What we need to do during a bad period is to wait, knowing that the distress will end, writes Marie Murray.
THERE IS one sure and certain thing that should console us when times are at their most bleak. That is that "this too will pass".
Plato knew what he was talking about when he said this. He knew that regardless of what is happening in life at any one time, irrespective of how upsetting it is, how cruel, how unjust, how inane, how tragic, how sad: time tends to limit it.
Terrible times pass. Ordinary times pass. Good times pass. Time passes. What we need to do during a bad time is wait knowing that the acuity of whatever is distressing us will end and in the meantime do what we can to gain the psychological supports we need to survive it.
Problems end. Financial problems end. They come to a crisis. They get sorted or settled or bankruptcy is declared. The house may be repossessed, the job may be lost but everything is not lost because finances are not everything.
Besides, solutions appear: less spending, a repayment scheme, a change in lifestyle, an amalgamated loan, a new job, professional financial advice. Something always happens to resolve what appears to be unsolvable.
Addictions can end. Even the most entrenched. Something happens. Someone intervenes. Denial ends. Realisation is reached. Acknowledgment is made and treatment is implemented. If it is not successful the first time, it works the second or the third.
There are many people who look back on a period of addiction in their lives; at the trauma it brought to them- selves and to others; at the times when it seemed as if there was no way out. But there was. Treatment worked. It ended.
Exams lie ahead. Students are stressed and exhausted. It seems to them as if this time will never end. But it does. Time passes. Exams go wrong.
It seems like the end of the world. It feels like failure, exposure, disappointment for others, devastation for self, public humiliation, private upset and fear that success may never be achieved again.
But it is. Exams can be repeated. Learning to fail, learning not to achieve as well as expected, learning to resit exams, reapply oneself, pass the next time: these are essential skills for students to have.
It is not always possible to live up to our own or others' expectations. It's important to learn how to deal with it when we don't. Time passes.
People look back and cannot remember the grade they achieved in the exam that once seemed so important. Life is never destroyed by an exam unless someone destroys his or her life because of it. Time passes.
Depression sets in. It takes over. It overshadows life. It is unbearable. It is not visible so it is misunderstood. It is lonely and suffered alone. But it ends.
The courage is found to tell someone, to seek help, to have treatment, to recover. Someone notices. Someone is sympathetic.
There is always somebody who cares even when it seems as if nobody does. There are professionals who care. Truly care and want to help. Depression is treatable. Time passes. Depression ends.
When people experience the illness and death of someone close it can seem as if suffering will never end. For months they may live in a haze of care, exhaustion and fear and the sadness of witnessing the suffering of the person they love.
While illness is happening it is endless. But it ends. All that can be done is done. Pain ends. Time passes. Memories remain. Grief abates. Time helps.
Most people reading this will probably have had some time in their life that was exceptionally difficult, that they lived through, coped with, emerged from and now shudder when they look back on it as a bad memory, a sad memory, a traumatic time, a time they would never wish to revisit. Yet it passed.
Everyone has their annus horribilis: that horrible year, that awful time when it seemed as if no more terrible things could happen.
Surely nothing more could be imposed: no more shocks, no more losses, trials and tribulations, tests, challenges and hard times?
Looking back on times past may cause a shudder of remembrance or a glow of pride at having survived such difficult times, for the resilience found within oneself or gratitude for those who helped and supported.
When we reach our lowest ebb we do well to remember that extraordinary invocation "Oh Time thou must unravel this not I". We need to trust in ourselves, in others and in time.
Time passes. All things pass. Whatever is happening this too must end. All things end in their own time. It is what we do with our time that is important.
Clinical psychologist and mental health author Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in University College Dublin