Something snapped inside

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I have never made a plan but I've gotten almost to that point. Please do stay with us. I'm glad you posted here so we could try to lift you up a bit and let you know how much you DO matter....even to people you probably have never met. You are unique and special and you deserve to live and be HAPPY - I hope with all my heart that you (and me, as well) will find that happiness in THIS existence.

[morgana]

Cookie (may I call you Cookie?),

Please don't do this. I understand how a person can get to that point. Been there, done that, starred in the PSA.

I had no idea how many people I was going to hurt when I took the pills. I didn't find out until my body shook them off and I woke up. I was lucky; there was no brain damage, I recovered fully. But I know now that even in the darkest depths I could've had help if I'd wanted it. People loved me.

And people love you too. You already know that. Don't hurt them, Cookie. If you can't live for yourself, don't hurt your husband this way. Don't hurt us this way.

There's help out there; you can find it if you look hard enough. Hell, there's help here . . .

[Cookie]

You guys are going to have a hard time glittering my car. I don't own one.

Morgana, yes you can call me Cookie. Lupo started that and everyone else picked it up. I love the nickname.

I still have no plans of going to a clinic or getting a counselor. I just don't trust them. Or hospitals in this regard.

You guys have all made me feel loved. And yes, I'm trying to hang on for the people who care about me. That's the reason I've always hung on. As a teenager, I didn't do it because I was afraid my little brother would be the one to find me. This time, though, I'm realizing I've never once had a reason to hang on for me or for anything I wanted out of life. There isn't anything I want to do or experience. Nothing I really want out of life. And I never really have.

[Cookie]

I am really trying to live, though. I'm discouraged and all, but I'm trying. Don't want the post above to be misread that I'm on the verge of doing something.

[Kara]

Honestly I don't blame you about the counselors. I have seen exactly one awesome counselor, and one who wasn't too bad. And about half a dozen terrible ones. It's not going to do any good if you go see someone because others tell you to (or drag you to one).

Trying is enough. Trying means you haven't given up. Maybe some in-depth soul searching is in order. Or maybe just seeing what life has in store for you instead of focusing on what you really want.

I still intend to come visit you sometime, and rest assured I will find SOMETHING to glitter

love and *hugs*

[Mikkel]

I don't have any advice, but please stay with us.

[Cat]

I don't have any advice, but please stay with us.

Seconding and tripling this.

[Shpepper]

I have to agree with everyone. Please stick around. I know I don't talk alot or respond to a lot of posts, but there are days that reading something you have written is the highlight of my day.

[Mel]

I really hope you find what works for you. I don't have any advice that wasn't already said (even though you aren't really looking for any), but please stay with us.

Have some hugs.

[MoonCat]

OK, you say there's nothing you want out of life. What about your husband? From what you've said about him, I think he loves you. Don't you want to know what he's going to be like in five years? Or 10? Don't you want to wake up and see his face, see his smile? Look in his eyes, hold his hand, feel how much he wants you to stay. That's one thing to live for right there.

[Pedersen]

You guys are going to have a hard time glittering my car. I don't own one.

Easy solution to the problem: ON my way there, I'll buy a super cheap junker (like $100 cheap), park it in front of where you live (and make sure the title is in your name, of course), and *then* I'll paint your name on the side using purple glitter before coating the rest of the vehicle (windows included) in silver glitter.

Don't make me do that. None of us want to see me use up that much glitter.

[Seshat]

Cookie,

I'm in the same boat as you. I have a viable plan, one that I could scrape together the cash to afford. One where the first symptom is loss of consciousness, and which leaves a tidy corpse already in a workable body-bag. (Minimal cleanup.)

I have a viable way of doing it to cause minimal disruption to people. (Including putting a sign up saying 'do not come any further: contact police instead'.) And where its provable that noone but myself can have done it; to minimise wasting police time.

I not only have the depressive flatness and the anhedonia (lack of joy/lack of positive emotions); I have severe fibromyalgia with all its attendant physical pain and disability.


What keeps me alive? I have a life pact with my chosen-family. Until we have run out of medical options, I will stick around. If I give the medical options a full and fair try, and my doctors and my family can't find anything else to try, and my life remains not worth living... well.
There are countries in the world where euthanasia is legal, and assisted suicide can be done with dignity. It would be better for all of us, me and my family, to go that route. And I know that they don't want me living a pain-raddled anhedonic life for another forty-odd years, so I trust that if we DO run out of options, they'll help me.


