Trying to figure out what in the nine hells to do in the summer. I will have 4 weeks of vacation then but it will the first time since 2003 I have no one to spend it with, so I'm at a loss how to come up with stuff to do. I have trouble doing stuff alone since I have trouble finding it worthwhile doing anything when I'm not with another person. It just feels rather meaningless.
@Arvia , I'm really sorry to hear you're having (or have had) a bad day. I'm pretty bad at advice or knowing the right things to say to help people feel better. (I think my real life charisma score must be about a 7 or 8. I definitely have at least a -1 penalty to my people skills.) But hopefully, just being able to vent to people who care will help.
My wife is back in the hospital today. She has been fighting a major depression spell for almost 2 weeks. In all that time, we have been unable to contact her case manager or anyone from her team. Today she tried to cut herself so she has been admitted to the local hospital's mental health ward.
Ouch, that's bad. A team that can't be reached for a fortnight while someone is in crisis. Wish her the best. Though it sounds like a meagre thing to say when someone has a suicidal depression. It can give a severe feeling of helplessness, if you're suffering from it yourself, but I can imagine as a spouse it feels helpless as well. So all the best to you as well @ThacoBell. At least, like people said before in this topic, she has a wonderful husband.
@ThacoBell , I'm sending a prayer from a distance and wish you and your wife a lot of strength. I don't know what else to say, I'm not good at that, but I really hope she'll be fine.
My former partner is still in the midst of a now 7 month depression that's seen her mostly hide from the world. I find reading Epictetus is helpful. There's nothing I can do other than drop by and make sure she's still eating and being alive generally speaking periodically; and know that the person that she will be when she comes out may very well be unrecognizable to me. I never had any *real* experience with what depression or a depression/anxiety cocktail can do to a person until now and I can say I've developed quite a dislike for the disease.
@Gallenger , it's very thoughtful of you to look after her from time to time, even if you're not a couple anymore. It's probably difficult to find a balance between taking care of someone and protecting yourself.
Edit: and it's very important to keep in mind that it's an illness to be fought, not a character flaw or anybody's fault.
And the constant back and forth I've done going to Walmart to learn their money orders machine doesn't work, walking 4 miles to a western union just to be told that they don't take cards.
Being rained on.
Burning my tongue.
Having a cold and now starting to feel a little dizzy.
Nothing I've done or do ever seems to work in my favor or benefit. It's just one problem after another, a hole that just continues to get deeper and deeper.
The biggest punch to my gut was when I opened my eyes from losing consciousness and laid there on the ground, afterward went to the ER.
On both occasions I was alone, no friends, no family, just me. Nearly 30 years on this planet, though antisocial tendencies and a life of spending days on in alone in front of a sketch book. I never felt my loneliest until that very moment. How alone i am in this world... That doesn't count the 100k debt i now carry.
Does anybody here know @DragonKing well enough to talk to him personally?
This is starting to sound really, seriously worrying. In a "tired of life" kind of way.
@DragonKing , do you have anyone to talk to? I mean, really talk to, not venting.
This doesn't sound good at all. Try to get some kind of support, please.
@dragonking The only advice I can give you is this:
The hardest thing I've ever done was give up chewing tobacco (I played baseball and everybody did it and then it stayed with me as I aged). It literally was the worst thing ever and I still think about it from time to time even though the idea grosses me out. The only way I was able to quit, after tons of attempts, was to start every single day by saying to myself "I promise I absolutely will not chew today, maybe tomorrow, but not today." Literally the first thing I did as soon as I gained consciousness every day. One day turned into a week, a week turned into a month, and months turned into years. Never have I touched the stuff, and I still find myself reciting my promise to myself in the morning sometimes because the idea of quitting *forever* is terrifying still, but just one more day is nbd.
I've found a similar approach has really worked for me when I encounter other problems. The whole great big problem is too much to take on, and thinking about what it'll do to me days or weeks from now is too, so you just focus on what little thing you can to *today* and today only.
For some reason it's really helped my entire mental state and life generally. Pebbles to climb a mountain and all that.
@DragonKing , I hear you, and I feel pretty much the same every day of my life. I have bipolar disorder, and at age 53, it manifests mostly at this stage of my life as constant anxiety and depression. There doesn't need to be any identifiable reason for me to feel anxious, depressed, and like I really wish I no longer existed. If there's not some reason in my life events I can latch onto and obsess about, my mind will just make up things for me to be anxious about. My base emotional state is "Being alive is too much trouble. I really wish I weren't." I cannot use chemical antidepressants, because I've been put on three of them before, and all three caused hypomanic episodes, which are worse and more dangerous to me than the depression they are meant to treat.
