How Do You Get Through Survival Mode?

When my youngest was a baby, he failed to thrive for what seemed like forever.

The cause? A billion things that combined to create the perfect, awful storm of a sweet baby who couldn’t gain weight.

In fact, he routinely lost weight — and he didn’t have much to lose.

It was one of the worst times of my life. There were more questions than answers, and I had no idea how to get us through. 

All my energy went to fixing this problem, but the bigger problem was that there was no solution (at least not for a long time).

I had so much hope, but also a dearth of hope at the same time. How is that possible? I don’t know. I just know that every day I woke up, hoping that something I would do, read, or discover would be the solution — while also feeling like there was no end and my baby was going to waste away.

If you’ve ever been in this place — where all you can do is just try and get from one minute to the next — you know that one of the side effects of a life consumed by struggle is that everything else in life gets neglected. It all seems to be impossible to handle. 

The Things That Stopped Working

I couldn’t manage to figure out how to pay my 6-year-old daughter’s lunch fees at school. Soon, I was getting daily phone calls about our negative balance. If she had homework due, I don’t know if it ever got done. 

I couldn’t manage to get my 3-year-old dressed each day. I couldn’t manage to spend quality time with her. I still have vivid memories of watching her lifelessly stare at the iPad for hours.

I couldn’t work. I couldn’t keep the house clean.

I couldn’t go outside. I remember that the only times I left the house, other than to go to the doctor, was to throw away dirty diapers in the outside trash can — and I remember being so surprised at the way sunshine felt on my skin. Sometimes, I would find a spot of sunshine on the floor and curl into it like a cat.

We were very fortunate that my husband could work during this time, so that I could devote all my energy to trying to help my baby survive.

But it was still so hard. And still, so much was neglected.

The Window of Refuge

My baby, who also suffered from eczema, couldn’t sleep during the day. I think he itched and hurt too much.

This was a problem, because it made him so tired that he also couldn’t eat. He would fall asleep as soon as he started to nurse or had a bottle. And remember — he was failing to thrive.

So his sleep was a huge concern for me. I knew that if I could get him to sleep, I could get him to eat — at least a little better.

But it just wasn’t in the cards.

Every day, I would try to get him to nap, and every day he would scream. Every day, I would tense up. 

One day, I walked to my bedroom window and held him up. He was a tiny baby, but he was observant and smart. 

I began telling him what I was seeing.

“Look Rex,” I said. “The leaves on our tree are turning red. Aren’t they pretty?”

He calmed down a little bit, so I kept going.

“Look at the cars on the road. Where do you think they’re going?”

I talked about the mountains in the distance, the buildings, the streetlights, the temple, and everything else I could see.

He stayed calm.

So I tried to lay him down again. It worked — that first time.

After that, every time he struggled to nap, I took him to the window and talked about what I saw. Sometimes he would soothe enough to fall asleep for a short time. Sometimes he wouldn’t. 

But I began to find peace at that window. 

At that window, we watched as the tree dropped its leaves and stood naked and proud. We watched as it was then blanketed in snow. Months later, an older Rex babbled with me as we rejoiced in the springtime buds slowly poking through. And then, we clapped for the blossoms that suddenly burst their way outward.

Throughout that time, Rex made tiny bits of progress. It was completely unsteady; sometimes he would jump in weight, only to slide backwards days later. I was too close to it all, and couldn’t always see the forward movement. 

But there we stood at the window in the spring, still striving for better health, but vastly improved.

Everything else in life had been neglected until then, but during that spring, I began to piece our family’s lives back together — soooo slowly.

The Second Whammy

Right when I felt secure that Rex would only progress, my husband lost his job.

Again, I was in survival mode, and again, it seemed there was no end in sight.

But again, I turned to that window. Sometimes I brought Rex. Sometimes I stood there alone. 

I watched the tree become lush with green leaves, and I stepped outside as well.

I watched it lose its leaves again, be buried yet again by snow, and then re-emerge as a blossomed showoff in spring.

I don’t know when I stopped going to the window. Things eventually began to improve, and maybe I didn’t need it anymore.

Revisiting the Peace

But a few months ago, when Rex — now 5 — was inconsolable about something, I took him to the window and told him its story.

I told him how the scene outside the window was the only thing that could calm him when he was a sick baby. I told him how we watched the tree change together.

He was enthralled.

We now use the window as a regular tool. When he’s sad, I take him there. We both respond immediately to the view outside, conditioned as we are to its peace.

How to Survive Survival Mode

I was thinking about survival mode the other day. At any given time, we probably all know someone in that place. We’ve probably all been in that place — or are currently there.

How does one get through survival mode? How does one get through tragedy, through heartache, through impossible problems that won’t go away?

I wouldn’t have the first idea on how to write a how-to. I haven’t handled my hard times exceptionally well.

But as I thought back to that time, I was struck by how a sweet calm was given to me any time I was present enough to take it. That window was my refuge. 

I think that as we go through hard times, we can search for our own refuges. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling there is a refuge for each of us through every hard thing. 

And maybe, when things aren’t so hard, we can try to facilitate refuges for other people. Maybe we each have talents that are specially designed to be helpful to others.

Maybe we can be a literal shoulder to cry on. Maybe we can swoop in and fix a physical problem. Maybe we can listen without judgment. Maybe we can share money or resources. Maybe we can provide the right words at the right time.

I don’t know. But I have a feeling that two things are true:

1. If we’re suffering, there is a window of safety and calm and peace somewhere.
2. If we aren’t suffering, we can provide that window to someone else.

Somehow the trees keep going through their cycles, even when our worlds fall apart. Somehow, watching them through our windows of refuge can get us through.

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If you’re struggling to connect with your child, either during survival mode or during a time of relative peace, my back-and-forth journal gives you a deeper connection in just seconds a day. 

The prompts in the journal allow your child to share things with you they may not open up about otherwise. It allows you to take a minute and process how you really feel about important things in your life and in your relationship with your child. 

And it gives you a record of what you and your child are feeling, so you can go back and use information to help each other.

It comes with a coloring page that you and your child can work on together and use as your cover. Then, use the prompts on the following pages to learn about and understand each other on deeper levels. Learn about it, and grab one for yourself today.