thehusk

My guess is that I’m not ending my life because of a combination of survival instinct, fear of something worse beyond death (hell etc.), and attachment to personal experience (memories.) It’s highly questionable whether that’s the best choice for me, but it seems like it’s at least less likely to devastate my family.

Which leaves me with the question of what to do while I’m still here, besides preparing my exit. I don’t know if I should attempt to pursue anything in this life. It seems wrong to involve myself in the lives of anyone else. I’m honestly a repulsive person (believe me, if you knew me, you’d want nothing to do with me.) The only way I’d ever form a relationship is by deceiving someone. And that’s wrong. On the other hand, I have the same feelings as anyone else – the same longings for intimacy, connection, acceptance etc. I don’t know how to live with those without going nuts. And I don’t know how bad my regret would be at the end of my life (or beyond) if I never made any attempt to fulfill those feelings.

I do know I’m not going to do the virtuous thing – I’m not going to confess my sins, Crime & Punishment style. I just don’t believe the devastation caused to both myself and my family would be worth it. I suppose I don’t anticipate it bringing existential salvation – I don’t think it would wipe clean my conscience.

Apparently, my shame isn’t great enough to bring me to end my life either. That’s what any decent person who found themselves in my circumstance would do. They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves. But no decent person would ever do the things I’ve done.

So I don’t know. I don’t know if I should make any attempt to fulfill my desires or not, given the deception it would require. I don’t know if it would even be worth trying. With the mess I’ve made of my life so far, it’s unlikely I could even put on a convincing pretense of normalcy good enough to appeal to anyone. I’ve spent so long isolating myself I’m effectively socially disabled, and my health is slowly falling apart. But I don’t know how I’ll cope if I do continue alone all my life. I fear some echo of me will remain beyond death, still tormenting itself with everything it didn’t do.

And if I don’t make any attempt at personal fulfillment, is it worth trying to do anything to redeem myself? Am I capable of change, and what am I changing for, if my life remains empty?

I’m so incredibly lost. I have no clue what I’m doing.

It’s not so much that I want to die. It’s that I don’t want to live with this reality. Which is dumb, because there are no alternatives. But my mind is incredibly resistant to ‘making the best of things’. I’m a stubborn asshole, and I don’t know how to stop that. I can plan it all out on paper, how I’m going to slowly improve myself and my circumstances. But when it comes to actually dealing with the day to day reality, I turn away, time and again. I refuse. I reject reality, and my place in it. And the only solution seems to be to numb it all away – in the hopes that I’ll forget all of the jagged edges to the picture I see. I’ll forget who I am, and what I’ve done, and what I want to do, and what the world thinks of people like me.

I spend so much of my life feeling unwell. It’s hard to know how much of it is in my mind, and how much is physical. I get these pains in my gut – kind of like hunger, only they’re still  there after I eat. It might be bloating – my gut feels kind of swollen or distended. Or like something is squirming inside, trying to get out. There’s weird gurgles and rumbling.

I feel tired so much of the time. But in a low-energy, rather than lack of sleep way. Maybe my body isn’t properly absorbing nutrients somehow.

I’m sure there’s an anxiety component to it. It seems to get worse when I’m dreading something specific, and temporarily relieve when something’s over with. I definitely spend an abnormal amount of time on the loo.

I’ve had a nervous stomach since I was 9. People describe it as ‘butterflies’ but that always sounded far too pleasant. More like slugs, or worms. But it seems to have become all pervasive over the years. There’s rarely a day I don’t feel nauseous.

I’d never actually thrown up from anxiety before, but a few months ago I was more sick than I’ve ever been. I threw up so much that it hurt, for so long I started to worry my internal organs would follow. It might have been a rare case of food poisoning, but I have been especially anxious since the pandemic. I still feel different – like my stomach is on the edge of doing it again. I get a weird taste in the back of my mouth.

I think of it as IBS, but that’s mostly just because I have nothing else to call it (I know it’s not a food allergy). All I know is I feel like shit a lot of the time, and I didn’t used to, at least not as much. I don’t know whether my anxiety and depression cause these pains, or whether the pains cause the anxiety and depression. I would pay quite a lot of money to someone who would really cure it – god knows I’ve tried every form of quackery over the years.

My existence is absurd. Perhaps that is true for everyone. But mine especially. To be so consumed by what is expressly forbidden to me, more at this time than at any point in history. It’s obscene. And not even something that’s necessary for survival, but a distortion, based on my own inadequacies. How sick in the head do you have to be to torment yourself like that?

Things are reopening here, though the infection rate still seems too high to control (especially after recent mass gatherings.) Restrictions are rapidly being eased, and I don’t know what level of caution is sensible to maintain. I’m terrified of my parents getting it – they’re both into their 60s, and my Dad has health issues.

