How do you know when everything is done?
When every avenue has been tried, and nothing has actually shifted enough to make life something more than tolerable?
How do you know?
I believe that living organisms naturally seek life, and so I understand that to feel this way – to want to die, to stop – is not the natural order of things. it takes a tremendous amount of will, and even in the oddest ways our bodies will still fight for life while our minds are saying “stop, no, let go.” I believe this, and I know from experience how hard it is to push the body over that threshold.
So I’ve been trying, for quite a long time, to find ways to make living more than merely tolerable. When I was younger, I could still have some kind of hope that there might be something new around the corner. And that hope actually sustained me, even rewarded me sometimes.
Now I am within spitting distance of a human life-span; it is not just around the corner, but it is nearer rather than farther. I have invested great time, dedication, energy towards shifting my depression – trying to get it to stabilize, and then hopefully lift – but years of not being treated (ah, the irony) seem to have resulted in a mind that (now) chemically refuses to be significantly altered.
I am alone in the world. No partner, no family. Many, many acquaintances; a small number of true friends who have tried to support me through this for years now. I can’t bear to disappoint them anymore with the thing that seems to be true: I’m not going to get better.
Do I know that for an absolute fact? No, I do not.
And so I’m still here.  I am here, but I am suffering daily. I no longer know what the difference is between being in the end stages of a recognized terminal illness and being in the end stages of an ever-worsening depression. And I wish, more than anything – oh, how I wish I wish I wish that someone could actually give me a prognosis. I think I might be able to find hope again, if one of my wonderful amazing doctors (I am fortunate, they are all good) could look me in the eye and tell me they believe I can go into remission. I would trust them over my own judgement.
But they are good doctors, and so: they won’t lie to me. Statistically, all signs point to a continued downward trend that I can learn to manage with good, constant therapeutic support and a lot of hard cognitive maintenance.
All this – to exist within a life that is merely tolerable.
I just don’t know when to stop trying. I am starting to feel foolish for continuing to try. And I am very sad because this is not the way I would have chosen to spend my time on earth. I am frightened because it is often very hard to manage my desire to be done. I am alone and I’m grateful for this place, and grateful to anyone who has read this (very long) post.
3 comments
How do I know? I know because I feel it. My inner reservoirs of perseverance are depleted now I’m running on pure survival instinct. If I don’t distract myself everyday I find myself planning and thinking of my suicide even more. At this point I don’t even give a fuck about getting better because I’m really sick of the bullshit in my life. There are things I simply can’t “recover” from …I can’t fix ….problems I can’t solve. I rather be dead then live with myself in my state. I can’t say for 100% that things will get worse but I can predict that they will be and like how a weatherman predicts the weather they are about 95% correct. Its like… how can I see the storm coming and hope for a sunny day? When you see dark grey clouds and the weatherman predicts a thunder storm you assume its going to rain. Now you can’t say for 100% that it will rain but if everything points to rain why would you reasonably expect sunshine? I’m sick of waiting for sunshine while drenched from the rain. I’ve been doing the same “hoping” for about 4 years now. At this point I feel like I see the hurricane on its way and I’d be a clown fool to sit and hope for sunshine. I feel like hope for me is dead I know I’m through with it all I desire is the ending. Death.
Generally (and this is just my opinion) if a person is suicidal because they have experienced a traumatic even in their lives, they tend to either off themselves within a short period of time or recover. If they kill themselves, it’s because they’ve exceeded the threshold and snap.
People that are suicidal because of severe mental illness are rare. They tend to have more failed attempts because they don’t think things through properly. They are very suicidal though.
If you fall into a category where you have a disability, are generally depressed, have a troubled life or a combination of the above, I think it’s when; your standard of life has fallen well bellow that which a reasonable person would accept and there is no prospect of recovery.
I’m not going to cling onto the ‘I’m suicidal’ tag when I know that I’m not suicidal anymore. I still hate life, still think about death, still can’t find a way but I’m not actively seeking a way to die, so, no, I’m not suicidal.
You used to get ‘real’ suicidal people on here as in the ones ready to pull the trigger there and then. But they were all driven away because people here thought that talking about the things they wanted to talk about wasn’t very cool. Suicidal people aren’t much fun and they spoil it for everyone.
“Live for today – for tomorrow never comes”
Yeah – i know corny … but apt. and true. The older i get the more i find need to reassess my expectations, goals and objectives. My life in no way turned out how i imagined it would as a child or young man … not even close … i mean, who has grandiose dreams of poverty, poor health and struggle, right? Nut we tend to get lost focusing on what we had and lost or what we never got or should have got or where we were “supposed” to be instead of taking stock of what we actually have and what we can actually do.
Make no mistake … i have nothing … but while i can still think, learn and function at a fundamental level, I can work within the parameters of what i have … think Apollo 13 … If they’d have just threw their hands up and said “We don’t have the right part” they’d have laid back, dozed off and become space-cicles … heroes of the republic to be sure but dead none the less. I think it would be safe to say that if they had the choice of being considered dead heroes or living cowards (i know, they are NOT considered cowards) but i think they’d trade image for opportunity every single time.
People tend to get consumed obsessing about the pie they did NOT get and scorn the pie they actually DID get. And I distinctly remember as a child being extremely angry that a sibling got a bigger piece of cake than i got … so mad, in fact, that i hurled my cake across the room … it never occurs at the moment one decides to rebel and reject the pittance they were given that to reject that pittance means you don’t even have that … of course, my parents did NOT give me the equal sized cake like my sibling got … and i was left with nothing (in case that outcome was not clear)
Yup – life ain’t fair … i learned that lesson very early – it doesn’t mean i like it … but “how do you know?” … for me it’s when there are no other options … when i have to compromise and accept what i’d consider subhuman conditions and standards … yeah … that sets the bar pretty low … and everyone else has a different set of standards for what that is … A healthy person might see becoming an amputee as being substandard … yet people survive that and become productive and prosperous … a wealthy person might think living in a mobile home is substandard … yet many have scratched and clawed their way to something better (or accepted the simplicity to basic living – which can have it’s liberating feeling)
I think of life like a chess game of sorts … even if the game will continue on to stalemate … i call that a win … because i didn’t lose … I tend to be grounded by the fact that the vast segment of past and present of humanity survived and prospered in much worse conditions … so there usually ARE possibilities … but one has to sometimes play MacGuyver to find them. WE have generally become to complacent and reliant on modern technologies and worry about “what others might think” – fuck them.
Worry about you and only you … and look around, there are people who have been or are where you’ve been …some of them might be able to offer suggestions on how to scrimp by. But when i got to these crossroads i had to take an honest inventory and reassess everything – and I mean everything … things i took for granted were no longer realistically so.
“how do you know?” – when you’ve found checkmate
En passant dawg