I Keep Wanting To Go 'home'

[Loorelle]

It's been 2 years since the abandonment of my best friend for 20 years and since the day it happened I've wanted to go to a better place...not on this planet. During the worst of it I did attempt suicide a few times, that person still not caring whether I live or die- which made my suffering even worse. The amount of worthlessness they made me feel, I've never forgotten. No matter how many friends are actually there for me, no matter who says that they truly love me or want to be there for me, no matter how 'good' things seem to be going in my life so far I still end up going back to that place of wanting to go 'home'- but not the home I grew up in, nor the home I'm living in now- I want to go home home to a place where I began and belong.
Yesterday, I had an endoscopy and had to be put to sleep for the procedure. They did find the reason why I hiccup so much after eating or drinking anything so it was a successful and much needed thing to do- however when I woke up from a very nice drug induced sleep, I was so disappointed that I was awake I started to cry.
"Why can't I just die." I kept thinking to myself. I have been hurting for so long and I know I hurt the people around me too. "You have to find it within yourself to feel better" they all say- which may be true to them, but I can't help but feel like the best thing I can do for myself and everyone around me is not be here anymore. Be somewhere else that does not require any kind of feeling. If I don't feel at all, then I won't feel this pain and suffering. Sure I will have to leave a lot of things and people behind- but if I am no longer suffering then its gotta be worth it.

 

[mary1979]

Depression is the pits.

Of all my symptoms, that deep sadness and wishing I was just 'no longer here' is the least manageable of them all.

Are you on medication to treat it? I think that's the only solution, at least temporarily while you work out your thoughts.

Hugs to you for the loss of your friend, but id just like to add that she's clearly a terrible and selfish 'friend' to leave you like this, you dont need people like that in your life anyway x

 

[ladee]

@Loorelle, I have been where you are many times. For whatever reason, what would stop me, is the pain I would cause others if I did end it. All of us want the pain to stop. I had to make a decision, and stick with it, no matter how bad it got. I was going to do what ever it takes to end the pain in the many ways that others who have gone before me did. By learning ways to heal. It didn't matter what my 'monkey voices' were saying. They were just voices after all, not truth. It takes courage to heal, to do the hard stuff. It takes things we never knew we could do to start healing. I had to stop thinking this was the answer to my problems... was it a tough journey? Yes,it still is sometimes.
I had to decide to pick my pain. The pain of staying in a place of no hope, or easing myself into doing the work to want to live. We don't have it easy... most of the world doesn't have it easy.
My prayer is that you seek out hope somewhere, somehow. This forum is full of people fighting the good fight. Being so weary , wondering if we can take one more step in a healing way.. but we do... and so can you. I pray that you pick your pain of healing and take those baby steps to a better life. Yes, it's hard, so what, so is staying in 'death mode'.
So prayers for strength to do what you do not believe you can do... we don't start out believing... but we end up believing we can, because we stepped out and said... no matter what, I am going to find my self worth.

 

[Ava Jarvis]

Hi @Loorelle -- I have felt how you felt, both in that I have had friends (multiple friends) who abandoned me and did not care if I was suicidal or not, and that I have been in such great amounts of pain and suffering on a daily basis for years that I wanted to, as the comic "Hyperbole and a Half" puts it, not exactly kill myself but just somehow find a way to be dead because it seemed to be the only way the pain would ever stop.

The friend who abandoned me who hurt me the most one day decided she just couldn't put up with me never getting better from my suffering. She got tired that I kept getting suicidal and said so repeatedly. She got so tired that on a day I said on Twitter that I wanted to kill myself, she messaged me the suicide hotline and blocked me.

That was nearly a decade ago and it still bothers me. However, these days it bothers me less. It bothers me less because I found friends who not just say "I want to be there for you," which is not enough for me, but friends who actually understand trauma. Friends who have been where I am so I know that they know my struggles. Understanding is much more important for my support than "just being there." It was only when I met these friends that the pain from that abandonment lessened considerably.

I think that this forum is a good way to find people who understand, and I think that may help lessen the pain of abandonment.

