What was your lowest moment?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My lowest moment in all my eighteen and half years was last night.
Last night, I realized that my life could only go up from here, to go any lower I would have to be dead. I had a little pot left in my stash and wasn’t feeling up to rolling it and I wasn’t feeling creative (I haven’t been at all these days) enough to build a smoking aparatus. I didn’t have any food in the house, so I stole a packet of instand oatmeal from my roomate and cooked the weed in that.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m outside assessing my entire situation: I’ve got a really bad haircut, and that coupled with my huge Jew* nose makes for a very unapealling overall apearance. I’m being forced to do a retroactive withdrawl for this semester, my doctor suggested it(I’m not copping out). Its where if you have a medical reason the university will overlook your grades for the semester and not put you on acedemic probation, and also my scholarships won’t be harmed. I’m sad that I had to do this, I’ve always been a high acheiver acedemically. A few months ago I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (shell shock). I can’t sleep without taking 5 sominex, and am almost always woken up in the middle of the night by nightmares (I’m talkin’ bout the kind where Satan talks to you, your muscles cramp up, you see “shadowy figures” across the room, etc…none of that “I’m naked in Burger King” crap) And, as mentioned I’m in the grieving process of a breakup with someone I really fell hard for, so now I’m lonely. I’m shy. I’m a social retard, and its hard for me to hang out with people, I just get so nervous. I spend the majority of my time crying and looking at pornsites. The most social interaction I have is at work and on here, SDMB. I got accepted for a kickass job in New Orleans for the summer at Tulane, but I can’t take it because they were only going to pay me $100 a week…can’t live on that in NO. So I have to move home for the summer, which really really really fucking sucks, I have less friends there than here.

And as I was sitting outside high from the Potmeal and smoking a generic ciggarette, I realized: This is the lowest.

I’m curious, when was everyone elses lowest moment?

And please, no “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Tons of people have it worse than you do.” I know they do, and I’m sorry.

*(I know how un PC that is, please don’t reprimand me for it- actually my mother, who has the same nose, tells me “Its not a Jew nose, its an Indian nose, I hate it too so get a good job and we’ll go have rhinoplasty together” Thanks, mom)

2

I once had a sleeping disorder that was not like any insomnia I’ve ever heard of. It was like I had something wrong with my adrenal glands because if I ever fell asleep even for an instant, even for a split second, I was shocked back awake with a jolt of adrenalin - an intense feeling of fear. The more I tried to relax and sleep the more I felt this awful rise of adrenalin. I used to drink litres of straight gin and vodka to try and get to sleep but it never worked. Our family doctor didn’t believe in sleeping pills and he didn’t believe what I told him anyway. I was in my mid twenties. I had a job, I went to work, but I took more and more time off. People aren’t supposed to be able exist for long without sleep. No one would believe me if I told them how little sleep I had for about 4 years. I wouldn’t even bother trying to convince anyone any more. It was worse than hell it really was. My physical health started to break down as well. Eventually it got so bad that I was forced to commit myself to a mental institution. I was treated for hysteria. My lowest moment was when I was transferred to a men’s ward because of lack of room in the “hysterical section” and I was accosted by two guys. Nothing came of it. I was really lucky. When I got sleeping pills I was able to go back to work. I learnt that there’s a thin line between a civilised life and an uncivilised one. I went overnight from a normal existence to a Francis Farmer kind of thing and back again. I saw some people in the psychiatric facility that I believe only went one way.

3

My lowest was in the summer of 1981. I’d been out of work for seven months, and my wife had left me. I was living in an attic, and the downstairs neighbors apartment was infested with fleas. I returned one day after some fruitless job hunting to find dozens of fleas attacking me, little ugly black spots crawling on my legs.

It couldn’t get any worse.

4

Funny that I should come across this thread today. I’m feeling pretty low myself. Last night I thought of doing myself in. It’s too much to get into details here so I won’t. Anyway, I figured getting onto the SDMB might cheer me up a bit.

I’m feeling a wee bit better actually.

