# Cope

{ Love you :-) Write me an email if u need help <3 ~drummyfish }

WIP:

- If (you feel like) nobody [loves](love.md) you, then know that at least [drummyfish](drummyfish.md) does.
- Now if it's real serious, like [suicidal](suicide.md) thoughts serious, then rather seek help, there's no shame in it. You're not weak, even the strongest have their limits and you were probably unlucky enough to find yours. You can refuse drugs or hospitalization, just talk to someone, that alone helps a lot. There's always some kind of anonymous hotline at least, it won't hurt to give it a try, no one has to know.
- Going out to the nature always helps, or at least it can never hurt. Walking, nature, sun and fresh air help the body and healthy body leads to healthy mind, it's been known for thousands of years that pilgrimages heal the mind. Animals are best companions, go outside and observe them, play with them, talk to them. Do simple tasks, try to create something out of [wood](wood.md), collect [rocks](rock.md), draw something in the sand. If you're alone, singing is therapeutic as well, try it. Someone likes sports and getting tired physically to clear the mind. Definitely get off the Internet for a while, grab a physical book if you feel like reading something.
- Talking and sharing your trouble is almost guaranteed to help, even if you get no advice or resolution, simply getting it off your chest is literally such a huge relief. Talk to someone, to your friends or parents, it will be a little better. { If you have no one else to talk to, you can send me an email, I will listen. ~drummyfish }
- Get the feelings out (but not by hurting someone else, of course). If you feel sad, then cry, swear, run outside, tell someone how you feel, do whatever you have to to let it out. Some like to write down their thoughts, some like to listen to music, go through old photos, just don't suppress your feelings -- if not dealt with, they stay and become harder to get rid of.
- If you've been hurt, try to forgive and move on, be the better man, don't seek revenge and fight even if you'd be "in the right". Go on and swear and break something if you must, but don't hurt others. To forgive is not a weakness -- on the other hand, it's the more difficult thing to do, a sign of maturity and also a much healthier thing from long time perspective because you'll feel better about yourself. Whereas revenge leads to obsession and never ending cycle of violence, forgiveness brings peace and allows you to move on, in the long run it's much better to live having been hurt than having hurt someone.
- Charity, [altruism](altruism.md) and helping others is therapeutic, it gives you a sense of meaning and makes you feel better. There are [dogs](dog.md) in animal shelters who need someone to take them for a walk, there are [homeless](homelessness.md) who need food, old people who have no one to talk to. Just try it and see.
- Meditation helps some a lot. It doesn't have to be anything religious, just learning special breathing techniques is known to relieve anxiety. { This sadly never worked for me very well, but I know many people who love meditation, I think there are certain kinds of people for whom it works, maybe you're one of them. ~drummyfish }
- [Escapism](escapism.md) (and [avoidance](avpd.md)) is an option, but indeed must be applied carefully. Escaping into a video game, a book or just a place in one's head means taking a break from the real world and all its trouble, but it would be bad to never return back. { I remember that The Elder Scrolls games helped me many years ago get through a long depression, think it was thanks to the depth of "immersion" these games offer. I wouldn't even play the game as intended, I only walked through the cities as if I was someone else in a different world, and very slowly I was able to start forgetting my IRL trouble for very short moments, then a bit longer, until it got to a somewhat bearable stage. ~drummyfish }
- Daily routine is key to stabilizing and improving the mood, i.e. try to sleep and eat at the same time every day, go for a short walk every day, make the day predictable and have something small to look forward to, like coffee in the morning or a movie in the evening. 
- things to realize and possibly find comfort in:
  - **We will all die**: It may seem sad at first, but it's also positive in many ways. No matter how big, all your mistakes will be erased and will seize any significance in the grand scheme of things, whatever fuck up you wish you could take back WILL be taken back, it will become absolutely unimportant. Death also means that your suffering is guaranteed to not be infinite, regardless of what happens you cannot suffer for more than, say, 150 years. Death is the only certainty and that can be comforting. You will die, your family will, the richest guy on the planet will die too, and you will maybe have lived a much happier life than him, considering he spent his time here on mindless hunting little green pieces of paper. No matter what power anyone holds, no one can ever threaten you with endless suffering, the worst anyone can ever hurt you with is a brief moment of pain and then he must leave you forever in peace. Dying may be scary but death is not nearly the worst fate at all, it is simply an infinite rest and peace, no more trouble or stress, just becoming one with the nature again, just like before birth. Although it's not recommended, there is always the last resort of [suicide](suicide.md) that provides an escape door from the worst imaginable situations, and this knowledge alone can provide some comfort. And please also ponder on the fact that fear of death is very much a bad aspect of our western culture, most other (much healthier) cultures aren't afraid of death and even welcome it as a transition to a new world -- the truth is we can never know what happens after death, things such as consciousness can never be explained withing our universe and so if nothing else, then at least the curiosity of what will come can make death a little less scary, maybe there really is a happier afterlife, no one knows. Some theorize that space may be pulsating, it expands and collapses again and everything will run over again, maybe your life will repeat. We simply don't know and that may be something to enjoy.
  - **Time heals everything**, every pain we experience we slowly get used to and learn to bear more easily as time goes on, even the worst experience like losing a child is something that, given enough time (sometimes more than a lifetime), a human somehow learns to make peace with. Even the worst wounds will hurt slightly less over time, unless we keep intentionally opening them perhaps, but even then it becomes a repeated routine and our brains are simply programmed to react to change; anything constant tends to get ignored and filtered out over time, even repeated torture. This is to say that no matter how great and hopeless your suffering, it can and probably will decrease at least slightly, and this may be something to hold on at least rationally, even if one cannot feel it in heart, it's always been like this, experience repeatedly proves this right again and again.
