The Journey of a Survivor

Well, if you are reading this then I have done it—I have killed myself. I want to try to explain why this has happened but I know I’ll probably never be able to justify it to you.  I know you are going to be hurt and angry with me—I am sorry. I hope this letter can make you understand a little about why I have done this even though it’s not going to make you feel better or change anything. I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused you. I wish there was a way to do this without hurting you. It would have been better for all of us if I was never born.

 

I see suicide as the only option left for me—I have been backed up against a wall—I have nowhere to turn—nowhere to run. I have been running my whole life. I feel like I have never been a part of this world—it’s like I was a mistake—I should have never happened. For so many years I have just wondered around without a purpose—without a meaning in life. I’ve just been wasting time. I have known for a long time that suicide is my destiny—death has been knocking on my door for years. Today I opened the door and let her in. In some ways I feel a bit relieved that I am finally going to do it—at last I will do what was meant for me—finally, I’m going to stop denying it and do want is natural for me. Life for me holds no meaning—it never has had a meaning. I have been empty inside since my very first memories.

 

I have suffered from severe depression and anxiety and intrusive thoughts of death since I was a kid. The very first thought that I can remember ever having was about me dying and even though I did not understand death I felt good about it. The first time I put a gun in my mouth and tried to pull the trigger I was 11 years old. I really believe that dying that day would have been the most humane thing to happen to me—it would have shown me some mercy. But, no, there has never been any mercy for me.

 

I have always had peaks and valleys of depression but it has never completely left me and the intrusive thoughts of my death are always in my head. I have lived in a constant state of depression and have always been thinking about my death. It all varies in intensity for absolutely no logical reason and it has no patterns—it just haphazardly happens to me for no apparent reason and nothing I do ever changes anything about it. I am completely powerless over it and I can’t predict it because it has no set course for how it plays out in my life. I wake up every single day having no idea what its going to do to me, but I can always count on it causing me pain every day.

 

There is an evil monster that lives inside of me and it has always been there. It has always existed and it has never had a beginning and it will never have an end—it just is. And it’s only reason for existing is to make me as fucking miserable as it can and to do it for as long as possible. It has been tormenting me and feeding off me for over 30 years and it hurts like hell.

 

I was never meant to happen but an evil force went against nature and breathed life into me and impregnated me with the monster. My sole purpose of existing is so that there is a physical body for this evil thing to live in and feed off of—I am just here so it has something to torture because it consumes the energy produced by my pain and suffering. I’m just a fucking carcass for this insane evil demon to eat and digest.

 

It manipulates me and causes the most intense horrible thoughts and feelings possible as it feeds. I think it strings me along and keeps me alive by giving me a little glimpse at just enough hope that I force myself to keep on fighting—it tells me just a few of those sweet lies so I will not completely give up and I will keep on searching for some meaning in my life. It occasionally lets me have just a little bit of believe that there must be something in this world for me and it does it so that I won’t kill myself yet.

 

And every single time that I fall for the false hope that it offers me, it pushes me closer and closer to the edge of complete and absolute hopelessness. And, every fucking time that it forces me to the brink of death it holds me there longer and it intensifies my pain so it always gets worse and I have to endure even more of it. It is trying to push me right up to my human limit of endurance and then, right before I succumb and fall over the edge into death it grabs me so that I can’t end my misery by dying.

 

It always snatches me at the very last instant so that I think I’m dying but it never lets me die. I just keep repeatedly going through my death without ever quite making it all the way. It always gives me a little bit more of its lies of false hope so that I stop at the very last possible moment. It keeps me breathing and gives me just enough life so I’ll be able to go through it again. And the next time it always makes it worse for me.

