September Spring | 3. Your second survival checklist

This has been tried and tested by me, so I decided to share it with you.

I love and am grateful for the life I live now, but my past has had plenty of knocks which I sometimes thought would keep me down forever.

Through these times I gradually learnt some interim survival skills which really helped get me through to much happier times. 

They are:

Do whatever it takes to survive

The most important first step is to find a way that will enable you, as an individual, simply to survive until life gets better of its own accord.

Survival is all about finding whatever keeps a tiny flame of hope alive until the day the sunlight itself breaks through. 

Sometimes the survival package might seem slightly crazy to others, and even to yourself in retrospect, but that’s not important right now: your need to survive must take priority. 

Slightly crazy but it worked for me:

😱 When going through an episode of depression characterised by restless anxiety, I came into contact with someone from a church pastoral environment who lived a short walk away. I hardly knew her but somehow I sensed she would be sympathetic and sensible and trustworthy. 

I tentatively approached her and politely asked her if I could speak confidentially. We talked and came to an agreement: when I felt overwhelmed by restless anxiety verging on panic in my own house, I would phone her up and if she was free, I would walk to her place for a sit down and a cuppa. 

I found that just escaping my own four walls into a different, fresh atmosphere with someone calm and gentle made the whole weight of nerves gradually melt away. I visited her only a few times and always left feeling strengthened, my ability to cope restored. In time I was fine again and recognised that she had kindly provided me with a simple but effective safety valve when I needed it.

🌫️ In my experience, mornings are always the worst when going through dark times. You wake far too early, watching the grey dawn light creep round the sides of the curtains, dreading the day before you that somehow has to be endured.

I found I could make the day manageable by mentally chopping it into small manageable portions. I would get my journal out and write down some small, short-term goals, with a little challenge to see if I could find some tiny moment of pleasure in each of them, and then reward myself with a treat afterwards. One example:

🧺 Do the ironing;

👚 Notice the fresh, clean, scent of newly-laundered clothes and the smooth feeling of fabric under my hands;

🥮 Afterwards, sit down with a cup of Yorkshire Gold tea and a slice of rich fruit cake served on my best Blue Denmark chinaware. 

And as a result, I would find myself thinking: ‘OK, life might be rough at the moment, but these minutes here and now I actually feel calm and peaceful.’

This recognition that the worst moments do really pass is a crucial life-survival skill.