There have been a lot of bad patches in my life this past year. My process of handling over whelming bad stuff usually goes like this:

1.) Go into a deep depression.
2.) Contemplate killing myself or running way.
3.) Realize I don't have the balls to kill myself or the money to run away.
4.) Go into a state of numbness and not caring about the problem that got me down to begin with.
5.) Hope that things will eventually get better.
6.) Realize that things always work out in the end, somehow.
7.) Sit down and write a call to action plan to fix the problem or work around it.

If I just had the mentality to skip the first 5 steps then the bad patch wouldn't last anywhere near as long. You can only get rid of your problems when you take action against them. In my opinion, there's no problem that can't be solved in one way or another, no matter how bad it is.