[northgirl]

I don't contribute much to the forums here but read a lot and struggle with PTSD, depression both related to family abuse, and over the past 10 months, suicidality. I am not regularly in therapy but have been off and on in some sort of a have-it-when-I-need-it arrangement. I just can't understand what is going on right now and was wondering if anyone else suffers from similar circumstances-

I am extremely hopeless and wanting more than anything to kill myself, angry at the world and people who I feel take me for granted. I have not had an attempt for fear that I will be unsuccessful and end up hospitalized and having to explain the depth of my sickness to family who has no clue what is going on. I actively think of ways I could accomplish killing myself, though, and keep thinking of timetables and setting things in place on the calendar to almost delay it.

At the same time, I am trying my best to live as normal a life as possible and feel that I have none of the classic symptoms of someone who is harboring such dark thoughts. I am enrolled full time in college with an overwhelming workload, grades are average, depression inhibits me from performing to my normal level of high achiever but still I live a largely normal life. thus when I think about trying to confide or seek help I think people think I'm looking for attention and making things up, which makes the urge to harm myself even stronger.

I guess that I just want to understand and feel some sort of reassurance that I'm not completely odd for this dichotomy in my life. I pray every night that my life could be over unintentionally but I guess that it's in my hands.

[A Red Panda]

You aren't odd for it at all. I have always been the same.

I have always had plans for my future - even when I was at my most suicidal. I had goals that I was working towards. It just didn't mean that I wanted them, or that I even felt like I would reach them - I just knew that that was what was expected in life, so I was working towards them. I lived an outwardly very normal and good life.

And then I tried to kill myself and no one saw that coming.

And then within a week or two I was back to apparently working towards those same goals and life went on as normal. Didn't mean that my thoughts and emotions changed... it's just that it is how life is supposed to go and I live it that way -- my thoughts and emotions rarely match up with my actions.

So you are definitely not alone. Are you currently talking to your councellor right now? It sounds like now is the time to be going back!

[Open Eyes]

A lot of these feelings can come from having a stressful work load and just being stressed which can trigger you into "fear of failure". You need to identify your stressors and the things you keep fearing, and learn how to slowly relax and take more control. You also need to realize that having these intrusive thoughts about "ending" are just thoughts that come and go and to not allow yourself to feed into them or obsess about them.

It really doesn't matter that you are average in your achievements while learning, the truth about college and school is that you are simply learning how to learn. In the long run you are never going to use everything you memorize or learn anyway, but the one thing you will keep is how you are "learning how to learn".

The truth is, that when we learn how to learn we tend to retain things that stimulate whatever we are genetically gifted for, eventually as time passes that will come out with an aha moment. A lot of young students seem to think they are supposed to "know what they want or who they will be" much too soon, often that is not discovered for some time in the very late 20's to mid 30's.

Remember the turtle and the hare? Well, in the end the turtle won that race so make sure you slow down and take time to enjoy the learning and understand you don't have to be perfect, no one is anyway.

((Hugs))
OE