I do not know really how long I have been coming here to this website. The archive only goes back to Tuesday Feb 1st, 2011.. I have read a good lot here, I have read a lot of peoples stories. Some are very interesting, some are rather not. I may have posted things here, not quite clear. I don’t think so.
I am a 38 year old man. I turn 39 this May. I doubt I will make it to 40 regardless. I first started in therapy when I was 20 or so, I was still in the Navy then, it was a Navy psychiatrist. I had attempted suicide in Yokosuka Japan where I was stationed. My wife was from Peru. We had been together maybe 3 years. During this time she had 2 abortions. I had gone UA (unauthorized absence) and did not know where to go in life. Assuming the worst, I tried to slit my wrists. So many times I wished I had gone then.
I see a lot of comments on trying to get people some help, that things are ok, everything will be ok. What if I do not want things to be ok? What if I want to die? What will you say then?
After Japan upon returning home to the US, things looked good. But one thing was apparent, I just could not seem to get happy. Yes, there was times I was on top of the world. But was usually short lived. At some point, and for the life of me I just can not seem to recall when exactly, it seemed I could not do anything right. I had a good job and relationship one day, the next everything would unravel. Why? was it something I said, had done? No.. It was the life. Maybe it was the day I realized my wife, whom I had left in japan, was never coming here to the US? That one day I just never heard from her, could not contact her, could not find her? It was not that, however it did not help things. After I realized she did not want to be found, or me to find her, it took me about 2 years to even think about starting a new relationship. That is just the kind of person I am. I did not want to give up.
Already being suicidal I sought help again. And for a time, a long time, I seemed to be doing fairly well. Until one day it all came crashing down. There was no “trigger”. Just a deep desire to stop living. I would not even call it suicidal thoughts. Just a deep desire to lay down and never wake up. It is fairly simple. Why do I feel this way? Although some things do seem to make it worse, the problem underlying is the same. Why can I not just stop breathing and go peacefully? Why do I have to torture myself day after day, year after year . One doctor said I was “out of his scope”. What does that mean exactly? And medicated I feel nothing, I suppose that is how that is suppose to work? If you feel nothing at all then hey at least you will not try to suicide.. Except, when I was medicated that was closest I ever came to killing myself. Had plans, backup plans, notes … That is the second time I wished I had gone through with it. But instead I reached out. Got more “help”. What some of you people do not understand is that some people do not want ‘help’. My ‘help’ would be for you to tell me it is OK to go. I do not understand myself why I would come here and write. Everything I say seems to contradict another.
My wife is a pill head. Every dollar she makes goes to pills. I have no job. I quit my job about 9 months ago.When things go wrong here I will be homeless. It has been a rough 9 months. Not the worst, but rough. My (new) wife has been on me to find a job. Like I just sit around and not want a job. I guess honestly I do not. I feel it is Game Over time for me. It is worst it has ever been. It is not because I quit my job, it is the reason I quit my job. If that makes any sense. I quit my job because I gave up, I quit my wife because I gave up. I quit everything because I gave up.
I do not want help. I want understanding, I want peace. I have been living with this loop for 20 years. When they tell you it will get better, it does not. it did not for me. I have tried and tried. Year after year, it is the same. It’s funny. I dated a woman once, we split up. She checked herself into a psych place, they had her doped up so much she choked on a brownie. Hmmmmm
5 comments
I know what you mean… I don’t want help either.
Liquidsnake that was a sad and interesting story. I see you really actually tried to get help, to make things better and didn’t give up too soon. I never got “help”. I just don’t think it will be useful to talk to a professional about my problems. They won’t have a solution anyway. My problems don’t need analyzing, I don’t need someone telling me it is going to be ok. I think when you get to a point where u rationally conclude that death is the only way u’ll get peace there is no pill,no amount of talking, or love that can make you turn away from this thought. It is a sad conclusion. It is not all “bad days” for me there are some “good days” but there is always that underlying current of sorrow and sadness ready to spring up. I have lived so far for the possibility that things might actually get better but like u said it prob won’t. I think people say things will get better because they need to hold on to something, to some possibility.
People have to say things like “it will get betterâ€, not to ensure you but to ensure themselves. I don’t know many people who encountering a story such as yours who aren’t afraid that in doing so might have to examine their own lives closer might come to the same conclusions.
The problem is that no matter how much things change, everything stays the same and you’re unlucky enough to have noticed.
We change our jobs, friends, partners, the way we dress, even how our bodies look but none of that changes anything – every change is experienced through the same fearful, uncertain, lonely, frustrated inner self. (Whatever that is nurture and nature has pretty much set that it into stone)
At best these changes keep us distracted “on top of the world†even, but never for long and with that realisation everything unravels.
Our doctors want to fix everything with a pill. For such men of science anything that cannot be fixed with a machine or pill is out of scope. Anything out of scope might cause them to have to evaluate their own beliefs.
Longing to be at peace we torture ourselves, any feeling, even torturous ones, is at least feeling something, ensuring the body that it is here, it exists, I exist.
Now we are stuck, wanting peace but not wanting it.
We don’t want life to be ok, because it’s not ok.
Contradictions and paradox.
Why do we want to die… because we want to live?
Life is the experience of every moment arriving and then dying, replaced by another.
Life can only be a progression of moments that die until one day the body dies. Is it a wonder we long to die?
It is only in the dying that the next moment can arrive, this is life.
We want to die because we want to live.
Life requires death but we are afraid let the movements die, instead we grasp onto and hope for anything but this moment that we are holding on to.
To live requires learning how to die, and when we can’t we long to Die…
We feel dead inside but do not behave as if we were; the “dead†have nothing to lose and this feeling of being dead fears losing even that and so this to we hold on to.
Contradictions and paradox.
We want to die because we don’t know how to die.
I cannot tell you everything will get better; I do not appeal to hope
I cannot tell you to “be happyâ€; I do not appeal to “happiness’
I cannot tell you that your life will mean something in the end and so be worthwhile; I do no appeal to meaning.
Hope, happiness, meaning are properties of the past and future that have no place in a moment.
I am a absurd man.
The path of the absurd has become my freedom; you may find another, only you can answer life.
Thanks for sharing your story
Saying its gonna be okay is a lie.
I’ve told people that, but how do I know?
I try to help people…. But I’m a hypocrite cause I can’t even help myself.
I guess that’s why I’m here though.
I don’t really want help, but some part of me does….because why else would I post anything on here.
Maybe I don’t want help from people.
When I rant, it helps.
I don’t really pay attention to comments on my posts…I read them, but when they say things like, it’s gonna be okay, you’ll be alright….I’m just like, “No it’s not. Cause if I die, I’ll just be proving you a liar. So don’t tell me it’s okay.” Instead I just say thanks.
I don’t know if any of that makes sense…but I needed to say it
meant to say
Hope and meaning are projections into past and future and happiness only possible in the moment and cannot be demanded.