I'm going to start listing tools for reducing depression and anhedonia here. These are options that are helping me; they may or may not help you, but are worth looking into.

In other words: for the sake of those who love you and care for you, please make a life pact. Give medical treatment a fair and honest attempt. Find someone you can trust to be interested in you living WELL, and keep them in the loop on what you're trying; and ask their support for your attempts.
If you BOTH agree that you've done as much as you can, and your life is not foreseeably going to be worth living, then tidy up your life and spend .. say .. six months or a year on prepping and making certain it's what you want.
After that, ensure that your will is written, your estate will be easy to resolve, your executor is (or will be) aware of all your wishes. And go find a place where assisted euthanasia is legal.
Yes, I know this is going to be the unpopular opinion. But honestly? I find that knowing that I CAN go, and WILL be supported, makes it much easier to stay.



So: what helps?

* Ensuring you have reasons to be happy. (Stop and smell the roses, both literally and metaphorically.)
* Ensuring you have reasons to feel achievement. (Do something that your intellect deems worthwhile, even if your emotions don't. Teach something, learn something, help someone, help the planet, make someone smile.)
* Improve your circumstances. Even a tiny bit. Even just washing the dishes.
* Do something to make your life a tiny bit more comfortable. If you used to like blue and your bedroom is all done in red, get a blue bedspread and put it on.


* Diet and exercise and sufficient sleep. Yes, the three Magic Bullets.

* Stress management.
* Doing things to express your emotions. All of them, good and bad. Common methods include anything creative (art, music, dance), writing letters that never get sent, vigorous physical activity (beating up a punching bag can be satisfying).

* Talking therapies.
* To me, a good talking therapy includes learning techniques for handling emotional and stressful situations. It's physiotherapy for the mind: it's not sitting and babbling, it's actual learning and/or mental-muscle development.
* Of course, the other major purpose for talking therapies is finding out what concealed injuries you have in your psyche, and enabling them to heal. Almost all of us have some, and they become like undrained abcesses are in the body: a constant drag on the system and something that needs to be found, opened, and allowed to heal.
* M*A*S*H has some episodes with Dr Sidney Freeman that do a good job of displaying the 'finding concealed injuries' type of talking therapy. Be aware that they have to do in a half-hour nominally-comedy show work that can take a year or more and is definitely not funny; but if you allow for that, it's a good representation.

* Medications.
* Medication can be temporary or permanent; it depends on your brain chemistry & neural anatomy.
* If your brain is actually wonky, medication may be forever necessary. This is the neural equivalent of someone with insulin-dependant diabetes or a chronic thyroid disorder.
* If your brain is fine, medication may be supportive: help you keep going until the mental physiotherapy brings you up to normal.

For me, I'm using Cymbalta as an antidepressant, and Edronax as a .. motivator? The Edronax helps me have a reason to get up in the morning, rather than just lying around going 'blah'. The Cymbalta keeps my range of moods up closer to 0 rather than negative-several-thousand.
(where positive numbers are 'happy', and negative are 'unhappy' or 'depressed').
You'll note that my medications don't bring me into the 'happy' range: but at least I'm no longer totally down.

[Seshat]

OK, you say there's nothing you want out of life. What about your husband? From what you've said about him, I think he loves you. Don't you want to know what he's going to be like in five years? Or 10? Don't you want to wake up and see his face, see his smile? Look in his eyes, hold his hand, feel how much he wants you to stay. That's one thing to live for right there.

When you're in the level of psychic pain depression can put you in ... no. No, you don't. Every day, every hour is agony. It's enough to have had time with your loved ones; further time is an unbearable thought.

[Der Cute]

Pederson:
Glitter is the herpes of craft making.

Personally I think you would cover a car in some kind o simple glue, climb up a tree next to it and dump as much glitter as possible...and confetti.

[Cookie]

Seshat. Oh my gosh. You understand. You really, really understand. I don't want to go behind my husband's back and do something like this. I didn't see another option. In the end, I couldn't bear the thought of doing something like that around him. I don't know if this is something we'll agree on, but we're going to talk about it. If nothing else, we'll know where we stand. But everything, I mean every last thing you said, makes so much sense.

After 15 years of this, yeah, there's something messed up in my brain. I know that. If I could find a combination of anything that brings me up to zero, that would be amazing.