Hi @Cinta
I just wanted to reach out to welcome you to the forums - it’s great to have you here 💜
I’m so sorry to hear how much you’ve been struggling and as I listened to this part of your story, I can really appreciate the connection between your feelings of sadness and thoughts of suicide 💜
In my experience, living with suicidal ideations can be an incredibly scary, desperate and lonely place to be and as such, I think that it’s great that you’ve been reaching out to the suicide safe houses for some additional support 💜
It can be incredibly distressing, confusing and frustrating when we’re unable to pinpoint the reasons why we feel the way we do and I’ve lost count of the number of times in my life, where I struggled to identify the underlying issues that were contributing to my feelings.
I also found that the longer the feelings lasted, the more hopeless I felt and there were times when I truly believed that I would never feel ok again.
As such, I did everything within my power to try and ‘jolly’ myself out of my feelings - including immersing myself in activities that I believed offered me the best chance to feel happy again. However more times than not, I ended up feeling so much worse, as despite my best efforts I just wasn’t able to change how I felt 💜
Nowadays (even though it’s incredibly difficult) I try to sit with my emotions and tune into what I need to do to take care of them.
For example, when I’m feeling overwhelmed with sadness, I acknowledge how I’m feeling and I give myself permission to feel these emotions. I then check in with myself to see what I need to do to take care of the sadness 💜
Although my ideas tend to vary from day to day, I often find myself reaching out to a helpline or visiting my local safe space for some additional support, as these things help to ease some of the loneliness and hopelessness that goes hand in hand with the sadness.
Although this process is by no means a quick or magic fix (I really wish that it was 💜) by gently acknowledging how I’m feeling, sitting with the sadness and doing what I can to safely take care of it, I begin to notice small but gradual changes in relation to how I’m feeling.
I really hope that some of what I’ve shared helps you to feel a little bit less alone in some of your experiences 💜
Also, just while I remember, one of the things that really helped me when I was new to the forums and still finding my way around, was that if you would like to chat with another forum member, or reply to one of their posts, place @ in front of their username just like I did at the start of my post to you i.e. @Cinta that way, they will receive a message that you have contacted them 😊
Please know that you’re always welcome to reach out to us here whenever you need to 💜
Take kind and gentle care of yourself,
ShiningStar 💜