The “fake happiness†is gone, but I’ve had more numbness than despair lately. I still like to think about and plan my death, but the urge to act on it isn’t there, more often than not. Progress? Maybe. A friend who needed a place to stay is crashing on my couch, and probably will be for the next few months if not the rest of the year. I don’t like the idea of killing myself while someone lives with me. Would rather be alone. Then again, at least there’d be someone there to feed the cats.
The knowledge that I’ll never get married or have kids weighs on me like a ton of bricks. “You can’t know that for sure,†they say. But I do. In my gut, I know. I’ve known it since I was a teenager. I just forget from time to time. I’ve always wanted more than I can have. My idea of love has never been accurate or real. As a teen, I dealt with it by creating this fantasy world I’d lose myself in. I’d forgotten that too. I even made up words to distinguish my false ideas from reality. Reading my old diaries is bringing back some memories. In some ways I was smarter then than I am now.
Life seduces me at times with its promises of normalcy, security…happiness…it’s all a lie. The logical part of my brain knows it’s a lie even for those I envy. Yet I still hear “not for you†in my head all the time, a constant reminder of my freakishness. They want me to be the person I was before. How can I be when I hate that person? No thank you. Maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong. Maybe I can develop another fantasy, a more sophisticated one, and spend my days lost in it. (I used to do online role-playing, but got addicted to it and hurt by it and I’d just rather not depend on anyone else) Would that satisfy them? I’d still be around, they wouldn’t have to mourn my death…I’d be “alive†by their definition. That nagging little voice would still remind me that I’m wasting resources. Isn’t it enough that I’m not causing my loved ones pain?
I want to hit bottom because I feel like that’s the only way to start climbing back up. Do or die. All or nothing. Black vs. white. But maybe I’ve already hit bottom. Can I without being aware of it? What the hell do I expect? No one is coming to ~save me~ from anything. In part because life doesn’t work that way, but also because I protect them all from the truth. They don’t know there’s anything that needs saving. *I* can’t save me because I’m too weak. Maybe if I keep hibernating for a while, I’ll emerge with enough strength eventually, and the world will look different to me. Is that what this elusive thing called “hope†is about?
Thank you to anyone who read my babble.
45 comments
life is a false paradise death is the real thing
Or death could be nothingness.
i wish i could help. but i doubt this will help. to me – it sounds like you have not hit bottom yet. I know when i got to the point of some of my attempts – i had ZERO doubt that death was by far the best answer. There was no question that living simply did not matter.
the fact you still have some hope or semblence of hope tells me that you are not there yet (at least in my opinion).
I HOPE you find a way back up to normalcy. Best wishes to you.
Makes sense. I WANT there to be a bottom, but I want to control what it is. For example I don’t want to get fired from my job for some incident involving a handgun that strips away my required fingerprint clearance :\ In December I was absolutely certain death was better than life. Now I’m just “meh” about it.
Thank you 🙂
SadBK: When I was verbalizing similar feelings, 2 people said to me, separately, that I had died internally–my soul had died–but that I should not confuse this with suicide. An MD recommended I read Suicide and the Soul by James Hillman.
I am now about to go live on an island, far from anything I know, with none of the former pieces of myself that defined my identity (career/profession, financial independence, certain friendships, lifestyle). I am still suicidal, but I want to give this “soul” thing a chance. I’m not a religious or spiritual person, but maybe there is something about really reaching the end of the line where suicide or being a completely different person are the only options.
That’s interesting. I don’t feel like I can ditch my life here to go live on an island, but if circumstances change (if I lose my job & my house, mainly) maybe I could consider that before giving up on the idea of life altogether. I’m finding it very difficult to change things I consider part of my core personality. (I hope you’ll still have internet access on this island to keep us updated!)
Life is what you make it. Death is the end of it and the start of something else.
But if it’s really what we make it, why don’t we all make it wonderful?
Yeah… the start of what…if only we could know for sure what came after death.
