I’ve spoken to endless doctors and shrinks, taken lots of different pills and lived in lots of different countries.
Tonight I faced up to the fact that nothing has worked for me in this life and if I don’t do something that does, I will be dead within the year.
What, if anything, can a person do to make an unbearable life worth living?
Maybe this should be a GD, maybe an IMHO thread, who knows how this thing will turn out. All I know is that at the very least I need a potential solution to occupy my mind, suicide will continue to occupy it.
No virtual hugs, no “you have so much to live for” baloney and absolutely no “but life isn’t too bad!” crap will be tolerated.
I need to try something new.
Make somebody else’s life worth living instead. Volunteerism, self-sacrifice and organ donation. If all you have left to give is what’s left of your life, then do it.
I just found out yesterday that I’m going blind. It might take years or decades, but it’s gonna happen. As the old saying goes, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
I can see you’ve tried many things, and I can tell you’re frustrated because nothing has worked for you.
It’s a humble suggestion, but one I’d like you to consider in ernest. Find a Buddhist to speak to, a serious student. It’s a whole different way of tackling lifes problems, of thinking about lifes trial and addressing lifes frustrations.
Buddhists aren’t like Jehovah Witnesses they won’t try to convert you, I promise, and that’s not why I’m suggesting it.
They harbour a different way of looking at our world that might just speak to you.
Maybe it’s worth a try.
Most importantly please keep trying, don’t give up.
Wow. I don’t think that there’s anything I can say that will be close to adequate, but reading your post makes my heart hurt.
Depending on your financial situation and location, you might want to try just doing something new. Anything new. Not necessarily to form a new habit, but to experience something that is completely apart from whatever misery you’re in right now. Something that has no associations to it other than being maybe something you’ve wanted to try for a long time, or just admire other people for doing.
Sign up to go rock-climbing, or for a sailing class. Buy a guitar and take some lessons. Try your hand at pottery or painting or writing detailed letters to a friend far away. Try out an exotic martial art. Don’t expect yourself to be good at it or even enjoy it at first, and give yourself timme to really learn about what you’re becoming involved in.
I have no idea how you feel about these things, but when I want to stop focusing on myself, I try to do for other people (or for me, animals). I’ve started volunteering at a wildlife shelter. It hasn’t exactly raised my opinion of human beings, but at least I feel like I am countering other people’s stupidity and selfishness by making an animal healthy again. It made me feel good about myself, too. Maybe there is an opportunity you could follow up on, to know that you are having a positive impact on the world.
Thanks for the suggestions people, I like the idea of not giving up on the rest of the human race despite my own miserable life
As for the Buddhist thing, it’s funny you should mention it. I’ve read up on it some, and I’ve been thinking about going to a monastery somewhere to gather my thoughts together and see the simple side of life.
Maybe that’s something I can persue…
But I tell ya, it all looks meaningless right now. I guess I need to find a reason to even want to change things. I tend to complicate even the most simple agony with my own demotivational thoughts.
I’ve been reading this thread and I keep thinking of my own struggles with motivation, whether it’s procrastinating on an ooky task, getting off my fat ass to get some exercise, or whatever. And I’ve found that the best course is to just force yourself to just take whatever first step is needed. Tell yourself, “Yuck, I hate this,” or whatever is going through your head, as you do it. But do it.
For me, getting started on that ooky task means sitting at my desk. First step done. Sharpen a pencil. Step two. (“I don’t want to be doing this!” “Shut up and do it anyway, bitch!”) Before I know it, I’ve dug in.
Exercise? Go upstairs and find some shoes and socks. Yuck. But do it. Now put them on. Ride your own ass as if you’re a three-year-old, if you need to. Whine. But do it. Now go outside and start walking. After a few minutes, the endorphins kick in and I feel better already.
Perhaps you can find some nugget in here to apply to your Buddhist monastery idea. Perhaps it will help if I point out that you’ve already shown some motivation by recognizing that you need a change, and asking for help here. I do believe that you’ve already accomplished your Step One.
I echo what Scarlett said. I too, have at times felt like giving up, so I have to work up the strenght to kick myself in the ass to get me “out of the box”. For me it is doing something I do not at all feel comfortable with. For example, I have felt that I was unappealing, clutsy and a big doofus, however I made myself take dancing lessons, two step, salsa etc. and realized I am not the only one, and it has definitely boosted my morale and confidence. The important thing is to just do something.