  - **You are human**, you already won the most improbable lottery, you already have and are experiencing the most extraordinary thing we can think of: not only being a living organism, which is already incredibly rare among all the space [rock](rock.md) and emptiness, but being a multicellular organism, a mammal, a primate -- in fact being the most advanced organism, one capable of comprehending the world like no one else. On top of this you've already lived longer than most animals can dream of and probably have most of life still before you. You can see better than most animals, see more sharply and perceive more [colors](color.md). Among all animals you are among the best distance runners and you have highly precise and useful hands with fingers that you take for granted but which other animals would kill for. You can enjoy [music](music.md), [books](books.md), [math](math.md) and so many joys inaccessible to anyone else. If you feel like you're not good enough or that you're stupid or unlucky to live in a bad place, it may help to realize that's just a small amount of bad luck, you are in fact the genius among living organisms even if you're considered stupid among humans, only by being able to read this text you prove an incredible mental capacity.
  - **You will never disappear**, even after your death the matter that composes you will stay, by the very laws of physics it cannot ever disappear, it will only transform and you'll become part of nature, trees, oceans and dust, and the things you've done will forever leave a trace. It's a cliche saying but you WILL remain living at least in the [art](art.md) you left behind and the [information](information.md) recorded in the state of the Universe that you have affected -- even if you had no children for example, you probably gave good advice and example at least to someone, and that someone will continue to spread it further, and in this way you will forever remain a key, unerasable part of the world.
  - **Your mind is a shelter no one can take away from you**. Focus on cultivating the place, fill it with knowledge and fun activities, you can play [games](brain_software.md) just in your head, even if your body is paralyzed, if they lock you up in the prison, even if go blind and deaf and lose your limbs, you will always have a place where you can do whatever you want and the only way they can take it away from you is to kill you, in which case you will no longer care. Create virtual spaces in your head, places to resort to in time of need, keep building them every time you visit, make them cozy, they will provide a safe haven to escape to at any time.
  - Don't compare yourself to others, but if you must, compare your situation to the less fortunate. Paradoxically it may sometimes help to watch drastic footage, for example of an accident or execution, to realize how fortunate you are to be where you currently happen to be. Many people wish for nothing more than to not be in agony, or to have something to eat, to have water to drink, someone to talk to, you always have something that someone else would considers a treasure. Although our current times are [dystopian](21st_century.md) and it's hard to not be depressed about it, the [future](future.md) will be much worse, try to see what little we still have left: small islands of quiet nature, no nuclear winter, sun still shines, [free software](free_software.md) is not illegal yet, brain chips are not yet mandatory.
  - "If a problem has a solution, there's no need to worry, and if it doesn't have one, worrying won't help." Do not worry about that which is beyond your control, you can't blame yourself for what you didn't do intentionally and there's no use in trying to solve something that can't be solved, it is just wasted time and an added unnecessary suffering, it's like spending life by being worried about eventual death. If you caused harm to someone and it wasn't intentional, you can't blame yourself, an accident simply happen through you, a train driver cannot blame himself for someone having fallen under his train. If you harmed someone intentionally and feel guilty, then learn the lesson and move on, past is already gone, focus on the future, promise yourself to do better next time and don't torture yourself. Sometimes we're lucky and sometimes not, some are dealt worse cards than others, just try to make the best out of what you've got.
  - If you feel all alone in the midst of all the evil of the world, perhaps it's because the system WANTS people like you to feel alone. There are so many humans in the world that it's highly improbably you are the only one, you just haven't met the right people, many are shy, scared and hiding. Consider how deep various Internet rabbitholes go, you can follow them infinitely, keep finding communities around weirdest things, thousands upon thousands and it never ends, what you see is just the tip of the iceberg. Your soulmate is out there somewhere.
  - **You will change with age.** You think you won't but you will, the trouble you have now will either disappear or you will literally stop caring -- they will be replaced by new trouble, but whatever you think is the worst problem in the world right now will most likely turn out to be something you hardly remember 10 years later, your brain and perception of the world physically changes as you age, as does your environment. There was probably something like this 10 years ago, you now only laugh about it. Even if you don't solve the problem and it gets worse, you will simply not care about it that much -- to a young guy losing a leg or becoming blind is a tragedy, but an old man takes it much better, he rather cares about his family, a child only cares about latest video games but an adult hardly gives a shit. May you're poor but will get rich, maybe you'll get sick, find a new religion, have children, move to another country, everything will change. Just hold on and observe what the fate has for you.
  - **If you're depressed about the [future](future.md), simply focus on the present**, live day to day and go step by step, things will probably turn out much different than what you imagined anyway and many problems often just solve themselves (even if new, unforeseen ones emerge as well). In retrospect you will probably find you didn't even have any power over what would eventually happen, so don't worry too much. Having plans and being ready certainly helps, but don't obsess over worrying too much if you can. If you don't know what to do, do what you know and then you'll see.
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TO BE CONTINUED