Professionals can’t help you if you aren’t willing to help yourself. What’s wrong with suggesting painting? I don’t think the problem was the shrink. You probably went in with some big negative attitude, making assumptions like the one above.
I suggest anger managment. You sound like my grandfather. It’s everyone’s fault by his.
Valteron,
Let me preface this by acknowledging that what I am about to say will most likely upset you and/or piss you off. I mean no disrespect, but I see my past self in your posts, and would like to offer you my view on what is going on here.
Last year I lost my memberhip to a rather exclusive online forum. This was a rather impressive feat given that the forum was for abuse survivors to work through their problems. There were self-injurers, the eating disordered, and all manner of people that we could loosely refer to as “fucked-up.” I, however, was relieved of my membership for … get this … wallowing in my issues and being unwilling to get better.
I was infurated at them.
They were right.
See, I have been diagnosed with a range of mental illnesses. Post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline (as well as avoidant and dependent) personality disorder(s), anorexia, bulimia, major depression, dysthymic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. I’m a rape and incest survivor. I was sexually and mentally abused as a child, and emotionally neglected nearly my entire life.
Sometimes therapists make one’s issues all too apparant. It makes it easy to dwell on them, to walk around wearing your scars as a badge of honor. It’s far too easy to become defined by your issues. And, shit, shouldn’t people REALIZE and SYMPATHIZE because, goddammit, I’m damaged and mommy never hugged me when I cried!!
I personally see thinly veiled implications and threats of suicide from you, and I think they are truly a cry for attention. I’ve done the same, myself, long ago.
This year, I have gotten much better, and I still have a ways to go. Last year, people were kind to me and called me because they felt it was their personal mission to save me. This year, people are kind to me and call me because, OMG, I’m an interesting person! I’m as kind-hearted as they get! I’m a great neighbor and friend!
I hope I never again feel so little self-worth that I think I can only get attention by being suicidal or in need of help. I hope I never have so little self-esteem that I feel like the butt of the world’s jokes.
I’m sorry that you are feeling like shit, and it is very evident that you are. I don’t have much times these days, but if you ever want me to expand on what I’m trying to say – a forum post doesn’t offer much room for candor or exposition – I’ll try to get some time to better explain the message I hope to convey.
For now, take a deep breath. Try to leave you issues behind you when you post, and realize that you aren’t being scrutinized nearly as much as you might feel that you are.
Get well and hugs,
Dracona
Valteron, it never occurred to me that S of P was being anything *but * truly complimentary in his remark. Most of us really *like * unusual and rarely used words here. I honestly think at this point you are either so on edge that you are seeing insults everywhere, or are just plain spoilin’ for a fight. Or both.
You have truly not been treated badly here, and given your prickliness and general hostility, I think people are truly sympathetic to your current plight and have for the most part displayed considerable restraint. You’ve been acting like a real SOB, but you’re not getting the slamming that most posters would in that situation. You’ve been around here long enough that you could see that if you were willing to, but I think you want to feel put upon and indignant. In a way, those are both helps for depression - it feels a whole lot better to be pissed off than it does to feel like you’re in total despair.
In answer to the original question that kicked this whole, three-thread business, yes, it’s clear that you are in the the throes of what you might call a suicidal depression, but I honestly don’t think you want to commit suicide right now. You see, there are plenty of websites that can give you excellent advice on how to do just that, quite effectively. But you want to talk about it, which suggests to me that what you really are looking for is people to talk to you about it and ultimately talk you out of it.
Unfortunately, you’re not going to find any better magic bullet here than you have from any other source. While anti-depressant meds help some folks, the ultimate solution to being depressed is to *act * as if you’re not depressed - involve yourself in things and participate in normal life to the greatest extent possible. Unfortunately, that’s a particularly difficult thing to do when you’re depressed. I know; like at least half the regular members of this board, I’ve suffered from depression myself. For a very long time in my life, the two things keeping me alive were the fear of the sheer grief and downright torture suicide would have caused my family (particularly my mom, who would have blamed herself for no better reason than the fact that she’s my mom), and pure cowardice; I don’t mind the idea of being dead, but the dying part itself still scares me. My belief is that death is the neutral state; if your life is truly permanently worse than neutral, then death is the rational option.
