When it seems like the world wants to destroy you.

That everyone is against you, hates you, that Karma or God or the Universe or whatever kicks you when you are down, wants you to suffer, wants you miserable.

Then what?

I'm gonna ask the same question here I asked in the Other Mental Health forum, just a little more broadly.

How do you go on? How do you face life knowing that you are so unhappy? Especially if it doesn't seem fair? If you feel you didn't do anything to deserve it?

If it hurts so bad that a day doesn't go by when you don't think about suicide. It is both pragmatic, I worry about stigma, discrimination, and personal, I feel such a deep sense of shame. Some of it is real, some of it I know is amplified a million fold in my doomsday mind, where I always go to the worst case scenario.

I just need to know how you go on, how you feel good about yourself, when society tells you that you are now scary, different, whatever. Fact is, people DO look down on mental illness in a way they don't on physical illness.

How????????????

Serenity Prayer
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.

The hell with society, look at the people that mock other's? They have their own problems going on, but think they're fine. I'm not ashamed to have a mental illness, I've been through hell and back and managed to survive. Heck, I've even grown from the experiences I've had.
Stop worrying about society and focus on yourself and feeling better. Some people will smack you down no matter what you do, it's their problem, not yours.
If you allow it people wil chip away at your self esteem, until there's nothing left. Do things that make you proud and feel good about yourself.

Hello Johnny: As you may know by now, I can relate to everything you've written here. I hate myself, I hate everything I've done in my life as well as everything I haven't done. I hate what people have done to me in my life. And I hate what I have done to others in turn. Every day I "pray" for death. Sometimes every hour. The only good thing about my life is, at this point, I'm old enough to be considered retired. So I no longer need to hold down a job & I can hide behind my "senior" status, which I do.

The Buddhist nun: Pema Chödrön, teaches that someone can feel they are the worst person in the history of the world. That's a great place to start. Lots of messy, juicy stuff to work with (the Buddhist "Lojong" teachings.) So how I go on is to work on accepting those feelings of self-hatred. As my "signature" statement below says: I work to accept my demons with compassion. I've tried to hit my delete button, in one way or another, multiple times. If I didn't have the Lojong teachings, I'm quite certain I either would have already tried again or soon would.

Of course, I realize not everyone is going to want to pursue the Lojong teachings (although they certainly could.) But I think anyone who harbors the sort of deep self-hatred I carry must find something to hold onto. To simply live day-in & day-out hating oneself & praying for death is not tolerable.

I know, broken record. You know what? In all of this, all of the people I've met, I don't think anyone has said what I long to hear:

It will be ok. You will be ok.

((Mowtown)),

It "will" be ok and you will be "ok", just keep on your healing track, let yourself continue to learn and grow, grow in areas you had not before.

It's so hard when you face so much unhappiness - not that I have to tell that to anyone here.

Well, I am not going to lie, I do know what you are saying Mowtown. I can't really say that I am in a place right now where I finally feel a "radical acceptance". I think a lot of that has to do with still being stuck in my lawsuit and the horrible journey I have had with that entire experience. I have not even spoken to my lawyer in a while either, I find that just thinking about talking to "any" lawyer now is so psychologically souring and at the same time painful too.

I did not have a very good day today myself. I have to find a way to get hay for the winter and I am not having much luck with that at the moment. I hate this challenge, IMHO, its one of the biggest challenges of having ponies and horses. I do not really "know" what I want at all right now either. I just take things one day at a time.

Skeezyks, I guess I am a hypocrite, I hate seeing people write bad things about themselves. I know we all here do it. I must think I am somehow different, because I do not like to see others go there, because I know it isn't true, but I go there myself. I have read so many of your posts, I know you have pain because of your situation but I see a great person in you. You are so kind and supportive to so many here.

I go on by challenging my thoughts and feelings. They are not facts.

I go on by continuing my EMDR therapy.

