I'm not going to win

It's three years that I've been with this therapist. Four since my last long term hospitalisation. Five since my total breakdown as an adult. Sixteen since my year long hospitalisation as a teenager. Seventeen since I first went into battle against despair. Recently I've been realising that I am not going to win. I work my arse off in therapy. I'm starting life coaching next week. I try so very hard to do all the right things. But the truth is: I cannot regulate my emotions, or my behaviour in close relationships, and suicide is my lifelong friend. I'm coming back once again to the point where I feel it must be ok to say- enough now.

I feel broken hearted seeing people all around me who aren't having to fight just to survive each day. I deleted off Facebook this week because it has become unbearable to see others' marriages and children and homes when I have nothing and nobody.

My life should have been better than this. I know that sounds pathetic- that there are no 'shoulds'; that life is what we make it; that we do our best with what we have etc etc. I know that tomorrow I will wake up and pick myself up and try harder. But tonight I have cried and cried because the truth is- I should have been a different person, and I should have had a better life. God knows I fought long and hard enough for it.

I know I haven't been taking part here lately, and it's not fair to come and pour my despair on you. but there's noone else in the world I can tell who hasn't heard it a million times before, or who would respond.

Big safe hugs for you!! Sometimes when we reach the very bottom, we finally stop fighting. That is ok to finally stop.... to accept what is... and to surrender.

When we stop fighting, we have a restfulness that just happens. It is an odd peace and freedom. It is like when we are in the ocean and we fight and fight against the waves. There comes a point when all fight is gone and we lay back and allow the waves to do whatever they want. When that happens, the muscles relax and the body floats ontop of the water.

Perhaps you have tried too hard and fought too much? You sound very exhausted. I understand that and it is not a good feeling at all. What would happen if you just relaxed into yourself?

((MinneyMouse))

I don't have all the right words to say, but I am so sorry you are hurting and I care. <3

Well.... I'm glad you're here.

Im so sorry you feel like this....so broken and so sad. I can surely relate though. ..to almost all of your post. All i know and hear is 'keep fighting'...so hopefully one day it will get easier. I do understand your pain though and I really am sorry because i know its no walk in the park. I hope your pain lets up at least a little bit for you ((((((hugs)))))

I admire your determination to work so hard on improving yourself but it sounds like your putting way to much stress on yourself trying to be who you think you should. instead of working on excepting who you are

Thank you so much for hearing me and responding. I appreciate it so very much.

I know that some of this is terrible loneliness, as the therapist pointed out on Friday. I realise that in a week I only open my mouth to speak to my clients, my colleagues, my mum and my therapist. I have worked so hard to build a life, yet somehow ended up with an empty life. I signed up to a dating site yesterday, as the therapist thought this would help, but I'm realising that it would be madness to try to manage these kind of interactions when I am so emotionally unstable. I think my hope just broke a couple of weeks ago when she wrote in an email that for me to be able to be different in a relationship 'would require constant conscious effort and self monitoring and making wise mind choices'. I read that and realised that I don't have that amount of effort left in me.

I don't know what to think about trying too hard. I understand what you mean wepow about floating to the top when we finally stop fighting the water. But with suicide creeping closer I am too afraid to stop fighting. For me, fighting is dragging myself out of bed in the morning. It's forcing myself to go to work. It's talking myself through the desperate nights. It's making myself text friends to make plans. Trying to eat. Going swimming because I know that exercise should shift my mood. I think that if I surrendered I would lose the only thing I have left (my career). Accepting myself is all very well, but if noone else can stand me the way I am (not my ex-partner, not my T) I can't live only with my own acceptance for the rest of my life.

I'm sorry to just keep posting in my own thread but there is nowhere else I can go.

I used to play this game 'five reasons to stay'. It wasn't a game, it was deadly serious, but I could always find five. They were big things too- that I wanted to be at my wedding, wanted to meet my children. There are no longer any reasons to stay. The only thing keeping me here is knowing from experience that completing suicide is harder than it seems, and that if I try and fail then I really will have nothing left.

(((Minneymouse)))) I hear you. I hear your exhaustion. That is a difficult place to be in emotionally. And I understand about the SU thoughts... big time. If you look over my posts from last year on PC, I bet you would be able to hear some of what you describe.

