[MoxieDoxie]

So I did say that to T a couple of weeks ago. I did not die from my suicide attempt many years ago and even though I have been suicidal and wanted to still die all this time there has been nothing great that has happened for me to stick around for. You hear things like "Why don't you hang around you never know what life might bring you or what will happen." So I decided to live and stick around. Well my outlook on life has not changed. I hate it every single day I wake up. Oh I have done a lot over the years but I still do not have any joy over being alive. If a bus hit me tomorrow I would be thankful.

I am suppose to be grateful for what I have. I am in a way. I am grateful I am not homeless but if I was I would definitely off myself.

He had nothing to say about all that. Sorry but no amount of medications is going to change how I feel. I have always felt this way all my life. Is this how everyone else feels or is it just me?

[piggy momma]

I used to feel that way. Even as recently as eight months ago when I was hospitalized for my suicide attempt. Then I decided that if I was going to be stuck on this earth, I needed something worth sticking around for that made things meaningful.

I've been working on this in therapy. I have found that I absolutely love school. I don't have any great goals once I'm done my degree, but I love the learning process. I wake up so excited to go to school each day.

I am working on developing relationships, even just friendships. I've learned that I NEED other people in my life to be happy.

I changed from a job that was sucking the life out of me to a different one that invigorates me and makes me happy.

I've had to make a lot of changes, some of them not easy, in order to find reasons to enjoy life. But I'm slowly learning they do exist. I have to either find them, or create them.

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by piggy momma

I used to feel that way. Even as recently as eight months ago when I was hospitalized for my suicide attempt. Then I decided that if I was going to be stuck on this earth, I needed something worth sticking around for that made things meaningful.

I've been working on this in therapy. I have found that I absolutely love school. I don't have any great goals once I'm done my degree, but I love the learning process. I wake up so excited to go to school each day.

I am working on developing relationships, even just friendships. I've learned that I NEED other people in my life to be happy.

I changed from a job that was sucking the life out of me to a different one that invigorates me and makes me happy.

I've had to make a lot of changes, some of them not easy, in order to find reasons to enjoy life. But I'm slowly learning they do exist. I have to either find them, or create them.

I just finished a year of school. Massage Therapy and passed my license exam. I thought that was going to be the thing that changed my outlook on life. I loved going to school every weekend and I probably could be a professional student going from one certification to another but you know I have to make money from it. I can not afford to stop working and go back to college for something I probably won't even succeed at and at 52 I do not even know what I would go to college for. If I picked something I doubt I would complete it as I would change my mind a few months down the road. I was horrible at college anyway. I went for 4 different things and never completed anyone of them.

Who says you have to be Grateful?
Who says life has, to be enjoyed solely on reflection of material gain.
You are obviously still here. As am I.
Why? Because life isn't **** 100% of 100% of the time.
It just feels like that.
That's the scary part.

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by Jessica11

Who says you have to be Grateful?
Who says life has, to be enjoyed solely on reflection of material gain.
You are obviously still here. As am I.
Why? Because life isn't **** 100% of 100% of the time.
It just feels like that.
That's the scary part.

I do not understand this.

[Ididitmyway]

Yes, the feeling has been the same for most of my life. The reasons might be slightly different, but I won't go into that.

[MoxieDoxie]

I would try medication but fear being fat and no one will hire a fat personal trainer. I alreay just look at food and gain weight. I can hide hating life but I can't hide fat. Feeling like this is soo tiring.

[unaluna]

Life is worth living for those gorgeous days when the air is so fresh and sweet.

Roses, pineapples, and Cap'n Crunch are proof that god exists.

[seeker33]

I'm sorry you feel this way Moxie I too wouldn't mind if I died tomorrow.
Could you maybe see some meaning in helping your clients? I mean making their lives better, helping them get healthier? Could that be something you're proud of?

[Elio]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

I would try medication but fear being fat and no one will hire a fat personal trainer. I alreay just look at food and gain weight. I can hide hating life but I can't hide fat. Feeling like this is soo tiring.

