What is one of the worst things I can do?

Let me tell you a brief story… Once this young woman came to me and asked for help.  With each and every avenue of help I offered up for consideration, she instantly shot it down.  She would tell me “Well, I analyzed this person’s case or that person’s case and I am worse than them.”

Believing herself to be wise, she dug herself into a trap that I have seen time and time again; constant comparison to others that leads to assumptions of doom and gloom.   Yes, you do know your body, but you are not smart enough to predict the future.  If you can predict the future, let me know, for I have some sports teams that I would like to bet on or stocks that I would like to invest in!  Anyway, this young lady dug herself into a pessimistic trap that was eventually beyond the reach of anyone.  The ironic part is that she constantly reached out for help and then would tell each person why she could not be helped.  It became a vicious self-defeating cycle.

Some of the absolute worst offenders are those who are floxed ‘intellectuals.’ It is not uncommon for some of them to think themselves into a quagmire of despair.   Like everything else, pain, suffering, and quality of life are hard to quantify and measure.  They are relative to the point of measurement and that point is variable per person and situation. It takes professionals years of training and experience and even then, gauging suffering is tentative at best.

Here is what I know.  Predicting your floxing outcome is like making a prediction about the end of the world: The minute you make it, it will probably get proved wrong.

Let me finish this section with one last small story.  There was this middle-aged woman who became floxed.  Initially, like so many others experiencing a ‘shotgun’ style reaction, her life was in absolute turmoil.  I kept telling her that in the first couple of years there will be many ups and downs and at times you will feel like you are dying, but nothing with the FQ’s is set in stone.  Yes, one day you can feel like dying and the next you could start healing. But alas, every time I offered a suggestion, she countered with extreme negativity.  Responding to her was an exercise in futility and it got to the point that she would get mad at me if I did not answer her pleas in a timely fashion.

One day I saw her posting on Facebook that she was healing.  She was going for long bike rides and started living life again.  Just few months earlier, she was contemplating suicide because life was so miserable.  She still has some lingering problems but she alive and living a life worth living. Please never say never!