Success, self-loathing & suicides in the news recently

[Deleted member 41765]

Speaks for himself I think...

Chris Cornell - Seasons (Studio/Jam)

 

[WhyCelebsHaveissues]

I was also a big fan of these singers and did a lot of research after each suicide. I noticed something they both have in common -- extreme ESCAPISM. Chris Cornells friends and family said he used his marriage as tool to "run away from HIS OWN inner problems" plus he had a history of drug addiction. Chester Bennington similarly had addictions, but also said flat out in interviews he tries to use everything in his life as a way to avoid HIS OWN BRAIN. As someone with CPTSD who has dealt with very long stretches of suicidality, I can say that avoiding it is only useful a fraction of the time. I theorize that suidality is actually the brains way of trying to force you to mourn when otherwise you are too exhausted to get the negative energy out in a less severe method (like yoga). The suicidality, IMO, is a Signal that a big pile of emotion is needing to come out all at once, and should not be avoided* or pressed* downward, instead it is a moment to journey inward and cry, or go outward and talk to someone on suicide hotline, or a friend, until you get enough out to feel safe again for the night.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

I read this post along the lines of-- I've researched thus am entitled to judge. I wish what you'd learned had given you more compassion. None of us can possibly understand the depth of pain in another, "celeb" or otherwise. I've been fortunate to have only one period of ideation and I can tell you from my experience that "taking a moment to journey inward to cry...hotline...etc" feels like an oversimplification.
I agree with what @joeylittle has written...

People who suicide do so because they cannot see any other way out. Out of the pain, or pressure, or confusion, or symptoms...whatever is trapping them. And the sad thing is, it's most often a breakdown in perception - there are very few situations where the person is literally trapped. The feeling that nothing can change and you'll be suffering forever...that's symptoms, not reality. You can have those feelings even if millions of people love your music. Even if you are told over and over again that you are a great talent.

 

[The Albatross]

Judging?.... Naw a hypothesis, and one I agree with.

 

[ms spock]

And what chance do I have of ever overcoming my own self-loathing?

Quite good if you do the work.

It is hard though. I work on it every day. The Self Compassion website of Kristin Neff was useful to me. You can download the audio for free. Look into distorted cognitions I tagged you in one of these threads. The dbtselfhelp website is really useful for me - you can work through that website. The instant Mindfulness section was of interest to me. It might be worth a look for you. Mindfulness - a lot of that is free online to download as well.

I find the corrosive self doubt really has been a struggle for me. I am making progress but it is hard.

Good luck!

 

[Dana1010]

Quite good if you do the work.

"Do the work" sounds a little one-size-fits-all.

I guess we all project our own experiences a bit. "If this website made me feel better about my problems, surely it can cure what ails you and you and you too."

The truth is that none of us knows the details of what anyone else has to deal with day in day out. A blanket term like "self loathing" tells us nothing about the substance of the thoughts, memories, bad choices made or facts about people that are genuinely loathsome and can't be erased.

Just saying. I'm glad if those things you mentioned are helping you and wish you continued progress.

 

[Sideways]

Sooo, coming to a illness-specific forum and tossing around ideas about what has helped...is a bad thing??:confused:

It does take hard work...

 

[ms spock]

"Do the work" sounds a little one-size-fits-all.

The truth is that none of us knows the details of what anyone else has to deal with day in day out. A blanket term like "self loathing" tells us nothing about the substance of the thoughts, memories, bad choices made or facts about people that are genuinely loathsome and can't be erased.

You asked a question. I don't know what work you (or anyone else) also needs to do for your (or their) recovery. But something needs to be done - if you do nothing about your self loathing then nothing comes of nothing. You asked a question and I answered it within my own framework. My own framework is all I can answer any question. I kind of thought that was a given. If there is one thing I know about recovery is that no one size fits all, in fact that doesn't work from clothing to health to education. But if you sit in your helplessness and hopelessness and think/feel/imagine that you will never get on top of your self loathing and self hatred, your corrosive self doubt or your dissociation, depersonalisation and derealisation (because famous people didn't or weren't able to) then you won't make any progress. Just because famous people don't manage to recovery/heal/make progress then it doesn't mean that you can't - if you do the work that you need to do. If you don't do any work on your recovery/healing then no you won't make any progress, and yes it won't be possible for you to get on top of your self loathing. It is up to you to work out what type of work - i.e. therapy, individual or group, CBT, DBT, Self Compassion, Mindfulness, DBT, CBT, exercise, diet, distorted cognitions, trauma therapy, bibliography, sleep routines, creating safe spaces for yourself, self soothing lists, crisis lists, lists to do when you are suicidal etc etc etc etc.