 

I don’t know why I have always stopped from killing myself because I know that death is the only way to escape the torment and to end my constant pain. I’m fully aware of the game it is playing with me. I know that I’m just being conned into staying alive so that it can continue to torture me. And, I also know without a doubt that in reality there is no real true hope for me and there never has been any for me. There has never been a reason for me to exist in this world—my life is completely meaningless and that will never change. I know that killing myself is the right thing to do and that I’m going against nature by staying alive. I was brought to life by an unnatural, evil force and feeding the monster is the only thing I’ll ever accomplish in life. I’m just prolonging my pain and torment by staying alive.

 

This evil monster is truly sick and perverted and since it has absolute control over me, I have no choice but to suffer through all of its inhumane ways of torturing me. It enjoys hurting me—it laughs at my pain and it tries to make me hurt in new ways—in worse ways. It causes my insides to rot and I am always engulfed in the putrid odor of my own decaying flesh.

 

You will never be able to even imagine what it does inside my mind or how it goes about eating and digesting me little by little. Even if I explained it to you, you would never be able to envision the insane ways it twists my mind and torments me. It is so fucking evil that unless you have experienced it you will never be able to even come close to comprehending it.

 

I can’t imagine a single fucking thing that I could have ever done to cause this to happen to me. Hell, it was impossible for me to do something to cause it because it has been inside me since my first breath. I was never even alive before it so I was never even able to do anything to cause it. But, I still know for absolute certainty that it is still inherently my fault and I deserve every last bit of what it does to me. My mere existence is the cause of it because my life was not meant to happen—I’m not suppose to be alive so this is the price I have to pay for living a life that violates nature.

 

For so much of my life I have been so fucking depressed that I could not think or have any feelings about anything or anybody in the world. Damn it mom, there have been times that I have looked at you and felt absolutely nothing—like you were a complete stranger or that you did not even exist. You were not there—I could not feel you. It hurts so fucking bad to know that you are my mom and I love you and you love me but to not be able to feel it. I am black inside because I have been decaying over time—I think I’m finally rotten to the core. There is no good in me and maybe there never has been any good in me.

 

Sometimes, I have been too fucking depressed to even kill myself. Not only did I have absolutely no hope of ever feeling better but I also had no faith in death. The trip to the hospital did not really do anything for me. Nothing changed—there are no answers. I think medications may sometimes ease my depression but sometimes they make things worse and no matter what they will never make it completely go away. There is no cure for me. Right now, I don’t feel that depressed. It’s amazing, I don’t feel really depressed and yet I know I must die. I just can’t stand this life anymore. I can’t keep going on…I can’t  keep on getting up every fucking day and facing the torture of the same shit over and over. I can’t take anymore of it.

 

I don’t know how long I have had the intrusive thoughts but I can’t remember a time when they were not in my head. They are crippling me. I can’t understand or tolerate the way my mind works. My mind is diseased. There is something wrong with it. I am constantly obsessed with death—with suicide. I think about it every day, all day long. How much is one person suppose to take? I can’t take it any more. Please, I just have to make it stop. Unrelenting torment is what it feels like. I can’t remember my last moment of peace and matter of fact I don’t think I have ever even had one. I am sorry, but I have to shut it off—I have to make it stop.

 

I have always been tortured by a horrible, screeching noise in my head caused by the unrelenting thoughts and it’s so fucking loud—all the time—it never stops. I want the thoughts to stop so it will be silent in my head. Then I will finally be able to shut my eyes and at last experience the sound of nothing. I often wonder what nothing really sounds like. I always imagine that it is so completely calm that it creates a peace that is absolutely perfect.

 

Goddamn, I wish there was another way. I wish that I did not have to die. I am afraid of what is going to happen to me. Mom, I am so scared…I am so fucking scared right now and I hurt so damn bad. I wish I could explain this to you…make you understand so you are relieved that my pain is finally over instead of hurt by my death. I don’t think I will ever be able to justify this action to you are dad or brad or anybody else. I am so sorry for giving up. I just can’t keep up the battle—I’m too weak. I have finally been defeated—but, damn it—I have fought a long, exhausting battle for 30 long years. How much is one person suppose to take?

