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Breakdown
11 years ago
General
WARNING - excessively depressing and extremely personal rant follows:
A few months ago, my little cousin tried to take her own life. I still don’t know the method, but I know her family was really shaken up by it. She lives on the East Coast far from me and I really only knew her through family gatherings where you meet everyone for only a few minutes at a time and then don’t see them again for three years, so her personality, interests, and troubles weren’t well-known to me. Still, I tried reaching out to her the best I could.
I was also a sophomore in high school when I went through something very similar. I’d struggled with depression since I can remember. I had a large circle of friends who didn’t seem interested in me anymore and were drifting away into their own cliques, I was constantly at odds with my parents, my relationship with my girlfriend at the time was crumbling, and halfway through the year, I was kicked out of an Honors English class because my grades had dropped too low. I was incredibly self-conscious about my acne and how skinny I was. On top of that, I had the familiar teenage mood swings of anxiety, depression, and frustration.
I felt miserable almost all the time. There were days when I felt good, but most were a challenge. At times, it felt like I was trapped in a world of black and white misery while everyone else was living in a world of color. Sometimes it felt like an incredible amount of pressure was building up inside me while other times, I just felt completely drained.
The things I used to enjoy, I found silly. The people who always cheered me up, I found boring. The future I had imagined for myself, I found pointless. It didn’t feel like living, it felt like a chore. I think I’d felt this way to a certain degree since childhood. I would experience long periods of sadness for no discernable reason. I didn’t make friends easily and I was always very hard on myself. I didn’t necessarily want to be the best, but if I couldn’t do something right. If I drew a picture and didn’t feel it looked good enough, I would tear it up angrily. I felt incredibly worthless. I used to spend hours by myself instead of playing with friends. By the time I was in high school, all of this had built up to a degree where I didn’t feel like I could withstand it anymore.
I can’t remember when I first thought of suicide, but it definitely crossed my mind several times. I didn’t really believe in a heaven or a hell, but even if there was just nothing after death, it would be better than this. For a long time, I was too afraid to do anything. I didn’t want to wake up in hospital after a failed attempt and live the rest of my life plugged into a machine or with part of my brain damaged. My little sister was always around, so I couldn’t do anything that made noise. It would have to be private.
One day was particularly bad. I don’t recall specifically what events made it so awful, but I know my self-worth was at an all-time low and the stress of school was at an all-time high. I didn’t even want to try and live a normal life any more. I just wanted out. After dinner that night, I went downstairs to the basement and tied a noose. The plan was to hang myself in my closet or maybe from the showerhead in the bathroom, but the rope was bright orange nylon and my dad noticed it sticking out of my hoodie pocket as I went upstairs. He got suspicious when I wouldn’t tell him what it was and when I finally pulled it out and started crying, he realized what I had been planning to do.
The next day, they kept me home from school and brought me to a psychiatric hospital. I did an interview with one of the psychiatrists and agreed to stay for a week but I would be under constant supervision. I remember being stripped down, giving a urine sample to test for drugs, and having my belt, shoelaces, and the drawstring from my hoodie confiscated. My Dad broke down as he gave me a hug and left me and I did too once was gone. Another boy who was only 11 patted me on the back and told me how much I’d like it there until the other boys told him to give me some space. I was feeling all kinds of things then: anger, sorrow, guilt. Once I was in that hospital, I think I realized the gravity of what I had tried to do.
That night, I had to sleep on a thin futon near the front desk and pharmacy. I was on suicide watch, or “code red,” as they called it. I barely slept that whole week and was lethargic the entire time I was there. I had a backpack with some clothes and a few books. I spent all my spare time reading and trying to ignore the other boys. My floor had about ten rooms and maybe fifteen boys ranging from 10 to 18, all there for differing reasons. Some had tried to run away from home, some had been on drugs, one had “sexually acted out,” and another just had an awful temper. In fact, a few were required to be there by law or they’d be sent back to a juvenile detention prison. No one there had been diagnosed with depression or had tried to kill themselves though.