I’m scared of infecting them, but I don’t know how rational that is. They’re my only social contact (sadly). The only other time I go out is to get groceries, and I’m reasonably careful – try to keep my distance, wear a face covering. If my parents do get it, it seems unlikely it’ll be from me. But still, I worry I’m putting them at risk.

I agreed to go for a coastal walk with them tomorrow, which means spending 30 mins together in a car- an enclosed space. We could’ve walked near where I live, but the options are far more limited. I don’t know if this is putting them at risk. I suppose I agreed because seeing them is generally good for my mental health, as is getting a change of scene. Which leaves me more functional. Which gives me a better chance of pulling myself together in the long term. And I figure if we just stick to walking where I live, it won’t have the same positive effect, and they’ll want to walk less often. But I don’t know if that’s selfish.

I don’t know how much of this is neuroticism, and how much is an appropriate level of concern. Things are really serious. People are really dying. But life has to go on somehow. I’m struggling to figure out when something becomes too risky to justify.

I have an attitude problem. Or a personality problem. Personality disorder/s. The problem is me. My feelings, my thoughts, the way I react to the world. When I see something I want but can’t have, my response is despair. Rather than making the most of whatever I do have. Because what’s the point, if I can’t have that crucial, essential, fundamental thing? Everything else becomes meaningless in comparison.

I can go through the motions, and try to make the most of my situation. But it’s like carrying a dead weight around – my hearts not in it. So inevitably i retreat back into dysfunction. Because I don’t care – if I can’t have that, I don’t really want anything else.

It’s a stupid, self-destructive attitude to have. It means I inevitably end up with nothing. Rather than getting some of what I want, I choose complete failure. I allow my longing for the ideal to destroy any chance of anything good.

But I don’t know how to stop. How to give up on the fantasy, and accept the reality. I don’t know how to invest it with meaning and value.

I feel so awful – in myself. And it’s not that I don’t deserve to. I’m a truly shitty person. But there’s no way out from under it.

There are things I can do to be less shitty. In some ways I’m significantly better than I used to be (though in others I’m possibly worse.) But no matter what I do, I can’t get back to neutral. To the position where I can look others in the eye again. I could cure cancer, and I’d still be scum. If anything, the feeling gets worse the harder I try – the more I have to interact with people, and face up to that distance between us.

So why bother doing anything? Why struggle and make things harder for myself, when I know there’s no way back? Why not just sink further into it, and numb the feeling away? When you’ve dug yourself a pit so deep it would take more than a lifetime to climb out, it makes more sense to keep digging than to desperately claw at the walls, or stare longingly at the sky.

There are people who appear to have what I want. I wonder if it keeps them from being miserable. How could you have something that good and not be glad to be alive? But of course people are screwed up in all kinds of complicated ways.

Seeing my desires appear to be real is both compelling and tortuous. It breaks through the layer of resigned depression to remind me ‘yeah, this was what life was supposed to be about.’ But then follows the recognition ‘this is not for you.’

There’s just enough false hope left though to keep me coming back to the fantasy. It’s not like it’s logically impossible for me to be in that position. Just overwhelmingly unlikely. Maybe when I was younger. If I’d been braver, more charismatic, more socially functional. If my health had been a bit better.

But still, I can’t categorically say it’s off the table. It feels tantalizingly real. Just beyond my grasp. The things I’d need to do to even have a chance of making it my reality are too massive. And I’m not prepared to make those sacrifices. To accept those compromises. I’m not willing to totally reshape who I am, just for a small shot at that desire. As valuable as it seems, I suppose it just doesn’t feel worth it. Supposing I did the huge amount of work necessary, and got the huge amount of luck required. I still doubt I’d really be happy with it. Because it would be so compromised, and I’d still be carrying so much mental baggage with me.

But that kind of leaves me with the question of what the hell I’m still doing here. If I’m essentially accepting that the things that make life seem worthwhile are beyond me, then I’m just waiting for death. And maybe that’s better for my family, because they’re spared my loss. But it’s hard to actually live with, day to day. Accepting that you’re just going through the motions, running down the clock. So inevitably I fall back into the fantasy, so I can pretend for a while that life could feel meaningful. And then it hurts all the more when that fantasy is punctured by reminder of my pathetic reality.

I often find myself wondering: is there some other version of me, amid the countless alternative universes, who is able to interact with others in a functional way. And if so, what are the differences that allow them to do that? Are there things I could learn, so that I too can deal with people without  behaving like a pathetic weirdo?

It feels like a disposition I was born with. So maybe all the versions that share my dna are isolated losers. But perhaps some had some life experience that jolted them out of that. I don’t know what that would be. What would it take for me to not experience most social interactions as a source of shame?

