BeeGeeSenior Contributor
How to go on
I'm not really sure why I'm posting... I guess I'm feeling like I'm running out of options...
** WARNING - POTENTIAL TRIGGERS FOLLOW, STOP READING NOW IF AT RISK **
I feel like my life is in the toilet right now. I've suffered depression since my teens and am now middle aged, but only got a diagnosis around 6 years ago. Treatment has been only mildly successful. As a result of my unrecognised depression I made life pretty s#!tty for my kids and wife; my kids now refuse to talk to me and my wife asked me to leave last week, which I did. It feels like everything I've tried to do or be has been snatched away from me and I have no control over anything that is currently happening to me. I have partially opened up to a couple of good friends and they are trying to be supportive, but I know I can't be completely open with them or I will probably lose them too. I spent most of one day last week battling with my mind displaying for me in graphic detail all the ways I could terminate my miserable existence, some of which I had never considered before... was definitely the worst head space I can remember being in since the day I almost ended everything in my teens. The worst part of it all is that I know I'm responsible for my own predicament. I can't blame anyone else. I feel like if only my kids would talk to me we might get somewhere but they just won't, and I have no way to bridge the gap. I went as far this week as making a suicide plan - all the details - but didn't follow through. By the next day I had pulled back from the precipice just a little, but I still feel myself sitting within spitting distance of the metaphorical cliff. I'm looking at potentially the rest of my life alienated from the people I have cared about the most and I can't see any way to fix it. I despise myself, I blame myself, and even now I can hear the standard responses about how I should have self compassion and love. God knows I've said it to others often enough, but the words ring hollow when I try to apply them to myself - after all I know the real me that I've kept carefully hidden for so long. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about - "if they really knew the real me they wouldn't want to know me". Intellectually I know that's part of the whole depression schtick, but it nonetheless seems inescapably true. The delicious irony is that if I'd just been prepared to be more vulnerable years ago I might not be where I am now. But I am, and it's s#!t. I don't expect answers, I don't want to call Lifeline or Beyond Blue, I don't even know what the point of this post is other than to rant and vent and offload some of the intolerable feelings I am feeling. My standard coping mechanism for most of my life has been to shut down when painful feelings come along; this is broken and unproductive but it's been how I've managed to date, but I've made the commitment to myself that that has to stop. I will sit in these intolerable feelings and learn to experience them. Maybe I will survive them, maybe I won't. I just don't know. I only know that something has to change and this is one of the few things in my control right now so I'm changing that.
I know this all seems so pitifully self indulgent. You might say that I've made my bed and now I have to lie in it - and I can't argue with that. It's true. You might say I've already lost just about everything so the only way forward from here is up - but maybe I might lose my career as well... the last thing I have left that I have built. I honestly think that would be the last straw. I'm homeless and loveless, and to be jobless as well scares the bejeesus out of me.
I'm sorry for this morbid rant. But I feel like I need to express these things to someone, even if I have no idea who you are, or you me. Thanks for reading this far.
you sound as if your feeling really alone and dont want to loose anyone or anything else,let me tell you right now that you are not alone,I dont know you by name but you are a special human being,you are so strong for being here despite everthying youve gone through and are still going through,we all get lost at times,we all have a purpose in life that we try so hard to find,we all have strengths and weaknesses,we are all doing the best we can,your not alone please dont give up,look up,and allow yourself to take a deep breathe,allow yourself some time to cry or scream but please dont give up on yourself,think of all those people that youve helped in life just by being there for them the people youve told to be self compassionate,the people that you may have made a positive difference to,please remember that you may not feel heard and seen right right but you are infact seen and heard there are people who have noticed the difference to their lives,your life is not meaningless you are a unique person with unique strengths and abilities the truth is there will never be another human in this world that is the same as you so please hold on,hold on you are so brave