A couple of years ago, my type 2 diabetes put me into a state of ketoacidosis that made me so weak, I couldn't walk - I couldn't step onto a curb, and I couldn't even take two stairs without falling down. And I was just fine with that. I planned to let it kill me. I am a very empirical, practical person, and I knew the money I have saved would only last four years at the most, before I'd have no food and not be able to pay my property taxes, and likely have no air conditioning in my house due to system failure, and no money to fix it, and maybe even no electricity or internet because of no money to pay the bills, and then finally homelessness due to the property tax non-payment.
And still, I was just fine with that, as long I was *really* going to die from the ketoacidosis before my money ran out.
Let me insert here, I have no interest in deliberately hurting myself. I will never do that. If I die as my worst Thanatos impulse dictates, it will not be by my own action. It might however, come from my own inaction due to my non-existent will to live.
I was pulled back from the brink of just trying to let my ketoacidosis kill me by a few things. First, I have two cats who depend on me, and who are like children to me. Who would take care of them after I died? I could try to provide for them in my will, but a will is only as good as the person you trust as its executor. The stark bottom line is that no one in this world is going to love and care for my two cats like I do. They would suffer if I died before them, no matter what legal documents and money I tried to provide for them after I was gone. The harsh fact is, if I die, they suffer.
The next thing is that it was slowly but surely blinding me. My vision was becoming increasingly blurrier with every passing day. I "saw" that I was going to be paralyzed and blind long before I died, and that the diabetic ketoacidosis was going to leave me alive to suffer through every minute of it.
I was avoiding treatment in part because of the cost of insulin. I live in America, the land of no medical insurance or treatment for those of low income. I depend on my meager savings to get by year to year. And, if I went to the hospital for treatment, as sure as the world, they would bleed those savings. And they did. About $12,000 in the end. I had to take out a loan for which I cannot afford the payments. So, my meager savings go down, down, down. And, omg, the cost of insulin! Even if I saved myself, how could I ever afford the insulin?
I had a couple of friends who basically saved my life. One of them was a friend I've had since middle school who did not pressure me or judge me about my decision to end my life. I made him the executor of my will, and he promised, a bit reluctantly, that he wouldn't let my cats suffer. He also likes and has cats, so I trust him. The other friend is his mother. She researched local charity medical options when I wouldn't, and found me a faith-based charity place called "Volunteers in Medicine" in my city where I could see a doctor for free and get free insulin. So, there was one of my problems solved.
This friend and his mother never judged me or tried to pressure me. They just subtly gave me messages every day that they thought I was an important person to them, and loved by them, and that they didn't want me to die. So, wracked with concern for my cats, I finally went to the hospital intensive care and accepted treatment, knowing that it would financially wreck me and make the life I wasn't all that keen on living even harder. But my cats!
So that got me through it. I hate to admit it, but I love my cats so much more than people, most of the time I'd rather just stay in my house, that I more or less inherited from my dearly departed grandparents, who were the only ones who ever made me feel truly loved, and be with my cats. I'd never leave my house if I didn't have to go out and teach violin/viola/cello lessons to make enough money for food, electricity, internet, and property taxes. (I have to go do a kids' violin recital tomorrow. Gods and Nine Hells, I dread it. I have to accompany all my students on the piano, which terrifies me, and I have to play my violin with a student on the Bach Double Concerto in front of my entire studio, which also terrifies me. ) But I do what I must to keep my cats safe, content, and fed, and myself fed, and my property taxes paid so we have a place to live, and my internet and computer on so I can distract myself from my misery by playing computer games and having at least some semblance of human connection to the people I interact with online.
So, I think somewhere along the way here, I may have stopped trying to help you and to encourage myself. But I guess the reason that I hoped that maybe my sharing my feelings so honestly and making myself so vulnerable might help you, is that I hoped it would let you see you're not alone in getting pwnd by life.
First, if you are thinking of hurting yourself, please don't. You need to contact a suicide crisis hotline, and find any resources in your location to get help.
Second, it *always* gets better. I know oh-so-well the feeling of hopelessness. I often feel like I am never going to feel anything but anxiety and dread again. But every time I or friends or family pull me back from the brink, I am grateful that I got to experience this horrible, yet wonderful thing called Life and Consciousness for at least a short time further.
Finally, you need something to love. For me, it was my cats. I had three before my present two, and the five of them together are quite possibly the only reason I'm still living and trying.
For other people, it can be a partner, their family, their children, their job, music, art, .... the list of things to love in this life is infinite. I promise you that there are people out there ready, willing, and able to help you pull back from the brink, and that you can find something to love as long as you keep trying.