There was always someone yelling or trying to break something. Some of the more unruly kids would argue with the staff until they were threatening to hurt them and they’d be put in “lock-up” for an hour. This was a stereotypical padded room, but I never got to see it. There were no doors on the bedrooms and the door to the bathroom was a swinging door, so anyone could interrupt you in there at any point. Metal grids were on all the windows and while the layout was spacious and the walls a pale green, it did feel very much like a prison. I got called out a few times because I’d try to sit alone in my room and they’d want to keep you in sight at all times.
They’d have me fill out a bunch of questionnaires and every other day, I’d talk to a psychologist for half-an-hour, but most of it was group therapy. We would put together a puzzle and the group therapist would explain how each of us has all the pieces we need, we just need to put them together correctly or they would show us a movie like “E.T.” and have us talk about the meaning of friendship. It was like we were in kindergarten. What a waste of time. I went along with it the best I could just to get out of there as fast as possible. They did put me on some antidepressants while I was there and I do believe they helped. At the end of the week, I lied and said I was feeling incredible and that my week there had really helped me put things in perspective.
I wrote my cousin and told her all of this – in fact, a lot of this I just copied from the actual letter verbatim. I explained I still had bad days, weeks even, but I was on antidepressants, I had several supportive friends, and there were several coping mechanisms I had for dealing with rough times. In fact, the biggest thing that helped me was meeting others my age that dealt with depression. I gave her my phone number and e-mail and told her to call or text me any time. I told her I loved her even though I hardly ever saw her.
She did write back and told me she was very thankful for the letter and that it meant a lot to her.
Then two months later, she tried again.
Once again, I don’t know the method but this time her parents took her to a mental ward much like the one I had been in. The entire family is undergoing counseling (group and individual) and I believe she’s on antidepressants now. I realize that my letter wasn’t going to fix anything, but now I wonder if it made any difference at all. I’m not mad or anything, but I do feel like my effort was in vain.
All this happened a few months ago, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It’s made me think about my own life. I write this because I feel I’ve been slipping backward these past few months. Let me be clear: I’m not going to try to harm myself in any way, but especially in the past two weeks, I’ve felt incredible down. My mood has been a lot more volatile. Things that I used to just blow off as annoying now send my stress through the roof, get me irritable, or very emotional. Last week, I nearly cried at work just sitting in the breakroom. Just out of nowhere.
The worst thing is I can’t even pinpoint what’s happened lately to make me feel this way. All the usual stressors are there – I hate my job and can’t seem to find a better one, I’m fucking poor and in a ton of student loan debt, I’ve been single since high school, my self-esteem hasn’t been great, and my parents’ recent divorce still bothers me some days – but I’ve had to deal with these since I graduated college five years ago. Why does it all feel so bad now?
Already I’ve doubled the dosage on my medication, but I seriously think I’m going to start seeing a therapist. After my discharge from the hospital, I underwent some counseling and I don’t think it helped at all, but I’m willing to give it another try. Let’s just hope my insurance covers it. I’m lucky enough to have a supportive network of family and friends that I can confide in, but some professional help wouldn’t hurt.
I’m not looking for pity, but I just wanted to let people know because I haven’t been particularly active online. Recently, I’ve ignored a lot of people, turned down commissions, and kind of retreated into myself and for that I’m sorry. Please try to understand that things are pretty rough for me right now. I might even need to take a break from furry art for a while just to figure some things out. Same goes for social networking.
If you know anyone who’s going through a depressive episode, try and listen to them. Let them know you have their support. Try to show them some good things about themselves. Maybe invite them to something to get them out of their shell. If you’re depressed yourself, you’re not alone. You’re not weak or broken or unworthy of living a happy and fulfilling life.
Sorry to be such a downer, guys.
A few months ago, my little cousin tried to take her own life. I still don’t know the method, but I know her family was really shaken up by it. She lives on the East Coast far from me and I really only knew her through family gatherings where you meet everyone for only a few minutes at a time and then don’t see them again for three years, so her personality, interests, and troubles weren’t well-known to me. Still, I tried reaching out to her the best I could.