Here’s to you, all you Dopers. You don’t know how glad I am to know you’re here.

To G.Nome, I’m curious about what you said about the mental institution because I’m thinking about checking myself in. This may sound like an incredibly stupid question but how does one go about doing that? If you don’t mind I’d like to email you and ask a couple of questions.

And to answer the OP, my lowest moment has got to be when my gf passed away of a HIV related illness. I know it sounds incredibly corny but it felt like a part of me died with her.

5

My lowest moment was the 24th November 1999. Woke up in a psychiatric hospital (voluntarily there - long story that there’s no need to share with y’all) and I suddenly realised that this was it, this was about as low as it could get. I was fucking up my degree, i was going insane. I was being checked on every 15 minutes and they took away all the sharp objects. I was stupid, humiliated, mental, frustrated, ashamed, angry, obsessed, frightened.

But the point is, I’m none of those things now - I could and did get better. It’s now one and a half years later and i’m happier than i’ve been in a damn long time. I feel like that wasn’t even me back then - or rather, it was a version of me that i struggled with and won over. I still have days when i feel a bit wobbly, but i know what to do now and i know how to deal with it. I took control of my life and dammit that feels good.

Fran

PS dodge_this I’m glad you’re here too. I like ya.

6

About fifteen years ago,I was suffering from profound depression. I had flunked out of college, had no job, no friends, was a social retard living with my parents. When I smashed up my parents’ car I knew I had hit my lowest point. I went back to school, graduated, went to grad school, have had a number of interesting jobs, and consider myself relatively successful.

I wish you well as you work your way back up.

7

Several years ago, The guy I was engaged to cheated on me for a couple of months and soon thereafter left me while we were on vacation. I returned from that vacation to discover my job had been terminated while I was gone (no warning). Two weeks after that, I got very sick and had to have two of what became a total of four operations. One of the operations was botched and I nearly died. My cat died shortly after that. Not fun.

But I got better! I’m great now. Totally.

Rock on!! :smiley:

8

My lowest moment was an entire year: 1999. In October of 98, my girlfriend at the time, who had been my high school sweetheart, left me for the second time. She had been telling me for months that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, then then with no warning she broke up with me. Immediately after that she got together with a friend of mine, and proceeded to flaunt her new relationship in my face.

Around the same time, a friend of mine was in the process of ending a two-year relationship with someone she expected to marry. Finding this commonality, we commiserated together, to the point where we were together constantly. Over the next month and a half I fell for this girl hard, and all the signs pointed to her feeling the same way. I had never flirted or been flirted with so much before or since. I decided I had to tell her how I felt, and one night I did. She told me she didn’t feel the same way, and said she had to go. I followed her outside to her car and we talked there. I moved to kiss her, and she didn’t turn away. I hesitated, I backed away. If she didn’t feel the same way, I thought, it would be wrong. She later told me that if I had tried to kiss her she would have let me. It’s something I regret to this day.

Anyway, a job opened up in my friend’s company, several states away, and she took it. She left in January 99. All the while I still thought that once she got her head together she would come back and be with me. But I was wrong. That summer she met a guy there, and they’re together to this day. That same summer the band I founded and had been with for 10 years threw me out. I responded by drinking myself numb, or at least trying to, almost losing my job in the process. I drank so much that sometime during that July I stopped sweating, which is definitely a danger sign when it’s 95 degrees Farienheit outside. All the while I maintained contact with the only two women I’ve ever been in love with, and burned with jealousy that I could not be with either. No doubt the alcohol helped fuel this.

Eventually 1999 became 2000. I don’t think there was a person on earth happier to see in Y2K than me. With some help, my depression lifted, I moderated my drinking, and reunited with my band.

And there’s a happy ending. I resurrected my friendships with everyone involved, the two women are still with the same boyfriends, only now I’m happy for them.

9

If you can possibly avoid it, never go any place where the TV is so high off the ground that you can’t change the channels. There’s more to my story than is contained in my last post and I don’t live in the U.S.A. but if I can help at all I’d be glad to.

