Look on the bright side. (Haven't got a sticker for this post. Maybe a cloud?)

Some things are just bad, aren't they?

If you can't think of anything good about something it's natural to avoid thinking about it at all.

But if you don't think about it then you can't make sense of it, and so it will always hurt. I've got something like that going on now.

And it feels like now's the time to try to make sense of it, because of tried the not thinking approach, tried so hard with that it nearly drove me mad. So now I'm trying something different, and I do feel less mad, but much more sad.

My mind instinctively tries to look on the bright side, I suppose it's human nature. So it tries to find a silver lining to this cloud. It briefly toys with the idea of enjoying the sympathy of friends, but then recoils at the idea, hating the label that goes with all that. 'Victim' isn't a word I like.

Then it latches on the idea that bad things can make you stronger, that you can learn from them. This is a fragile hope, because as soon as your belief in this falters then it fails. How can feeling bad mean strength, when nothing feels weaker than feeling confused, sad, disappointed that these feelings overwhelm you?

So what else is there if you can't see any bright side at all? What do you think if something is just bad, and there's no other sense than that?

I suppose acceptance is all you can help for. Only I'm a perfectionist, and an optimist too, I've never wanted to accept less than 'good', I'm just not like that. I don't want to accept bad things. But if I don't, or can't, then where else do I go with this?

And it's funny, that one of the only 'bright sides' I could come up with in all this is the 'words on the page' thing. You're reading this, aren't you? But I don't think that's a good thing either. I hope not. I hope you're not enjoying this.