I guess we all project our own experiences a bit. "If this website made me feel better about my problems, surely it can cure what ails you and you and you too."

The one thing in my recovery/healing I have found - even on this website, is that very few people actually understand what I am doing or need to do for my recovery. I have always felt on the outer on this forum precisely because the one size fits all commentary that I have received. I don't have many friends on this forum, and very few people ever validate or respond to me in a way that I have ever felt heard. So you are doing to me, exactly what you are saying I did to you. You made a whole stack of assumptions that I was saying my way was the only way. I didn't write "Use what is helpful and discard the rest," because I thought I had known you long enough that would be a given. This website hasn't made me feel better at all. This website brings up feelings of loneliness, isolation, that I am on my own, and that I am so far from what the community is. I have worked my butt off, and despite all the work that I have done I feel totally crappy, and my life is a really hard struggle. But I am improving significantly. So you also don't know anything about what I am dealing with. I don't think any website can cure any ailments, and I don't think my post or any other post on this forum will make you feel better or fix what ails you at all. It certainly hasn't for me. There are a few people who are supportive of me on this forum, and I really appreciate them. The one person who actually sometimes really understood what is going on for me, left because of not feeling a sense of belonging. So please be patronising to someone else. I sob every day before the house. I suffer from crippling social anxiety. I have nightmares, and I wake up having panic attacks. I have to do so much self care, so as not to be too reactive. I basically am doing Olympic level training and research - just to manage to get through a day. I have very poor emotional self regulation and boundaries despite all the hard work I have done. I don't even feel like I have a right or a place to be alive. I have massive self hatred, self loathing, corrosive self doubt, self harm, etc etc etc etc - so when I started to do the tiniest bit of self care I had huge problems with escalating suicidal ideation. Even the smallest thing triggered off these cascades of reactions.

I can't talk to people in my day to day life because my life is so out of bounds of what they are living with - and I don't want to be inappropriate. The thing is, if you don't share yourself you can't have friends. I would like to have friends but I don't want to spill the beans.

the substance of the thoughts, memories, bad choices made or facts about people that are genuinely loathsome and can't be erased.

David Burns addresses this in his book "Feeling Good" - that depressive thinking means that on a profound, visceral, embodied way that we absolutely believe that we have or are or have done to us or have done things/something that means that we are the worst, if people really knew us no one would like us, that we are a lost cause, that our depression or anxiety is about "real" things that can't be fixed, and are reasonable to be stuck on. I know this shit. I lived here for decades. I used to believe this stuff. But after reading that book, and rereading this book, and rereading this book, even though it doesn't feel like it at a visceral gut wrenching level, I now know that this is not true for me, but I didn't say it wasn't true for you.

I will never meet my nieces and nephews, see two sisters and one of my brothers, have a family, have an extended family again, reconnect to my relatives and friends, get people back that I have lost, catch up on the social education that people get when not every developmental stage is disrupted by full on abuse, get to live outside of poverty, not live in fear of being raped in the night etc etc etc all shit I have lived through. It doesn't mean I have any answers for you, but it doesn't mean I don't have enough life experience to offer up a few ideas in a thread you posted asking for feedback and commentary (Having said that I don't want to just sit around reinforcing people's helplessness and hopelessness - and I don't think that is unreasonable.) - if I understand the intention of your thread. Unless you want to stay right where you are right now, and I get that too, as it was the only known, familiar space that I lived in for a very long time. But if you want people to confirm your ideas and positions, you might want to choose another strategy than starting a thread?

I guess we all project our own experiences a bit.

I don't have a self/selves. I have splits and can't feel myself at this time. I don't have connection with my own experiences. I am dissociated, derealised and depersonalised. My experience is avoidance, procrastination, being absent, I can't feel my own feelings, I can't connect to my own self. I don't feel my body except through pain. I am split apart from myself. So God I wish I could project my own experiences -but I don't really know what they are. I don't even try to explain this to people any more. I don't know what I think or feel. And basic human interactions would be that some form of connection needs to happen and I imagine that would be from communicating through your own experiences. I related to the despair in your post, so I thought I would offer up what I had to offer up. It took me years to get all that working for me. I had to research both Mindfulness and Self Compassion and then break it down to the smallest increments. When I first did my first Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction 8 week course it triggered off massive suicidal ideation and I tried to kill myself (I am too embarrassed to write the actual amount) but a couple of dozen times. So I had to go back and make it even more basic for myself and then do it smaller and read the research and work out how not to spin into my own maladaptive daydreaming, distorted cognitions, ruminations, dissociation, derealisation, depersonalisation, how to manage the rape feelings that would invade my body or come up whatever it was. I don't expect anyone else would have to do Mindfulness the way I started it or did it - it is just too hard, and I almost died doing it (literally!).

