suicide

i am writing here to let everyone know that i am feeling so much better now than i felt several weeks ago. i really hope that i am not jinxing myself by posting this, but right now things appear to be going in a much better direction for me. i have no idea how everything will play out ultimately, but then again that's life in general isn't it? i know that i will have some bad days, quite likely in the very near future, but at least for now there's enough positivity that i am at least a bit more optimistic than i was in the not-so-distant future.

from the very bottom of my heart, i would like to thank everyone who reached out to me (here and privately) over the past few weeks. i deeply appreciate that you have taken time out of your busy lives to help me out when i needed it most, and it has given me strength these days. as i have said over and over again, i really hope that i am in a position to return the favor should it ever come to that for everyone who's helped me during these trying times.

:)

:) glad to hear it

awesome, Eisbaer! glad to hear it & good on you for being so strong :-D

That's really, really great to hear Eisbaer. :)

get some ice cream, you earned it tbh

^w/ sprinkles

ben & jerry's is the way to go imo

nothing can remind you how awesome life is better than ice cream

Glad to see good tidings, Eisbaer -- your kung fu is strong.

I'm glad things are getting better for you.

That's sooooo great to hear Eis!

Im so pleased for you Tad <3

Right on, buddy!

good shit, man

What they all said.

\m/TAD\m/

Awesomest thread revive. Hail eisbaer.

rawk dude!

That's very nice to hear, keep on truckin' Tad!

Quite wonderful to hear!

Things have been getting much worse lately and I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle it. None of the stupid bullshit I've kept myself distracted with for years is working anymore and every time I try explaining things to a therapist or my family I get either "cheer up, you're doing fine" or another prescription for antidepressants that don't do anything except make me gain weight and feel even shittier about how badly I've fucked up myself and my life.

Oh man, TT, that is really shitty. I wish I had some solid advice to offer you, but I don't really. You are free to webmail me, though, if you need a sympathetic stranger to vent to.

I think a lot of us have been there and done that, as can be evidenced all over this, and other, threads. The fact that we're all still here shows that there is a way through this, even if you can't see what it is right now.

Do you have anywhere you can bike or get outside and walk around? When I got into full-on depressive and anxious states, I learned the hard way that changing your physiology had great effects at improving your psychology, too

"None of the stupid bullshit I've kept myself distracted with for years is working anymore"

theres always other endless amount of distracting stuff to think and do in the world (and thank god for that).

sorry TT. feel ya on the uselessness of trying to explain it to family and friends

cheers on TRYING to explain it to family and friends. i think that shows a lot of courage that most people don't have.

^definitely

i am sorry to hear that, TT. and i know that, after a while, all of the "cheer up you're fine" or "you're going to be fine" talk seems pointless. (dunno about prescription drugs, though -- i have a deadly fear of them). at the risk of adding more pointless talk on top of what you've already gotten, keep in mind that those saying these things mean well -- and may not have anything more helpful than that to tell you. really, best thing (as i'm finding out) is to find people who DO have something more useful and less generic ... and their schedules permitting, talk to them however you can.

today was NOT a good day for me, FWIW and to say the very least. won't get into reasons here (an ILXor knows the reasons) ... but i didn't (seriously) consider offing myself. considering where i was emotionally not all that long ago, that is a sort of progress.

i don't really know your bg but i've found that religion/spirituality/cosmos can be a very useful tool. sometimes being able to connect with something bigger than yourself can help put your suffering into perspective

that being said, my heart goes out to you and i hope things start looking up for ya

i know you'll be fine, tad.

Xpost just family. I only have one friend, literally the only friend I have managed to make in my entire life, and there's little to no chance I could explain things to him. The main reason I made friends with him in the first place is that he's socially/emotionally oblivious enough that I didn't get all hypersensitive, panic and shut down like with everone else I meet. All I can talk with him about is the increasingly narrow area where our interests overlap, and that's pretty much down to a tiny subset of video games, which I'm fucking sick of to be honest.

