A Letter to My Young Facebook Friend

A letter to my young Facebook friend:

I was scrolling down through Facebook posts this morning when seven short words stopped me in my tracks: “numbing is the only way to cope.”

You, the writer, are away at college and my only contact with you lately has been through Facebook, so I don’t know what is causing you such distress.

But here’s what I do know and what I wish someone had told me 40 years ago.

Life events often bring emotional pain so intense that, in my opinion, it’s only natural to want to make it stop. Immediately. In any way possible. At any cost.

At 20, conflicts, stressors, and problems also threatened to undo me at every turn. I didn’t know how to cope. So I also tried to numb, escape, and control. The problem was, the “anesthesia” always wore off and the pain returned.

Decades later and now knowing what I do about the way brains work, I understand that every time I chose to “numb” (in my case, drinking and self-harm) in response to painful events, I was adding another “paver” to that particular neural highway. Life itself often whizzed by me as I drove down that road.

Stuck on the road of habitual numbing behavior, I began to see signs warning me to turn back—such as the consequences of arguments while intoxicated and the suffering of destructive out of control behavior. Fortunately, by the time I accepted that fact that I was completely lost and needed exits, there were several in sight.

But I had to choose. If I kept taking the “numbing” exit, I would always wind up back on the same road. On the other hand, if I steered toward organizations, treatments, and programs that would teach me new skills with which to cope, new horizons would spread out before me. I turned.

Now admittedly, at sixty-years-old, I have a distinct vantage point that comes with age. Life events have reinforced my belief that I will make it. I can stand it. I can let it go. I can forgive. I can move on. I can accept.

But even though you are young, I know you. You’re smart. You’re persistent. You’re destined for something greater than whatever the current circumstances are. You just need a better map to chart new paths for yourself. The future is yours. Turn.