I was also a sophomore in high school when I went through something very similar. I’d struggled with depression since I can remember. I had a large circle of friends who didn’t seem interested in me anymore and were drifting away into their own cliques, I was constantly at odds with my parents, my relationship with my girlfriend at the time was crumbling, and halfway through the year, I was kicked out of an Honors English class because my grades had dropped too low. I was incredibly self-conscious about my acne and how skinny I was. On top of that, I had the familiar teenage mood swings of anxiety, depression, and frustration.
I felt miserable almost all the time. There were days when I felt good, but most were a challenge. At times, it felt like I was trapped in a world of black and white misery while everyone else was living in a world of color. Sometimes it felt like an incredible amount of pressure was building up inside me while other times, I just felt completely drained.
The things I used to enjoy, I found silly. The people who always cheered me up, I found boring. The future I had imagined for myself, I found pointless. It didn’t feel like living, it felt like a chore. I think I’d felt this way to a certain degree since childhood. I would experience long periods of sadness for no discernable reason. I didn’t make friends easily and I was always very hard on myself. I didn’t necessarily want to be the best, but if I couldn’t do something right. If I drew a picture and didn’t feel it looked good enough, I would tear it up angrily. I felt incredibly worthless. I used to spend hours by myself instead of playing with friends. By the time I was in high school, all of this had built up to a degree where I didn’t feel like I could withstand it anymore.
I can’t remember when I first thought of suicide, but it definitely crossed my mind several times. I didn’t really believe in a heaven or a hell, but even if there was just nothing after death, it would be better than this. For a long time, I was too afraid to do anything. I didn’t want to wake up in hospital after a failed attempt and live the rest of my life plugged into a machine or with part of my brain damaged. My little sister was always around, so I couldn’t do anything that made noise. It would have to be private.
One day was particularly bad. I don’t recall specifically what events made it so awful, but I know my self-worth was at an all-time low and the stress of school was at an all-time high. I didn’t even want to try and live a normal life any more. I just wanted out. After dinner that night, I went downstairs to the basement and tied a noose. The plan was to hang myself in my closet or maybe from the showerhead in the bathroom, but the rope was bright orange nylon and my dad noticed it sticking out of my hoodie pocket as I went upstairs. He got suspicious when I wouldn’t tell him what it was and when I finally pulled it out and started crying, he realized what I had been planning to do.
The next day, they kept me home from school and brought me to a psychiatric hospital. I did an interview with one of the psychiatrists and agreed to stay for a week but I would be under constant supervision. I remember being stripped down, giving a urine sample to test for drugs, and having my belt, shoelaces, and the drawstring from my hoodie confiscated. My Dad broke down as he gave me a hug and left me and I did too once was gone. Another boy who was only 11 patted me on the back and told me how much I’d like it there until the other boys told him to give me some space. I was feeling all kinds of things then: anger, sorrow, guilt. Once I was in that hospital, I think I realized the gravity of what I had tried to do.
That night, I had to sleep on a thin futon near the front desk and pharmacy. I was on suicide watch, or “code red,” as they called it. I barely slept that whole week and was lethargic the entire time I was there. I had a backpack with some clothes and a few books. I spent all my spare time reading and trying to ignore the other boys. My floor had about ten rooms and maybe fifteen boys ranging from 10 to 18, all there for differing reasons. Some had tried to run away from home, some had been on drugs, one had “sexually acted out,” and another just had an awful temper. In fact, a few were required to be there by law or they’d be sent back to a juvenile detention prison. No one there had been diagnosed with depression or had tried to kill themselves though.
There was always someone yelling or trying to break something. Some of the more unruly kids would argue with the staff until they were threatening to hurt them and they’d be put in “lock-up” for an hour. This was a stereotypical padded room, but I never got to see it. There were no doors on the bedrooms and the door to the bathroom was a swinging door, so anyone could interrupt you in there at any point. Metal grids were on all the windows and while the layout was spacious and the walls a pale green, it did feel very much like a prison. I got called out a few times because I’d try to sit alone in my room and they’d want to keep you in sight at all times.
