Losing my son

I'm not sure what action I took besides commenting?

It would be nice to find a way out of this tangle, but I'm not sure I know how to do that. However, I'd like to try.

The reason I posted my original reply to you (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39045053) is that when someone is suffering and a person tells them what they "should" do, it tends to come across as unhelpful. For example, if someone is suffering from insomnia and I tell them they should just get a good night's sleep, that can easily come across as glib. Or if someone is suffering from anxiety and I tell them they should just breathe more deeply, or do yoga, or whatever it may be—even though those things may well be helpful in some cases, responding this way comes across as taking a superior position toward the other person. It is as if I am saying: I've been through all this and I know what the solution is and now that I tell it to you, you have no further reason to suffer.

This is unhelpful for two reasons: one is that when people are suffering, what they need most from others is not advice, but connection. There needs first to be a felt sense of human contact, like the other person cares about being with them in their pain. If you jump straight to offering advice, that skips the essential step and feels disconnecting rather than connecting.

The other reason is that when it comes to deep human challenges like trauma, each person's experience is unique and what works for one doesn't always apply to another. If I find something that works for me, it doesn't necessarily generalize to everyone else. Maybe in some cases there's overlap and I can share helpful information about my own path; but maybe not. It's necessary to tread delicately, because advice can be useful if it actually fits the other person's experience, but it can also be hurtful if it doesn't.

I have no idea if sharing this will make things better or worse—probably worse, to judge by my track record so far!—but my hope is that it's clarifying.

In theravada buddhism, this is called applying the faculty of wise attention. We have zero control over our thoughts, but we have control over the object of our attention (and it improves with practice).

When unpleasant thoughts arise, the (canonical Buddhist) strategy is to move your attention to something (anything!) else.

Using mantra (prayer) or force of will ("I close my attention to this thought") are both applications of the technique.