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Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#181

Post by haswell »

First, comments saying you haven't hit rock bottom because it could be far worse are missing the point, and I don't think they're helpful. Rock bottom is relative to your experience up to this point. You could reach lower lows, and that would give you a new perspective from which to judge what is truly "bottom", but that's not your perspective now. If this feels like rock bottom, it's rock bottom.

I'm mid-rebuild, and I can confidently say that beyond finding a good therapist, I believe the #1 and #2 most important habits I added to my life are meditation/mindfulness (look up "Vipassana"), and Yoga (I'm just using the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel [0] - she's got some great stuff).

There are lots of other things you can/probably should do, but when I made meditation a cornerstone habit, it made me realize I was frequently not feeling like part of my body. Adding Yoga started to really integrate my mind/body connection (a concept I couldn't even imagine before I started the practice), and these two habits make everything else I'm doing feel easier.

The bottom line is that you see things more clearly and stop identifying so directly with thoughts, and this in turn makes it far easier to modify other aspects of your life that need addressing. Those could be external factors (I was doing a bad job of keeping my apartment clean) or internal factors (I was also frequently telling myself stories about my experience that upon examination were untrue, or at least not the whole truth).

Everything else I'm doing stems from a cascade of events that started long ago:

- Abusive childhood

- Led to overly pouring myself into external things, anything but myself, mostly work (with great success)

- Led to problems in my relationship and lost a partner of 15 years

- Shortly after this, lost two family members, a dog, got in a car accident, someone broke into my apartment, etc. etc.

- Burned out, quit my job, went on sabbatical to figure things out.

Obviously everyone's story is different, and not everything I've described will be relevant to you, but my broader recovery path has involved:

1) Finding a good therapist. As others have said, if you feel stuck, look for someone new. But don't expect therapy to be a quick fix, depending on the nature of what you're dealing with.

2) Physical activity. Getting my body moving (beyond just Yoga) has had a hugely positive impact. I convinced myself that I can go for a 10 minute walk no matter what, and eventually that turned into 3-4 mile walks every day or two. If you can do cardio, great, but don't feel like you have to go join a gym and sweat every day to get the benefits of moving your legs.

3) Getting out in nature. I never saw myself as an outdoors person. Then I went on a road trip, and visited various national parks. There's a certain kind of perspective you gain if you take in the grandeur of nature mindfully. I ended up extending my road trip and roving for over a month.

4) Realized I had to stop assuming any one thing is "the cure". Getting out in nature was healing and wonderful. For a short time, I thought "this is what I need to do with my life", before I later realized that this would be just as unbalanced as the no-nature version of existence. Mindfulness is what helped me move beyond all-or-nothing thinking. It's not that I believed this kind of thinking was a good way to be, but I just wouldn't realize I was even thinking that way.

5) Realizing that I need to fundamentally change my relationship with myself. I realized that I had lived my life as if I was orbiting around it with work and relationships at the core. Building a strong morning routine that is for no one but me, and rebuilding my life around that, has given me the feeling for the first time in my life that it is me at the center. I didn't realize how stark the difference was until work and my relationship with my ex were no longer the dominant factors in my life.

I had kind of shrugged off the importance of core habits and routine as something for other people. But I've learned that there is pleasure in the path of improvement itself, and when I started to embrace that, things started to truly change for the first time.

Some books / apps / resources that have been really helpful for me:

- Sam Harris: Waking Up [1] (book) sent me on a consciousness rabbit hole, and this turned into a really beneficial exploration and now I use the Waking Up app to practice the mindfulness techniques described in the book. There are other books/apps, but seek out mindfulness, not just some form of concentration meditation.

- Robert Wright: Why Buddhism is True [2] (book) is first and foremost not a religious book, but a book that explores evolutionary psychology and how our growing understanding of the human brain maps cleanly onto some aspects of Buddhist philosophy. If you're curious about meditation, but don't know what you'll get, this book tries to give you a glimpse of that. The 2nd half of the book honestly kind of peters out a bit, but

Resources:

- [0] https://www.youtube.com/@yogawithadriene

- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_Up:_A_Guide_to_Spiritua...

- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Buddhism_Is_True

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#182

Post by Schroedingers2c »

pgayed wrote: post #156

Four years is a long time. Maybe this was your first significant partner. Those breakups can be hard. Open yourself up to people around you. Friends. Colleagues you trust or admire. Have and make dinner with them. Be social. Be vulnerable to people who seem receptive. Keep a good routine. Don't let it get out of whack but don't overwork yourself into isolation. You'll be okay in time. HN is rooting for you.

Yep, had a 8 month girlfriend before (first love) but this one was the first significant and really deep relationship.

I have reached out a lot to near and distant friends/colleagues and family. It has helped and at least one new deep friendship with a colleague seems to come out of it, which I am quite happy about.

Thanks for the last sentence, made me smile.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#183

Post by taxyz »

rdsubhas wrote: post #111
dash2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very interesting perspective! I urge you to create a society or subculture which doesn't waste time on marriage. When it has lasted for at least one generation, come back and tell the rest of us about it.

The divorce rate is 50% in US and 40-50% in developed societies today. I would rather urge you to find a society that doesn't waste time on divorces and dysfunctional marriages today.

There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.

This is one of those often misrepresented statistics. The divorce rate for first time marriages is much lower - off the top of my head I think it might be sub-20%?

This statistic gets skewed because some people go through multiple marriages. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s common that people have only been married once or like 3+ times. I’d imagine if you leave when one marriage gets tough you’ve opened the door to that being a viable option.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#184

Post by tharkun__ »

starkd wrote: post #168
rdsubhas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The divorce rate is 50% in US and 40-50% in developed societies today. I would rather urge you to find a society that doesn't waste time on divorces and dysfunctional marriages today.

Does staying single make it any better? If you check the stats on that, I think you'll find married people tend to be happier, both financially and socially. The fact many marriages don't survive should not necessarily dissuade you from rolling the dice. Just be pickier about who you marry. Pre-marriage counselling can help weed out the improabable marriages.

I think they mean something like Canada's "common law marriage" as an alternative.

You never actually marry. No institutional stuff. No expensive dress to fuss over and never wear again. No huge expensive party for a lot of people that you actually don't like but have to invite. No expensive "honeymoon" vacation that has to be super special and that everyone around you wants to fuss about. No other expensive big party for all those people at 25 years married etc.

Instead you just get the same tax benefits as a married couple for having lived together for a certain amount of time. You stay together as if you were married for however long it lasts. Which in lots of cases is the same 50+ years some people stay married. Or not. No need for a paper. If you guys work out long term you work out long term. If you don't, you don't.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#186

Post by Syntonicles »

I was in a situation many years back that was similar in feeling but varied in circumstance. The sense of loss, worthlessness, lack of control, lack of agency, stress and isolation is an incredibly potent mix. I'm sorry you're dealing with all of them at once. It is overwhelming.

My own emotional lows are cyclical and I've had to bounce back several times. At different stages in life my approach to doing so has varied wildly. The approach you need will depend on your history and what you believe about yourself. Right now it's the narrative about yourself that your mind has constructed which you need to address.

Do you believe that you are weak and passive? That life is happening to you, rather than you manifesting it? Then prove to yourself that you are bold, capable and effective. Maybe you aren't yet and need to become so. Don't listen to people telling you that you are already what you feel is lacking. They are comfort words which deny that growth is possible. Prove it to yourself and you will know it forever after.

Choose something that scares you immensely and do it. For me it was heights, mortality and risk: so I began skydiving. For you perhaps rock climbing is more fitting. If you've hit rock bottom, learn to climb the rocks. It will require patience, fortitude, mindfulness, awareness of your body and movement, coping with fear, and deliberate action.