The problem is judging the permanent part. I’m 50 years old, and at the age of roughly 40, I truly felt that although I enjoyed some things, on the whole my life was worse than neutral due to fundamental character flaws that I have never been able to overcome. Now, 40 is a pretty mature age, and it would have seemed that if I hadn’t found any solutions by then, it just wasn’t gonna happen. The odd thing, though, is that it did. Somehow, partly by changes in my own life to minimize the things that bothered me the most, but mostly by changes in my own attitudes. You see, happiness is based on two things: what happens and what your expectations are. There are plenty of folks in the world who are quite happy in circumstances that most of us would consider absolutely desperate and perfectly miserable (I’m thinking of desperately poor people living in what we would consider intolerable circumstances). How? Because their expectations don’t lead them to believe that these are abnormally terrible circumstances. The situation is largely as they expect it to be, and so their criteria for happiness involve other things, such as their personal relationships or their (by our standards) small successes and/or failures. Well, somehow as if by magic, in the past ten years or so, my acceptance of my own flaws has vastly increased - in part because I’ve minimized the impact on others by not putting myself in positions where I’ll let people down, and therefore don’t have a terrible burden of guilt to carry around with me all the time. No pshrink or doctor did this for me - I had given them up by then. It happened pretty much on its own, although it was, oddly enough, helped by the fact that the husband I loved deeply and I split up, thereby putting me in a position of far less opportunity to let him down. (btw, HE never felt let down; it was *my * standards of what I should be doing for him that I was not living up to). I’m now 50, and would on the whole consider myself a fairly happy person. Certainly I have no interest in suicide at this point, unless I were to be diagnosed with a terminal illness that was causing enormous physical pain which promised to continue for the rest of my (mercifully) brief life.
My point here is that things often *do * change, and in ways or at times you wouldn’t expect them to. That’s the single biggest argument against suicide for non-physical reasons, and also the hardest to believe, especially when you’re quite young. You may sincerely believe that things will never change for you, but it’s amazing how often they do. I don’t believe that a person is crazy just because they want to commit suicide; it can be a perfectly rational and sensible action. The problem is that as human beings, we’re really pretty lousy at predicting consequences of our actions and/or predicting the future. The fact is that things rarely turn out the way you expect them to, and suicide is so damned permanent. Suspended animation would be a much better option, but unfortunately we just don’t have it available yet.
I guess my over-all point here is that for the reasons listed above, I think it would be a Very Bad Idea for you to commit suicide, unless you have permanent physical pain that is untreatable (and there are some pretty damned good drugs out there for that kind of thing, and you haven’t mentioned any physical problems, so I don’t think that’s the case here). Unfortunately, the very depression that makes you miserable in the first place also tends to make it nearly impossible to accept the possibility of change for the better.
So here are my concrete recommendations for you:
Continue trying to find a pshrink who can work for you, preferably a psychiatrist who can prescribe - some of the anti-depressants have made enormous differences in some people’s lives. They didn’t do a damned thing for me (and I tried just about every one in the book), but they do for many.
Recognize that spewing rage on to other people is actually going to make things worse in the long run; it grants momentary relief, but alienates people, which ultimately leads to worse depression. This includes acting like a jerk on this board, which you’ve been doing a fairly good job of lately.
Try looking rationally at your expectations versus your reality. Try to determine what expectations are reasonable and what are not. An adult with a second grade education has very little chance of becoming a doctor (although it could be done with a lot of hard work and a fair amount of intelligence to begin with). Look at yourself and try to figure out what is preventing you from meeting your expectations (and therefore making you unhappy). If your expectations are simply unreasonable given your situation and abilities (i.e. you flunked 4th grade math even though you tried like hell, but feel your life will be wasted if you don’t end up a PhD in nuclear physics), you need to work on adjusting your expectations so that they match up with reality a bit better. If, like me, you constantly find that your own character flaws are blocking you from achieving your goals, you should probably look at two different areas - how to help improve some of your (self-perceived) flaws and how to minimize their impact on your life. For example, I finally realized (and lord knows, it took me long enough) that I cannot live with another person because I will always feel I’m letting him down. It doesn’t matter whether or not it would be true; it’s how I would feel. Therefore, I live alone, where the impact of my actions (or lack thereof) affects only myself. Despite the fact that I loved my husband more than I can express doesn’t change the truth that I’m happier now than I was when married - not because of him, but because of me. The right therapist could be of considerable help here, but it has to be the right one for you, and that’s not always easy to find. Try MSWs (Masters of Social Work) - not only are they cheaper, but they tend to be focused on the more practical, the more concrete.
Try to really believe that it’s highly likely things WILL change for you. If you truly can’t believe it, then pretend. Fake it. After all, what have you got to lose?
Don’t dwell on the bad stuff in your past, except in the sense of figuring out what you can learn from it. The fact is, you do not and will never have control of anyone but yourself, and lots of shit happens to lots of us. Whatever may have been done to you, it’s over and done with and nothing is going to change it. It doesn’t have to blight your life. And finding someone to blame isn’t nearly as satisfying as you might think. It may make you feel better in the short term, but things are what they are now, and *that’s * what you have to deal with. The only exception to this is if you’re miserable in that you’re carrying around some huge amount of guilt over some even during your childhood. There a confidant of almost any kind can help you to recognize and even believe that, even if you did behave very badly at the time, you were a kid, and kids do stupid and often nasty stuff. It doesn’t make you a monster.
