Don't want to exist but can't end it

[Sweetleaf]

I just f*cking hate existing so much. I seriously loathe it. Yet I am incapable of ending it. I'm too weak to bring myself to do any methods I know of, I'm too afraid of what comes after, and I don't want to upset my family. I don't think I'm any danger to myself, but this seriously f*cking sucks.

I don't really want to get into what makes me hate existing so much, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. Being me sucks ass and there are constant reminders of why I hate this fleshy prison of mine. This f*cking defective f*cked up shitty body and brain of mine.

I haven't talked with my therapist or pdoc or anyone about this. I'm afraid of what comes after telling them. I've started making this thread many times in the past and never have posted it. I don't even know what I'm really asking for. I'm just kind of putting it out there. Every time I'm asked if I'm feeling any depression or suicidal/self-harm desires, I just say no, but it's been for a while that I've been feeling like this. How do I get myself to say the words? How do I get myself to stop feeling so much fear about telling them? What happens when you tell your therapist/pdoc about this stuff?

 

[SittingDuck]

It’s possible that your therapist and/or psychiatrist would insist on you going inpatient (voluntarily or involuntarily) if you reveal these thoughts to them. I’ve been in the same situation and have ended up admitted to a “behavioral health” hospital with a trauma-focused program. I have to say that while it was terrifying, it was also likely the best possible thing that could have happened at the time. It was life-changing to meet other people who had similar experiences to my own and to simply be cared for 100% of the time without any expectations in return.

Whether you decide to tell your treatment providers, I really hope that you know how important you are and how much you are cared for. I’ve never met you and I’m writing this because I care very much about your safety. Please keep in mind that feelings are fleeting. No state of mind - good or bad - lasts forever.

I would really suggest talking to your support system (friends/family/treatment providers) about how you’re feeling right now. I tend to be extremely resistant to “bothering” others with what I call my “personal nonsense,” but I have found that when I finally cave in and do so, I feel validated, supported, and at least somewhat relieved about 99% of the time.

Best of luck to you. I’ll be thinking of you.

 

[MrMoonlight]

Such a terrible feeling, so sorry @Sweetleaf .

I tell my therapist though I have already been through it before. I think it makes it easier for me to tell my therapist I had suicidal thoughts between sessions. I believe it's only when they think you will harm yourself or others that they will get you help via hospitalization. Therapist and psychiatrists know that suicidal ideation is a normal part of depression/ptsd so it probably wouldn't be a surprise.

I just wish you got help. We deserve to feel better and good about our lives and the courageous strides we take. Please practice some of your tools tonight. I'm with you in spirit sweetleaf.

 

[blackemerald1]

I agree with everything @SittingDuck & @MrMoonlight said completely ^^^ 100 likes! If you are feeling suicidal and you inform your health professionals they will likely want to assist you by placing you in a safe environment. This is a good thing. A safety net, and you do need to really understand when to spring it and realise you are just really pissed off....

I have had this happen to me on three occasions.(When the safety net got sprung because I was serious) I'm not saying it was a happy thing to do but because at some primal level I do still think I can enjoy my life (optimist here!) I did tell the people who could help keep me safe. And they did so it was a healthy thing to do! I learned a lot from being kept safe. It wasn't for long periods of time but it got me back on track.

At the same time, if you are really, really just totally maxed out with frustration and self-loathing - still tell your psych's., so they know how you are thinking/feeling. They cannot read your mind..nor would I suggest can anyone else (and that is a really good thing). But, don't stay pissed off if venting to your psych's helps them learn how high or low your tolerances are. They may be able to alter your treatment and help you!

 

[Freida]

oh hun I'm so sorry you are struggling. I get why you don't want to tell "them" --- so I'll just throw this out... these are the people who can help you. Yes, it sucks to admit you are feeling like this, but they can point you the right direction. Might be inpatient, might be outpatient, might be voluntary, might not. But no matter which direction - it's all there to get you past these feelings.

and I think @SittingDuck is on to something with the idea that in inpatient there are no expectations, someone is caring for you and you will meet others who know exactly what you are going through.