I like fantasy worlds and role playing, in fact I’ve done it so much to where I actually write stories about them as if they were a real book ( the fantasy not the roleplay). You seem like a very poetic person, and it would be a shame to loose you when people like you are dwindling in this careless world of “social norms”. The fantasy world you have is something you should grab onto, if you can’t find happiness yet at least let part of yourself be happy.
That’s the thing, you can make it wonderful. You just have to get out there and search through that pile of shit for that one shard of a diamond. It’s not easy, but I promise you, you’ll find those people that help you carry on and encourage you to be you. One thing that was hard for me was the trusting part, I chose one person and I’m trusting him with deep dark secrets little by little ( I’ve been doing for five years ) because I have to trust someone and feels good to express my true self.
Good for you — over the span of 5 years you probably have a good sense of his trustworthiness with your secrets.
If I find a shard I end up stabbing myself with it 🙁
I used to write fanfiction also. I just can’t seem to do it anymore. I haven’t even been able to distract myself with the fantasy that’s out there, like Game of Thrones, which fits my “must be depressing” mantra… still I resist it.
Anyway. Thank you, how kind of you to consider me poetic!
Socrates said even if death is nothing its still a wonderful gain
Hmm. Unless we don’t want to gain nothing, we want peace and happiness delivered to us?
i like that quote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…I’d like further explanation of that quote, for to gain nothing would be to loose everything. It’s like adding numbers together.
Don’t be so negative, I know you would stab yourself with something so precious and if you did you’d never loose it, it would be a apart of you forever like great happy memory you’d never want to forget. You have to want that want to take control of your urges sometimes, you can say ” that’s not for me” because nobody is born above or beneath you, the only thing stopping you IS you, all you have to do is reach for it with the passion of obtaining it and making it apart of your life.
I feel like that’s what I did, though, and it brought me here. I was sooooo happy a year ago. I can’t stop wishing it was a year ago and I know that’s futile.
Maybe it wasn’t a diamond, it was just cubic zirconia and I’m too dumb to know the difference. But… it was so shiny… better and brighter than anything I’d seen so far… *sigh*
I believe there will never be nothing in the universe because we all came from something and I know it was something with greater meaning than a random explosion in outer space. If nothing exist then there’s nothing to it, it just is- no happy no sad no conscious just non-existence. I would rather fade away and become a shadow of a greater obstacle and watch from back where no one could see me and by comparison I could be nothing. Nothing is something I think never is because nothing is always something.
It doesn’t matter what it is, what matters is that you cherished it and loved it because it made you happy. You even seek it now. The feeling you have right now is a sign of your wants in life, and if you ever get these feelings for anything: a boy, a book, etc. you should charge right at it and do your best to make it apart of your life.
My best wasn’t good enough, that’s the problem 🙁 And now things that used to make me happy are tainted.
“Fake Happinessâ€
If someone forgets that they are pretending to be happy would they be happy
Realising that they are happy they remember that they must be pretending so were they ever happy?
We create these knots all the time.
Focus on an emotion transforms the emotion to a thought and the thought into an object were the emotion dissipates and is replaced by a general mood the thoughts generate. (For the depressed – Being unhappy is a general fall back mood)
The depressed constantly wonder
What am I feeling?
Did I feel it?
What did it feel like???
What events created it?
How can we hold on to it?
All the above questions actually killing the object being examined because it has become an OBJECT! And happiness is a way of BEING not having!
Unable to quantify and hold this feeling of happiness that apparently we can fake we revert to our default mode of BEING which is un-happiness!
So basically there’s just happiness and unhappiness, not real or fake? I should clarify…when I say “fake happiness” I don’t mean it like I’m pretending, just that it’s based on things that aren’t real… “false” would be more accurate, I suppose. I recognized it as unreal. I’ve wondered if the happiness right before my depression was all false and I just didn’t realize it. That’s what my head tells me. And if that was false, I’ve never felt truly happy nor will I ever feel happy again. The best I can hope for is not-sad. Sometimes I pretend to be okay and find that I am actually… kind of okay. :\
yes we do want peace
“*I* can’t save me because I’m too weak.”