Stop seeing yourself as a victim, even if you have been the recipient of bad treatment. It encourages a feeling of helplessness, and that does NOT help your situation. There are ALWAYS some things you can do that will make things at least somewhat better. You’re clearly bright and well-educated. You have options, no matter how shitty your circumstances may seem.
Bear in mind that there is at least one person somewhere in your life who will be made very miserable if you were to off yourself for reasons other than incurable and terminal suffering (physical). Duty is a word we don’t use much these days, but it doesn’t invalidate the concept. Do you have the right to make another person miserable? Is it worth it to off-load your misery onto them?
Stop thinking in terms of “self-liberation.” That’s just as much bullshit as mortal sin. Suicide isn’t liberation. It’s termination. An end, and a completely permanent one at that. No oops, no re-dos. Once you’ve done it, you have no further options. And if you fail? Well, if it was a really serious attempt, the problem here is that you can REALLY ruin your life. You think you have it bad now? How’d you like to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, or on dialysis, or with serious chronic stomach problems, or worst of all, permanent brain damage? A failed suicide attempt, depending on the seriousness of the attempt, the method used, and the degree of failure, can result in anything from simply making a complete idiot of yourself to damaging yourself permanently in some really nasty ways - and that includes the classic pistol in the mouth method. With bad aim and/or bad luck, you can end up not dead, but seriously brain damaged. Check out some victims of really serious strokes at any local nursing home to see the delights of that. I have a friend who, in despair and ignorance, took an entire bottle of aspirin to kill herself. Aside from it being excrutiatingly painful, she will now have very serious stomach problems (and possibly liver and/or kidney problems) the rest of her life. And that’s on top of the poverty and truly apparent hopelessness of her situation (a single mom of two making enough on paper from child support to disqualify her for financial aid, except for the minor fact that the dad’s won’t pay and haven’t for years - and then she lost her job of sixteen years. With no education, she has been unable to find another.), which changed not at all except to add yet another large medical bill to her pile of unpayables.
I’m not a therapist, just a BA in psych with a long history of depression myself. But these steps will help most people, I think. Run them by a professional if you question them - not every one will agree; there are still those out there who will try to root out every detail of your childhood. I personally subscribe to the belief that your childhood is over, and while examining it may have some value, ultimately it solves nothing.
One last thing. Depressed people are almost always almost entirely self-centered and self-involved - they don’t have the energy to spare for much else. I understand that very well, as do the vast majority of members of this board - as I said earlier, I’m quite sure that at least 50% and probably more of the regular members of this board have been suicidally depressed one or more times in their lives. But it’s something you have to try like crazy to get away from. Self-absorbtion doesn’t help; it makes it worse. TRY (I know it’s very difficult) to do things that take you OUT of yourself. The more you think about how miserable you are, I guarantee that the more miserable you will be. Above all, try to find some way of helping out other people. Nothing makes you feel better about yourself - both from a moral standpoint and from the standpoint of clearly establishing your own competence. Rather than an art class, try helping out at a homeless shelter or something like that - Habitat for Humanity, if you’re any good at doing anything like that. It’s a wonderful morale booster in multiple ways to do something that actually accomplishes something good for another person.
I have to say I find it ironic, given the subject that started all this, that, by his own standards, the OP just called Spectre a big fat liar.
Eep! I could have sworn I saw a post by Spectre clarifying his remark. I was completely mistaken! Sorry about that.
Still, I have to agree that there’s a lot of anger going around this subject for no good reason.
Dracona and Oy!, beautiful posts. Thanks.
Oh dear.
You seem to have a number of issues and use hyperbole on a message board. This does not bode well.
I was born in 1953. I learnt how program a computer from a book. 
Name-calling is allowed in the Pit. You can also be banned. However the rules are perfectly clear (and stated on this very board).
If you avoid being a jerk, that will cover it.
Freedom of speech is a vital part of civilised society, which decent men have fought for. What you are complaining about bears no relevance to that. :rolleyes:
This is a small annoymous message board kindly funded by a small newspaper with moderators working for free (well maybe a coffee mug). You are welcome to set up your own message board. However while on this one, please behave as a guest should.
Pardon the hijack but except for the eating disorders and dysthymic disorder, Dracona just described my SO.
We’re worth your frustrations, time, and effort … as long as we think that we are 
Sounds to me like you went in with a huge chip on your shoulder. Therapy doesn’t work if you go in with that attitude that anything they suggest is stupid, or “tacky”.
:rolleyes:
:smack:
I just realized I already replied to this part in the thread. Never mind. :o
Mine must be broken. It places him right between asshole & drama-queen.
CRAAAAAAWLIIIIIING IIIIIN MYYYY SKIIIIIIINNNNN
THESE WOOOUUUUNNNNNDS THEYYY WIIIILLL NOT HEEEAALLL
…
This is the loud emo whining thread, isn’t it?