How do you get the words out? One at a time. Because you are worth getting the help you deserve

 

[Vee]

I’ve been like this myself...and I will tell you, when you are confronted with death in the face, you will want to live. It’s just the pain that’s talking now, the pain that you want to escape. I agree with the other posters. Get help; it will be okay.

 

[Sweetleaf]

You guys are so nice, I feel bad for even posting this thread but there's no other place I feel like I can talk about this stuff. I don't really have any close friends anymore(abuser made sure of that), and all the formerly-close-friends who I am still in contact with, I wouldn't want to burden with this stuff. I had to deal with my abuser's suicidal threats, thoughts, and actions so much. I hate putting my own suicidal thoughts out there because all I can think of is all the times I had to deal with my abuser, and it makes me feel like a huge sack of shit for even saying any of this to anyone.

Honestly I'm like strongly terrified of winding up in an inpatient facility against my will. I'm actually really terrified of those "others" that I might meet in such a setting, among other things. My ex, my abuser, went to those places multiple times, both from suicide attempts and from ideation. Aside from being there basically for the same reason my abuser would wind up there (and also literally the same place - I would get to see what his point of view was like there when he was controlling me over the motherf*cking phone :( damn im pathetic), I feel like I would be super triggered in such a setting in that mentally ill people are actually a trigger, despite the fact that I too am mentally ill. Living with someone crazy gave me PTSD. When I was in the psych ER (where you'd go just before going to the psych hospital, though I was discharged) the screaming and yelling of the other patients scared the f*cking shit out of me, I imagine an actual psych ward would be well beyond that, or at least more of the same. It's pretty triggering on its own thinking of the fact that I would be in there for the same f*cking reason that my abuser was, over and over. f*ck.

I don't want to go there, I don't even know if that could possibly even be helpful considering the nature of my trauma. I just... I really don't want to be there. I don't want to feel like this, but I absolutely don't want to wind up there. As I said, I do not think that I can actually bring myself to carry out the act of suicide... it's just I really f*cking hate existing so often, and so often I wish that I could just poof out of existence. Sometimes it is more intense, sometimes it is less intense or not even something I'm thinking about. Regardless, I have made sure that I don't have any viable means around, and I don't have any suicide plans. I want to get help to not feel like this but I also don't want to be involuntarily held.

 

[Sweetleaf]

when you are confronted with death in the face, you will want to live.

There are times I've confronted death in the face and been ready for it to consume me. Not by my own hand either - I've never attempted suicide. For example while drowning, after I gave up trying to fight to get to the air, I felt a massive wave of peace and tranquility wash over me, like the weight of the entire world was lifted off of my shoulders, and I was freed of all worry.

I am aware of the desire to live cropping up during/after suicide attempts, and I get what you're talking about. It's one of the reasons I've never been able to bring myself to try suicide. I also was glad that I lived after I was pulled above water, when I was drowning.

 

[blackemerald1]

@Sweetleaf I get what you are saying. I am glad you have written your post because obviously this is important to you.

I don't care how many times you write that you are totally f##cked up or worthless or any of that because I don't have to know you, your history or your current circumstances to tell you without hesitation that it simply is not true.

You may have been feeling like this for a long, long time. Many people suffer in silence because they do not know how to appropriately reach out and say they are not feeling well and that is the trap. I fell into that trap, got hauled out of it and now I am very aware of it. I don't want to go anywhere near that trap again even on my very, very worst day's which I still have.

Obviously going to a psych ward scares the crap out of you. I would expect nothing less. I wasn't one of the patients doing any screaming or shouting (no judgment here) when I was a patient but I heard and saw a lot of stuff going on and it was extremely scary. But, at the same time I got treatment, could not hurt myself and was released with follow up. It's a bit of a shame I slipped backwards and had to go back in a couple more times but I think I have healed enough to say that I won't hate myself etc., so much that I will do that to myself ever again.