10

I’ve had so many low moments, and they are bad enough I really don’t want to think about them enough to decide which was worse. Ugh.

I will say that the time I tried to kill myself was FAR from the worst.

11

Loislane138,

My sympathies. Reading your situation, that must feel awful.

Thanks for posting this thread - it struck a chord with me.

It sounds like you might be suffering from depression. Have you had a professional check you out for that? If not, you should. Read up on the symptoms on the web, do the self-tests, but SEE A PROFESSIONAL. What do you have to lose? It sounds like you already saw your GP and someone diagnosed you with PTSD - how about getting a second opinion? See as many as you need until you feel better.

>And please, no “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Tons of >people have it worse than you do.”

If you are suffering from depression, then someone telling you that would be like telling a handicapped person to get up out of their wheelchair and quit complaining. It is a totally ridiculous thing to say.

In fact, that precise comment is on several lists of “worst things to say to someone who is depressed”. More useful things they might say to you are here:

http://stripe.colorado.edu/~judy/depression/best.html

There are maybe people who are worse off than you, but that is irrelevant: your pain and suffering are clearly real and not to be dismissed glibly.

In answer to your post: I have suffered from depression all my life, so I have had many “lows”.

However one day sticks out. I even wrote in my diary (which I only maintained for a few months), “Worst day of my life” - and I still believe it today. It was in my 3rd (and final) year at college, so I had some exams coming up which would pretty much settle my entire future. (Pass - successful career. Fail - flipping burgers.) I was a math major so these would not be easy exams - 3 hours apiece, each contributing significantly towards my degree, so huge stakes.

I was undergoing major depression (in the clinical sense) - couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to do anything but lay in bed, yearned only for oblivion. Imagine trying to concentrate on studying Quantum Mechanics, Complex Algebra or General Relativity under these circumstances. Of course I couldn’t - so I dreaded these exams, and the effect that failing them would have on my future.

We were supposed to be applying for jobs - we’d be leaving college in a couple of months and had to join the workforce. Most of my peers had applied for dozens of jobs. I hadn’t been able to motivate myself to apply for ANY, so I had unemployment looming over me. I beat up on myself constantly. This was a huge pressure too.

Worse, a girl I was deeply in love with and had been dating for several months, suddenly decided she wanted to date one of my neighbors. Therefore, I had the “pleasure”, while trying to study, of looking out the window and seeing them together, having fun. I ran out of tears that semester. He had a car and I didn’t - she wanted someone to take her home for the holidays. That was how it started. But they ended up together and I was alone, with few friends, too depressed to study for the most important exams of my life.

There was one particular weekend where he was taking her home to her parents. She came over on the Friday to drop some things off to me - which poured salt on the wound. I was left with the weekend to ponder things.

That was the worst weekend/time of my life. Even to this day.

Epilog: That was 10 years ago. I can still feel the pain and torment like it was yesterday. Even with perspective, that was the worst weekend of my life. I scraped through the exams and am reasonably successfuly professionally now. I still suffer from depression. I’ve no idea what happened to the girl.

12

It’s a tie between two different moments.

First was when I realized I was addicted to SI(self-injury) and couldn’t go a minute without thinking about it. On top of it, I was majorly depressed, thinking about dying, with thoughts of suicide, couldn’t eat, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t feel, was just a nonfeeling being.

The other was when I was in the shower and felt the definition of my clavicle. In the past few months, I’ve dropped 3 clothing sizes and 15 pounds. Just getting thinner everywhere, never noticing it, never believing it was really affecting me, until I felt that bone. Just cried for a few hours about stuff, and that thought of losing all my control again, completely confused what to do.

Still am completely confused. It’s a horrible cycle that I can’t get break.

13

The past one hundred hours have been the most traumatic of my life. Until now, I never knew that pain could be a physical manifestation that changes your philosophy, pollutes your thoughts, destroys your concentration, and wrecks all motivation.

While always somewhat appreciative, I never fully realized how high the quality of my life was: money, youth, health, mobility. I’ve temporarily had all of that taken away; its as if the scales were lifted from my eyes and I could see forty or fifty years into my future. Or perhaps much, much sooner than that.