sure you can save yourself – because you are actually fighting YOURSELF – all those thoughts in your head aren’t so external entity putting views and feelings in your head – they are YOU – you are creating the very thoughts and feelings that you claim to not be able to fight against – but if you can create something so supposedly strong that you can’t “fight” it – you obviously have the power – it’s just how and where you choose to deploy it
Our minds – when unchecked – run rampant and wild without our intervention and restriction … like sitting in a car with our foot mashed on the accelerator pedal … we get so preoccupied with where we’re going and what will happen while the car careens out of control that we forget that all we have to do is lift our foot off the gas pedal!!!
deconstruct these feelings and beliefs … and rebuild them with REAL and true objectivity – do not allow preconceptions to be interjected – reanalyze everything before adopting it.
“The knowledge that I’ll never get married or have kids” – you CREATED this doctrine and since you went through all the trouble to do so you are now following it to the letter – it’s bullshit … you’re not psychic and you’re not god (there is no god) so the truthful statement “You can’t know that for sure†is absolutely true … just like if i buy a lottery ticket, i WILL have a chance … no matter how small – to win – it’s fact that cannot be denied.
“Life seduces me at times with its promises of normalcy, security…happiness…it’s all a lie.” – Life “promises” nothing – absolutely nothing … life “seduces” nothing … life just is … dirt under our feet promises nothing either … yet we can work it to grow grass, trees, fruit, vegetables and to feed animals … but the dirt is just dirt … a blank slate, and empty canvas … the lines you draw, the colors you paint are all your choice.
if we play to our weaknesses – it should not be any great surprise that we are weak
reality dawg
Okay, o wise Dawg… thank you. Sounds so good on paper. But I can’t easily uncreate what I’ve created. If I try to talk back to the voice (which of course is just me, a mean form of me) it tells me it’s bullshit. Am I just not trying hard enough? I think part of my problem is my coping mechanisms are built around what this voice says. And I don’t want to give those up. Not until something forces me to, somehow, I don’t know how…
My therapist would probably agree with you. Except for the god part.
reality bites sadbk
I couldn’t have found any wiser words, a few I’d like to retort about but good words nonetheless
I can relate to that
I have manage to stop being sad about being sad or sad for not being happy.
But I haven’t been able to fill the gap if you know what I mean.
I suspect that my understanding and expectations about happiness over the years have played a large part with my disappointment and difficulty with depression.
Only over the last few years have I learned at how unskilled my thinking and experience of happiness was.
I was seeking to grasp and to hold onto what I imaged (usually based on how I saw and assumed others had) instead of experience what was my own.
Always hoping I was never in the present moment, but instead wishing for a future that could not be like a dog wishing to be a cat, or remaking the past that can’t be change. No surprise I was stuck.
I suspect it will be a long road to overcome my un-skillfulness. (I no longer blame myself for not doing better, I was simply unskilled)
I no longer appeal to hope or meaning to keep going or feel good about myself and frankly ridding myself of that has been quite freeing. Like happiness I was really unskilled at hoping and searching for meaning.
And it turns out you don’t need hope or meaning to carry on! At least not the hope and meaning as I had been brandishing about.
Today I am not happy or sad, not quite contented but nor am I frustrated. I do not feel I am settling though I feel more settled. I no longer concern myself much which the things I can’t change but try to stay open to whatever arrives. I have always tried to do better when I learned better and that is probably the best I can do.
I hope you find peace with who you are but remember finding peace does not mean you will never experience hardships or disappointments. Peace it seems is only really practiced and experienced in the mist of troubles, otherwise how would you know you have it. ïŠ I suspect the same for happiness.
To live life well I think you have to love or at least be able to laugh at the irony of paradox
Always hoping I was never in the present moment, but instead wishing for a future that could not be like a dog wishing to be a cat, or remaking the past that can’t be change. No surprise I was stuck.
This, especially, fits me. But a while back, I used to be happy in the moment. Looking back at it, I labeled that “content” but at the time I’d considered it “happy.” It wasn’t anywhere near as good as the happiness I thought I’d found…it colored my whole world pukey-sweet shades of happy…and now I can’t just accept that I have to settle for less than that if I want to live. Feels like living a lie :\ I know a lot of people do it but I just find it so…abhorrent.
that feeling of settling for less
After reading your initial post I was asking myself just that.