Read my sig. The universe is random and pointless; the only meaning that exists in it is that created by us.
However many doctors you’ve spoken to, pills you’ve taken or countries you’ve lived in, you haven’t begun to scratch the surface of the human experience. There are literally millions of things you haven’t tried.
Maybe none of them will trip your trigger, even if you spend your whole life trying. But you can learn to enjoy the search itself.
All suicide or some other death would bring is the end of new experiences, and it sounds like that’s the last thing you want.
So I’m guessing something happened after we last spoke last night. I’ll be around for quite a few hours yet if you want to chat.
You know that I’m going to tell you that your observation point is a difficult one, because you live in a situation which is substantially at odds with your own belief system.
Whether Buddhism will do it for you or not, only your own experience of it will decide, but there are many, many options out there for you to explore, and I think you might find the simple lifestyle an awful lot more fulfilling than living in the rarified atmosphere where you are now.
Right now you have the option of doing little or nothing for yourself, a retreat of some kind would certainly be worthwhile, but a retreat somewhere where you’re as physically involved in making the simple day to day necessities of food and shelter happen might be even better.
I’ll catch up with you later in chat - take it easy for now.
When I was 13- THIRTEEN YEARS OLD! - I had to spend almost a month in the hospital. When I got there, I had to get my stomach pumped and I had to get stitches. I can’t even remember how many now but the doctors did a really good job because, looking at my stomach right now, I can’t even see a scar. Wanna know what happened? I drank. A lot. Of tequila. Then I took ephedrine. A lot of it. And I stabbed myself in the stomach with a butcher knife and pulled up as hard as I could.
I’ve slit my wrists. I’ve nearly drank myself into a coma countless times. I’ve hung myself. Read my sig, it’s the most accurate one on this whole board. If I had the balls to do it, I’d shoot myself in the head.
All I can say is do it right the first time. Make sure you get the job done because the worst thing that can happen is knowing that you’re such a fucking failure that you can’t even commit suicide right.
Morrison-- When I found out that my mother fucked my neighbor, and betrayed me. and that she had be constantly lying to me for the past few months about everything, my whole life collapsed around me.
What made it worse was that at/around that same time my grandmother died.
it still hurts immensely to think about it, and it occupies my mind every day.
The only way I got out of that depression was go to a counselor, not a psych or a shrink, just a counselor. I got to talk about anything I wanted to.
Another thing I did was let out my agression safely, eg: trapshooting and pyrotechnics.
The Most important thing that I did, though, was surround myself with friends, and that made me happiest. Doing what I enjoyed most at all free time helped me out immensely.
Morrison, my buddy, if you ever wanna talk about anything, I’m always on mIRC, ICQ, and AIM
I’ve sympathies with elbows suggestion, but do suspect that, people being people, there are probably Buddhists out there who put Witnesses to shame in creepy conversion factor. But the philosophy itself can be helpful in combatting the tendency to complicate difficulties; simplifying doesn’t make those difficulties lived with any easier in themselves, but it can make them easier to bear, which is usually the bigger problem.
I have always found that simply focusing on the moment helps me. If you forget about the past and the future it wont bother you, at least not emotionally.
Drop it all, leave, start over. Walk out. Get lost.
A long time ago, I had no hope left, suicide was the only option I could see. I lit out, travelled around, didn’t talk to anybody I knew for years. It hurt them, but not half as much as if they’d have seen me buried.
Oh, and if you’re smoking weed, remember that it’s a depressant. And it works really well. Give it a rest, things look better.
Morrison, I was going to post a big long post about how I used to lay awake at night and pray to God that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning, because I was too much of a coward to kill myself. God knows I wanted to, and would have many times over if I’d had the courage. But I didn’t. So I haven’t. I used to cry myself to sleep every night. I was always the chubby, ‘funny’ kid who’s smarter than the rest and no good with girls, you know, the kid that always got beat up in the locker room? One day I just cried myself out… eventually I had cried so much there was no more pain to cry about. So I stopped crying, and stopped caring, stopped praying for my own death, and stopped hoping things would get better or I’d die. I just gave up trying to change things and work for a better life, and accepted things as they are and as they will be. Sure, life still sucked, and still sucks, but if you don’t care how bad it is, it can’t affect you. Fuck it man, who cares? Who the fuck cares? You can’t be hurt anymore if you don’t care about pain. I know that’s not the most constructive advice, and certainly not the best, but it’s all I have. Good luck with life, man. Hate it and fight it and attack it with all you have, and make it surrender to you everything that is contained within. But don’t ever let it go.
