Remember how you felt back when your high school sweetheart broke up with you? Did it feel like the end of the world? Did it feel like you would be alone for the rest of your life? Did it feel like no one would ever love you again?
For many people, those feelings were very real – yet things turned out differently. It wasn’t the end of the world, they didn’t end up alone, they found love and companionship elsewhere. In most cases they found even greater relationships. They changed, they grew, and they found that their feelings didn’t predict reality.
Remember when you first went looking for a job. You filled out tons of applications, without even getting any calls for an interview. Did you feel like no one would ever hire you? Did you feel hopeless and helpless?
Many people have felt this way – yet they weren’t hopeless and helpless, they found jobs, and they excelled in their careers. Again, their feelings did not predict the future, they learned that there is hope, and their repeated efforts to find a job payed off – proving that they were not helpless.
Do you feel powerless over your substance use habit? Do you feel as if you’ll never be able to change your habit and control yourself? While I can empathize with this feeling, and I know it’s a terrible place to be, the feeling doesn’t have to become a reality. Many people have felt this way, only to find later that they’ve had the power to change all along.
A feeling of powerlessness over drugs and alcohol is just that – a feeling. You needn’t accept it as a fact of life or part of your “disease”. It’s wrong and dangerous for anyone to reinforce this feeling and tell you that you are indeed powerless. Would you tell a young person who just got dumped that their feelings of impending doom are true? Would you tell them to accept the fact that no one will ever love them again, and that their situation is in fact “the end of the world”? No, that would be silly. But then why do we think it’s proper to do the same thing to people who are going through a temporary state of unhealthy and irrational feelings related to their choices to use substances?
NOTE: None of this is meant to breed distrust or rejection of your feelings, it is only meant to spark some critical thinking and self-examination which will open you to changing some negative thought habits. Feelings are important, but they should be viewed realistically. They may not always be what they seem.
The feelings vs. reality question is a tough one in all kinds of therapy, as the idea that your feelings do not reflect reality can easily be interpreted by an unhappy person as “It’s all my fault that I’m having problems, because it’s in my power to be positive but I can’t.” I imagine that’s why many resort to things like the disease model… some people just want to hear, “It’s not your fault.”
This got me thinking about the whole “Things aren’t really that bad” mantra. When I look back at things like being depressed over rejection in high school, I don’t think, “Well, things got better” because it was a long, long time before they did. I don’t think the problem is that individuals forget that they’ve gotten over things in the past and don’t believe that they can get over things in the future… I feel like it’s more that they don’t realize they have any control over how they feel in the PRESENT. I guess I feel like that’s one of the most important parts of this mental issue- that many people are not helped by the idea that things can get better LATER.
I guess I like to see feelings a lot like how I see physical problems. When I have a fever, I don’t start thinking in circles about how I’m an unhealthy person. When I’m heartbroken or discouraged or exhausted, etc, that’s how I usually think of it.
Thanks for the input B. This is just meant to be a first step of sorts in the kind of thinking that helps people to get motivated, most will understand that. If others are having deeper emotional problems, they should seek the proper help for that. I would recommend REBT personally.
My basic message here, remains though – just because someone may feel powerless doesn’t mean that they actually are powerless. And if it has to be said again/differently – there’s nothing abnormal or wrong about having these feelings, it’s quite normal – it doesn’t mean you are bad, it means you’re human. Becoming aware that your feelings may at times be unrealistic, unhealthy, or self-defeating, is a good starting point to change. But for another personto encourage and reinforce someone’s feelings of powerlessness – that is extremely harmful in my eyes.
One of the best things I’ve learned is to make a distinction between thoughts/beliefs and emotions. When a person says, “I feel like I will be alone for the rest of my life,” it really helps to rephrase it as, “I think (or believe) that I will be alone for the rest of my life,” and then describe the emotions that thought either stems from or stimulates: “I feel lonely. I feel isolated. I feel unloved/unloveable.” Then help the person learn to cope with those emotions.
The problem with saying “Feelings are not reality,” is that it makes it sound as though a person’s emotions aren’t real, or aren’t important. It can come across as invalidating. You don’t have to agree with the assertion that a person will always be alone, but the loneliness itself is real, at least for the moment, and should be acknowledged.