I'm to stop looking ahead at a future that seems dark, scary, painful and hopeless. I'm to just focus short-term. Today I love my animals - focus on them, on self-nurturing, on caring for myself like I do for the animals, no matter what I feel about me. I am an animal, too, and deserve compassion, care, feeding, water, etc... Everything I'm worried about can wait. Now, this Present Moment, is when I have the power to do healing good to me...
I have always used narrowing my focus as a coping tool. I get really overwhelmed if I try and look too far ahead. I'm not sure when it switched around - your story made me realize that I'm only looking ahead right now, and could try and get more connected to the immediate moment. The missing piece for me is that I really can't treat myself with kindness - even just those basic things like food, water, shelter, grooming. But I like how you re-framed it as a choice I get to make, like an opportunity to try and take care of myself. I can try and think like that.
They didn't expect much for me either... yet my life got better...My life does have meaning now... because I could see my way clear to redefine it... but I had to get clear of the depressive aspect first.
Of course, you're right Alba. My saying that I have a nil prognosis is really just fortune-telling masquerading as science. I can't let myself use that as any kind of reason for suicide being 'ok'. And you are also right about the depression being the big problem - it's a kind of closed loop for me, because the treatment resistant depression is a huge part of what I can't find a way to manage anymore, but then not managing it means I get worse. I wish I could just get one step forward, just a little out from under the shitstorm.
What kinds of things strike you as being good reasons?
You have such great questions,
@scout86.
If I could find a way to be alive and feel it, that would be a reason. And I'm only going off of things that I was learning how to do in the little window of time where I had relief from the depression and I didn't have PTSD. So, learning how to just go for a walk and look people in the eye. Or trying new things. I cultivated some actual hobbies, and honestly, I could find a reason to live just because I wanted to be able to wake up and do those things at least one more time. I miss that, so much.
I/we probably don't know your whole situation. What's changed? What would "relief" be? What has it been before? You sound tired, and discouraged (and depressed) all of those things are temporary, aren't they?
Basically - I bottomed out into depression, but got treatment, and for about 9 months I was able to be alive for the first time in my life, I think. It coincided with an extreme weight loss (depression related) - so when I woke up out of that major episode, I saw the world through less-sad eyes and I had a body that was (for the first time in over 20 years) chubby but normal. Not obese. I could actually exercise and I loved it. I have always enjoyed things that are physically absorbing, but I was really limited before - now, I wasn't. I got strong, I was learning how to look at my face in a mirror again, I was living in a new city and even dating. It was a lot, I could get relief even from having an iota of that time back.
Then, the depression came back, slowly but kind of unstoppably. I was working hard against it but a bad life event happened and I just lost ground fast after that. The drug that started working caused weight gain. Then it wasn't working well enough. I was on medical leave because I could barely talk or move, then found another kind of depression therapy, it started working, I was tackling the weight gain, and starting to have nightmares about past events, which I'd never ever spoken of. My therapist got me to start to talk about it. I actually thought I was ready to talk. But hello, PTSD, and then I had a trip and fall and broke my knee. After that lay-up, things just slid to where they are now. I'm dangerously fat. I can't get myself tackling it because of a combination of triggers that I have not processed yet and just straight up depressive exhaustion. But the triggers are the worst. When my legs get tired, in a certain way, I can completely lose control of myself. In therapy are working our way through those events that are the cause, but not faster than I lose this battle with weight.
I'm a very good candidate for Electro-Convulsive Therapy, diagnosis-wise. But, I live alone, am alone, and because of the memory issues, it's not recommended. I'm terrified of the memory problems. If there is one thing that still works, that is the last to go, it's my CPU, I guess - the part of my brain that earns a living. Recall and memory matter in how I use my brain, a lot. I know they matter to everyone, but I think because of some of the damage I sustained during the trauma, I developed some work-arounds that depend on memory. When I've tried drugs that affect short-term memory, I get kind of aphasic again.
I don't know if I want to be potentially not depressed but also not be able to think right.
This would be hard! It might fall under the heading of "none of our business", but maybe, if you could/would share a bit more about what forms the cul-de-sac, someone would have some insight that might help.
I guess it boils down to: vigorous daily exercise was a big part of my depression management; I noticed if I went even a day without it. Now, because of the weight I'm at and the triggers I get from physical weakness, I can't find a way to exercise hard enough to impact my mood or my weight. On top of this, my latest meds have probably stopped altogether, but there aren't good options for me that won't continue to f*ck with my metabolism. Plus, I'm in my early forties. The trauma processing is a never-ending slog that makes me more symptomatic, but taking a break from it didn't help either. My life is devoid of family or friends who can make me a priority, ever, and I don't know how to change that while I'm as agoraphobic as I am, now, with the combination of physical shame and hypervigilance. I don't see a way out.
I got a pad and wrote down two lists, one for going ahead, and one not to...To my surprise I found that the "one not to" had more on it than the other one?
I do this, too, in my own way. I start looking at things as 'lasts'. As in: if I kill myself now, this will be the last time I see my cat on the counter. The last time I'll smell air. The last drink of water. And somewhere in there, there's something that I'm not ready to never see/feel again. Because death is totally, totally permanent. And I also usually can tell myself that, if I'm OK with all the lasts, that I need to wait 24 hours. Because if I'm certain now, then one more day shouldn't cost me that much. And the next day, things have shifted just enough.
But it's living coping skill to coping skill, without any real respite or ability to distract myself.
I can feel the warmth and love that you have inside and if you can make even make one of your students have memory's like I do after 33 years after leaving school, isn't that a good reason to have. I know that you would be such an amazing teacher and I wished I had someone like you when I went to school.
I always thought, if I taught, I'd like to be one of those teachers - the kinds that make an impact. I try. But I think it's the anhedonia, I guess - I just can't take in what any of it might mean, really; I can't get any good feeling off of it. Just a strange feeling that I'm so disconnected from everything around me.
If nothing else, though, I do have some amazing friends here. It would be wrong for me to not acknowledge that. Including you,
@Sammyiam. You've all taken so much time to reach out to me and try and help, and it's more than I ever see in real life. I do seem to be able to feel gratitude, still, and I'm very, very grateful to know all of you, and to have a place in this forum, a place where I can fit in.
Is there anything you want, just for you?
I want a family.
I want to ride a horse again.
I want to be on a trapeze again.
I want to be able to look in a mirror.
I'm just afraid to want these things, because they aren't going to happen. I can't seem to make them happen.
