Hi All! Today’s post covers ways to cope and understand devastation when it comes. We all face difficulty in our lives. For many of us, we experience overwhelming negative situations. We might not realize that we are in the pit until years after the problem started. Yet, that one moment brings us to our knees when reality hits. Some people never face reality yet live with their life in ruins. Others see it, feel it, and know it. The reality is in our faces creating an unmistakeable brick wall or a ball and chain around our neck. In this post, I cover what devastation looks like and ways to get through it.
Define Devastation
In true nerd fashion, let us start with a definition to understand devastation and what it means. A quick search on Google provides this definition: “great destruction or damage…severe or overwhelming shock or grief.” When someone comes into your world and rapes you, they leave great destruction and overwhelming grief. If a tornado comes and destroys your house and life and leaves you with nothing, that too is devastation. Boundary violation, hurtful words, emotional control, these actions bring devastation. There are too many to name here. Whatever happened, the pain overwhelms, grief grows, and damage looks unrepairable.
There is not a feeling quite like it. The heart sinks. Your thoughts steer straight for despair. The problem is more than you can handle. You hurt. For many, suicide becomes a viable option. I need you to understand that devastation, though overwhelming, can be temporary. Yes. The person or problem might last for years. Yet, your determination and tenacity to face your problems and mend are no match for what happened to you.
Understand Devastation
To understand devastation, we need to understand the kinds of damage we have. Damage can be inside or outside ourselves. A good starting point could be to list all the things, tangible or intangible, that you lost. “I lost my sense of security,” “My boundaries were destroyed,” “I felt totally run over,” or “I lost my home.” Damage to the heart is easy to miss. While we might feel fine, family did not give us a chance to process what happened. Or, we felt so overwhelmed by the pain that we blocked ourselves from it by forcing the circumstances our of our minds.
This last possibility describes my situation. This was my situation. If you read some of my first posts, you know that my brother raped me and my family ignored me. They did not come and say “I’m sorry that happened. Let’s get you to a counselor and bind up your wounds.” Instead, we went on as if life was normal! I did not realize, until years later, that I had a huge problem on my hands. Once I started to understand what happened to me and how it affected my every day life, only then did I understand that I lived in a buried state of devastation.
Coping with Devastation
Counseling, prayer, and reflection helped me process everything. My faith anchored me. God’s word, his actions (Hebrews 6:13-20), gave me hope that I would one day reach a peaceful place. The disciplines of talking through problems with a trained professional, talking to God (the Wonderful Counselor), and sitting and processing my problems helped me cope. I believe that following God, and believing his word, anchored me so that I did not stray from my mission to find healing and rebuild my life.
This does not mean I feel ecstatic all the time now, and this certainly does not mean I feel positive all the time. The memories, any one of them, are capable of sending me into discouragement and depression in an instant. Coping implies that we deal with the injury and nourish the damaged area so that it heals. If we were well, we would not be coping. But since we are coping, we aim to heal so that one day we will thrive again.
So when you find yourself in the pits, the valley, having hit rock bottom and at the end of yourself, do not embrace despair. Acknowledge it. Hold your heart as it feels the weight. Sit with yourself or better yet find a friend to sit with you. Give yourself space to feel. Take time to understand your devastation. You will begin to understand and heal.
Turn to God. While this might seem like a contradiction, strive to see that God does not control us. The choice that person made is on them because they chose to disregard the boundaries God set in place or obey the commands to love. I do not blame God for being raped. I blame the abuser because he chose to do such a thing. If nothing else, simply tell God it hurts and you need to see that he cares. Simple and honest prayers go a long way to feeling God in the pain and towards coping with the devastation.
- Leisel