 

And, I have fought like hell—I have given it my all—but, I have nothing left to give. I have spent every ounce of energy I can muster and then some. I have been taking my medications and going to counseling. I have been trying to get well. I just don’t think it is ever going to get better. I think I will always be sick like this. I can’t continue on. I have no hope and there never will be any hope for me.

 

Peter, my psychiatrist has tried everything. He is not to blame. He has gone above and beyond to try to help me. I have not talked with him lately about my thoughts or told him about my decision to commit suicide today. I know he wants more than anything to help me. But, no matter how much he wants it, he will ever be able to help me because it’s just not possible. Peter, I am sorry that I have given up our battle—I am sorry that I have let you down and I know you are still willing to fight for me but I’m all out of fight. I can’t help you anymore and you can’t keep me alive all on your own—even though you’d want to and if you could I know you would do it for me.

 

You have always been my beacon of hope because I have never had any hope of my own. Under any and all circumstances and at any time of the day or night you have always been there for me when I needed you. No matter what, I could count on you and you have always shone so very bright for me. You have been so altruistic by continuously spending your personal energy so that you never let yourself dim for even just a moment. I know without a doubt that right now you are still trying to save me by shining brighter than you ever have for me but your hope can’t keep me alive anymore because I can no longer see your light. You are doing everything you possibly can to help me but it does not matter what you do or how hard you try because nothing can save me now.

 

I have just finally given up and in some way I feel a bit better knowing that soon I will shut off these thoughts—for the very first time in my life they will stop. My thoughts will quit racing and there will be no more craziness in my mind—I will find out what it is like to hear nothing and know what quiet really is and finally I will know what it’s like to have some peace. All I really want is peace and quiet.

 

I just want it to be quiet—for once, I just want it to be fucking quiet. Why the hell is that too much to ask for? It does not seem like such a big request and it sure doesn’t seem like I should have to die just to get it. Well, I hope it comes along with death because if not I will never, ever know peace and quiet. I guess I am desperate enough to take a gamble on death because I’ve tried everything else and it is my only option left. I got to have faith that it will exist in death because it is my last and final bit of hope.

 

Damn it, why the hell do I have to die just to know what it’s like to hear nothing—to have it quiet. I just can not take the constant bombardment of thoughts anymore—my mind never stops—it has never even paused for a just a brief moment—it just keeps cranking out the most irritating and maddening noise that drives me insane.

 

I truly don’t want to die…it’s just that I’m at the end of my rope and I have nothing left to give—I just can’t take it anymore. I am sorry. I’m only human and every person has their limit. I have reached my human limit. It’s not fair to expect me to somehow go beyond what I have inside me—what is humanly possible. I am just a fucking human being damn it. I can’t help it that I have no more energy left to fight to stay alive any longer.

 

For a long time, you have been the only reason I have kept fighting this shit. I’ve fought like hell for you and I’ve done it out of the love I have for you. I have stayed alive just for you and your love but I just can’t keep doing it anymore. Damn it, I have never wanted to hurt you and I don’t want to hurt you now. I love you and please, please will you please love me even though I am going to hurt you. I am so sorry—I really am sorry. Please forgive me even though I don’t deserve to be forgiven.

 

Damn it, I don’t want to do this to you. And, you know, I don’t want to do it to myself. I don’t want to fucking die. I am so fucking scared of what I’m about to do to myself. Please promise me you won’t hate me. Please love me. Please love me because the only hope I have at ever being able to feel your love is in my death. I have been dead on the inside for so long now. God damn it, I would do anything for just a few minutes of your love. Matter of fact, I’m dying for it. I am literally dying for it. Death seems like the only possible way for me to maybe, just maybe be able to feel your love for me. I just want to be loved and to feel it. I am so lonely. I have been so lonely for such a long time. I hurt. I hurt. My god I hurt like hell. It’s an empty aching pain because I am hallow inside.