I come to sites such as this to remember that I am not alone and try to apply what works for others to myself.

I try to be helpful to others.

I hope you are doing better today!

I am the least among you...

I think what is important is asking one's self how much they buy into the opinions and judgements of others. How much do you want to "suffer" because of something you did not do "perfect" in the past? Nothing is perfect, least of all human beings.

The Skeezyks, do you really believe you are the "least" amoung others? Perhaps just settle into whatever you are, can be, and take time to just "be". None of us can change anything in our past, we just did whatever we "knew" how to do at the time, it's that way for every single person. It doesn't matter what you said last week that you may now wish you had not. What matters is that at the time you had thoughts about something, after you expressed those thoughts you learned something. Every single human being learns by doing and experiencing. No one has a crystal ball either and we all learn differently based on our life experiences.

I think it is important to do our best to be forgiving of "self" and just allow ourselves to "be".

OE

I don't believe that either, Skeezyks. I have seen too many of your responses on the forums, where you show intelligence, compassion, insight and offer support to troubled souls.

I keep getting urges to laugh at the idea of a total system collapse, or nuclear war or whatever the hell doom humans are headed towards...or no actually I already have laughed about it....hope it happens....and yeah I think it has some to do with feeling like all the odds are against me and all that which comes with PTSD....but I also think part of it is something will happen in my lifetime so my mind is trying to prepare me somewhat....almost seems if things don't collapse I'd have less to live for because if they did there would be survival and trying to fight for what is right....in this society its all about conforming and if you try to actually fight for whats right you're more likely to get arrested than change anything.

I don't even know how I keep going, but for now I am able somehow, partially just find things to try to look forward to to fight of suicidal urges with. But I am beyond exausted with ***** really don't know how much more of it I can take.

<<<<<<<<<<<Open Eyes <> MotownJohnny >>>>>>>>>>

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Well, you know, Skeezyks, I would be honored to be your friend. Too bad you're 600-700 miles away.

Hellion, you are too hard on yourself sometimes. You have grown a lot since I first met you in these forums, you have presented some thought provoking opinions and ideas here too. And you do well with holding your ground too.

I think we all do that to ourselves, while imploring others to be good to themselves. Just part of the package.

I suppose most of the time I carry on because I'm stubborn and pig-headed (isn't that an odd word?). When things are pretty bad I tell myself that it will look better tomorrow. At the worst times of all, I ask my husband to hold me or ring my good friend who understands my situation. One time I rang her and couldn't say anything really, I just asked her to talk to me. Which she did, mostly about inconsequential things, but it made me feel linked with the world again. And she did tell me things would be ok, I would be ok, eventually - I wish you knew her, Motown Johnny, somehow when she says this I find myself almost believing her, enough to carry on, anyway.

to all who have posted here.
Bluegrey

Mowtown, what you have been doing that is "right" for you, is you have been keeping "in touch" with your body while you have been working through all of this. "Healing" involves addressing the "hurts" but also continuing to be "in the now" and we do that best by keeping on touch with ourselves physically too.

Understanding what is going on in your brain and how to gain on this challenge gradually is important. It's about doing your best to keep one's self in the now "while" working through whatever in one's past has caused the confusion that is PTSD.

You need to continue understanding what to finally throw away that others have handed out to you to absorb emotionally. You need to gain your own personal strength in finally realizing what you no longer have to absorb and that when others present you with comments that are disrespectful, you get so you see "them" as the ones with the problem, which is really what you have been discribing. You need to come to a realization that what they are continuing to do is show you what they really don't "know" Mowtown. You need to think about what you would tell a person in your shoes that would help that person "overcome" people like your other family members. You have to come to the "now" with your entire mind and realize that these other individuals are simply no longer allowed to have power over you anymore. It is building your mind in a much healthier way and you have "known" a lot more for a long time, you can't "make" other people step up to an understanding, people often will simply fail to do that, their loss, should not be yours.

OE