They’d have me fill out a bunch of questionnaires and every other day, I’d talk to a psychologist for half-an-hour, but most of it was group therapy. We would put together a puzzle and the group therapist would explain how each of us has all the pieces we need, we just need to put them together correctly or they would show us a movie like “E.T.” and have us talk about the meaning of friendship. It was like we were in kindergarten. What a waste of time. I went along with it the best I could just to get out of there as fast as possible. They did put me on some antidepressants while I was there and I do believe they helped. At the end of the week, I lied and said I was feeling incredible and that my week there had really helped me put things in perspective.
I wrote my cousin and told her all of this – in fact, a lot of this I just copied from the actual letter verbatim. I explained I still had bad days, weeks even, but I was on antidepressants, I had several supportive friends, and there were several coping mechanisms I had for dealing with rough times. In fact, the biggest thing that helped me was meeting others my age that dealt with depression. I gave her my phone number and e-mail and told her to call or text me any time. I told her I loved her even though I hardly ever saw her.
She did write back and told me she was very thankful for the letter and that it meant a lot to her.
Then two months later, she tried again.
Once again, I don’t know the method but this time her parents took her to a mental ward much like the one I had been in. The entire family is undergoing counseling (group and individual) and I believe she’s on antidepressants now. I realize that my letter wasn’t going to fix anything, but now I wonder if it made any difference at all. I’m not mad or anything, but I do feel like my effort was in vain.
All this happened a few months ago, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It’s made me think about my own life. I write this because I feel I’ve been slipping backward these past few months. Let me be clear: I’m not going to try to harm myself in any way, but especially in the past two weeks, I’ve felt incredible down. My mood has been a lot more volatile. Things that I used to just blow off as annoying now send my stress through the roof, get me irritable, or very emotional. Last week, I nearly cried at work just sitting in the breakroom. Just out of nowhere.
The worst thing is I can’t even pinpoint what’s happened lately to make me feel this way. All the usual stressors are there – I hate my job and can’t seem to find a better one, I’m fucking poor and in a ton of student loan debt, I’ve been single since high school, my self-esteem hasn’t been great, and my parents’ recent divorce still bothers me some days – but I’ve had to deal with these since I graduated college five years ago. Why does it all feel so bad now?
Already I’ve doubled the dosage on my medication, but I seriously think I’m going to start seeing a therapist. After my discharge from the hospital, I underwent some counseling and I don’t think it helped at all, but I’m willing to give it another try. Let’s just hope my insurance covers it. I’m lucky enough to have a supportive network of family and friends that I can confide in, but some professional help wouldn’t hurt.
I’m not looking for pity, but I just wanted to let people know because I haven’t been particularly active online. Recently, I’ve ignored a lot of people, turned down commissions, and kind of retreated into myself and for that I’m sorry. Please try to understand that things are pretty rough for me right now. I might even need to take a break from furry art for a while just to figure some things out. Same goes for social networking.
If you know anyone who’s going through a depressive episode, try and listen to them. Let them know you have their support. Try to show them some good things about themselves. Maybe invite them to something to get them out of their shell. If you’re depressed yourself, you’re not alone. You’re not weak or broken or unworthy of living a happy and fulfilling life.
Sorry to be such a downer, guys.
I know a little to much about depresion and stuff like your talking about from very close family.. but i dont know what to say that Would help..
after my close encounter with cancer, i've come to think everyones goes into the dark at some point. this is natural. some get lost in the dark. most commonly those have been in th edark for too long or those who were lost in the light to begin with. and more often than not, one will return to darkness at some point too.
what im getting at is that you did the right thing sharing your experience. believe it or not, it helps, it helps in many ways we may not understand, but makes evidence that one can be in the dark and out of it too, even if it takes time.
funny you'd mention this now, i was just commenting with my buddy about it.
may be i should try therapy as well...
