Jackie – So sorry for the struggle you find yourself in. Thank you for sharing as I think many can relate.

I read the following from Matt Haig today

A thing my dad said once when we were lost in a forest

We had gone for a run. About half an hour in, my dad realized the truth. “Oh, it seems that we’re lost.” We walked around and around in circles, trying to find the path, but with no luck. My dad asked men – poachers – for directions and they sent us the wrong way. I could tell my dad was starting to panic, even as he was trying to hide it from me. We had been in the forest for hours now and both knew my mom would be in a state of absolute terror. At school, I had just been told the story of the Israelites who had died in the wilderness and I found it easy to imagine that would be our fate to….

“If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here”, my dad said

And he was right. Eventually we heard the sounds of cars and reached a main road. We were eleven miles from the village where we had started off, but at least we had signposts now.

I often think of that strategy, when I am totally lost – literally or metaphorically. I thought of it when I was in the middle of a breakdown. When I was living in a panic attack punctuated only by depression, when my heart pounded rapidly with fear, when I hardly knew who I was and didn’t know how I could carry on living.  If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here.

Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It’s about the determination to keep walking forward – The comfort Book by Matt Haig