You’re Not Broken: You’re Just Trapped in the Feeling of Suffering

At 2:17 a.m., the phone screen was still lit.
Scrolling down the Douban topic page: 1,359 posts, 1.764 million views.
The water glass sat at the corner of the desk, a ring of tea stain at the bottom. Thumb swiping past. Someone wrote: “Cambridge: ‘Don’t give off an air of hardship.’” Someone wrote: “One year of work, take-home pay 10k a month, spent it all every month.” Someone wrote: “Dad is about to lose his job.” Someone wrote: “My boyfriend’s parents say a woman has no value if she doesn’t have kids.” Someone wrote: “Almost raped by a university student, will keep updating on the progress.” Someone wrote: “Why is Douban so negative now?”

These words crowded together, like a room full of people talking at once.
No one is more miserable than anyone else. Only each person’s own hardship.

Hardship is real.
Unemployment is real, breakup is real, having no money is real, being pressured to marry is real, health problems are real. Don’t tell someone who is hurting, “Just try to think positively.” Some pain is not a matter of thought; it is reality. If someone attempted rape, call the police, preserve evidence, find a lawyer. If you face workplace sexual harassment, document it, screenshot it, go to HR or labor arbitration. If there is asthenospermia, go to the hospital. If the bride price can’t be agreed on, negotiate; if it still can’t be agreed on, leave. These things won’t disappear just because you change your mindset.

After the pain, there is another layer.
It is called “I’m done for.”
Something happened. That’s one layer. Every day you tear the thing open again and say, “See, it will never get better.” That’s another layer. This latter layer is the feeling of suffering.

The feeling of suffering does three things.

First, it deletes “now.”
You have no job now; it says, “You will never have a job.”
You are alone now; it says, “You will always be alone.”
You have zero savings now; it says, “You will never turn your life around.”
Time is flattened by it into a sheet of paper, and on the paper is written only one word: poor. Or: useless. Or: unwanted.

Second, it paints “part” into “all.”
Work is not going well; it says, “You are a total failure.”
A relationship failed; it says, “You don’t have the ability to love.”
Your parents don’t support you; it says, “You don’t deserve happiness.”
Your body has a problem; it says, “You have no value.”
Your life has many sides; it makes you stare only at the worst side, then says: This is everything.

Third, it changes “situation” into “name.”
You start introducing yourself like this: I am an unemployed person. I am an abandoned person. I am a poor person. I am an unwanted person.
Say it enough, and you can no longer tell which is the situation and which is you.
Situations change. Your name does not have to be buried with them.
You may temporarily have no job, but you are not your job.
You may temporarily have no partner, but you are not your relationship.
You are not your bank balance, either.

There was a line in that Douban topic:
You don’t need to pretend everything is fine. You only need to stop interpreting a temporary situation as a permanent conclusion about your whole life.

This sentence does not make you better immediately.
It only makes you stop doing one thing: stop using the hardship of this moment to put your entire life on trial.

But stopping the trial does not mean you must be positive.
Pretending everything is fine is another kind of violence.
You are in pain, yet you smile and say it’s nothing.
You are exhausted, yet you post on WeChat Moments that today was great.
This kind of positivity presses the pain down. Pressed long enough, it will come out somewhere else.

First admit: I am awful right now. I am very sad. I am very afraid. I am very tired. I am very unwilling. I can’t figure it out. I am jealous of others. I hate. I don’t want to try. I want to disappear for a while.
All of it is allowed.
Only feelings that are acknowledged will slowly pass. Feelings that are denied will keep growing in the dark.

You can say, “I am awful right now,” but don’t then say, “So I am an awful person.”
You can say, “I failed this time,” but don’t then say, “So I will always fail.”
Separate fact from conclusion, emotion from self, situation from life.

To separate them, don’t just think. Write.

Take a sticky note.
On the left write: The fact is ______.
On the right write: The conclusion in my head is ______.

The fact is: I sent out thirty resumes and got no reply. The conclusion is: No one will ever want me.
The fact is: He left me. The conclusion is: I am not worthy of being loved.
The fact is: My savings are zero. The conclusion is: I will be poor my whole life.
The fact is: Dad may lose his job. The conclusion is: I must carry everything for him.
The fact is: My boyfriend’s parents said terrible things. The conclusion is: I must prove I have value.

After writing, tear off the right side.
The right side is not necessarily false. The right side is too fast.
It skips time, skips variables, skips the things you haven’t done yet.

Then ask: What can I control now? What can’t I control?

Can’t control: the job market, an ex, parents, a boyfriend’s parents, the economic cycle, other people’s mouths.
Can control: revise one resume today. Book one counseling session. Delete one chat that drains you. Change your alarm from seven to eight. Eat a hot meal. Sleep. Go downstairs and walk for ten minutes. Send someone who can hold your feelings one sentence: Actually, I’m not okay.

Don’t wait until you’ve figured it out to move.
Moving is how you figure it out.
The five-minute rule: do it for only five minutes.
Send just one resume. Write just three lines in your journal. Clean just one drawer. Just go downstairs.
If you do it, you are one inch further than yesterday.
Inch by inch, that is the road.

But sometimes, you shrink back.

A friend calls. You decline it. You reply: “Nothing, I was just busy.”
In the text box you type “I’m so tired,” delete it. Change it to “Are you busy?”, delete that too. Finally you send an emoji.
You stare at the screen. The other person is typing. You exit the chat. You put the phone face down on the table.
You know you need someone. You also know you’re afraid that if you open your mouth, you’ll collapse. You’re afraid that after you collapse, no one will catch you. You’re afraid that after they catch you, you’ll still have to stand up by yourself.
So you choose the most familiar method: carry it alone.

Carry it alone, until one morning.

You wake at seven. You scroll the job app to yesterday’s “read.” There are still two bowls in the sink. One leaf of the pothos has turned yellow.
You sit on the edge of the bed, no light on. There is an unread email on your phone; you don’t want to tap it. Outside, someone is walking a dog. The dog barks once.
You suddenly think: If I do nothing today, what will happen?

Nothing will happen. The world won’t collapse.
But you will sink deeper.

So you do one very small thing.
You change your alarm to eight.
You wash those two bowls.
You water the pothos.
You open your laptop and send your thirty-first resume.
You text your friend: “Actually, I’m not okay.”
You book a counseling appointment.
You delete your ex’s WeChat.
You write down the bride-price situation and list three bottom lines.

None of these things are big.
They won’t trend on Douban. No one will repost them. They won’t make you turn your life around immediately.
But they pull you a little way out of the water.

A little every day.

That Douban topic has 1,359 posts. 1.764 million views.
Someone writes at three in the morning. Someone writes during rush hour. Someone writes in a hospital corridor. Someone writes under the covers.
Someone deletes it after writing. Someone writes and edits. Someone only reads, doesn’t write.

You are one of them too.
You are having a hard time right now.
You are walking through a stretch of road.

Tomorrow morning’s seven o’clock alarm is still there.
You change it to eight.
Then you go wash the dishes.