I'll be honest: I've never felt like taking my own life or harming myself in any way shape or form, mainly because I don't see ending my life as a solution to improving to a better one. Not that I don't understand or sympathize at all, I truly do get the hurricane of emotions that swirl within a person fighting severe depression. I'm merely sharing my experiences on it. However, I absolutely understand feeling like I'm "weak or broken or unworthy of living a happy and fulfilling life", partially because of my shorter stature and what type of person I was as a kid and teen.
My advice? Yes, go see a therapist. Give yourself an outlet to talk to someone that may have the ability to help you and guide you along to a better state of mind. Also, don't perceive everything that's bad in your life all at once. It'll seem much more insurmountable that way. Instead, try to analyze and find the easiest thing to fix or improve and focus on that. Then do that and continue to another aspect of your life. Easier said than done, I know. But what I've realized is that when you give yourself realistic goals to accomplish, you value yourself more once you reach them. For example, I began working out a few years ago. Every time I did exercises, I just focused on two things: What was my limit today and can I beat my limit from last time. It helped shove away the insecurities by forcing me to be too preoccupied with the actual act of improving and growing as a person. Same with anything else. Challenge yourself to become a better guy. Especially with people here that believe you can.
I do.
I taught him to take control of his thoughts when he starts to spiral. I noticed that when things seemed to get at him they all sort of rushed him at once. So I taught him to take control of his moods when they started to decline. I taught him to focus on the details of something he enjoys and just pay attention to the little things. He makes sauces in his head now when he would otherwise be tumbling off the edge. This way he faces things when he wants and can see all the parts, rather than when chemical conditions in his brain try to force him to confront stuff that's burying him. Together we've gotten through so much and every time I see him come to me sullen and defeated I am happy to sit and listen and just let him express himself. It's the first step and it matters.
You're right, the best thing for most people to do is talk to others who have depression. Most people can't really wrap their heads around it. But people who have gone through it and still go through it understand, and they always have useful insights.
I hope you find some joy in your creative endeavours again soon, life demands so much energy sometimes, but one of the greatest joys is putting energy back into the world. You can make all kinds of dreams come true with your skills and talents, so don't forget that art is first and foremost, fun, and rewarding, long before it's an obligation. We'll all be here to shower you with praise and thank you for the fun when you want to share with people. But I bet you can find a lot of strength and comfort in art too. Expressing oneself is important, however you do it. I hope you are full of excitement and passion again soon.
*i slowly hug you real tight, in my dragon form, holding you* dude...
I am not someone who can really cheer up others at these kind of moments, and that´s something i regrett now. I wish i could have the words right now to say how wonderful you really are, and how grateful i feel you never managed to do what you had in mind... I guess all i can say is i love you. And i mean it. We talked just a few times, but i found out you are someone extremely kind, loving and honest. And it´s totally ok if you need to take a spare time with pics or chatting, i understand it. I just really hope you and your cousin get well, and receive all the help you need. *softly kiss you*
Depression comes in so many flavors and can ebb and flow without any warning..and so many of us have had to contend with one form of this demon or another.. Honestly, before you met me I had my largest battle with this very thing but i've struggled with depression since I was around 11 years old. Self harm, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts; all of it. I taught myself to cope by shutting down all of my emotions; numbing myself to everyone and everything. Outside forces and events in my life only served to tell me that I was on the right path by being avoidant but It never took care of the underlying issues I was dealing with.
so, just around six months before I moved out here with you, Chip and Aj I lost control. My years and years of forming a thick shell couldn't prepare me for the level of manipulation I had been put through and events piled on me. Finally with an event that was honestly "the straw that broke the camel's back" I broke. Entirely.
I stopped eating. I planned to take my own life and finally planned to act upon it.
But instead of going through with that nasty little plot I had devised, I stepped into a therapist's office on the way to do the deed. I broke down in front of a complete stranger. A professional stranger, but a stranger nonetheless and she urged me to make an appointment to see my doctor, to get on some antidepressants and I began seeing her weekly. I was considered a crisis case, and given a lot of priority.