I offered some suggestions because they were things that were useful to me. It has taken me decades to even begin to find a path that works for me. It has been a hell of a hard slough. My understanding of your post was that you made a comment about never being able to get on top of your self loathing. I responded to that as I know your name and have read your posts over the years, and if my experience can knock a decade or even a few years or months off another person's journey that is great. If it is not useful you can always choose to think "Well Disco doesn't understand what I mean - but she is giving it a whirl, showing care and concern or she took time to write that response" - you could choose to think "Well Disco showed some care!" - so instead of being defensive and patronising and pointing out the really obvious to me you could choose to let it go if it isn't useful for you. However, if you are wedded to the idea that you will never get on top of yourself self loathing, because some one famous didn't, then I have wasted my time. I would suggest you think about if you actually want a response next time before starting a thread. I find this annoying to be honest. I haven't seen you do it, but I do notice a certain amount of sycophantic reinforcement of dysfunctional stuff at times, and people supporting each other's confirmation bias - I don't think that is helpful.

I am pretty time poor so if my style of response is not useful then I won't respond to your posts in future. To me your response is defensive and saying that I don't understand the nuances of yours or anyone else's recovery. Of course to a certain degree I can't, because I am not you or anyone else. If you don't want different angles on what you are talking about - then simply don't start a thread? I was sharing what I have to share. I can't read your mind or anyone else's mind. It took me decades to find my way, and I still struggle on a daily basis. This just reminds me why I mostly don't participate in threads much any more. It seems commentary is requested but when it doesn't reinforce someone's helplessness or hopelessness, or their distorted cognitions, then you get put down, dismissed, told you don't understand etc. And it might be true that I don't understand your situation, in which case you could have clarified and asked further questions, and I could have done my best to reply. Or you could just ignore the post if I am too far away from understanding your post - it happens. Sometimes someone makes a comment or asks a question and they are too far away from where I am that I have no frame of reference to interact with them.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

The one thing in my recovery/healing I have found - even on this website is that very few people actually understand what I am doing or need to do for my recovery.

@Disco Dancing Queen Your entire post has resonated with me deeply. Thank you.

 

[Dana1010]

Sooo, coming to a illness-specific forum and tossing around ideas about what has helped...is a bad thing??

Didn't say it was a bad thing.

Having said that I don't want to just sit around reinforcing people's helplessness and hopelessness - and I don't think that is unreasonable.

This is fine. But if I feel like if something does not work for me, I should be able to say so without being shouted down.

I am pretty time poor so if my style of response is not useful then I won't respond to your posts in future. To me your response is defensive and saying that I don't understand the nuances of yours or anyone else's recovery.

I don't mind your response. I don't know why you get the sense that I do.

You can't address a problem until you acknowledge that it exists. Maybe saying what I honestly believe (I can't DBT a fact out of existence) is my way of facing my problem intimately so maybe then something that does work will present itself.

 

[Deanna]

I haven't read the whole thread yet.. but these two deaths are connected to escapism.For instance, we had a highly decorated person n our community ( education, job, wealth concurred with second spouse, love of second family, stature, no drug addiction, no PTSD.. just end it. So, I don't think suicide is about drug addiction, really. Drug/Alcohol addiction can get someone to that point quicker because they are disassociated and have drowned their contentious of self preservation. If someone deliberately wants out... they will get out/end it.

I didn't listen to Chris Cornell's music ( I am sure I heard voice in some real popular stuff) but these were guys that confined in each other...obviously. And also, one death could have been an excuse for the other. ( so, the world could define it- make it easier) but the you tube video of Chris Cornell's last song is about humanity.. so he seriously wanted out and had been thinking about it for some time.

I was really struck by this too. Very sad and has nothing to do with money/being married/kids.. If anything that would be very claustrophobic.

( claustrophobic for me because routine secretly grinds on my nerves) But this event really took my head sideways into some real pain and I know that face.)

 

[Deanna]

I didn't write use what is helpful and discard the rest because I thought I had known you long enough that would be a given.

,

Don't take it personal.. a lot of people don't even put that together anymore. I've noticed it a lot outside of this forum,as well. It doesn't make any difference if you know someone 6 years .. they still won't get it and act like they've known for a whole day. In my experience, that is a more paranoid type.