What To Do When Life Is Too Much, Too Hard, For Too Long

Rachel Powell
Oct 24, 2024
7 min read

Updated: Oct 30, 2024

If you have been through tragedy, losses or a season of great suffering, you know what it's like to be unable to plug all of the holes that are sinking your ship. When your life is falling apart and the ship goes under, you not only have to survive in a disoriented state, but often navigate the stormy waters feeling alone.

I remember clearly the pain, the overwhelm, and the despair, and yet, somehow, the world continued to turn. People resumed their normal routines. It felt as though they were sitting on a dock, enjoying a grand meal and time with their loved ones, while I (and my children) were screaming and drowning in the water nearby.

What are we supposed to do when we feel that we can't take any more?

Allow me to share three things that have been incredibly helpful:

Look honestly at your pain
Name and advocate for your needs
Focus on safe relationships

Look Honestly At Your Pain

Can you see it?

These pictures were taken less than two months apart.

In one, I was a wife, mom, RN and entrepreneur, and in the other I was a widow by suicide and single mom of 4 broken children, losing my job(s), future... everything. I went into survival mode, and to be honest, I'm still not out of it fully in a number of ways (5.5 yrs later).

It has completely changed my life and changed me.

In my intense grief and hopelessness, I was suicidal myself. In the suicide survivor groups I am a part of, we can share pictures of the person we lost by suicide, and note that, in hindsight, "you can see it in their eyes..."

When I look at this picture, I can see it in mine, too.

At the time, I believed I had to soldier forward, take the slaps in the face, keep suffering, and keep everyone else alive... actually, even keep others pleased with me. And I nearly died trying. I have so much more compassion for myself now than I ever gave myself then.

It's hard to look at the vulnerable wounds, and even harder to let yourself feel them, but the reality is that pain and trauma are not merely ideas to reflect on, or "weaknesses" to hide or compartmentalize.

The hard part is seeing it - the pain and need - in our own eyes, and actually engaging the struggle (that it unfortunately is) to get the support and healing it takes to grow through the suffering rather than shatter under it.

Only when we can look honestly at our pain and our needs, will we be able to accept and advocate for them.

Will you allow yourself to see it, in your mirror? Can you hold your own pain with gentleness? Can you allow yourself to feel it, even to cry? To have compassion for your own wounds?

Name And Advocate For Your Needs

While pain and trauma are a very real part of our human experience, and can even directly damage the anatomy and physiology of our bodies, they can also be a door to deeper healing and deeper connection... if we actually get what we need.

➡️Name what you Need

It takes vulnerability to do this. We typically don't allow ourselves a gentle enough space to come up with solutions, because we are too stuck in other patterns of thinking, like:

Life used to be stable before; where do I even start with this mess?

I can't ask for more; I'm already a burden to people.

I just have to do it myself. No one can help me with this.

No one gets it; I am alone.

I am trapped here the way it is.

These beliefs keep us circling the drain. They are self-fulfilling prophecies, by which we feed into perpetuating a reality that we actually hate.

It is so hard in dark places of loss, but we will be much better at determining what we need not only to sustain, but to rebuild, if we are willing to risk being creative and dreaming a little. Even in the darkness.

I suggest sitting down in a peaceful space that feels light, and brainstorming answers to these questions:

What is it that you need most right now?
What would help ease the pain (that is healthy)?
What would help lift the practical burdens a little?
What would make your environment more safe, healing, and more bearable?
Are there people, activities, and places that are especially life-giving to you? How can you create overlap in these?
If you could live anywhere, do anything, or make big change(s) that would bring you joy, what might they be?
Are there any adventures you could go on?
What people feel safest and most healing to you? How can you build these relationships?
What people and situations are hurtful or even destructive? What boundaries need to be drawn? Who can help you in this?

➡️Advocate For What You Need

When you have ideas of what you need and what would help you, you have to believe in them enough to fight for them.