I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, because I’m suddenly cognizant of how valuable my time is right now, in terms of both enjoying myself now and preparing myself for the future.

Right now, I can only sit here and try to ignore the 400 pound gorilla sitting on my balls. But I’m getting better, and soon things are going to motherfucking change for the better around here. They have to.

14

November 1998.

I was in Utah visiting my sister and her family. Her youngest had been fighting cancer for a year and we had just found out he was terminal. I had helped take care of him and his older brother. I consider them both,and so does my sister,my sons as well.

I had to leave to come back to Chicago and I had to say goodbye to Craig knowing I was really saying goodbye forever. I hugged him as tight as I could w/o hurting him,kissed every inch of his face and the whole time I knew I could not break down in front of him.

Once my cab got out of sight of the house I wept from there until I got off the plane.

I still to this day tear up looking at pictures of him and wondering if he’d still be the little punk rock boy…

Craigy-poo,my fierce Wolverine…always remember Yaya loves you. :slight_smile:

15

Hmmm… My lowest moment…
Actually, there have been several:

1984
…Getting the news that I was going to be kicked out of the U.S. Army due to my alcoholism…
…A few weeks later, hearing that my fiance was pregnant with our child…
…31AUG84. Being escorted to the gates at Fort Myer, Virginia as a U.S. Army Combat Medical Specialist, and emerging on the other side as a civilian…

1988
…Pawning the family’s microwave to feed my newly acquired crack cocaine addiction…
…Losing the job I loved after stealing money to feed my addiction…
…Having my wife remove all doubts as to where all the $$$ was REALLY going. She walked right up to me as I sat in the car with a crack pipe in my mouth…
…My wife taking the kids, and leaving me after discovering my addiction…

1992
…Spending the first of many nights in a dowtown homeless shelter…

1993
…Sitting in an abandoned apartment building, holding a razor blade over my wrist, crying over a photo of my wife and I during happier times. Too afraid to live, yet too afraid to die…
…Eating my first meal from a McDonald’s garbage dumpster…

February 10, 1994
…Awakening in a jail cell, charged with B&E and theft, fully prepared to fulfill my destiny as described in the Alcoholics Anonymous “Big Book”. (Jails; Institutions; or Death)…

That was the last time I had a drink or a drug. I realized at that time, that I really didn’t want to spend anymore time as a PRACTICING addict. I’ve been clean, and sober for over 7 years now. Married the world’s greatest woman 18 months ago, and became a father again 5 months ago.

I know you didn’t want any inspirational stories, but I just couldn’t resist.
Anyway, when you think things are as bad as they can get, and couldn’t possibly get any worse, always remember:
“At least I’m not SLAUGHTER”

16

Well it doesnt qualify as the worst moment of my life but receiving my first DUI while having a BAC of 3.64 this last Friday sure sucked. Fucking OZ.
I believe the wagon has rolled over the top of me. I am a dumbass.

17

Wow…just reading through the threads…I am rendered speechless. It’s rather amazing that ‘your worst moment’ is so easy to define; I read the subject and right away placed my own.

I was 18 (I’m 22 now). I had been depressed for years but didn’t know it and had never been diagnosed. It was the summer after my first year of college. I had been lonely and spent most of the second semester mooning over a jerk that used me emotionally. I returned to my parents’ house for the summer, and started working again. It was the start of my second (as I can now see) depressive episode. I was angry: at my parents for bringing me into this shitty life; at the person who cut me off on the highway; at myself for not being able to change anything though I so desperately wanted to. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep, or I slept all day. I was mean, intolerant, short-tempered, and all-around bitchy.