Last weekend I went to my cousin's wedding and spent my time either in the company of people I didn't know and had nothing in common with and pretty much panicked non-stop, or my dad, who did what he's done my entire life and dragged me around to a bunch of shit I hate and made staggeringly insensitive comments. All while everyone my age is celebrating the end of a part of life I never even got to start.

And now I've just learned my grandmother's taken a sudden turn for the worse and probably won't make it through the weekend, and I don't know how I'm going to be able to cope with it. I'm taking a flight to be with her and my mom, who's not dealing with this very well either, but I'm just not ready for any of this. And I feel like such a selfish shit for worrying about how I'm going to handle this, or for sitting alone and drinking all the way through my cousin's wedding reception.

avoid alcohol until the depression has lifted

not just "imo" here but empirically do not drink if you are suicidally depressed.

you're not selfish for having those worries. that's a hard situation, and many people have similar feelings.

UAAIHL is right about not-drinking.

A close friend of mine on the other side of the world is dealing with some similar problems, TT...so if you can't lay that stuff out to someone close to you, as lame as it might sound, get it out of your head and lay it out here...I won't speak for everyone but even if we can't fix what's up, we will listen...and sometimes just laying it out can help. If it's bad enough that you feel like you're that alone, by all means we will be your company.

My only counsel would be to not anticipate anxiety. Don't get yourself tied up in a knot worrying about being worried, worried about how you are going to get through coming days. Get through today. Get through lunchtime, and look at the things that you can do right now, not what you can't do. Your grandmother is still here, while she's here, you know...anticipating how you're going to feel if you lose her...it's an awful situation to be in, but you have to try not to think about that, because it will make you feel far far worse.

I agree with what Daniel said. What you're going through now IS tough PERIOD. Don't think of your concerns as selfish or that you "have" to be strong.

Staying away from booze when depressed STRONGLY thirded.

TT, have you looked into group therapy, and also cognitive behavioral therapy? group therapy might answer that need to talk out loud to people who really get it. a coworker of mine said it really helped her. and CB can really give you some control over what feels like a totally uncontrollable thing. i would guess that at least 60% of ilxors suffer from moderate to severe anxiety or panic disorder or depression or a combo - so keep in mind that while it may seem like you can't find anyone who understands what you're going through, there really are people out there who do - and we're not rare.

tons of ppl have already mentioned the exercise thing, but i just want to re-emphasise that exercise can REALLY REALLY help - don't underestimate it.

i'm so sorry you haven't found a therapist who can help you, but please keep looking - don't give up yet.

one more thing: you are not your illness. severe anxiety, panic disorders, etc., are illnesses/disabilities - they are not the sum total of your personality any more than diabetes is for a diabetic. part of the vicious cycle of anxiety and panic and depression, imo, is that you start to feel like it's all you are, which only exacerbates the problem. you're not weak, or less of a person, because of your particular brain chemical makeup.

The first guy I ever really fell for (I made a move/got rejected/stayed friends w him after he later moved away) tried to kill himself with pills a few days ago and it is seriously a horrible, horrible feeling. I don't think he realized how many people cared about him even though he was convinced he had "no one". If you (or ANYONE READING THIS THREAD, seriously) want to webmail me and talk about stuff I'd be more than happy to try to help out, or even just listen. Believe me, I've felt what you've felt.

"he's socially/emotionally oblivious enough that I didn't get all hypersensitive, panic and shut down like with everone else I meet."

the thing that makes the small amount of good friends that I have actually be great friends is that they are flawed
they are very different then me when it comes to strengths and weaknesses. we are an odd bunch and I can't imagine having friends any other way

TT: feel free to email me as well. I am crazy busy these days, but if I can I may at least be able to talk.

Whatever else may happen, you really aren't alone. Please take up any offers to talk or for therapy. I am learning a lot of this stuff right now, too.