 

I guess I have no pretty words. I have nothing glorious to say. My life has amounted to nothing. Please I would prefer no funeral. Please. I have never been one for goodbyes. Just have me cremated and spread my ashes somewhere. Mom, you will know where to spread them—maybe in the woods or along a river.

 

Mom, Dad, Brad, Richard, Joanne…I love you with all my soul—well, what is left of my soul. Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me. I am so sorry. I have missed you all my life. But I’m hoping like hell that my brain finally stops and that I will finally be able to feel you when I die—otherwise my death will have been for nothing. I love you.

 

I don’t want to die. Mom, I’m scared….so scared…please let a miracle happen before I do it. Please damn it—make the noise inside my head stop for just a few minutes. Please, somebody or something save me. I don’t want to die. Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this? What fucking crime have I committed? Why am I being punished like this? A miracle….I need a miracle right about now…my time is running out.

 

There is no hope for me in this world—death is the only thing left for me. Please, if there is ever going to be any bit of mercy for me…please let me find some peace and let me feel some love when I die. Peace and love just a little bit of it for just a little while…damn it, is that too much to ask for…I’m willing to trade my life for just few minutes of it. Please, that is all I want…it’s all I’ve ever really wanted…Mom, I’m so scared…I hope that I’m not making a mistake because I know I can’t change my mind…after I do it, I can’t change it…once I’m dead I can’t come back…I’ll be dead and will always be dead.

 

Mom, my very last thought will be of you.

 

I love you.

 

It is time for me to go.

 

Damn it. Why? Why? Why? Why does it have to be like this?

When I was 11 yrs old I had the realization that…“my thoughts are not like other peoples thoughts. I am never going to be able to have a child. I don’t understand this because I’m too young but I know that this is going to hurt. I don’t know how or why but this is going to be one of the most painful things I’m going to have to go through…it’s going to hurt—it’s going to hurt a lot.”

 

It’s amazing that I had such complex and self revealing thoughts at such a young age, but I remember every detail about it. It was sunny out and I was standing with my palms turned outward and I was looking down at the grass thinking about it. After I thought about it some I put it on the back burner and did not think about it for years.

 

But, it’s really been hitting me the past few years. I’ve been thinking and writing about it but I’ve never shared it in therapy or talked with anybody else about it. I have some existential books on the topic but I’ve never made it past the first few paragraphs. It’s such a deep loss that I don’t have the guts to face it. I have to put the books down because I get overwhelmed with grief.

 

This is hard. I have a biological drive and a spiritual need to have my child but I know it will never happen. Nothing can replace my child—she will never be a part of me. There will always be a hole inside of me—a piece of me missing and I know nothing will ever complete me…I will want this for the rest of my life. I am going to be empty forever.

 

Sometimes I think about…you standing in your baby’s room holding him. The light is off but the hallway light is shining through the door. Your son is in your arms and you’re looking down into his little face. Peter, what do you feel? Love, amazement…I’m not sure exactly what that feeling is but I know it something so very special—it is warm and…priceless—irreplaceable. This is a positive fantasy because it settles me down a little when I close my eyes and visualize your facial expression. It soothes some of my pain for awhile when I imagine what you are feeling and I know you are experiencing it.

 

But, I still want that feeling—that moment—30 seconds. I’d give anything in the world to have 30 seconds of holding my baby and looking into her little face. Now, I feel as if I am mourning the loss of my child even though she has never been born.

 

Damn it. If I am going to have to mourn something …shouldn’t I get just a few seconds of that special feeling before it is taken away from me? How about 10 precious seconds…how can something be taken away from me if it has never been real in the first place? I know that I’ve never done anything to deserve this and there is no way to fix it or make up for it.

 

Destiny has stolen my child from me and left me with a barren soul. A part of me will always be incomplete and I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.

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Dr. Grohol, thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings about your dad. You have brightened my day by reminding me how very fortunate I am to have a wonderful and loving relationship with my dad. Whenever we are together, we can’t help but smile, hug and hold hands—the words “I love you” are constantly shared with each other. He makes me feel special—I’m his girl and that means the world to me.