As for the "I want to be dead somehow" feelings, I don't know how to deal with them exactly. All my life I've wanted to kill myself and actually made the attempt twice. But somehow I just keep going even when I feel miserable. However, the head priest of my Shinto shrine made me a special omamori (basically a blessed charm) when I told him that I felt horrible suicidal thoughts and was wondering if there were any kind of omamori against them. Turns out that these kinds of omamori are not listed on the shrine's shop, but are custom jobs. I didn't think the omamori would work, I was merely desperate, but for some reason it's worked. The suicidal feelings are much less now, like they got muffled down so much that only occasionally I hear a whisper.

It is extremely strange to feel so much misery and pain and still not want to kill myself.

Obviously this approach is not for everyone. I wish I could purchase more of these omamori for my friends who are suicidal but their religion doesn't allow for them to have any such things, I guess.

 

[sun seeker]

I want to go home home to a place where I began and belong

I have a question, which may seem a little odd. Are you aware of ever having had a near-death experience? I ask because I did, though I didn't realize it for a long time. I've had that same longing many, many times. Do you know what that place is like? Do you have a sense of it?

Unfortunately, suicide won't get you to that place. It would keep you stuck in your pain. The only way to heal the pain is through it... with a lot of support and a lot of compassion. Do you have a good therapist?

I have another question, too. I have similar abandonment issues so I really do understand the pain you describe. But that kind of pain doesn't come from someone leaving you in adulthood. It can be triggered by this, but the cause is usually that it is triggering the experience of abandonment in childhood. Again, it takes a really good therapist to help you work through this pain.

I have a lot of compassion for what you are going through. Truly. Please stick around. I know it doesn't feel true to say it gets better, but it actually does. With time and help, it does.

 

[mary1979]

Hi @Loorelle -- I have felt how you felt, both in that I have had friends (multipl...

I want one of these things!!
How lovely that something so small and seemingly insignificant has been a source of such comfort.

 

[Friday]

I'm not sure why people think dying is like going to sleep... Not feeling anything.

I've died. Still felt everything. Felt far more, in fact. Except now it was to late to fix any of it.

Fix what you need to in your life before you die.

 

[sun seeker]

I'm not sure why people think dying is like going to sleep... Not feeling anything.

Yes. Although this isn't what the OP was saying, I don't think. She wants to go to a place she remembers as better than here. Suicide won't do that for her.

Respecting everyone's differing spiritual opinions, but the consensus from people who've been there and come back to tell about it is that we continue to exist just as much as ever. The issues we didn't finish in life are still there. Eventually, we come back and deal with them again... same issues, different players... until we've resolved them. It's much better to work on them now than go through them all over again, IMHO.

 

[ladee]

Thank you @FridayJones , for sharing your experience... just shows us it doesn't fix it, just makes it different... like you said, do what we can while we are here... not easy, but doable....living proof all over this site...

 

[Ava Jarvis]

Thanks @FridayJones and @sun seeker. That's a perspective I hadn't thought of before. It makes sense. We continue to be who we are and have the same unresolved issues no matter how we transmute.

 

[sun seeker]

I still feel suicidal at times. Less than I used to, but sometimes. What keeps me here is knowing how much pain it would cause others AND myself. It really won't make the pain stop. The only way out is through.

 

[Anarchy]

that kind of pain doesn't come from someone leaving you in adulthood. It can be triggered by this, but the cause is usually that it is triggering the experience of abandonment in childhood. Again, it takes a really good therapist to help you work through this pain.

bold added

Wot Sun Seeker wrote!

The abandonment by the person who you thought for so long was your friend, probably wasn't the first time you were abandoned

Like Sun Seeker, I'm guessing that it has triggered all of the emotions associated with abandonments when you were very young.

Incidentally, If you have experience of "that place" it probably wasn't death, it was more likely to be the full death feigning, playing possum, Flop stage of dissociation, where your brain shuts down and floods itself with opium like chemicals that cause all feelings of pain and fear dis-appear.

It occurs under conditions that your limbic brain (which isn't conscious and isn't very bright) perceives to be of extreme life threatening danger. The response appears to serve the purpose of fooling an attacker (human or animal) that they don't need to kill you .