The thing is, I rarely know how I actually come across to others. I just know it’s not how I want to be – confident and at ease with myself. Being around people is a constant source of confusion and panic for me, so I’m never at ease. I’m always subconsciously afraid that someone will say or do something that will reinforce my own low opinion of myself. And then I will have no way to hide from my own worthlessness. I’m terrified of seeing myself reflected back in the perceptions of others, stripped of all my pretensions. I suppose that’s a form of narcissism.

I’m so fucked up in the way I think and feel. Any idea of bettering myself is immediately contaminated by the way I approach reality. I suppose I’m a severely disordered personality. Avoidance and possibly some form of narcissism. Along with whole new levels of twisted shit I’ve developed as a coping mechanism.

But there’s no normal for me now. No peace. Everything is infected.

I lack the resolve necessary to end it. But I have no idea how to cope with being this fucked up. Which leaves me paralyzed – failing to pursue a better life and face reality, and failing to put myself out of my misery.

Most of the time it’s hurting me, and even when it isn’t, the high’s aren’t worth it. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about giving it up. But when it comes down to it, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I’m hopelessly addicted to living. Or to the idea of living. How could I possibly let go of that next sunrise? Those cherished memories and long-dead dreams?

Though I know it won’t be worth it. And I won’t make the most of it. Because I’m broken, and in pain, and most of the time I just want to numb it all away.

Life could’ve so easily been good. Just a few small adjustments to reality. But it isn’t. It’s one long procession of discomfort and decay. But still I won’t let go. Only when it’s far too late, when I’m in constant agony and too crippled to end myself, will I finally be convinced of the need to.

Most of my dreams are set in childhood, between 10-15. Sometimes it’s horrible. But sometimes it feels great, and I don’t want to wake up. I wasn’t happy back then, but I still had hope. I still felt alive. Things still seemed meaningful. I still felt connected to others. I was still part of society.

I want to go back so badly. Tear up the laws of space and time. For a chance to do it differently. To do it right. Avoid what I’ve become.

I’m left with the feeling that I have to do something. Change something. To escape this reality. Break through to the alternate world. But I don’t know what or how. The reasons why I’m screwed remain the same.

This morning I went for a dawn walk in local woodland. The sun was rising, glinting through the trees, streams gurgling, birds singing, bluebells everywhere. You couldn’t imagine a more perfect scene. It felt pretty great. While I’m appreciating this, I’m listening to a podcast. And one of the hosts recounts an experience they had once in an animal market. They came across a rabbit that had been skinned. Except it was still alive. Someone had removed it’s skin while it was still conscious, and left it there, twitching.

My initial reaction was shock at the extreme cruelty of this. But beyond that, it provoked what is a consistent conflict for me. There is real beauty, and pleasure, and happiness to be found in this world. It doesn’t last forever, but it does have real value.

There is also wretched, terrible suffering. And it’s everywhere, going mostly unnoticed. And not just as a result of excessive human cruelty. Plenty of predators take time to tear their prey apart, without always killing them first. The suffering is baked in to the natural world.

It’s highly unlikely any of us will experience being skinned alive (though I believe they used to do this to people.) Or being eaten alive. Probably, most of us won’t even die ‘violently’. But the risk is always there – that it could be you, desperate and twitching, taking your painful final breaths and longing for an end. Whether through illness or accident.

Of course, our deaths might not be that bad at all. They could be peaceful, or sedated, or merely mildly uncomfortable. But the risk is always there, as long as you live. It could be you in the wreckage of that car, or burning alive, or so demented that you’re trapped in a state of permanent terror.

The issue I have is how to weigh that risk against the real value that sits alongside it. Could it be worth the risk of those most pitiful, desperate moments, in order to experience beauty, love, or moments of contentment? If you ever found yourself having to pay that price, could you accept it? Or would you demand a refund?

I have no idea how to think clearly about these things. I don’t know if my depression distorts my perspective, or lends clarity that most shield themselves from. I don’t know.

Each morning I wake up wondering ‘why?’. Why am I doing this to myself? Why aren’t I killing myself? Why shouldn’t I end it?

I don’t have a meaningful life, and I can’t see a way to build one. I’m in persistent discomfort. I’m mostly anxious, or lonely, or despairing. I’m an irredeemable person. And things are only likely to get worse.

How bad do things have to get before suicide is the only rational choice?

Is it even a choice that’s really open to me?

I wish I could just resolve it, one way or the other. Then at least I could stop worrying about it.

Instead every day I struggle to work out why I’m still alive.

