"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory." Sun Tzu

 One thing I learned very early in life that has been one of my most powerful lessons came from a Middle School production of  "I never saw another butterfly." It was a dark play written about kids diaries and notes and pictures drawn by those in concentration camps in World War II. These kids impressed upon me the need, not the desire, but need to find beauty in your life no matter how ugly. One of the things that when I was learning psychology that I found very very profound is the capacity of human endurance. 


Any second year psych major can review a case study of a degrading mental health issue and point to the stressors and sum up a cause and effect and probably would not be too far from the truth as most would see it, and most would follow that thought process toward finding resolution, however this is not how it works. We know that a predisposition needs to be a factor, we know stressors play a role. But we also know that stress alone, however damaging it is, and it is severely damaging, can be endured. Most of us can point to a person suffering from depression and say yes, preexisting issues, chemical imbalance, external and internal stressors that triggered the mental state, boom depression because it is self sustaining affective disorder for more than half a year. 


The powerful stories that are almost never written are the case studies that seldom find their way into the books. Some people have suffered horrible and life threatening stress, severe mental and physical abuse, at very vulnerable stages...and came out fine. The lesson to be learned is that a relationship to a factor does NOT represent a correlation. Knowing that a stressor is an issue and making it a factor does not qualify it as anything else, nor does it suggest how much a factor it can be. We do. we really can choose how much we let something knock us on our ass and how we plan to deal with it.


Humans have survived so much. We are a violent species and a cooperative one. We have built and destroyed countless civilizations and we are such creatures of habit we will do it again. But what can be learned when we face our trials and tribulations. When the stressors hit us in the face bold and cold, we in the end choose how that stressor will affect us. Now I have been in that dark tunnel, embroiled in the burden of having my mind turn against me and have faced terrible things that my mind wanted to abuse me with. Such is the nature of the disease. Giving the person a really strong sense that there is no control. And truth be told when you are suffering in the grips of it there is very little control as emotions and mental anguish strip you of cognitive factors needed to fight and win the simple battles much less choosing to control stressors that threaten to overwhelm you, but you can.


My point is that the science proves we can. Others before us have been in horrible situations, and had done to them terrible things. They chose to move on they chose to leave the pain behind. They chose to live. We do not understand these facts in Psychology as a science we fail to understand the X factor that gives someone the ability to endure, but they do. 

For anyone that suffers from such affective disorders especially when in the midst of the thrall of such a disease you are trapped to continue the patterns that are least beneficial for you as the disease finds ways to sustain itself. But I can say with the certainty of the experience myself. You can still choose to fight. You can still choose life. You can choose to be in charge of how much you are going to let things affect you and how much you are going to roll with the punches. Sun Tzu is right when you place people in grave danger that is when they will most certainly rise up and defeat their opponents. When we are attacked as a group we band together and fight off the foe. When a mother sees her child threaten no tiger could be fiercer than a mother protecting it's young. We are all warriors in our hearts because we are all decedents from successful warrior nations. 

I am sorry for my infrequent posts transitioning so many different things at once makes for some powerful stress and preoccupation with things other than organizing ones thoughts for mass consumption. The tendency is at times leaning far more toward the scream therapy than intelligent thought. Not that any one thing seems to be an issue but a combination of a large number of simple things. that irritate and frustrate you. A burden that again does not lend it self to an easy fix. where you can not easily ask for directions or help. Simple very simple things like trying to find a roll of Papertowels becomes an adventure that may task you with a walk of several miles and a one sided discussion that hopefully does not lead you to the toilet paper isle again.  :) 

再见！
zài jiàn ！
Goodbye!