I was at work one night, and I got into a tiff with another employee. My boss got wind of it, and came over to find out what was going on. I went crazy, saying he had disrespected me and been rude…and my boss stopped, and looked at me with pity and confusion, and said slowly, “What is wrong with you?” I burst into tears and began to tell him: my dad, school, church, on and on…he just shook his head and loooked sadly at me. I soon realized that this was not life; ‘real’ life could not hurt this bad, or everyone would be killing themselves. I had to change, and as cliche as it sounds, I had to hit bottom before I could see it.
I no longer cared what I would have to do; I went and saw a psychiatrist and got my prescription for my green and white pills. (Before I started I was certain taking drugs would mean I was crazy.) But I no longer cared…I just kept thinking, this is not how life is. I remember talking to a professor, back at school, and seeing a huge pine tree through her window. I told her that I had reached a point so low that if eating that tree would make me better, I would do it.
A few months later, I was walking across the central quad, and looked up at the blue sky through the autumnal trees, and felt a warmth fill me. I realized: this is normal; this is how most people feel, and this is the best I’ve felt in years.

And though you’re not looking for consolation, I will make my small attempt: if it’s true that you must hit bottom to see the possibility that life holds, you have, and the possibilities are endless from here. I have grown so much as a person; I was so frightened when I started on meds that I genuninly was a bitchy, unfriendly person, and I would be left with the reality of that. But I’m not. I have a doofy sense of humor, love to laugh and joke and have even found love a few times (and a penchant for thinking that my story may help another person, of course).
I wish you hope.

18

I’m not entirely sure where my “lowest point” was. Some parts of my say I’m still on the far edge of it, others are saying it’s not over yet, and still others are saying random things like “Tuna tree galloping” and “Jean Claude Van Koover”.

Anyway…

In all my life, I’ve had a “girlfriend” once. And that lasted for less than 24 hours (that’s pretty pathetic, actually, but have no sympathy for me… you’ll find out why in a moment). Things ended rather poorly, but after a while it began to improve, and it probably would have improved if it weren’t for one thing.

See, I lied to her a lot. About little, insignificant things, but it doesn’t change the fact that I lied to her. She began to suspect things were fishy, but she was the trusting sort. However, things finally reached a head (for a completely unrelated reason), and I broke down and told her everything. The conversation took several hours.

What followed was a month of pure, unadulterated depression. See, other times that I felt a bit down, I was always able to attribute it to some external source, but this time all I could think about was “You fucked up, SPOOFE my boy.” Now, I’m manic-depressive most of the time anyway, but good goddamn, that whole month seemed like an eternity, just a constant barrage of self-depreciation. It was all the worse because I knew I deserved it.

I managed to climb out of my Funk Of All Funks (hint: I didn’t do it alone, laws no), but the whole experience still haunts me. I’m always paranoid about repeating the experience, and I’m almost constantly reminded of me ruining that shot at love I had whenever I see other people who are in love themselves.

That’s the lowest period of my life, and I mean scum-sucking shit-licking gutter-dweller-and-beyond LOW. I hope I don’t regret posting that to the Boards.

19

[marginal hijack] Actually, SPOOFE, that was pretty brave of you to post that. It was brave of loislane138 to start the thread. It was brave for the other posters to respond. Nobody likes to admit that they may have screwed up or made bad decisions or maybe just had a nervous breakdown or something. It helps to remember that stinky stuff happens to all of us; and sometimes just reading about how others handled stuff (or didn’t handle stuff) can really help. I don’t think you’ll regret it. It really helps us posters get to know each here other without shedding our anonymity if and when we’re ready. This thread in particular has made me do a lot of thinking. [/marginal hijack]

20

(well, my story is nowhere near as sordid as some of your tales, but here goes:)

last year, when i was able to pinpoint where all the new found “affection” for one of my best friends was coming from. yeah, straight from the last three guys i had been involved with. i had been flirting with one of my best friends. for months. because i was a totally insecure nightmare. i don’t think i’ve ever felt like a bigger piece of shit, especially when i realized what was going on, he wanted “more,” i wanted drastically less, and he wound up getting (unsuccessfully) romantically involved with two of my good friends since he couldn’t have me. (although this is where he crosses the line into obsession, i still can’t help but feel somewhat responsible.) essentially, i singlehandedly destroyed one person’s faith in the female species.

hmm. some people would be proud, i suppose.