I’m completely alone, and I think I always will be, because I’m twisted and I’ve done unforgivable things. I’m not just isolated physically but morally, socially, emotionally. I’m cut off from humanity.

This leads to feelings of depression, despair, hopelessness. Because what’s the point, if you’re always going to be alone? What are you living for?

So I keep thinking I should kill myself. And yet I don’t. And I’m not sure that’s a good choice. It seems like things are pretty bad already, and could easily get much worse. Why face that? For what?

I think what I want is resolution, one way or the other, so I can stop constantly thinking about it. If I’m going to live I want confidence that my reasons for doing so are sound – that it’s worth the risk. If not, I want to be at peace with the idea of ending my life, and to start to really work towards that.

This isn’t hell. Or even purgatory. I can imagine far worse things than this. But it is one of the shittier lives you could choose. I’m fairly sure it would be better if it didn’t exist.

For whatever reason I’m not ending it. But I don’t know if there’s any way to make things less shitty.

The problem is me. My mind is fucked. My character and personality are fucked. The way I think and feel about things is fucked. The me that tries to change or do things differently is the same me that is the problem.

I don’t know if I can change that. Can you just stop being a twisted narcissistic monster? Can you choose not to want to do terrible things?

I don’t want to live with this anymore

One of the biggest things inhibiting desire for suicide in me is thinking about my parents getting the news. Imagining these wonderful people who have poured so much love and energy into supporting me over the years, long after they should have turned their backs. It just seems completely unacceptable to do that to them. I know it’ll break them – they’re way too emotionally invested. Putting them through that much pain – and I don’t think they’d ever heal. I’m a terrible person, and a terrible son, but I still love them.

On the other hand, continuing to exist also seems unacceptable. I shouldn’t be. I can’t live with the despair – shame, self-hatred, isolation, regret, longing. I can’t survive with this. It’s unbearable.

Can anybody think of a way to end myself without having that effect on my family? Or at least to mitigate the harm a bit? I feel like I’m trapped in a no win situation here. Either outcome is unacceptable, so I just stick with the hell that I know.

I feel so terrible about myself, but simultaneously love all the reasons I have for hating myself. It’s both the worst and most awful thing ever and the most amazing incredible thing imaginable. In short, my mind is fucked.

I don’t want to feel this anymore. Except parts of me really do.

I want to eradicate this from my mind. Purge it all, wipe it from existence. Or sink into it and be completely consumed by it.

It’s living with it that’s the problem. Like a shard in my mind. This terrible unforgivable thing driving me. I can’t bear it. But I can’t bear to let go either. I want to scratch and tear at it constantly.

Maybe with enough work I can relax my grip on survival enough to end it. Right now I hate myself, and I deserve to hate myself, and I want to hate myself, and I refuse to stop giving myself more reasons to hate myself. I’m the most pathetic kind of monster, gifted self-awareness without self-control. Time for more denial and escapism.

I would probably be better off dead. The world might be better off without me.

But my survival instinct seems to be too strong. And my family would be devastated by me ending it.

So I’m sitting here, rotting away in my misery, torturing myself for being the monster I am. I’ve got to get out of my mind somehow.

Suppose for whatever reason you decide that you’re not ready to end it yet. But you’re still filled with an overwhelming sense of the futility of living. You’re still in pain, and that seems likely to only get worse. You’re still completely alone, and unable to see any possibility of meaningful connection. It still feels clear that you would be better off not existing.

Are there better ways to manage that feeling? So that it consumes you and tortures you as little as possible? I’ve been trying/failing for the best part of 12 years now.

Some random responses that come to my mind:

• Mindfulness/meditation – to try to detach you from identifying with the hopelessness inside
• Running/exercising in nature – to try to jolt your mind out of itself or exhaust it
• Sleeping all day – ’til your mind gets bored of it’s misery and forces you to get up
• Binge eating nice food – to give a feeling of physical comfort
• Recreational drugs – to trick your body into producing chemicals that tell you everything is fine
• Video games – absorbing yourself in a virtual world where you have purpose and there are no issues you can’t shoot your way out of
• Listening to loud music – the angstier/sadder/more despairing the better – cringy emoting is required
• Obsessively checking the news/social media sites – if you’re focused on how fucked the world is, you might forget for a moment how personally fucked you are
• Learning to play music you enjoy – reminding yourself of happier times while focusing on something that feels meaningful in a small way
• Compulsively escaping into fantasy – trying to trick your mind into believing that what it longs for is actually possible
• Repetitively posting on this site (or elsewhere)
• Occupying yourself in a dead end job – it you can convince yourself your job is making you miserable, you might forget it’s your mind that’s making you miserable – you can pretend it would all be better if you quit

I’d be interested in anyone else’s experiences. Have any of you found better ways to manage despair?