Thankfully, I never had to be committed to a hospital though It came close a few nights.. But I absolutely feel like the professional care I had received during that time saved my life.
We all have our paths we have to tread on and trials we have to overcome in this battle with depression. And I'm sure your words carried meaning for your cousin but it really seems as though she needed to seek professional care.
And, if you feel that you need to, then please do. I know it helped me immensely to do so. I wouldn't be upstairs writing to you if I hadn't and I believe that entirely,
In the mean time remember that you're a person of worth. You hardly know me but I do care about you and I genuinely love having you in my life. You're definitely a part of my current state of happiness, and I want you to know that.
If you ever, and I mean EVER need someone to talk to; I'm here. Always.
To be honest, I've contemplated committing suicide at least once. I didn't have the nicest of teenage lives. There were times I felt like nothing mattered at all. That I had no purpose in life. And yet, I made it through all that. Not...really sure how. Or why. But I did.
I agree with WeaselZERO, getting some sort of outlet to take your frustration out of your system helps. I found that keeping a diary actually works. It gives me someone to talk to, someone to actually feel like they know me and what I'm going through. I'm pretty sure this won't work for everyone. But it does for me.
At any rate, I hope you feel better soon!
You've got a lot of support on here and I hope you get through this dark period.
But for now all I can say is, it was very brave of you to share this, what you did for your cousin was wonderful--and don't think it wasn't in vain. She said she cared and was grateful. I'm sure it's just a case of like what happened with you, and so many others...that even knowing people care, even after being told those things, it doesn't change your experiences, how you feel, or the way things might be wrong chemically inside of you. That does mean people need to keep trying, will always be struggling, but it doesn't meant the things you tell them and do for them are pointless.
I too have had to deal with depression, a lot actually, though never to the point I actually needed medication. (Or if I did, it was never prescribed.) And I considered suicide in middle school. I had some bad experiences then with psychological help, but I've had good experiences more recently. So I'd say it can't hurt to try again, and hopefully it can help.
Glad you're not giving up. You're a good friend to me, and I will be thinking about you and hoping you feel better soon. *hugs*
I give speeches for NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, in their "In Our Own Voice" presentation group. None of us in the group may speak about a specific mental illness unless we have a current diagnosis. Mine is Severe Depression, one that has me taking 3 pills a day to try and keep symptoms under control.
It took years for me to arrive at a tolerable state of affairs, but still it's easy to get me to fly off the handle, and still not that hard for me to lose impulse control. The last of which usually leads to regrets and self-loathing either that same day or often before the week is out.
The most effective tool I've found for combatting the dark thoughts has been to keep the mind and hands engaged, so your focus doesn't start pushing closer and closer to that emotional event horizon of suicidal thoughts. I found that spending too much free time criticizing yourself, events in your life, even drawing gloomy conclusions about your future, tend to lead to darkness.
There has to be a plan on how to cope as well as how to give yourself a warning sign when you're starting to spiral down toward that black abyss of bad feelings.
I think being self-aware is one help. For example, finish the sentence "I know I must be feeling down when..." at least once. The more answers to this question you can list, the more you are aware of "triggers" that lead to increasingly bad thoughts.
The next thing to do is to try and come up with a remedy, something you know could help each and every trigger you listed. You might find that several triggers have the same solution, be it something simple like working a puzzle, to something somewhat harder like seeing a therapist and/or getting medication, to something more or less out of control like earning more money, getting out of debt, or moving somewhere else (possibly to be with someone).
There's an old prayer doing with "Having the wisdom to know what things in my life I can change, and the ability to accept things I can't." To just be able to function sometimes requires us to work at answering this prayer for ourselves and (religiously) practice it.
I too have a cousin whose recent loss of a husband to lung cancer has had one of their two homes confiscated by foreclosure, and is facing an unaffordable tax bill on the other property. Just moving belongings out of one into the other has created what looks like a hoarder's paradise in the smaller of these two homes, the one now actively into tax lien listing, which can result in some 3rd party buying her home to pay the tax bills on it, and therefore making her homeless.