So, I don't know if any of this was even remotely helpful to you. But it helped me to share it, and I wish you all good will. I wish for you that you will find something to love, that you will find a purpose, and that you will find peace and comfort from all those bad feelings that I share with you. (Or at least, I think I maybe do.)
I too am concerned @DragonKing, though I'm usually not as well spoken when trying to add comfort, as I'm usually reading with a mindset of "yes, indeed, life does suck". Yet what helps me is what @Gallenger and what @BelgarathMTH voiced better than me before and I'll just chime in with them: breaking down life in small manageable pieces. If I think of life as a whole, it makes me want to die too, but if you just do what needs to be done in the next second and then the second after that, it becomes more manageable. If in the morning I think about starting a new day of life, I correct myself and say that I just need to turn on the tap, wait for the water to warm and wash myself. Nothing more. Limb by limb. Than I focus on just needing to rinse, then on just needing to dry myself, then on just getting dressed. Step by step. Don't take it all in one stride. That's what pulls me through.
That, and thing's and people I do love. I do love my family, they're a reason to continue for me, I do love this forum, I love walking and cycling, I love games. Darkness can be big, but focus on the candle flames of small things that you find to be good to provide you light, instead of focussing on the big dark around. Joy is to be found in small things, every now and then, once in a while. Depression can colour everything you see with a 'yeah, but ... fill in something dark', but even in the darkest dark there's light if you count the things that do you good, such as four people in here that reply caring about you, some food you eat that you like, a game that's fun to do and let your mind stand still at that good things for a moment before the 'yes, but ...' kicks in. Like I said, joy is to be found in small things.
Please ignore my last post, I let my emotions take me somewhere I haven't been in years yesterday and was starting to have a breakdown. I should have better control of myself or at least stay off the internet when it happens, but what does the older gen always say a boy is millennials, we can't put our phones down.
@DragonKing: There's nothing wrong with sharing personal stuff on this forum; this is a safe space. You're perfectly free to talk to us about anything.
Please ignore my last post, I let my emotions take me somewhere I haven't been in years yesterday and was starting to have a breakdown. I should have better control of myself or at least stay off the internet when it happens, but what does the older gen always say a boy is millennials, we can't put our phones down.
Dude, venting to a community who you see as a safe space is a great way of blowing off some of that pressure. I can't speak for everyone here, but I for one don't see it as a weakness. Sometimes we all need to scream into the abyss.
Oh joy, now my son is sick and throwing up on the day I'm supposed to pick up my wife from the hospital. The ONE day I couldn't get a babysitter lined up.
@Arvia , I'm sorry to hear you're going through some really bad things. It must be very hard to cope with it all while you have children dependent on you and a family to raise, all the while working a high-responsibility job with long, irregular hours.
I hope maybe it helped at least a little to write some of it down here. It usually makes me feel better if I do that from time to time, that is, writing about my feelings and troubles to a sympathetic audience of people here on this forum.
I wish for good things to come soon to you and your family, and I hope you feel better soon.
@Arvia: I'm amazed at how much you've been able to accomplish and how much you've been able to survive in spite of so much. I admire you. You're a good mom, and your son and your husband are lucky to have you.
@semiticgod , you're wrong. Just me being me triggers a lot of their problems, they would both be calmer with someone else around. But that's neither my fault nor theirs, and we'll have to learn to handle it. And fortunately they still prefer to have me around and not someone else.
@Arvia, just as I'm sitting down to write a reply, "love will save the day" sounds on the radio, which sounds somewhat appropriate for the story you shared, as it's clear it's the love for your husband and children that pulls you through, yet it can be a trap as well, by not taking time for yourself. Love yourself like you love your neighbour, I'd like to subvert the biblical saying. I do hope you manage to find enough Arvia-time to put your mind of caring for others. Your work is care-taking, you take care especially of your son with autism, but you also need to take care of yourself. I wish you lots of love for you for yourself. That's not egotistic, it's a prerequisite of finding the energy to take care of others as well. With the best wishes that you do find time for your own, to be on your own every now and then, I conclude this post. Take care...
Yeah, I'll second that sentiment. Make time to take care of yourself. A person can only push themselves so hard before hitting some negative consequences.
A minor unhappiness: I found out I was whispering to myself when a couple other people were present and they found it a little weird. They're people I know, but still, it feels awful to find out you ever seemed off-putting to someone. That's really not how I want people to see me.
A minor unhappiness: I found out I was whispering to myself when a couple other people were present and they found it a little weird. They're people I know, but still, it feels awful to find out you ever seemed off-putting to someone. That's really not how I want people to see me.
