Feel Like Giving Up? That’s When You Need Resilience

Find out how to get it fast.

Feel like giving up lately? Not just giving up what you’re doing, but giving up on life…?  You’re not alone, you know. Still, just because you feel something a lot of other people feel, you don’t have to act on it. This is why you need resilience. Resilience can give you the power to overcome hopelessness and try again.

Take Kevin. He has a good job, but he hates it. He doesn’t get along with his boss, and his marriage is not going well.  Kevin feels like he’s always the target of someone’s criticism and ridicule.  (Maybe it’s his imagination, but it sure feels legitimate.)

At New Years, he went to Las Vegas and played blackjack. He had a great time. Maybe he drank too much to maintain good judgment — didn’t have a clue at the time, of course — and he ended up losing his retirement savings. (You heard that right.) He didn’t realize how bad it was till he was sober, and by then it was too late. It would be different if he’d just lost fun money. But it was his retirement… at least the portion he had access to.

Kevin felt like such a total fool.

Of course his wife was horrified. And he knew it was a foolish thing to do.  He thought he could recover it, until he realized it was really gone and there was nothing left to wager.

Dead end. Empty pockets.

The shame that engulfed him threatened to drown him. He was humiliated and afraid. So afraid. It felt like there was no hope of recovering. It felt like he was against a brick wall.

Sometimes being suicidal is a symptom of a severe psychiatric condition, like depression or bipolar disorder, and sometimes it comes on more suddenly in response to complex circumstances.

Like the men who jumped from office buildings during the stock market crash of 1929. That’s not to say psychiatric conditions weren’t involved. It’s safe to say those people lacked resilience.

But sometimes, circumstances become so extreme, leaving you to think you can’t face what the next day will bring…and sometimes giving up the fight seems the only viable option…at least from where you’re standing in the storm.

A child is ridiculed at school, and her parents find her hanging by the neck in her closet.  Or those people who lost everything in the stock market crash and impulsively jumped to avoid the horrors they faced with no money. Or someone like Kevin, who feels the world is against him, and his self respect is destroyed… so he thinks if he ends his life he would be free of the ridicule.

For someone in that position, a desperate craving to escape is often one factor in the decision, but there are usually many more. And without confidence and resilience to know he’ll bounce back, he’s left with hopelessness.

It’s hard, really hard, to live without hope.

People call it a selfish decision, or a coward’s decision, and I hate to hear that. The duress that someone has endured to reach the point of ending his life is hard — if not impossible — for us to grasp. We all have stress, and stressors, and it may be tempting to compare your own struggles and resilience to his decisions and outcome. But you can’t do that with someone who’s suffering. 

That person leaves behind loved ones who are grief-stricken but it doesn’t mean it was done thoughtlessly. Often, he has convinced himself that his loved ones will be better off without him.

So then, it can seem like there is a pathway to suicide that appears on the surface to be fueled by circumstances, and a pathway paved by illness. (And oh it is so much more complicated than that!) But in both cases, resilience can offer hope and strength to move forward.

What is resilience?

It’s the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, to spring back with energy to overcome when circumstances knock you down. When you feel like giving up, resilience is what you need to stand up and overcome. So what do you do if you don’t have resilience?

Big question. If you’re in a hurry, if you don’t have time to fool around, if things are down to the wire…

One thing you can do is reach out for IV ketamine treatment to restore your resilience, your joy, and your hope. And…the emotional energy to face what life throws your way..

When that internal pressure to give up becomes more and more daunting, resilience helps you to resist that defeating pressure and keep trying. Keep overcoming.

At Innovative Psychiatry, applying ketamine treatment to suicidal thinking is one of our most important responsibilities. Ketamine has a unique ability to STOP suicidal thoughts that’s even apart from and before it helps severe depression, bipolar depression, PTSD, social anxiety, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder.

Sometimes in an afternoon. It can save you a trip to the ER. It could save your life. Or someone you love.

Give yourself the opportunity to overcome defeat and shame, and to stop suicidal thoughts. Reach out for resilience and hope.

We’re here to help.

To the restoration of your best self,