I’ve never been sure. Either I’ve gone through some periods of depression, or I’ve never been other then depressed, and the periods I’d label as “depressed times” were just worse then normal periods. But I’ve never been tempted by suicide. Even in the worst times, there were things I could enjoy / lose myself in; reading, in particular.
And I’m very good at distracting myself. As a child (under ten), I was sent to bed at what my parents considered a reasonable hour. My body didn’t agree. Not being at all sleepy, I’d lie there for what seemed like hours before falling asleep. I can remember times when, night after night, I’d lie there feeling utterly desolate about trivial things that almost never bothered me during the day; during the day, I didn’t let myself think about them. But at night, there was nothing to distract myself with.
Eventually, my parents gave up trying to make me go to bed at any particular time. Since then, I’ve never tried to go to sleep before I was so sleepy it was a sure thing I’d fall asleep almost immediately. I may go to bed at a reasonable hour sometimes, but I lie there and read until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.
So I guess that’s my advice: never lie in bed obsessing about the bad stuff in your life. Don’t put yourself in that situation. Don’t try to go to sleep until you’re really, really sleepy. Recovering alcoholics are told not to put themselves in situations where they’ll be temped to drink. Well, depressed people should be told not to put themselves in situations where they’ll be alone with their thoughts – no distractions – for any length of time.
If you have to get up at a set time for work or school, you will be tired a lot of the time, because you’ll be trying to get along on too little sleep. This is not a bad thing – being tired means you don’t have the energy to obsess about this, or worry about that. And eventually, you’ll be tired enough to go to bed, and immediately to sleep, really early. Or you’ll catch up on the weekend.
Come to the USA, Morrisons, a fresh start always helps.
I’ve been there too - in a hardcore-deep well of depression. I broke out though… not exactly sure how I did it but I’ve been kicking my ass ever since. Achievement really feels good, when you set out to do something and get it done. Sometimes you have to hit bottom to get on top. My life was in such a deep hole a number of years ago. I was on the verge of being a total loser. Somehow I climbed out. It took a while, but I did it. And I decided to kick myself in the ass in the process, told myself you must do this, you must better yourself, you’re gonna be here for many many fucking years to come. Suicide is not an option - it’s a selfish, easy (no offense slvr hon), wussy way out. Why not a have a good fucking life for a change?
Blur out the past, seed the future. Give the present your attention now. But first, try to design your future a little bit - you can make it whatever you want. Use your energy to ascend up the ladder of life and NOT to think about what you’ve climbed, it’s such a waste to do that.
Exercise sucks… until you get in a habit of it. Then it makes you feel so good. It’s a win-win type of thing. You feel good, are more healthy, productive etc… Many things in this life are win-win situations and lose-lose situations as I see it. Most people seem to pick one or the other. Figure out how to make the right decisions and you’ll be on the “winner” side of the divide. Furthermore, eat well. Try to have a balanced diet, it really helps make a difference.
first off, get over to the lama temple tomorrow. get in when the gates open (9:00) I think, and go straight back to the furthest hall where they hold the chants. sit down, clear your mind, and listen to the tibetan tantric chanting. if it does anything for you, then take at least a month this summer to go backpacking in Tibet.
it is humanly impossible to be depressed in tibet. the people are amazing and faced with perhaps the harshest environment in the world, have lived through an historic period as bad as any group of people have lived through, and they are the warmest, happiest, joyful people you will ever meet. It’s best to go backpacking, so you can climb a hill in the middle of nowhere and find a cairn and prayer flags flying. You go over a rise and find an amazing monastary full of monks or nuns who welcome you like a brother. Hang out in a village that will show you the cycle of life and put things in perspective. When you are alone in nature as wild as tibet, people often lose a lot of their egos. Nature is amazing and you are just a little speck – does wonders for your sense of perspective.
Annual trips to tibet got me through a real bad 5 years.
alternatively, you can always head over to sanlitun and try find a religious experience.
Yesterday was a very very bad day, today could be worse.
There’s still something needed to make this crapfest of a life all worth it, but I’ve logged down all your suggestions and will look at them all seriously.
The most immediate thing I’ll do is probably visit that temple, if only to try and think with a little clarity.