Somehow surrender is different from giving up though. The body has a will to live. Even when the mind is ready to throw in the towel, life will fight to stay alive.
When my exhaustion was total, I found myself just watching my body get up and shower and eat and go to work. Of course this was dissociation. But it allowed my mind to just take a break and not have to work or suffer.

I don't know what to say for you that would help. Just know you are not alone.

I want to honor the work you are doing to make your life better.
No, we can't go back, and that is really painful.
But we can go forward. Many people don't do that. They carve out a rut and move in.
You are moving forward and working hard for your life to be better, to be more like you want it to be.

I used to play this game too. I couldn't always find five. Sometimes the reasons seemed kind of stupid - like wanting to see the next installment of 'Twilight' - but they did help to keep me going through the really dark times. Sometimes things like marriage and children seemed too 'far fetched' for me, things that would never happen - but going seeing a movie was something I knew I could do. Something small to look forward to is still something to look forward to. Some weeks I got by just by knowing I would see my therapist again the next week - that she might give me some clue, help me - and if I didn't give her a chance to I'd never know. I reasoned that at worst, even if she couldn't help me, she was good company, and I'd like to get to know her a little better.. maybe there were more people out there I'd like to meet and get to know better - anything or anyone could be just around the corner...

You will find more reasons.

Make appointments. Make dates with friends, or colleagues, or family (if you have family you want to see, not everyone does..). Check when your favourite band are next touring. See when your favourite actor's new film comes out. Plan a holiday or a trip if you can. Set your mind to accomplishing a goal of some kind - a hike, a marathon... driving across country? Or maybe book dance lessons or piano lessons or an art class... Volunteer somewhere? Anything that gives you somewhere you have to be, anything that means you write something in your diary that you don't want to - or feel you 'shouldn't' - miss. Over time you will find better reasons to stay - maybe you will look forward to some of those bigger life goals again, but for now, any reason is a good reason. You will not always feel this down. Honestly. Just keep going. You can do it.

And keep posting here xx

Thank you just_some_girl- thank you. These are all things that I 'know' and have tried before, but I am flooded with hopelessness and can't even think and it is so helpful to just be told what to do- thank you.

I understand about the big things seeming too impossibly big. Some days, the things on my list were wanting to know what happens in the next season of Desperate Housewives.

You are right about making plans- I know that is my way out of this. I am feeling very discouraged by how unresponsive people I have thought were 'good friends' are being when I ask to get together, but I will keep trying. I also have a 'now' list written on my phone- things I wanted to do in the near future (a comedy show, go on holiday, go indoor sky diving) so I will get out that list and start booking things in.

WePow- thank you for explaining further when I didn't get it. I understand about switching off my mind and just going through the motions. I hope that will help me in the short term. I will definitely try this out.

I also loved DHW!!!! I cried at the ending!!! And it is a bummer to see the series end. And it made me depressed. But I also understand now that when things end, it allows space. A room is not a room without space.

When we have space, we have room to move and flow. When things are crowded up and all filled, we get exhausted because we have to push and shove in order to move through life. There is no flow. No grace. No ease. No rest.

When things end, there is space created. That space can hurt for a short time because it feels like something is missing. But what is created is room. We can have room to move around. Or we can find a place for something else now. Or we can rest in that space.

I am so sorry for your pain, Minneymouse. I am there a lot of the time, too, so I understand. Keep posting, we're here for you.
Bluemountains

me too. thanks for posting

Oh my goodness, there's such a thing as indoor skydiving? I think I need to add that to my list.

I so understand where you're at, MM. There was a blog post I read a long time ago that really spoke to me, written by an author who had lost a friend to suicide:

http://www.askmoxie.org/2009/10/dont-go.html

It's a parenting blog, but even without the parenting elements, it was profound. Depression is such an insidious disease. It whispers little lies into your ear, until the little lies become big, fat untruths. It's whispering in my ear right now too. I understand your despair about the present. We truly don't know what the future will be, though (I'm saying this as much to myself as I am to you). More will be revealed, as my grandmother used to say. There is more out there for us.