 

We did not meet until I was a teen and technically he is my step-dad, but in some ways that makes our relationship even more special because we decided to love each other as father—daughter. That’s one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

 

I was a very troubled teen and I caused him a lot of worry and heartache. But, no matter how “bad” I was he always respected me and never once stopped sharing his love. It was his unwavering faith in me that taught me to believe in myself.

 

As I think back on it, I know that the hardest part for him was not the trouble I caused him—it was his pain of watching me be so self-destructive that hurt him the most. When I was in the hospital from a drug overdose, he held my hand and cried and told me he loved me. That was the first time a man had ever cried for me.

 

A couple years ago I realized that he is getting older and for the first time it hit me that there will be a time when we will have to say goodbye. I try not to think about the pain that will cause me but I also remind myself that it will be a pain that can only come from love. Until then, I want to take advantage of every single opportunity I have to be with him.

 

I am thankful for my dad too.

Lately I have been struggling alone in my own world because of my depression and anxiety. Life has not been fun for me. It has been hard for me to reach out to you. But, you have stayed closer to me than anybody else in the world. I want so bad to share my life and some of my pain with you because I know you care about me, but it is so damn hard to explain it to you—especially while it is happening to me. It all feels so overwhelming that I can’t make sense of it and all I can do is just survive the experience of it.

 

Those are the times that I have to retreat into my own world in order remain sane and to save myself. I have to use every single ounce of my energy to just live through my thoughts and feelings without losing my grip on reality. When it gets bad like that preserving “me” and ensuring my survival is the only thing I can focus on. It takes every bit of my strength to keep my “self” from being ripped apart by the thoughts that are trying to drive me insane and kill me.

 

The bad thoughts try to make themselves so intense that they over power everything else in me so they will become the only thing in my life and then they will have absolute control over me. Ultimately, what they are doing is trying to force “me” to come apart—they are trying to destroy “me” by overwhelming me so that I break me into pieces. If they can manage to break up “me” I will lose parts of my “self” and that is how they are trying to drive me insane. If that ever happens I will lose my self forever. Sometimes the battle with my thoughts consumes me because the thoughts are so powerful and intense that it requires all of my resources to keep them from taking over and killing me.

I am making progress towards getting better, but I am not completely out of the woods yet. Just this past weekend, I had another med change because of more side effects. So even though my mood is fairly stable and my thoughts are manageable, I am scared of a relapse and it feels like I am walking an emotional tight rope. Even the littlest setback could cause me to fall into the depression and anxiety. Although I am glad to be feeling better, I remain cautious because my brain still needs to adjust to the new meds.

However, I am hopeful that the new meds will keep my brain slowed down enough so it will stop producing so many of the crazy thoughts and feelings that take over my life and make me so miserable. And, really, all I can do is hope that the meds will not cause too many side effects and that they will help me to keep getting better and maybe even stay better for awhile.

I have isolated myself from the world. The only times I have left my house is to go to therapy or to work. I holed myself up in order to insulate myself so that I would not become overwhelmed by reality. My thoughts and feelings were so out of control that they put me in emotional overload. I could not take in any more feelings or thoughts—good or bad, I just could not handle anything else. I isolated myself from the world to preserve my sanity and to prevent a total meltdown.

It has been a very sad and lonely time for me. There were moments that I was not sure if I would be able to make it through the day and just not killing myself was a hard battle for me. I felt like I wanted to die so that I could stop the thoughts that were constantly running through my mind and to stop the overwhelming feelings of depression and anxiety. I managed to keep myself alive even though I sometimes felt hopeless and like things were never going to change for me. The constant torment of my thoughts never stopped and the only thing I could feel was depression and despair.

I love Andy, Kay, Richard, my brother and my parents very much but I still don’t let them into my life. They can’t relieve any of my loneliness or ease any of my pain because I don’t share it with them. It is so hard for me to feel safe enough so I can let my guard down and share some of my feelings.