You won't feel passionate about this and may avoid it. You may not even like it. Forget what you like and earn it. Passion will develop alongside progress, and progress will be slow. From your point of view the ascent will look like your PhD. You'll end up taking paths you didn't intend, as if the rock is guiding you. Are you being passive? Will you second guess yourself? Your choice is to use your position to advance yourself or give up.

Look back at your progress and see how far you've come. You'll have a new perspective on what felt boring and gradual up-close. Which is more terrifying: the slow climb ahead or the descent? If you give up, will you do it slowly with shame or allow yourself to fall? What does rock bottom look like when you see how far beneath you it truly is?

As your passion and competence grows you may have daydreams of setting aside your PhD. You'll want to take a sabbatical to climb. I encourage you to do this if it feels right and necessary. I encourage not to if it feels like an excuse, and to focus on the metaphor.

You will develop the confidence and fortitude you currently lack. You will regain your lust for life when it hangs in the balance. You will make friends you never knew you wanted. You will forever know what you are capable of.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#187

Post by starkd »

tharkun__ wrote: post #184
starkd wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does staying single make it any better? If you check the stats on that, I think you'll find married people tend to be happier, both financially and socially. The fact many marriages don't survive should not necessarily dissuade you from rolling the dice. Just be pickier about who you marry. Pre-marriage counselling can help weed out the improabable marriages.

I think they mean something like Canada's "common law marriage" as an alternative. You never actually marry. No institutional stuff. No expensive dress to fuss over and never wear again. No huge expensive party for a lot of people that you actually don't like but have to invite. No expensive "honeymoon" vacation that has to be super special and that everyone around you wants to fuss about. No other expensive big part…

I can see how that approach would be attractive, since it is more convenient. But there is a cultural significance to ritual that makes life events more meaningful, and hence, more durable. If you don't treat it as a life-ling treatment, there is less of a chance you will treat it as such for 50 years.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#188

Post by dagmx »

nyokodo wrote: post #81
ianai wrote: post #12

This actually reads almost normal for a last year of a phd. But you’re in a phd program and probably much closer to complete than you think. I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance. Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless…

> Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.

Depends what society you talk about too.

Marriage isn’t integral to all societies, so much as monogamous partnership is (excluding some rare poly societies).

You also don’t need marriage to procreate , and several societies are built around the concept of children raised by the community.

That said, marriage is certainly the most persistent form of long term bond in history, but it’s not always borne out of mutual desire. It’s often been as much a means of politics as it has been of love.

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#189

Post by dagmx »

wonderwonder wrote: post #106
toomuchtodo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolve or die. Marriage is an unnecessary burden and construct in modern times. Love, date, cohabitat (non community property state), but the failure rate is too high (~66% of marriages fail) when the cost is similarly high. Warren Buffett says the factor which most contributes to your future wealth is who you pick to marry. Do you feel lucky? https://www.amazon.com/Science-Happily-Ever-After-Enduring/d...

Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together. If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute? It creates a massive power discrepancy in the relationship. "Do what I want or I'll leave you in the street." Ma…

Marriage isn’t really a solution to any of the problems you state.

Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups.

Many countries also have rules around care for a previous partner by means of common law partnership etc…

Married people often don’t work towards the same goals anymore than unmarried couples.

Marriage can also be a form of entrapment for abused individuals, a means for political gain or forced on people. Even in countries that don’t think those issues are common like the USA where child marriage is more common than people think.

Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality.

Marriage can be a societal contract and/or it can be a vow of love. The former is archaic

Re: Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?

#190

Post by silverwasthere »

nyokodo wrote: post #81
ianai wrote: post #12

This actually reads almost normal for a last year of a phd. But you’re in a phd program and probably much closer to complete than you think. I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance. Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless…

> Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.

Marriage is not all its cracked up to be. My divorce 1 year aniversary is this month, after being loyal and faithful for 12 years, I left due to abuse. I am now raising our child alone and I am so much happier now than I ever was while married.

Marriage is societal cancer.

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