[short arms....got rub my aching back with my feet]...;D
Posted on 03/01/2011 9:05:12 PM PST by PhilosopherStone1000
So I'm 50. I have a very smart, very beautiful daughter who is a junior in high school.
Every day, I wake up and say to myself "Crap. I'm still alive."
I feel like I've done my job. I have give birth to and raised an extraordinary human being. There's nothing I can do now to advance her career or life.
How much does God expect me to endure? When can I say "I've had enough?" At what point is it rational to jump off that bridge simply because one is tired of putting up with all the crap?
My father died when I was 16 years old.
He had emphysema.
He was not perfect. No one is. But I swear to God there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish he was around me.
When I was 16 I thought I knew everything. Of course I didn’t.
Every one needs their father. I am in my forties now, but I wish I could still have mine.
When my dad was very sick and a few months away from dying, we were sitting in front of a counselor to help him and I with what was going on.
My dad turned to me at one point with tears in his eyes and said, “I wish I told you I loved you more. I should have hugged and kissed you more. I love you”. He then kissed me.
That moment will stick with me forever.
You are still here. YOU can tell her you love her all you want. YOU can kiss and hug her all you want.
You deserve to live. Your daughter deserves that as well.
Prayers out to you fellow FReeper.
LOLOLOL! Love it!
27 years of unremitting back pain here. I think I qualify for the list. LOL
Is your daughter worth sticking around for? Would you want her to think she isn’t? Can you think about her for a minute, and contemplate what that would do to her? If you think your life is tough, how tough do you think you’re about to make her life? Does she deserve that?
My dad killed himself when I was twenty years old. I NEVER GOT OVER IT, and neither did my sister. It affected our entire lives and left us far, far less than we were meant to be.
Please, do not, I beg you, do not take your own life. If you do, I guarantee you, it will have such a horrible, awful effect on your daughter’s life that she may never overcome it...
I’m praying that you do not do that awful, evil thing.
Ed
I knew we needed a ping list! Now, for a catchy name....(since we already have a mascot)
Yeah, volunteer with the SPCA, teach children of prisoners to read, that’s what tell you at the clinic and the groups of whiners. Sorry...
OK, those sound like things that don't appeal to you. (Frankly, they wouldn't appeal to me either.) Find a group that does something that appeals to you.
OR, do something selfish, but healthy. You're in the Bay Area, check out these links:Bay Area Snow Sports Council; Singles League Racing.
They're for ski and snowboarding clubs. You don't have to even KNOW how to ski or board to join, just have an interest in learning. Many clubs have racing programs. You don't have to be anything other than a pathetic beginner (really!) to start racing, the way we have things set up. You don't have to be rich, we find ways to do all this on the cheap (used equipment, discount tickets, cheap lodges, etc.)
This weekend, I'm going up to Tahoe to race a SuperG, which is just one level down from a full Downhill, and we get up to 70 MPH or so flying down the hill.
You'll meet lots of people, your age, some having come from a similar spot, and they're all finding ways of at least getting their asses up to Lake Tahoe and out of the morass of the SF Bay for a weekend.
Seriously, check it out. No "do gooding" required!
Back pain goes with walking upright. Snakes have no back pains.
Your post is going to elicit many responses. Some angry and dismissive, some compassionate. Read all of them. And then do it again.
Life doesn’t always seem like a gift. It can be pretty tough, and it can seem like an overwhelming burden at times. I do not know your situation. I know about the things that hurt most in life, physically and emotionally. And I know about what you are feeling.
I lost several family members and was enduring some chronic pain as a result of injury several years back. My financial situation was terrible, my regrets many. I had recently ended a relationship with a woman I loved and knew it was a mistake to do so. I was haunted by by mother’s death. I was in a dead end job that I hated, and I was drinking. I reached a point one day where I didn’t want to be around anymore. I just didn’t see the point of it and I didn’t think it would matter if I were gone. It wasn’t melodramatic or or ‘reaching out for help’ or something I felt because I was angry - I just calmly arrived at suicide as a legitimate option.
All I can tell you is that something or someone touched me while I was sitting alone in my house. I reached out to my family, to the woman I loved, to myself, to God. I don’t know your faith or your circumstances, but I urge you to reach out and be open to others reaching you. It won’t feel better right away and it isn’t magic, nothing is. Do not let your daughter spend the rest of her days in pain when she thinks of you. Do not let life beat you. Do not give up.
Four years after that day, I am a happy man. I had to work hard and face some demons. I had to forgive myself for some things, and that isn’t easy. I had to learn what was important and what little things to enjoy again. I worked hard to earn a job I enjoy - if you’re retired you can find hobbies or some new friends to enjoy. I am now married to that woman I had lost. Life is precious. It is also frustrating, painful, confusing and difficult. But always precious. Please open your mind and heart to the things in your life that make it worth living. No matter your situation, I can assure you that there are plenty.
I don’t know you or anything about you, but you are welcome to message me here if you wish to talk. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know. Depression, loss, guilt, pain and hopelessness are a part of this life. They can seem overwhelming. There is no shame in this. But giving up, and giving your daughter the experience of her father killing himself - that is shameful. Whatever part of your mind or soul that cannot accept doing that is what you must build upon. Get up, get on the phone or on your knees or outside in the fresh air - take the first step in living the rest of your life. Trust me.
God Bless You. The road ahead is not easy, but it is rewarding and it is a gift.
The Oh My Achy Breaky Back ping list. LOL
We could bulk-buy 9V batteries and compare TENS brands.....;D
L5/S1 compression (10 years or so?) Bulging disc at C3/C4 (1 year) Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue syndrome (19 years) I honestly cannot remember what it was like to live pain free.
I’m worried about the OP guys. It’s almost 1:00 here and I need to get some rest. Guess I’ll pray myself to sleep like I usually do. PhilosopherStone1000 will be in my prayers along with all of you who are in pain, whether it be physical or emotional.
The FReeper CReepers, natch.....:)
She's 16 now, and after ALLLLLLLL you've given, you think you're done? Children go through endless changes, I surely did, but my parents NEVER gave up on me. Disciplined me to the point of necessity, but never walked away. She's just getting into dating and needs you NOW more than ever, no matter what she says to you. I can't post all I want to post to you,as I value this site too much to get my priviledges revoked. I pray this was just a fake post that I got sucked into replying to, that would actually please me.FWIW, I have an 11 year old daughter myself, and I will NEVER give up in giving her guidance as long as I can draw breath.Get your "allegedly smartest girl on earth at AGE 16" sent off to college and then be the way you want to be. What is 2 more years to you now at age 50,hmmm? Sheesh.
Now we're cookin'! That one even comes with a song!
My mother used to threaten suicide quite often. She would leave the house late at night in deep depression and anger and come back about time to get dressed fro work in the morning and tell me how she was thinking of killing herself the night before and why she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
I guess that went on for about five years, while I was in college, living at home. She had a lot of problems. Someone convinced her to see a psychiatrist and she said that the sessions made her so upset that she couldn’t drive, so she asked my sister to drive her. As my sister was sitting in the car, waiting for my mother, she came running out of the doctor’s office in Chestnut Hill, saying that the doctor told her that he knew what was wrong with her and that all she needed was a good man and he was ready any time she was.
You what? I think that cured her. She got mad enough to say that she didn’t need anyone, she could make it on her own. She lived to be ninety three.
[short arms....got rub my aching back with my feet]...;D
You had me ready for some commiseration, there for a minute. It seemed refreshing to hear a hint of genuine agony I could relate with, but not at the expense of folks who haven't lost the capacity for joy.
It's probably a mistake to presume people who still manage to experience happiness are simple-minded or that they "just don't get it."
Some people just can't cut the mustard, its sad but true. And getting old isn't for sissies, either. I've married, reproduced - and also a daughter, who will make me a grandfather in a few weeks, God willing, but it seems like yesterday she was a junior in high school.
But after the past few years in particular, like Solomon I've actually come to envy the dead over the living, and, frankly, I manage to continue more or less a day at a time. I certainly don't relish this surrender to diminished expectations and the "survival level" of an economic bust, at all... especially not after having sacrificed decades fighting it tooth and nail, and at a dear price.
So I feel singularly ill-equipped to supply any reasons for living to you. I can relate, superficially, to your claimed predicament. I really can.
Dying is easy. It's the keeping on living that's hard.
People talk a lot, or used to, about the martyrs of old - the Christians, I mean, facing the lions and all that. And they were brave faithful people, without a doubt. No knocking them, but it seems to me also that dying once can't be harder than dying daily, especially if it's a testimony to the same truth.
Suicide is a choice, and today, one more time, I choose "no," because I can.
It is late and we’ll say a prayer or two and include you, philsopherStone. I hope you can see that with the dimmest of light, there is hope.
Lest we forget the heat/ice...15 minutes off/on.
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