Sometimes we never get a “why.” We don’t always get a reason. We don’t always know the cause. That’s true about a great many things in life.

So we have to work with what we DO know.

Why did I start hearing voices when I was young? I could spend my time trying to figure out what caused the problem, or I could work to deal with current recurrent issues related to that problem: how to calm them down; how to keep my mind from spiraling. I discovered I didn’t have to know the cause to work with the current problem.

Why did I dissociate so severely that I would find myself hundreds of miles from home and not know how I got there? What caused that problem? I didn’t know. But I could work on skills to remain more consciously present, reach out for assistance when I saw the warning signs that an episode was coming, work through the types of current triggers that seemed to set those episodes off. I discovered I didn’t have to know the cause to work on improving my current state.

Why did my depression become so severe that I wanted to die and actively tried to end my life? It clearly came from an old place, but I didn’t know what it was. I learned, again, techniques to recognize impending symptoms, communicate my fears, and utilize the supports around me. Even without really understanding why my recurrent and debilitating depression even existed, I did have the ability to work through the current depressive issues in order to stay safe.

Yes, eventually I got some of my answers (not all of them, but some), but everything I mentioned above, I started working on BEFORE I had my answers, and life was improving and I was healing even without that information. My therapists emphasized that I didn’t have to be at the mercy of the unknown; I couldn’t change whatever came before even if I knew it, so I might as well realize that I had much more control about my present than I gave myself credit for.

You have thoughts and behaviors that are upsetting and disruptive to you in your current life. You may never know why, but you can learn proactive techniques to control those thoughts, work around those thoughts, redirect your behaviors and temptations toward behaviors, etc. so that they don’t control your current life.

MANY of us don’t know our stories. It is one of the frustrating aspects of mental health issues. So much of the time we don’t know why or where or how the problems started. What was that initiating event? Was there an initiating event? Is this just the way we were born? But not having that definitive knowledge doesn’t doom us to being unable to gain stability and control in our present.

Somewhere along the line, what many of us do is realize we cannot change our past, we may not even know our past, we may not know the answers, but we can find ways to find some control over our present and not allow the unknowns to drive our present and our future.