I don’t share my pain very often and there are only a few times that I have ever felt connected enough to another human being so that I did not feel all alone in my world. Those are the only times that it felt like there was somebody other than just me was in my world—like they really were a part of my life. For a few brief moments I was not alone and I felt cared about and loved.

I am not always sure about how to let my defenses down so people can get in. I am not very good at sharing myself because I have not done it very often and sometimes I just plain don’t know how to do it. But, it feels so good to let people care about me. It makes me feel like they really are with me so that I am not all alone in my pain. I know you love and care about me but sometimes I still have to struggle to let myself feel it. I have to figure out how to break down my wall and let you into my life so you can get to my heart.

There is no doubt in my mind that my difficulties with trust and love have been caused by my severe neglect and childhood abuse. As a child, I was never held, I was never comforted…I did not learn how to love because there was nobody who loved me as I was growing up. I did not learn to trust because there was absolutely nobody safe enough to trust—everybody hurt me. I was just something to be used and abused and never, ever did I feel wanted or like I mattered to anybody. I felt like I was a nothing. I felt completely meaningless and utterly alone. I was not even worthy of just being alive let alone being cared about and loved by somebody. All this made me feel like I did not even belong in the world. My life was a mistake and my existence was some how wrong.

Since the real world was filled with unbearable pain and I did not really feel I was a part of it, I built my own alternate world to live in. It just hurt too damn much for me to survive life in the real world. So, in order to survive, I needed to retreat to a safe place where I could stop the pain. The world that I created inside myself has served a very useful purpose by enabling me to live through a very lonely, sad and traumatic childhood. It gave me an escape from the pain of reality. It helped me to maintain my sanity by turning life off when the things happening to me were too painful to experience. By retreating into myself, I could shut off the horror and not really feel or “be there” for all of the abuse. It enabled “me” to survive things that would have otherwise broken me and caused me to lose myself.

I think it is amazing that as a child I had such a strong survival instinct. I devised some very ingenious and complex ways to deal with the world because inside of me there was a powerful will to live and it told me to survive at all costs. I think just being human gave me a powerful internal drive to do whatever it took to keep my “self” intact and alive. Living in my own world meant I had to spend my life withdrawn from everybody else and completely alone—it has always been me against the real world and sometimes my human desire to survive at all costs has been the only thing that has enabled me to make it another day.

Since I have spent most of my life in my own world, I have always been alone. My alternate world has kept me alive but it has also kept me isolated from other people and from what is going on in the real world. I have lived my life in my own world and nobody but me has ever been a part of it. It has always alienated me from people and I have never felt like a part of reality. Living in it has prevented me from feeling connected with another human being or like I am really a part of what is happening around me. I am always on the outside watching everything happen but I am not able to feel like a part of it. I just don’t belong in reality.

 

It has always been hard for me to even have feelings for others because I am never a part of their world. My lack of feelings for others makes me feel cold on the inside and it seems like sometimes, I just don’t care about people. A large part of me is dead and it feels absolutely nothing. It is very rare that I truly feel cared for and loved. I am often numb and unable to access those feelings even though I want to and I know they are there for me. I just don’t know how to let them in. I get brief flashes of it and those flashes feel so damn good to me that I want to hold onto them, but they always slip away. I don’t know how to make them stay in my life. Sometimes, my lack of feelings makes me sad because I know what it is like to experience the joy of love and I miss it.

Now, the big problem is it that my world has become dysfunctional but I can’t get out of it. I am a prisoner of myself and it still makes me feel like I am not a part of the real world. I still don’t matter and I still don’t fit in anywhere. And, it seems to be getting worse with time and I have been getting sicker because of it. My mind is becoming more dysfunctional and it produces thoughts and feelings that are sometimes so irrational that they make me almost insane.