Not all medications result in weight gain. Welbutrin is one that is known not to cause weight gain as a general rule.

As far as have some thought/desires towards not being alive; yes, most my life has been like this or feeling like I'm just going through the motions with the question of why can't I just die; there's lots of other people that want to live, can't I take their place. I also used to have vivid images of ways I could die.

Sometime over this last year, that has changed. I'm not happy to be alive, I don't seem to be thinking of death as much or the same. I rarely have the vivid passive death wish images. At times I do miss them, other times I don't. It's been strange to realize that I don't remember the last time I had one or when I have the though it is more a thought and not filled with the graphical images I used to have.

What has been great about it? I'm not sure. What holds promise that I might find something good about it is that things are changing for me. I think I'd settle with something that is good, not sure I need something great.

[unaluna]

So - nothing you do matters to anyone else.

Thats pretty much true for everyone, unless they make some kind of contract with someone else, like by getting a job, or having a baby, whatever.

But otherwise, it's the way things are. All your physical needs are being taken care of by your husband, so you dont have to provide for yourself there. So its pretty much up to you to look at Maslows hierarchy of needs and pick something. You have a choice. You have freedom. You are of the physical age where you should start developing a feeling of generativity - wanting to contribute to the next generation. Maybe there will be something there.

The satisfaction of knowing that I didn't give them (my abusers) that (my life)!

[here today]

I "worked so hard" in therapy, for decades on and off, and had little choice but to continue the process and the "search" and the unraveling on my own after my last T terminated me (she didn't have the "emotional resources" to continue with me = I was too much for her ) and have been getting close to being able to accept and tolerate the core feeling that "Nobody notices, cares, wants or understands me" as a basic state. I have had all kinds of defenses and tactics, including achievement and people-pleasing at different points in my life, to compensate for that, and to get other people to approve of me even when I can't.

It sounds from your signature line like you might have experienced something like that? -- that I did not really count to anybody else, and to live in a world like that - is not worth it. As you said, I've been this way since I was a little girl -- not that I was that aware of it, I was doing the compensating things, because survival impulses kept me going, I guess. And little to no awareness of the sorrow. I still have trouble with that one. Can one mourn in loneliness, without other people around? Seems to me like, no, I can't, I just numb out.

Fortunately, I do have some other people in my life -- including here -- although I can't feel them well (yet). But I do feel a dilemma of that's how I have been -- AND maybe there's another way to be -- sometimes. Like, feet in two different worlds, sometimes.

Maybe in that other world there is happiness and things worth living for? I don't know, don't know if it's possible to get there, either. Just gotta keep on going, won't know if I don't try. Not to say that's easy sometimes. But, like you, I decided a while back I wasn't going to take action on the alternative.

[East17]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

So I did say that to T a couple of weeks ago. I did not die from my suicide attempt many years ago and even though I have been suicidal and wanted to still die all this time there has been nothing great that has happened for me to stick around for. You hear things like "Why don't you hang around you never know what life might bring you or what will happen." So I decided to live and stick around. Well my outlook on life has not changed. I hate it every single day I wake up. Oh I have done a lot over the years but I still do not have any joy over being alive. If a bus hit me tomorrow I would be thankful.

I am suppose to be grateful for what I have. I am in a way. I am grateful I am not homeless but if I was I would definitely off myself.

He had nothing to say about all that. Sorry but no amount of medications is going to change how I feel. I have always felt this way all my life. Is this how everyone else feels or is it just me?

It's not just you who feels this way.... I attempted 4 years ago, have regretted that it didn't work ever since. In the intervening years there have been more lows than highs.

You are right in that no amount of medication is going to change how you feel - except perhaps to just 'numb' things, so you don't really feel any more - but that is no way to live; exist more like.

I wish I had an answer for you, but I'm still searching for one myself.