I haven't healed so much that I don't have moments, day's or even weeks where I deteriorate into self-loathing, hating my life and look back with dread over my history. That would not be true. But I have learned that despite all of these feelings and distorted beliefs I do deserve to be alive, I do matter, I am worthy of a better life and I can make my life better if I hang on like all hell to the good stuff and use that as a launching pad. I have learned that getting past these periods is better than just sitting in them. I have raised my expectations of myself. I don't always achieve them but I do have them now to reach for. You can do this too.

I lost 'friends' too. I grieve for what I lost at times because I know that the people who ran away from me, should have been the people that noticed and did something. But they are gone and I am not sure they were really friends in the first place anymore. At least I know for certain they totally underestimated how traumatised I was, how unwell I was - physically and mentally. But at the same time, I am very clear on the fact that I was a master at pretending to be just fine and deflecting even the slightest notion that I wasn't. I thought, wrongly I had too much to lose if I did let down my guard and tell someone that I was in a stinking, rotting, hell-hole of a place mentally and physically. That was another trap.

So @Sweetleaf really try and talk to your psydoc about how you are feeling. It doesn't mean you will automatically end up in a psych ward. You have said you have no plans or intentions of acting on your feelings so that is where you start. That is what you should tell your psydoc make that clear to them and then tell them that these feelings are stalking you. You don't have to dig a hole and disappear and you don't have to be admitted to a psych place. But you must take responsibility for yourself and tell someone you know who is not going to get hysterical about it...I am not okay and start the conversation. It might take a long while but you and only you can start the conversation with your psychdoc's.

That feeling of drowning, having given up fighting and letting yourself go...that is another trap. It's not real. You are alive and breathing that is real.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Thanks for what you wrote @blackemerald1. I suppose those things are traps, but they aren't easy things to dismiss or get over/through.

The next time I see anyone is my therapist appointment tomorrow. I don't know if I can bring myself to tell my therapist by then. I see my pdoc next Wednesday but I kind of don't want to tell her because I'm less sure of how she would react. I was thinking of telling her that I've been feeling down lately, and that I'm okay with my bupropion dosage being increased, which she suggested last time but I wanted to see if I could make it work with the lower dosage. I don't know if I feel safe enough with her to talk about the suicidal feelings though, if that makes sense. I feel safer with my therapist, like I can be more open and unguarded. I feel like part of it is also that I don't want to tell anyone about these feelings, because it's like I want to deny that I'm having them and that it's a problem.

The only time I've ever told anyone about having suicidal thoughts/desires, I told my abuser, and his reaction was pretty bad. He basically just got mad at me for it and dismissed my feelings, started blaming me for all sorts of shit. This was probably like 10 months ago.

My abuser didn't drive my friends away or anything, or make them think poorly of me, he just kept me from them. I think they're good friends, I've just been absent for like 4 years or so, and now I spend most of my time isolating.

 

[Freida]

The only time I've ever told anyone about having suicidal thoughts/desires, I told my abuser, and his reaction was pretty bad.

This ^^^^^^ is him still controlling you - because he has convinced you that everyone else will react just like he did. And that's not true.

The people on this site are nice -- yes. and they want you to get help. yes. But many of us have been EXACTLY where you are right now.
Asking for the help you need is one of the scariest, bravest things you will ever do. And you can do it. Because you are going to prove him wrong. People will care about you. They will help you. All you have to do is be honest - and let them know you are in pain.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Just got back from my therapist. I couldn't tell her, I couldn't even bring up the depression. I think I was too worried about the other stuff I was talking with her about. The session did go well though, I had a significant reduction in distress at a certain element shared by many traumas I have had. It doesn't have anything to do with the stuff that's been making me feel down though.

I think part of the problem is today I haven't actually felt that bad in regards to the things that have been making me feel suicidal and depressed. I had a few moments, but it's not like the days where the constant reminders rip me apart and drag me down. I want to at least bring up the depression with my pdoc on Wednesday. I see my therapist again in 1 week.

I feel kind of stupid and pathetic for not saying anything about it at all.