 

I am aware of all this happening to me and I know the warped functioning of my mind is making the crazy thoughts and feelings. I also know that they are making me sick. But, I can’t prevent them from happening to me. My mind has developed in such a way that no matter what I do, it just keeps generating crazy thoughts. It seems like I am watching myself slowly go insane and I can’t stop it from happening to me. So, I still feel like my life is a mistake and my existence has no meaning. I still feel irrelevant to the world so my death will never matter. I am being held prisoner by my own mind and it has become so incredibly lonely and sad.

Lots of therapy has helped me to understand that my lack of feelings for others and my inability to trust and love was caused by my horrible childhood and it is not my fault that I am so screwed up. I do not choose to be sick and I am not to blame for it getting worse. The tragedy of my childhood can never be changed and the sadness of it will always be inside of me. I can’t erase the knowledge of what it feels like to experience something so painful, so I will always know what it feels like to suffer. I will always remember the pain and carry the burden of the memories.

I don’t know if you can comprehend just how completely alone I sometimes feel because of my depression/anxiety and my inability to emotionally connect with another human being. It is horrible to always be so incredibly isolated that people seem so far away that nobody other than me even exists. I am completely alone almost all the time. But, I still have hope that someday I will learn to mange my thoughts so that I can somehow get outside of my world enough so that I can learn to trust and love as an adult. Until I do, I will remain isolated and alone. I want to have feelings instead of just having a big empty void inside of me. I want to feel like I am cared about and loved. I want to be with people and really live in the world instead of always being trapped in my own world. I miss people when they are all so distant from me.

Sometimes, my intrusive thoughts and overwhelming feelings do not even make sense and I can’t understand them because they have absolutely nothing to do with what is actually happing in my life. They just happen to me and are a product of my dysfunctional mind. But knowing that they are not based on reality does not eliminate them. I have learned that the only way to get rid of the thoughts and feelings is to accept them for what they are and the best I can expect is to minimize the damage they cause as they play themselves out in my life. I can hide them from the world and I can put them on hold but no matter what I do, I can’t stop them from existing and I will have to experience them. No matter how crazy and irrational they are, I will eventually always have to think the thoughts and feel the feelings. I have no choice.

I have overcome the many problems that have been a result of my irrational thoughts and the unrealistic emotions that my mental illness has caused in my life. But, there is always a noise in my head and it never shuts off. I have always had the intrusive, irrational thoughts that come from my own mind. They create an unrelenting, constant inner turmoil that never allows me a moment of peace within myself. That causes me extreme, unrealistic emotions that I can not stop myself from feeling.

 

Since I can’t stop my mind from producing irrational thoughts, I must learn to live through the experience of them and dealt with the internal craziness that makes it so difficult for me to be in real world. Because no matter how intense my emotions are and no matter how powerful the thoughts become I can not give in and just accept them as my way of life. Even though they cause me to suffer and they make my life pure hell, I have to keep enduring the pain and keep fighting to get better.

I believe that if I ever let myself give into the insanity that lives inside me it will make my illness grow until it consumes me. Then, it will take over my life and I will entirely lose touch with reality. I will go insane if I let myself completely retreat into my inner world because I will have to leave the real world in order to get there. My biggest fear is that if that ever happens, I will not have the strength to find my way back to reality. I would become a prisoner in my own crazy world that is entirely created by my dysfunctional mind. I will never be able to recover my sanity and I will completely lose myself forever. It scares me because it seems like I get a little closer to that happening every time I get sick.

The last time I went into the hospital my depression was so severe that I lost all hope that things would ever change for me and that my life would never be worth the effort it took to just stay alive. When I hung myself, I intended to never have to think another thought or to feel another emotion. I believed that my death was the only way for me to stop my overwhelming feelings and to turn off the noise in my head. I believed that the depression would never end and that my death was the only way I would ever find some peace. I felt so incredibly alone and I hurt so bad that it made me desperate enough to attempt suicide.