[Ididitmyway]

One of the things that keeps me going is that the end is inevitable anyway, so there is no need for me to rush it. It's not like I am going to escape it. Since it'll happen sooner or later, I am just trying to leave something behind for some people who know me and care about me..or for anyone who finds my accumulated knowledge useful..something for them to use for their own development. And, meanwhile, I am just trying to make the best out of each moment of whatever I am destined to live..doesn't matter how long..It makes no difference whether it's 5 or 20 or 40 years. Life is too short anyway, so, on the universal scale, additional 20 or 30 years make no difference.

Personally, my furbabies are my reasons for holding on.

\Tigger would get a new home easy but Willow, and Ebony before her, would never

[stopdog]

There is nothing innately great/meaningful about life in my opinion. One can make meaning or find something that brings a sort of pleasure. Most of it is fleeting. That doesn't make it bad, just that it is a continued pursuit, not an end game. I have a job I like and friends I enjoy. A family I don't despise. I have hobbies I enjoy. Does that make life great - not really. But there are bits of pleasure, bits of boredom, bits of everything else.

I can relate. I think I've said the same thing just in more of an indirect way, but it's more the feeling of wanting to die hasn't been around since before summer. But now that it's gone, I'm lost AND still feel crappy about my life. Like I never had a 5 year plan, or any real plan because I didn't expect to live this long. The times I said something similar, I'm glad my therapist didn't bother with some cliche saying.
There's not much that keeps me going, but now I don't have the urge to kill myself either so I'm just floating in nothingness.

It's telling that you talk about a job where physical appearance is priority.

Maybe that's where you're going wrong.

[saidso]

Good discussion!
I stay alive out of curiosity about the next chapter. It's tough, hard work but I don't see much advantage in ending it given as someone said above that it's limited anyway.

I would choose to terminate if I found out that I had a terminal disease that involved more suffering. I am saving for that option, and hope that I will be able to do so legally when the time comes, and that someone will be around to hold my hand!!!

[missbella]

In the arts, many people I know conduct their lives as if that’s part of their creations , from work to dress to dining to homemaking to dining to gathering friends. They treat every endeavor and moment as a chance to create something inspiring and special.

[ArtleyWilkins]

I spent most of my life in that state, and spend the decade of my 40's in and out of the hospital for suicide attempts and severe suicidality.

. . . and then I decided that gray life, that default to "I want to die," that constant centering on how miserable I was all had to stop. In one year, I lost two friends to suicide and my sister to cancer. The grief of loss was devastating, and not just to me. I watched while the people left behind, no matter how the loss came about, were pained by that permanent separation from the people they had loved. I realized that I could not intentionally do that to the people who I know love me, respect me, and look up to me. I realized there are more of those people out there than I really imagined.

I started looking for the subtle ways I matter to those around me. Of course I matter greatly to my family; that was a given. But I started noticing the smiles on the faces of my students when I greeted them at my classroom door, the "so nice to see you agains" from people who hadn't crossed my path for a few weeks or months, the taggle-wagging joy my dogs go into when I walk in the door after a long day at work, even the relief on a complete stranger's face when take the time to be polite to that retail worker that I'll never see again. I don't know that, beyond my family, I do anything heroic, but I have realized people find me to be kind. They admire my strength, ironically, when they observe me dealing with the challenges in my life. I started giving myself credit for the good person that I basically am. I can be content with being a good person.

I wouldn't say my life is "joyful;" it certainly isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes my life is, in fact, extremely difficult and overwhelming. Most of the time it is pretty routine and mundane (pretty much like most people see their lives I suspect). But I've found some hobbies that keep my soul filled and my hands busy. I developed a few relationships that I know are genuine and comforting.

I'm glad those attempts didn't work. I'm glad I saw my son fall in love and get married. I'm glad I've been here to support two other sons as they have openly come out, one as gay and the other as transgender. I realize I was born to be their mother so they could feel accepted and supported rather than judged and rejected. Had I left any of their lives, the impact would have been devastating, and I never want to be the agent of another person's suffering.

