I often hear people say things like, “I wouldn’t survive that.” Or “I can’t live without [this person or that person].” Or “ I just don’t know how I would make it if [this thing or that thing] happened.”

The thing is that when you don’t have a choice, you just tend to survive things. How? By putting one proverbial foot in front of the other. You wake up each day and even if it takes you 5 hours to get out of bed, you eventually do. You sleep enough to survive – your body will make sure of that. You eat enough to survive – your body will make sure of that. And you might cry more than you think it’s possible for a person to cry.

You will survive it.

You will still exist.

And one day, something will make you laugh.

One day you will realize that time has passed and that you are alive.

One day you will get a full night’s sleep again. It might be only one full night of sleep in a long period of time. But you will sleep and that will give you hope.

…

You don’t need to self medicate. You don’t need to drink or smoke weed. You can survive this with your eyes open.

Sometimes when things are too scary, we close our eyes – like in a horror film. It works when you’re watching a movie in a theater. You actually can close your eyes and you don’t have to watch the gruesome murder. And the movie continues on its way and ends.

Imgaine this, though – what if you (unbeknownst to you) were watching this movie in a different kind of theater? What if, in this theater, each time you closed (or otherwise averted) your eyes, the movie automatically pauses. Every time you open your eyes, the scene starts up again and you close your eyes again. Only to have the movie also pause. This is a theater where you are forced to watch every scene of the movie. You can stay in this theater for years, if you like, and the movie will just keep pausing for you. But eventually, when you are sick and tired of being in this theater, you will be forced to watch the scene you are trying to avoid just so you can get on with your life.

When people drink or smoke or take other drugs to avoid pain, that is what they are doing – they are closing their eyes during the scene.

It is you hiding your eyes – it is you saying “I can’t watch this part.” But the movie just pauses.

…

When you finally decide to stop hiding your eyes, and when you finally decide that you will just watch the awful scene or maybe awful collection of scenes – perhaps you will have to endure an entire mini-series of painful, uncomfortable scenes – that is when you will be allowed to go on with your life. To get to the next part – the part without the scary scenes.

—-

You absolutely can survive anything. In fact, I have stopped saying this. I know that what I mean to say is that I wouldn’t WANT to survive those things. And that is true. But I know that I would. I would survive it because that’s what I do – I survive. I grow. I move on.

That is what we do. We survive. We grow. We move on. As long as we aren’t hiding our eyes.