You'll get over that once you reach my age. One advantage to being around for a while is that you realize that what people you're likely never to see again think of you is pretty low on the totem-pole of things to worry about...
Edit: Just re-read your post and missed that it's people you actually know. That doesn't change the gist of my response though. If those people like you, they'll forgive your quirks. If they don't like you then my above statement still applies.
@Balrog99: They're people I see every day, though! And soon I'm going to be a teacher, and I'll be working with the same class of kids for a whole year at a time.
I mean, most people in my life have liked me, but a teacher's appearance in the eyes of their students actually impacts their ability to do their job--one of many, many ways the teaching profession is like being a moderator.
Comments
I hope things improve for you quickly Thacobell.
Edit: and it's very important to keep in mind that it's an illness to be fought, not a character flaw or anybody's fault.
Between the back and forth with my EX
And the constant back and forth I've done going to Walmart to learn their money orders machine doesn't work, walking 4 miles to a western union just to be told that they don't take cards.
Being rained on.
Burning my tongue.
Having a cold and now starting to feel a little dizzy.
Nothing I've done or do ever seems to work in my favor or benefit. It's just one problem after another, a hole that just continues to get deeper and deeper.
The biggest punch to my gut was when I opened my eyes from losing consciousness and laid there on the ground, afterward went to the ER.
On both occasions I was alone, no friends, no family, just me. Nearly 30 years on this planet, though antisocial tendencies and a life of spending days on in alone in front of a sketch book. I never felt my loneliest until that very moment. How alone i am in this world... That doesn't count the 100k debt i now carry.
I'm tired of this world.
This is starting to sound really, seriously worrying. In a "tired of life" kind of way.
@DragonKing , do you have anyone to talk to? I mean, really talk to, not venting.
This doesn't sound good at all. Try to get some kind of support, please.
The hardest thing I've ever done was give up chewing tobacco (I played baseball and everybody did it and then it stayed with me as I aged). It literally was the worst thing ever and I still think about it from time to time even though the idea grosses me out. The only way I was able to quit, after tons of attempts, was to start every single day by saying to myself "I promise I absolutely will not chew today, maybe tomorrow, but not today." Literally the first thing I did as soon as I gained consciousness every day. One day turned into a week, a week turned into a month, and months turned into years. Never have I touched the stuff, and I still find myself reciting my promise to myself in the morning sometimes because the idea of quitting *forever* is terrifying still, but just one more day is nbd.
I've found a similar approach has really worked for me when I encounter other problems. The whole great big problem is too much to take on, and thinking about what it'll do to me days or weeks from now is too, so you just focus on what little thing you can to *today* and today only.
For some reason it's really helped my entire mental state and life generally. Pebbles to climb a mountain and all that.
A couple of years ago, my type 2 diabetes put me into a state of ketoacidosis that made me so weak, I couldn't walk - I couldn't step onto a curb, and I couldn't even take two stairs without falling down. And I was just fine with that. I planned to let it kill me. I am a very empirical, practical person, and I knew the money I have saved would only last four years at the most, before I'd have no food and not be able to pay my property taxes, and likely have no air conditioning in my house due to system failure, and no money to fix it, and maybe even no electricity or internet because of no money to pay the bills, and then finally homelessness due to the property tax non-payment.
And still, I was just fine with that, as long I was *really* going to die from the ketoacidosis before my money ran out.
Let me insert here, I have no interest in deliberately hurting myself. I will never do that. If I die as my worst Thanatos impulse dictates, it will not be by my own action. It might however, come from my own inaction due to my non-existent will to live.
I was pulled back from the brink of just trying to let my ketoacidosis kill me by a few things. First, I have two cats who depend on me, and who are like children to me. Who would take care of them after I died? I could try to provide for them in my will, but a will is only as good as the person you trust as its executor. The stark bottom line is that no one in this world is going to love and care for my two cats like I do. They would suffer if I died before them, no matter what legal documents and money I tried to provide for them after I was gone. The harsh fact is, if I die, they suffer.
The next thing is that it was slowly but surely blinding me. My vision was becoming increasingly blurrier with every passing day. I "saw" that I was going to be paralyzed and blind long before I died, and that the diabetic ketoacidosis was going to leave me alive to suffer through every minute of it.
I was avoiding treatment in part because of the cost of insulin. I live in America, the land of no medical insurance or treatment for those of low income. I depend on my meager savings to get by year to year. And, if I went to the hospital for treatment, as sure as the world, they would bleed those savings. And they did. About $12,000 in the end. I had to take out a loan for which I cannot afford the payments. So, my meager savings go down, down, down. And, omg, the cost of insulin! Even if I saved myself, how could I ever afford the insulin?