[Anne2.0]

Since I left my childhood home, I haven't struggled much with suicidality. Feelings some, no attempts. It sounds painful to live in a state where you feel like you'd rather not be alive. I would be naive to suggest that if your life doesn't have joy, then you need to change your life. Or something trite like maybe a desire to feel differently would lead to one feeling differently. I do have some belief, though it's not as simple as snapping fingers or deciding to feel differently, that we actually are in charge of our own feelings. As the mom of an adolescent, I see the way feelings rule his world and I suggest that feelings aren't always "right" or "real" and that an always "trust your gut" may not be the way to organize your life. Sometimes feelings are just B.S. and they lock us into a prison where we reinforce them and have no motivation for it to be different. So I guess maybe I do feelings different than a lot of people do, and my experience has been that both the negative and the positive and the neutral and the undefinable come and go.

I've figured out what brings me joy and purpose and meaning and even some relatively sustained happiness, and I focus on the right now. Sometimes I feel gratitude that I have the life I want, minus some things I can't really control like world peace and unlimited wealth and a loving partner. But I dig the doing of my life and pretty much every day experience a range of things I feel, which are less important to me than what I do and what that means to me. I wake up engaged with my life and the world around me and I go to sleep satisfied that I've done something or more than something that made me feel like I matter to myself.

[saidso]

Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins

I spent most of my life in that state, and spend the decade of my 40's in and out of the hospital for suicide attempts and severe suicidality.

. . . and then I decided that gray life, that default to "I want to die," that constant centering on how miserable I was all had to stop. In one year, I lost two friends to suicide and my sister to cancer. The grief of loss was devastating, and not just to me. I watched while the people left behind, no matter how the loss came about, were pained by that permanent separation from the people they had loved. I realized that I could not intentionally do that to the people who I know love me, respect me, and look up to me. I realized there are more of those people out there than I really imagined.

I started looking for the subtle ways I matter to those around me. Of course I matter greatly to my family; that was a given. But I started noticing the smiles on the faces of my students when I greeted them at my classroom door, the "so nice to see you agains" from people who hadn't crossed my path for a few weeks or months, the taggle-wagging joy my dogs go into when I walk in the door after a long day at work, even the relief on a complete stranger's face when take the time to be polite to that retail worker that I'll never see again. I don't know that, beyond my family, I do anything heroic, but I have realized people find me to be kind. They admire my strength, ironically, when they observe me dealing with the challenges in my life. I started giving myself credit for the good person that I basically am. I can be content with being a good person.

I wouldn't say my life is "joyful;" it certainly isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes my life is, in fact, extremely difficult and overwhelming. Most of the time it is pretty routine and mundane (pretty much like most people see their lives I suspect). But I've found some hobbies that keep my soul filled and my hands busy. I developed a few relationships that I know are genuine and comforting.

I'm glad those attempts didn't work. I'm glad I saw my son fall in love and get married. I'm glad I've been here to support two other sons as they have openly come out, one as gay and the other as transgender. I realize I was born to be their mother so they could feel accepted and supported rather than judged and rejected. Had I left any of their lives, the impact would have been devastating, and I never want to be the agent of another person's suffering.

I feel like I would be glad to know you A.W. I value what you wrote because I am looking for people around me who can say, "it sucks BUT I choose to live something positive". I'm not sure why I am searching for people like that, but not finding them makes me lonely.

I guess that it's because I've been up against the wall so many times, and chose to hang in, and often I feel that people are nurtured by my presence at the same time as... not appreciating the depth of my journey. It's hard to find the language to show that about me when the outside seems to be predominantly superficial.

Any suggestions would be muchly appreciated .
saidso

[Rive1976]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

I would try medication but fear being fat and no one will hire a fat personal trainer. I alreay just look at food and gain weight. I can hide hating life but I can't hide fat. Feeling like this is soo tiring.

There are many medications that dont cause weight gain. With you being a personal trainer you exercise so I sure you would be fine.