Like you a few years ago I would have rate/measured my “happiness†level at much higher than I would today.
If I feel content today have I settled?
Hollywood, most self help books, “Purpose driven lifeâ€, “live your passionâ€, “bucket list†movement s would say I have.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s the expectations for this “passion filled life†is what is at the root of our troubles.
No matter what you have you have to have something else
When do you get to be ok with were you are at?
In hind sight I would say that my measuring skills were not very good.
When I was in the relationship, there were some times that I felt really good about myself and would say I was happy. But I would also say that there were just as many when I didn’t feel that great about myself and would say I was unhappy. The reality is the for 90% of the time I was probably natural. But it seems emotion has a higher ‘weight’- 5 % of happy out ways 90% of neutral in the moment any way and 1% of bad more often than not out wade’s the 99% and lasts longer!
I do remember being more engaged with life. Having someone to work with meant a lot less time to think about myself and questioning my life.
Have I settled? Maybe, I don’t think so. I suspect it was always a matter of measurement and the amount of time I had to make them.
Not a lie but the breaking down of Illusion.
I think expectations ARE too high, thanks to those things you mentioned… and the media… social media… but if we lower our expectations, how are we not settling? Unless what we want is SO extravagant or unrealistic.
Your percentages are interesting. I too might be placing too much weight on the emotional aspect. It’s funny, I’ve always said I like who I am more when I’m NOT in a relationship than when I am… except the last one. I was a better person then than I am now. Things I used to believe weren’t true anymore. And I’m just so confused about everything. I never really thought about my self worth until I got depressed. So where was that mean little voice when I was happy? If I’m the same human being at my core it must have just been hiding somewhere.
The feeling of living a lie may actually be the awaking to the illusions that much of life is.
Acknowledging Illusion may still not feel great but not being as harsh as the feeling of “living a lie†creates a little room/graces to step back and see though the illusions, make the changes where you can while remaining open to the moments that come.
The truth is that consciousness is very limited in what it can process the result being that much if not most of our experience is distorted by illusion. An event happens involving literally millions of factors and nuances and we react or respond to, or measure, far too often in my case, just one.
One of the methods I use to say more in the present and experience the moment is just that, the awareness that much of what I am experience is illusion.
Do you feel like you can have “simple pleasures”? I couldn’t for a while but now I find that I can. Makes me wonder if I’m even still depressed, truly. Maybe just mildly as opposed to severely. Do they outweigh the bad stuff, though? No. But a moment’s respite is nice.
I had more than a moment’s the other night. I had just put my friend’s little girl to bed. We’d had a great evening and she didn’t even whine about bedtime, she was very good. I kept waiting for her to call me over to her crib like she usually does, inventing things that she needs to stall going to sleep, but she didn’t. Fell right asleep peacefully. And I definitely felt content afterwards, even when I wasn’t busy with her and had time to think and be in my head. It felt strange. …maybe I just need to move in with them? *snort*
Most people want the one thing in life they don’t have and then psychologically use it’s absence as an excuse for all of the other aspects of their lives they are unhappy with. You will get people on this site that have the things you feel are missing yet they still feel the same way.
I do see that with people. I tend to get hyperfocused on the main thing I want but I recognize the other good stuff in my life. Caring about it when I’m depressed is another matter…
@left22 -“happiness” is not a quantity to be measured or compared – there is no happiness quotient or equation … a person can be “happy” when they find out they only have to spend $250 to fix the transmission on their car instead of $1000 even though the unexpected expenditure sucks ass. Happiness is simply a perspective on how we choose to experience and process events and circumstances
It can’t be contained – you can only do your best to create the conditions for positive events to occur and be processed and experienced as “happy” – but it all situations – happiness is generally fleeting – it can be enjoyed only for the time that you’re experienced at the time of the event … like your favorite food … you can try to recreate your favorite food at another time and date or go to a restaurant and order it – but time and circumstances can change how we consume that meal – it may appear the same but it’s ALWAYS different – sometimes better, sometimes worse and sometimes the difference is imperceptible but it WILL be different – this – like everything in life – makes every single moment and event unique … so when someone says – “It’s always the same” – it’s factually not true, even if the difference in microscopic, there IS a difference.