I had a couple of friends who basically saved my life. One of them was a friend I've had since middle school who did not pressure me or judge me about my decision to end my life. I made him the executor of my will, and he promised, a bit reluctantly, that he wouldn't let my cats suffer. He also likes and has cats, so I trust him. The other friend is his mother. She researched local charity medical options when I wouldn't, and found me a faith-based charity place called "Volunteers in Medicine" in my city where I could see a doctor for free and get free insulin. So, there was one of my problems solved.
This friend and his mother never judged me or tried to pressure me. They just subtly gave me messages every day that they thought I was an important person to them, and loved by them, and that they didn't want me to die. So, wracked with concern for my cats, I finally went to the hospital intensive care and accepted treatment, knowing that it would financially wreck me and make the life I wasn't all that keen on living even harder. But my cats!
So that got me through it. I hate to admit it, but I love my cats so much more than people, most of the time I'd rather just stay in my house, that I more or less inherited from my dearly departed grandparents, who were the only ones who ever made me feel truly loved, and be with my cats. I'd never leave my house if I didn't have to go out and teach violin/viola/cello lessons to make enough money for food, electricity, internet, and property taxes. (I have to go do a kids' violin recital tomorrow. Gods and Nine Hells, I dread it. I have to accompany all my students on the piano, which terrifies me, and I have to play my violin with a student on the Bach Double Concerto in front of my entire studio, which also terrifies me. ) But I do what I must to keep my cats safe, content, and fed, and myself fed, and my property taxes paid so we have a place to live, and my internet and computer on so I can distract myself from my misery by playing computer games and having at least some semblance of human connection to the people I interact with online.
So, I think somewhere along the way here, I may have stopped trying to help you and to encourage myself. But I guess the reason that I hoped that maybe my sharing my feelings so honestly and making myself so vulnerable might help you, is that I hoped it would let you see you're not alone in getting pwnd by life.
First, if you are thinking of hurting yourself, please don't. You need to contact a suicide crisis hotline, and find any resources in your location to get help.
Second, it *always* gets better. I know oh-so-well the feeling of hopelessness. I often feel like I am never going to feel anything but anxiety and dread again. But every time I or friends or family pull me back from the brink, I am grateful that I got to experience this horrible, yet wonderful thing called Life and Consciousness for at least a short time further.
Finally, you need something to love. For me, it was my cats. I had three before my present two, and the five of them together are quite possibly the only reason I'm still living and trying.
For other people, it can be a partner, their family, their children, their job, music, art, .... the list of things to love in this life is infinite. I promise you that there are people out there ready, willing, and able to help you pull back from the brink, and that you can find something to love as long as you keep trying.
So, I don't know if any of this was even remotely helpful to you. But it helped me to share it, and I wish you all good will. I wish for you that you will find something to love, that you will find a purpose, and that you will find peace and comfort from all those bad feelings that I share with you. (Or at least, I think I maybe do.)
That, and thing's and people I do love. I do love my family, they're a reason to continue for me, I do love this forum, I love walking and cycling, I love games. Darkness can be big, but focus on the candle flames of small things that you find to be good to provide you light, instead of focussing on the big dark around. Joy is to be found in small things, every now and then, once in a while. Depression can colour everything you see with a 'yeah, but ... fill in something dark', but even in the darkest dark there's light if you count the things that do you good, such as four people in here that reply caring about you, some food you eat that you like, a game that's fun to do and let your mind stand still at that good things for a moment before the 'yes, but ...' kicks in. Like I said, joy is to be found in small things.
Dude, venting to a community who you see as a safe space is a great way of blowing off some of that pressure. I can't speak for everyone here, but I for one don't see it as a weakness. Sometimes we all need to scream into the abyss.
I hope maybe it helped at least a little to write some of it down here. It usually makes me feel better if I do that from time to time, that is, writing about my feelings and troubles to a sympathetic audience of people here on this forum.
I wish for good things to come soon to you and your family, and I hope you feel better soon.
Anyway, thank you for your kind words.
You'll get over that once you reach my age. One advantage to being around for a while is that you realize that what people you're likely never to see again think of you is pretty low on the totem-pole of things to worry about...
Edit: Just re-read your post and missed that it's people you actually know. That doesn't change the gist of my response though. If those people like you, they'll forgive your quirks. If they don't like you then my above statement still applies.
I mean, most people in my life have liked me, but a teacher's appearance in the eyes of their students actually impacts their ability to do their job--one of many, many ways the teaching profession is like being a moderator.