Things for her are rather bleak. I spent two weeks in North Carolina (Charlotte) to try and help her at least regain Internet connectivity, and get finances in better order. But paying the thousands owed on property tax was not possible for me, or my family back home. And there's a well-founded worry that once one bill was paid, no independence would result from it, so it would be just a matter of time before more money was needed, be it for ordinary bills or the next year's taxes.
"Give a person a fish and they eat for a day; teach them to fish and they can eat for a lifetime" the saying goes. Unfortunately, with people who have an impaired ability to learn the basics of self-support, there's little left but to give them fish (figuratively speaking) as often as you can afford, or realize all you'd be doing is create a situation of desperate need for them AND you.
I am not a firm believer in the adage, "A joy shared is twice the joy; a misery shared is half the misery." It seems that either result in magnification, not one resulting in reduction per se. Some of the hardest things about depression (and some other mental illnesses) is that there can be people in our lives that are bad for us in either being enablers, or being toxic personalities. It takes a lot of objective insight to identify either, especially when you have a long relationship involving them. But part of the remedy for a sorrowful life is to remember we choose our friends, and in many cases we have some choice what family to be around, too. It is important for emotional hygiene to eliminate these bad influences from your life, or move away from them where necessary. To not do so is to (in some way) accept the poisonous effect they have on your well-being.
For some, therapy (with or without medication) is the path to identifying poisonous people and situations, and as well delving the depths to find the root cause of our bad feelings. Seldom do people come to an epiphany and therapeutically solve these problems for themselves.
We are the challenged millions who must cope with dangerous and volatile emotional (loss of) equilibrium. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all" wrote Helen Keller, a person born deaf and blind. Thinking about how these two senses most often bring people joy and excitement, be it from music or pictures of buff men (xD), it definitely seems quite an adventure to overcome those two handicaps. Mental illness is a disabling, sometimes progressive disease. In no small way it can be as crippling as a physical disability. However, it is one disease that people feel guilty about and sometimes get cajoled and ridiculed about having. Society still needs an attitude adjustment against the phobia reactions given in response to mental illnesses. I've taken on the responsibility to attempting to educate people about it, since education often is what lacks in matters of phobia reactions including the most common phobia reaction, that of hatred.
I can understand where you are coming from. My own mind went to some really dark places when my Father died nearly 4 years ago. What was worse (for me) was that I don't really have a lot of family or friends that I could fall back upon (It's often felt like Mom and Me against the entire world at certain points in time).
I began to wonder if I too was suffering from some sort of depression as well. Not to go off on (probably more than one) tangent but I know now that it was because of the way my Father Passed, I was forced to mourn for him slowly but denied the chance to actually say a formal "good-bye". (I still want to strangle the doctors for what they did to him)
Because of what happened to him (and to Mom and Myself). My thoughts could be summarized with "I'm the biggest loser upon this stupid blue ball we call a world." and "Where is my life really going?" and "Will anyone really miss me when I leave?" But part of that probably came from me trying to hold everything in for the sake of my Mother who was also emotionally fragile (probably more so than I was). I've had a habit of holding my emotions in ever since middle school so long ago, for fear of looking weak in front of other people (which would have been an open invitation for mockery). The few times I "let go" were done in private or at home where no one could see me do it (except maybe for my Mom or Dad). When my Father died, I (as did my Mom) had to adapt FAST...
As I type this I realize I've rambled on tangent....
I just want to say that things to eventually get better. I don't know all the details surrounding your life, but I just want you to know that I'm here for you (if you ever need a virtual shoulder to cry on). You might think that you are alone in all of this, but you're not.
I can sympathize with how you feel--I remember what it was like being in a mental ward.
Can't say that I'm more optimistic today, if anything still pessimistic.
Some people are fortunate whereas others truly are unlucky.
In the end though, this world isn't worth living in. The only reason I'm still here today is because of the few people who make it worthwhile, and for that sliver of hope that I consciously, desperately hope for.
Live a happy life, and see you in another life.