What if???

I feel like I'm fighting a battle I don't know I can win. It seems they - whoever "they" are - would have us believe that if we're doing our best, looking for help, getting therapy, taking medicine, being accountable - whatever - our depression will be controlable. But is that true? I have this fear - but at the same time I don't fear it - that my depression is going to win no matter how hard I try to fight - and I'm giving it all I have! But the pull to suicide is so strong. Am I just not supposed to allow myself to think like this? But it sticks with me. I've heard it said depression can be fatal... as if suicide may not always be preventable. What if it's not? What if I'm fighting a losing battle?
Wish I could know. :-\

Taonuviel -- I don't think you can know. Until someone has a lock on knowing what the future is, no one can ever know how things are going to turn out.

I wish you were better having better results from your meds. It took so long to find a medication cocktail that worked for me.

Becoming involved with work that is absorbing has helped me very much. My identity is so involved with being professionally productive. Not mention making money to relieve financial stress and worry, which is a depression trigger. The few books I've consulted on depression put having a purpose that gives life meaning near the top of the "To Do" list. I found that desperately hard. Philosophical discussions about serving others don't do it for me. I have a very narrow, apparently self-centered focus on what makes me happy -- doing something I like and earning money doing it.

I think you've got to keep plugging at this, Tao, just the way you have been. It takes a lot of grit and courage just to get up the morning, brush your teeth, bathe and eat well when you are in the dark places where we both have been.

Find small things to comfort you. A cup of tea. A colored leaf blowing down the street. It's hard, but other choice is there?

In the end, every day, you get a choice whether you are going to "act as if" you are going to commit suicide, or to "act as if" you are going to feel better and better as time passes. And to fake it til you make it.

I wish I could do more to help, sweetie. (((((((((((((Tao)))))))))))))))))))

Tao, I don't really know what to say to this, but I have been in your postion before, being suicidal, not knowing why I should live, unable to see the future, and so on. But I have got through it, and I'm still here today, haha. It's difficult, but it is possible.

I don't think this will happen to you while you are so concerned about it, and working to get well. You sure don't need that worry on top of everything! Maybe you need a med for the anxiety side of your depression, if you can't take an antidepressant?

Oh, I'm on two anti-depressants, one of which works for anxiety, and a mood stabilizer. I'm not really even anxious about this, though. Somewhat, I guess. But more on the edge of complacent. I almost scare myself, except I don't know that I care much. What happens, happens, I guess. I just keep wondering whether I'll be able to care enough, because so often I don't. It's hard to identify what keeps me from acting on suicidal feelings... just the concept that it'd be wrong... and maybe I don't care enough either way. This anhedonia is dangerous I think... it just keeps me existing, but would probably break into crisis if anything happened to require much coping. I guess I just keep going, wait and see what happens, nothing else to do at this point.

I think many of us here on the forum have faced those same feelings - there have been many, many days that I wonder why I keep going. I mentioned, once earlier on this forum, when I asked my T why suicide is frowned on so by others and his response was the "missed opportunities" and that made sense. Think of any of those things that you might enjoy sometimes - if you weren't alive you would not have that pleasure. But, still, if given the ability to "will myself to die" without being suicide, without harming any of those I love, I would do it. But - and this is a big but - it would harm those I love if I were not alive, especially if I did it to myself. I feel I am not on this planet to do harm to others or to the planet so I am stuck with living until my time is up, whether or not I like it. I am hopeful that my new antidepressant will work and relieve me of the feeling of wanting to die.

i feel similar to you taonuviel. i have lived with my depression since i was 12 and im 23 now.. i relapsed about 6 mnths ago and have begun in my downward spiral and i struggle to get.. when i wasnt severely depressed i was pretending it was okay and pushing every other feeling away.. i started in therapy and medications but i never think that any of it will ever work that im doomed to spend how ever much of my life with these feelings... whatever has kept you going hold onto it as tight as you can.. i only have 2 people in my life that i think of when i feel like death is the answer and one of those ppl is depressed himself and currently is in hospital... but i hold onto them because im afraid to hurt them... ambivalence is a strange thing and it keeps you living.. i think that most of us will live with that fear that one day we wont be able to hold on any longer but i guess at least we tried...

I have a lot of trouble with the "Missed Opportunities" argument. Is this a comeback that they teach in psychiatric counseling classes?

The I will hurt others argument makes more sense to me. Even in my grief, I remain concerned about causing others pain and trouble.

Hope you start to feel better, (((((((((((((((((((((((((Tao)))))))))))))))))))))))

What if you quit just before you conquered? I live way up north and there are so many stories of people who died less than 10 feet from safety during a blizzard. Just a few more steps and they would have won through but instead they gave up. Depression is like a blizzard in your heart and mind, you can't see past it. You can't hear anything. You become exhausted battling it. Sometimes we have to rest to recoup our strength but we shouldn't quit. We don't know what will happen next. Maybe tomorrow will be that new day we are all working so hard to reach. Or perhaps it will be as I am doing - slow tiny bits of progress added to until one day I realized I don't want to die, til I realized I sort of do like myself. I haven't escaped depression totally yet but I am on my way.

I don't know. I hardly care. I may have to resort to the hospital again, I'm getting way too close to trying something again. I don't know.

What ifff, Tao, you re-envision the hospital not as something to "resort" to, but as a wise decision you are making to take care of yourself. I know it's hard to change your mind about. It is there for that reason, however. To help us to take care of ourselves and to learn new coping skills and get stabilized on a medication.

((((((((((((((((((((((((Tao))))))))))))))))))))))

I don't know. I'm SO exhausted. I went to Community Mental Health Services last night for an assessment. I've gone there a couple times before to get admitted to the hospital. But this time I wasn't so sure on going to the hospital, and just wanted help figuring out what to do, and she ended up bringing in a man to talk with me who does DBT(Dialectical Behaviorial Thearapy). So we talked a while, and I agreed to try talking with him before going straight to the hospital again, and saw him this morning, too. But I don't know if I can make it. I'm SO exhausted, I just want to curl up and sleep forever, and I don't know if I'd try it, but it's SO tempting. And I really don't want to fight right now, I'd like to just go to the hospital, not have options so easy to tempt me, have a "break." I feel entirely worn out and like I can't take care of or handle anything. I want away from this state of being so badly.

Oh Tao, I am sorry for your pain right now. Give the DBT a shot, it has been very helpful to some women I know. Hang in there girl.

Tao, I am sorry you are feeling so bad and exhausted.

What is DBT? Is it like neurolinguistic programming?


(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Tao))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Thanks.

DBT... kinda like cognitive-behaviorial therapy, with a focus on all-or-nothing thinking.
Yesterday was extremely depleting. I went in for an hour-long appointment at 11:30 and ended up staying talking until 4:30. I feel very understood by this man, which is comforting, but I just don't know. I feel so tired I don't know what to think or do. I'd kinda like to just go into the hospital again, feel safe to think things through, work on my medicine some more because we think it might have something to do with how I'm feeling. I just don't know.