@sadBK – barring and mental health issues i’d say to you, it’s not how “hard you try” … it that you fundamentally don’t recognize the “other voice” as your own – you are perceiving it as a separate entity that has its own autonomy – it does NOT – it IS you – it’s YOUR voice that you’re arguing/debating with.
Yes you CAN uncreate everything – to a degree – i mean – a table is a table – there are philosophical and physics arguments that can contend otherwise – but for all practical and real purposes – it’s a table. How you VIEW the table is the subjective decision you have to make – is it a nice table, an ordinary table or a sucky table? none of the adjectives really matter – what matters is the table is actually there and it is functional – if it is not, at minimum, functional, we need to either fix it or dispose of it … the choice to get a new table is completely your own – and it should NOT matter that there is a generally accepted practice of having table (“everybody is doing it/everybody has one”) it just don’t matter what “everyone”thinks – all that matters is what YOU think and desire. You want a table? – you get a flippin table – you don’t want one, don’t get one … people don’t like it – who the fuck cares?!? it ain’t their room to put a table in.
does it sound good on paper – yeah it does – it works better in practice … it’s just that simple … but by no means easy if you are new to the philosophy of taking things for what they’re worth … it take time, patience, practice and determination – and you will have relapses and backslides but stay with it – start with any one aspect of your world and apply it, just like learning how to play a music instrument, you don’t start with the hardest piece of music – you start with the easiest and as you become proficient, you expand and try other, more challenging music.
elementary dawg
I think it’s hard for me because I believe there is absolute truth and “lying” to myself goes against it. If I look at your table and I say it’s a flower, you’re going to tell me I’m batshit. If I say it’s a chair, well, that’s closer… it has 4 legs and you can sit on it, okay, could be a chair… but a flower?! Just because I say it’s a flower doesn’t mean it is. So. I can tell myself I’m stupid and I’ll believe it. It’s the truth to me. I can try telling myself I’m not stupid, but it doesn’t ring true and I don’t know it as truth… I know that telling myself one thing or the other doesn’t make it true. If the truth is what I believe… well, that doesn’t make sense, because I could believe that pigs fly too. The truth is I’m smarter than some and dumber than some.
I’m probably not explaining it very well :\
My fantasy world is called Ironside. I go there when ever I meditate. I too have know since I was 16 that relationships and families and children is something I will never have. I see pretty women and they smile at me and I smile back but it never goes any further than that. I am alone. I have always been alone every since I graduated from college.
I can’t explain how it feels exactly but whenever I see like children for example, or a couple, I can hear this voice that jumps forward and says “not you” “remember who you are, you would just runi their lives, they are better off without you.” Those are the two usual ones.
I am still here because of my parents, I will not be buried before their eyes, I will not hurt them like that, so I can wait, I am miserable and alone, but still alive.
Sending you my thoughts SadBK, I never thought I would meet someone like me, and it makes me sad that I know how you feel, because it is not nice, it is crippling.
I hope your life changes, I hope you find love and happiness, I hope you hold a new born baby one day.
I can hope, you can do….
Aww — you need a hug. *hugs* That does sound like me. And at first I thought I could never do it to my parents, but that turned into “they’ll get over it.” (I’m not particularly close to either of them, though we do get along)
If I am like you maybe others are like you too?
I hope you find it as well <3
“Except the last one. I was a better person then than I am now.
Things I used to believe weren’t true anymore. And I’m just so confused about everythingâ€
Wow that was/is exactly my experience. I don’t like to measure it anymore but I was a better person a few years ago than I am now.
Or maybe not better but more engaged, and I liked myself or I felt better about myself when I was engaged. I enjoyed watching my girlfriend growing and felt inspired to do the same. And did.