Thanks for the encouragement- it sounds trite to say this but it really does mean a lot. I think the worst of it is over...my grandmother passed away on Saturday, and the details of making funeral arrangements, travel, and helping my mom and her siblings has put a lot of my self-pity-party bullshit into perspective. I'm seeing a new psychologist after work today, and hopefully I'll be able to lay this out in a way that makes sense. I've also got an unfilled prescription for Prozac lying around that I might use to see if it helps... I was very resistant to the idea, since I've been on one or another of a huge pharmocopeia of psych meds for well over half my life at this point, and not only have none of them worked consistently, the side effects have very often made things worse (try gaining 60 lbs in one year in high school and see what that does to your confidence). But right now I think I'd rather be fat and distracted and unable to feel anything at all than constantly stuck on how much of a normal life I missed out on.

Thanks for the encouragement- it sounds trite to say this but it really does mean a lot. I think the worst of it is over...my grandmother passed away on Saturday, and the details of making funeral arrangements, travel, and helping my mom and her siblings has put a lot of my self-pity-party bullshit into perspective. I'm seeing a new psychologist after work today, and hopefully I'll be able to lay this out in a way that makes sense. I've also got an unfilled prescription for Prozac lying around that I might use to see if it helps... I was very resistant to the idea, since I've been on one or another of a huge pharmocopeia of psych meds for well over half my life at this point, and not only have none of them worked consistently, the side effects have very often made things worse (try gaining 60 lbs in one year in high school and see what that does to your confidence). But right now I think I'd rather be fat and distracted and unable to feel anything at all than constantly stuck on how much of a normal life I missed out on.
--a black white asian pine ghost who is fake (Telephone thing)

Well, hold that thought. It sounds like a cliche, but take it day-by-day. And find something -- ANYTHING -- to get your mind out of a self-destructive rut.

Hey, whoa, TT! That is some heavy shit!

Psych med side effects can be really not fun and really unpredictable. OTOH going on and off of them – not taking them for a couple days/weeks for whatever reason – has its own bouquet of different and (in my experience/opinion) even worse side effects. So when you say

I've also got an unfilled prescription for Prozac lying around that I might use to see if it helps

I could be wrong or jumping to conclusions, but it sounds like you have been on Prozac recently & stopped taking it for while. If you've been taking meds for a while & then stopped, that could be part of your problem. Some of my biggest psychological lows, my most fucked up times where I had the least perspective, were times not on meds or off meds, but just when I ran out of meds. If you want to quit taking them, work with a sympathetic doctor who knows how to taper off these things, but please try not to just stop taking them. Or, if you want to take them (which if you have been thinking about suicide, I would say this might not be the time to quit taking them, but once again talk to your doctor), stay on them. Just don't run out of pills! Once again, many apologies if I reached the wrong conclusion. I hope you get feeling less shitty.

abbott 100% otm

prozac has worked wonders for me

It's a new prescription, a couple weeks old, that I hadn't filled yet. I haven't been on any meds since earlier this year, when a short course of Pristiq made the depression unbearably worse and I tapered it off. I'm pretty skeptical of the Prozac, since I've been put on almost every other antidepressant on the market at one time or another and they never do any good, but I'm running out of options and if it's good for even a little while it would be worth it.

fwiw a large number of people I graduated with swear Prozac helped them survive college, like maybe 20-30 people

that's interesting that prozac is one you haven't tried - in new zealand it's pretty much the first thing they prescribe (i guess bc it's the cheapest/most generic in NZ) and then they go from there if it doesn't work.

I don't know why, either. It's practically synonymous with "antidepressant," the first one anyone thinks of when you mention them. I've been on practically everything else in the SSRI and SNRI classes at one time or another as well as a few others (Effexor, Pristiq, Wellbutrin, Remeron).

Tonight I'm keeping myself occupied with lots of coffee and loud music, which is working pretty well, Rotund for Success especially.