For awhile, maybe a long while, you found ways to cope. With the stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma, however your emotional pain manifests. You found your ways and you kept your head above water and it worked ok for a little while. But that only worked for so long and now the toll of it all has added up.

One of the hardest parts about being a human is that we have a strong drive to avoid pain, and so often the quick-fixes for our pain just lead to more pain.

It feels like our brains set us up for failure. We feel anxious or depressed so we have a glass of wine, a hit of cannabis, doom scroll on our phones, or lay in bed and avoid everything altogether. That works ok for a little while. Then that behavior is reinforced so we turn to it again, and again. In moderation that’s all fine and good. When we never learn how to face and actually address our pain it just continues to build until it overflows.

All the while our minds start to turn against us. Telling us that we are “worthless,” “failures,” “can’t do anything right,” “need to be more ___ or less ___.” Pile on existential anxiety from the world around us and the burden feels too heavy to carry. Maybe the external costs have started to pile up too. Damaged relationships, poor performance at work, health crises, financial strain...

You can only avoid for so long before it all those things you tried to escape from come to the surface and demand your attention. Your emotions are like a beachball that you’ve been trying to hold under water. You can hold it down with consistent effort, but the second you let up it comes bursting through the surface and soaks you in the process.