The breakup forced me to re-evaluate my belief system only to find that my experience of the world did not match with my experience of it. I no longer had anything that held me up, that I could turn to and say yes I believe this.
It was a very dark time
In the end I found myself standing on the irony of the absurd – Is this why the Buda smiles?
As a result of allot of pain it’s possible I have grown even more the when I was “happy”, become more conscious and less prone to react to illusion but it’s difficult to stay engaged. I feel calmer but happiness…
I have come to realise that to live will one must learn to die well. That life is a continuous cycle of life, death, life.
That there is a time for everything and to get to the next something must pass. It is my conviction that more often than not suicidal thoughts are due to our resistance to the life, death, life cycle. It is the souls cry that to become we must constantly let go.
“How are we not settling? Unless what we want is SO extravagant or unrealisticâ€
It’s a difficult question
Most of my expectations were unrealistic so recognising that wouldn’t be settling. Still it is a dying so we do have to mourn the loss even of illusion if we want to move one.
Other expectations timed out, what was possible for example due to a matter of age become not possible. That was/is a hard dying but not a settling.
Settling… I don’t know. The question keeps me awake… so maybe asking the question is enough.
That’s how I felt too — more engaged. That’s what made me a better person. I cared more about other people. I wanted to give back some of what I’d been blessed with.
I hope if this is a path to growth that I find my way on it as well as you seem to have…
You shouldn’t listen to that voice anymore, don’t let it hold you back, and stop saying that voice because its you that’s saying, for some reason you think you don’t deserve happiness but you, just like everyone else here. Stop holding yourself back stop being so hard on yourself. If you want that girls that smiles at you then go and ask her out. If your tired of the way your life is then change it, put that effort in to have a better future because your the only one that can.
It’s not as easy as that though, and the girl (well, guy) would be better off with someone else. I can’t just unthink that 🙁 The person that actually was capable of loving me can’t even love me. That’s pretty pathetic.
I should add … for those that don’t know me … i DO practice what i “preach” – i’m not just spouting stuff i’ve actually adopted and implemented it. that’s how i know it works … but I also know it takes time – it’s been transitional to my life – had it not been – it’s possible i’d be long gone by now … that’s not to say i don’t have my reasons (which can be found on this site) but i’m much more aware of what i’m doing, why it’s an option and what the outcomes are.
@jordan – if it was only as simple as “just not listening” – one first has to recognize that the “voice” isn’t some untouchable guide – it’s actually your own voice that is completely controllable … but after years of viewing it as a separate identity, it takes to to reconcile and combine the two aspects of ourselves into the one person that we are and adopt the one message that serves us best
duality dawg
The most painful illusion I had to face was the realization of the role love played within relationship.
That Love in all its many nuances had to be present and foundation of any relationship.
But having that foundation wasn’t/isn’t enough to keep two people in the relationship
The reality is the stuff of life can, and more often than not, be the determinate factor on whether two people stay together.
We can convince ourselves that the struggle with the “stuff†was an indication of a failure of love. And maybe sometimes that is true buts it’s not always true.
Sometimes it just a means of protecting ourselves from the reality that sometimes love is not enough, because that realization hurts like HELL.
When you have that experience that realization, where do you go?
It feels like a failure but at the same time the stuff was real and the relationship could not have ended any other way.
Love is not always enough. With regards to living together happily ever after Love does not conquer all!
Sometimes situations are just what they are and out of our control. God it hurts though.
Now we find ourselves wondering if Love is not enough are relationship worth the effort.
Were expected to keep trying, and we want to, but we also don’t. Dealing yet again with the task of helping another partner navigate though their projections and shadows as we hope they help us navigate and reclaim our own. Knowing that once again loves demand may be that we let them go, and face ourselves alone once again. That growth could only be brought about by the pain of separation. The paradox of love…
I was trying to fit this in with idea of settling; wondering if measuring in that manner isn’t just an excuse to keep us from trying again or saving face Maybe it’s fear… probably maybe…
All the best SadBk
Thanks for posting and allowing me to use you as a mirror.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me as well 🙂 More stuff to ponder ~