy to get back up

We’ve all hit rock bottom at least once and we know how much it hurts. Much of the population has descended to this stratum where fear, despair or failure hurl and abandon. Trapped, glued to this amber resin that undermines and blurs the balance until it results in a mood disorder.

The idea that only the most absolute desperation can lead us definitively to see the light and to experience an improvement is not true. Just as it is not having to suffer to truly know life. Because pain teaches and illuminates only if we have the will and adequate resources to be able to do it. So, as much as we like the idea, there is no autopilot in our brains that puts us in ” resilience mode”  whenever we get to the limit of our strength.

The theme of melancholy was dealt with by the philosopher and psychologist William James in his book The various forms of religious experience. A study of human nature . Some people, without understanding the reasons, are able to touch the bottom and, from there, see the point where the sunlight guides them from the depths to the exit. Others, on the contrary, remain trapped in melancholy. It is a corner where shame reigns  (how did I get here? ) And chronic despondency  (I can’t do anything to improve my situation, all is lost).

If you have hit rock bottom, don’t get used to this place. Get back up!

Hitting the bottom presupposes finding yourself on the ground of despair, this is clear, but you certainly don’t want to go down further.  Don’t let yourself sink into the dungeons of despair. Touching the bottom also implies finding oneself in a scenario of profound solitude, in a cave where nothing enters and the mind is confused; in this place thoughts are elaborated that become strange and obsessive. However, remember: you have a return ticket, all you have to do is climb the stairs to realize that there are new opportunities that are possible and viable.

To get back up, however, you have to do something tremendously difficult: overcome fear. To do this, you can apply the technique of the descending arrow or vertical arrow, proposed by cognitive therapists such as  David Burns. According to this approach, many people inhabit these psychological depths because they are blocked, they suffer, they feel lost and, although they are aware that they need a change to overcome this  impasse , they do not want to risk or do not know what to do.

The central idea of ​​this technique is to dismantle many of these irrational beliefs that often throw us into scenarios of anxiety and despair. To do this, the therapist selects a negative thought of the patient and challenges him with a question “If this thought were true and it happened, what would you do?”.  The idea is to ask a series of questions that act as descending arrows to shed light on erroneous ideas, to visualize and dismantle irrational patterns and encourage new approaches, new changes.

Let’s take an example. Think of a person who has lost his job and has been unemployed for a year now. The questions we could ask her to address all her fears would be the following:  What would happen if I could never find a job again? What would happen if your partner also lost their job? What would you do if you suddenly found yourself without any means of support?

This exercise may seem quite tough, because you always try to arrive at the most catastrophic scenario. However, it gives a push to the person, invites him to react, to make a comparison, to argue possible strategies in the face of desperate situations that have not yet happened (and that have no reason to occur).

In essence, it presupposes demonstrating to the person that, despite having hit rock bottom, even more complex situations exist and that, therefore, there is still time to react. Once she has faced all the fears that are put before her, she will have only one option left: to emerge. And this will be the decision that will change everything.