Читать книгу Self-Help for Your Nerves: Learn to relax and enjoy life again by overcoming stress and fear - Dr. Weekes Claire - Страница 6

If you are reading this book because you are having a nervous breakdown or because your nerves are ‘in a bad way’, you are the very person for whom it has been written and I shall therefore talk directly to you as if you were sitting beside me.

I shall show clearly and simply, and yet with all necessary detail, just how a nervous breakdown begins and develops and how it can be cured. THE ADVICE GIVEN HERE WILL DEFINITELY CURE YOU, IF YOU FOLLOW IT. This will take perseverance and some courage. You may notice that I have not asked for patience. A nervously sick person is rarely patient, because sick nerves are usually agitated nerves – that is one reason why he becomes bewildered by them. To wait patiently in a queue can be almost intolerable misery for such a person. However there is a substitute for patience and this I shall present to you later.

It will not be difficult for you to read this book: it is about you and your nerves, and for this reason you will read it with interest, whereas to read an ordinary book or newspaper may seem an impossibility, or, should you succeed, may leave you more distressed than when you began.

I used the word ‘cure’ and this may surprise you, because it implies an illness and you may think of yourself as more bewildered than ill – lost in a maze trying to find your way back to the person you used to be.

On the other hand, you may be so depressed and exhausted that you may readily agree that you are ill. Whether or not you consider yourself ill, more than anything else you want to be yourself again. You probably look at others in the street and wonder why you can’t be like them? What is this ‘terrible thing’ that has happened to you? What is the meaning of these terrifying feelings?

Such feelings may have possessed you for a long time, even for years. Indeed, you may have reached a point of such desperate suffering that you could be thinking of suicide, or may even have attempted it. And yet, however deeply involved you may be in nervous breakdown, it is possible to recover and enjoy life again. I emphasize, however deeply involved.

The guidance you need is in this small book. The perseverance and courage you can, with help, find within yourself. The strength to recover is within you, once you are shown the way. I assure you of this.

Each of us has unsuspected power to accomplish what we demand of ourselves, if we care to search for it. You are no exception. You can find it if you make up your mind to, however great a coward you may think yourself at this moment. I have no illusions about you: I am not writing this book for the rare brave people, but for you, probably a sick, suffering, ordinary human being with no more courage than the rest of us, but – and this is the important thing – with the same unplumbed, unsuspected power in reserve as the rest of us. It is possible that you may be aware of such power but may feel, because of your nervous condition, unable to release it. This book will help you find this power, and show you how to release and use it.

First, you must know how your nervous system works.