That's because (unfortunately, in this world) it often doesn't come without a struggle in making our voices heard, or asking... repeatedly (I like to joke that I learned to be a very persistent widow).

When you are already suffering, however, this can be extremely difficult. We are so tender, and we often feel that people should rally around us when we're crumbling. I mean, we're drowning while they are enjoying a fancy meal on the dock, right? The gap is sometimes so wide it's hard to grasp, especially in great pain.

This is a dangerous place for us sufferers. While it is true that we are devastated, even falling apart, we cannot have expectations of other people, especially of ultimate rescue. It lands us in an even worse place of disappointment, loss, and lack of health. They need to determine what they can and can't do to help.

That being said, it is also not true that others can dismiss what we are saying we need. We have to keep advocating for it, perhaps just from a different source.

Once, at a time I was at my lowest in widowhood and had already attempted suicide once, I reached out to a group asking for help and overlap on Sundays. It used to be a family day for us, and after my late husband died, it became a day of absolute hell. I was finding myself on my bathroom floor every week, sobbing in grief, with children fighting non-stop. It was stress, chaos, and pain for all 5 of us. I knew I was waaaaay past my limits, and our family was not in a good place on that day.

Someone replied and actually told me that I didn't need the presence or help of other people on Sundays, but what I actually needed was to come up with our own "new traditions" on that day and figure it out... just me and the 4 kids.

It was one of the worst things that has ever been said to me. Despite sharing my pain and that I had been suicidal, this person didn't get it.

But here's the thing: I'm saying that they don't need to. You know what you need. And that alone is enough for you to seek it out.

Advocate for it. Be persistent. Your journey through suffering is not going to be on other people's time frames or follow their agendas. The responses may be ridiculous, people may not agree, and not everything you wish for may be possible. But keep pursuing what you feel you need to move in a healthy direction. There are people out there willing to help, and there are paths forward!

Focus On Safe Relationships

I hope you can see the lead-in to this point from what has been shared. A large part of how we get through seasons of life that are too much, too hard, for too long is finding true companions to walk through it with.

Just as we can be deeply wounded in relationships, we can find tremendous healing through them as well. Although it can be scary to open up to people when we have been hurt, it will be a critical piece to our transformation.

Dr. Curt Thompson writes:

"We find all kinds of ways to disconnect from our pain

rather than allowing others to be with us in our pain."

The "faithful few," as I like to call them, are those people who will companion you in your pain and in the grief of your losses. They come alongside to offer support (where they can) without judgment, without pushing for their own way/time frames, and with whom you can share openly and honestly without being wounded further. They offer empathy and presence.

"Where are these people?!" you may ask. They do exist! They are not perfect (no one is), but what they bring consistently is goodness to you. It may take time to find them, and they may show up unexpectedly. From my experience, the people you think should/would be there for you when all hell breaks loose may not be the ones who do, or can.

In the midst of tragedy, I found the leaders in my church, and even some in my own family, were the ones who were taking my feet out from under me and inflicting the most pain after the bombs went off in my life. I needed to move to a safer church body, and to draw and hold boundaries, though I felt weak and vulnerable as a widow. It was also horrible to realize, through other experiences, that there were people who would take advantage of me, in various ways, in the most broken place of my life. 💔

In addition to possibly needing to distance from some relationships that are bringing harm, remain open to those who are coming into your life who are a blessing. Trust that the people who are supposed to be there with you can come out of the woodwork. You may not have even known them before, and they end up being the ones you need.

Oftentimes it is others who either have/are walking a similar suffering to ours, or who simply have navigated deep pain in an honest way themselves. I found that widows, single moms, suicide survivors and strugglers, women who have experienced being voiceless/powerless: they are my people! They get it in a way no one else can. They have been through the same hell.

So, keep praying and looking for safe people and communities to heal with. You need them, and they also need you!

You are not too broken. It is not over. It is not hopeless. And, it will not always be the way it is right now. You are not alone on this journey.

🫶Take heart, my friend, and: