Posted on 02/16/2006 5:38:25 AM PST by FNU LNU
I recommend everyone check out some of the psyche boards for depression, suicide etc.....
When you're in it, it's like being in the bottom of a well and some's put the cover on. And taken the ladder out.
The world is shaded with grey, even walking is an effort. It hurts to think. Your emotions are either all or nothing.
Others? Others only add to the misery. Either by reminding you of how worthless you are, pointing out all your failings, or what a monster you are for not feeling compassion, but anger instead. They don't have to say or do anything. Just being around them is like acid on your soul.
So you hate yourself, and as time passes, you really do believe that the world would be better off without you. And you would be better off not trying to crawl through the razor wire of night terrors, regrets, fears, memories.....
Religion? Prayer?
Hmmm, again, like others, it just points out what a devil you are and how your soul is already damned. Again, salt on an already open wound.
It's there, it's real. Words mean nothing. Actions mean less. It just hurts. Your thoughts, your heart, your soul, your eyes, your ears....it just hurts to breath, to live.
Erm,
OK....
Ah....
Hmmmm,
Now you see why I don't keep guns in the house.
Shrinks can be our friends.
God isn't always one size fits all.
Why I believe in better living through chemistry.
And that ADD exists ;)
bump for publicity
Honestly, good for you. I'm glad you were able to bounce back from that. Even though you were caught up in selfishness when you considered suicide, judging everyone else from the perspective of your own experience is a common fallacy in trying to understand human psychology and mental illness.
I would have been dead at the age of 17 had I known to slice the length of your arm instead of across it. As it was, I woke up in a hospital. And even now, 20 years later I sometimes see my wrists and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I did that. I just don't know...I was completely out of my mind. Literally. I was insane with depression and selfishness had nothing to do with it.
There was absolutely nothing I can think of that would have altered my state of mind. Actually possessing all of the hallmarks of "selfishness" wouldn't have changed a thing: having my dream car...having my dream woman...having unlimited gobs of money....nothing. I would still sliced my wrists open.
That's the difference between normal depression that occurs as a result of circumstances and manic depression that occurs as a result of mental illness. Appearently you've experienced extreme depression that you can pin on feelings of "selfishness" but you obviously haven't experienced serious, clinical manic depression that can't be pinned on anything that occurs in your day to day life - that you have absolutely no understanding or control over.
And I genuinely hope you never do because in that circumstance you won't be able to "think of your family and friends" and pull yourself back. There's a very real change that you will kill yourself, and selfishness won't have anything to do with it.
er..."chance"
sw
Amazing post, najida...BUMP!
Why did she do this? My wife was one of the most unselfish people I've ever met. In our discussions when she was mentally recovered enough to talk about it. She stated that she felt that everyone would be much better off if she wasn't there. In her own way, even while struggling with severe depression and mental illness, she was looking out for others.
I used to think like you, mariabush, that suicide was selfish. Not anymore. It is always the result of mental illness so severe as to override our deepest biological imperatives
My wife died on Sep 20th 05 of a seizure. She was still struggling with depression and those same delusions and was actually in a facility to get her meds rebalanced when it happened. Was she suicidal at the time? Yes, she'd been suicidal for the last year. It's only through God's grace that she didn't suicide. In His mercy he brought her home to Him and healed her. Finally, totally, permanently.
My pain, and that of my daughter, is immense. I can't even begin to describe it. But I know that it pales beside the pain of a suicide survivor. I praise God that I didn't have to face that. I question what I could have done better but I know that God was in control and He solved Michele's problems. The suicide survivor normally doesn't have a chance to see it that way
So before being harsh to these people, think about what they've been through. The author of the article has found a way to put hope back into her life and make some sense of a senseless waste. Cut her some slack.
God does fit all. Religion however does not (and can not)
Why I believe in better living through chemistry.
Which is not contradictory to faith in any way. If we can set a bone using plaster and cloth then we can correct a chemical imbalance using drugs.
You continue to be one of my favorite posters. Great post!
While I'm so very sorry for what you've been through, I'm also very grateful you've seen into the 'other world' of MI, depression etc. Nice to have an ally in the darkness.
Sorta like trying to describe colors to a blind person. If they haven't seen, sometimes they can't comprehend. Or like my mother who kept saying "Well, just think happy thoughts!"
More and more research and evidence is coming out about brain chemistry, atrophy and changes amygdala and limbic regions related to abuse and stress, genetics can play a part also.
Blaming the person often is like yelling at someone with a compound fracture for not getting up and running a race. They make look OK on the outside, but on the inside, the ability just isn't there.
As for God, yeah, I guess I meant religion. Whatever path I find, it won't be what most people would choose. It took me this long to realize it's OK if it's different.
It must be pretty damned selfish of someone that has bone cancer to live in constant, intractable pain with no hope of delivery short of unconsciousness or death.
Pretty selfish of someone to not want to live in pain, to not want to be a sight hard to look at, to know that others will have to clean you after you soil yourself...
Yeah, it's pretty selfish to not want to live like that.
My uncle who died slowly of bone cancer and was resuscitated despite a DNR told me his only regret was not taking his own life when it was still in his power to do so and made me promise to never allow myself to get into that position.
I wouldn't have thought it selfish at all for him to have ended his own life.
Actually I am not being harsh even tho it
seems that way. I truly feel sorry for these poor people.
I am so sorry for you lost. I think that maybe you are looking at it in a more postive way because of your faith.
My dear friend and first cousin took a shotgun to his head and ended his terrible pain due to spinal cancer. His wife seemed relieved that the pain was over, but she, a natural remedy freak, would not allow him to have pain medication (morphine) and he was so stressed out, he saw no other way out. I still miss the guy. His former wife has married twice since then and I still have trouble thinking about his unnecessary pain for months and her strange stance.
What a great quote. I don't think people really want to die, they just cannot live anymore.
The last 2 lines fit me to a T. The first - well, I've invested too much of my effort into helping to save the 2nd, so I would never cause any malicious harm with a firearm.
The issue being, I got rid of the gun to protect myself from myself.
I understand. If I ever committed suicide, which I have no plans to, I wouldn't use a gun for the reason I cited above.
I hope you are getting good professional help. I've suffered an unrelenting one off and on all my adult years; the last 15 or so, it is resistant to treatment and drugs, but they help and are better than nothing.
In spite of it all, there are some good days mixed in with the awful ones, and I have pretty much learned to live with it and in spite of it.
The hardest part is being around people who are happy or at least not depressed, and it is difficult to feel like you belong because you feel no joy or happiness, just emptiness and pain.
I sincerely hope things improve for you. Sometimes it just runs its course and you are able to enjoy life again.
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