When I hung myself, I really did want to die, but the moment right before I lost consciousness, it felt like my head was going to explode and not being able to take a breath sent a feeling of absolute terror through me. My internal human compulsion to live flashed through me. I knew I had made a mistake, but I went unconscious before I could do anything about it. I was surprised when I regained consciousness because I thought I really had killed myself.

Now, I want my life to mellow out because I am tired of riding the crazy train of obsessive suicidal ideation. I am not looking for a complete cure and I don’t even expect that I will ever know what it is like be pain free and truly happy because there will always be a sadness inside me. But, I would be satisfied with just getting a break from the madness of my thoughts so I can exist in something other than an emotional crisis. I want to stop being so worried about my mental health and to not feel like my safety is always in jeopardy because of my illness.

I am tired of continually spending every ounce of my available energy to just stay alive so that I can keep fighting to just make it through another day. I am exhausted from always forcing myself to keep facing the world regardless of what is happening inside of me. I have always had to struggle to contain my thoughts and to endure my feelings while somehow staying sane enough to function in the real world. Even though it requires so much effort for me to deny such a large part of myself, I always manage to stay far enough out of my inner world so I can make it in the real world. But, it is a never ending battle and it is difficult and painful to continually suppress so much of me so that I can live there.

 

For once, I would like to experience some of life without having to work so damn hard to just survive it. More than anything, I want the suicidal thoughts to stop because I want to live my life like I really, truly WANT to be alive instead of just existing because of my human instinct to survive.

Letter to my psychiatrist:

I don’t believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.

There is no stop and no beginning to the anger or the sadness or the fear—it always has been, always is and always will be. I do not feel love or joy—I am more of an empty shell—I have no true essence. The inside core of me feels absolutely nothing—complete numbness. I am made of stone. I am dead. Something killed me…killed me before I ever got to live and this corpse that walks around is doomed to exist in this miserable world forever.

Wait, there is one emotion I know I have—fear. I know I have fear because I fear death. If I did not fear death, I would have killed off this corpse long ago. So, in addition to being a maggot filled carcass, I am a coward. Can it get any better than this?

Why am I being tormented like this? 12 hours ago I was in your office feeling more or less okay about things. What happened to me? Something inside my brain clicked and I am worse than I was 3 weeks ago. Worse because I no longer have the hope of death—I can not be rescued. I am cursed by this life that was forced upon me. I know god does not exist because no god would create a wretched soul like mine. I must be a freak of nature—an evolutionary mishap. Getting my tubes tied was wise—at least “I” will not happen again.

I am sending you this letter instead of calling you because I know exactly what you will say. If I call you, you will say, “Stay on your meds.” You will emphasize the word “on.” I keep saying that over and over in my head. Maybe if I say it enough times, it will finally take hold and this war will stop. I can intellectually stand back and see that taking my meds is good for me—it is the right thing to do. And, yet I have this relentless voice demanding me to immediately stop them and throw them in the trash. It is irrational, but it is also as loud as hell.

I hate my existence.

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Sometimes, I wonder if I am going crazy because of the nature of my intrusive thoughts. I constantly have an internal voice telling me to kill myself and an active dialogue on how I should do it. I know the voice is mine and I know it is just some sort of internal dialogue my brain is making up…but, do “normal” people do this? I can sit for hours and just think these thoughts—let them take over. I very rarely play music because I already have a constant source of stimuli going on in my head. Music just seems to confuse things—I don’t know what I should be listening to, the music or the internal dialogue. Generally, the dialogue wins out, so I no longer bother to play the stereo.

 

I try to ignore the voice in my head by concentrating on a topic and trying to focus on researching it. Like, if I try real hard, I can override the dialogue by hyper-focusing on something else. But, it only works for short periods and I often find that I have been sitting at my computer for an hour or more just entertaining the intrusive suicidal thoughts. So, this voice that tells me to kill myself is almost constantly with me. Pretty much day in and day out—every minute of every single day—it never really goes away. It is rather maddening to have to put up with it.

 

My abilify seems to quiet it down some. If I can manage to stay on my abilify for an extended period of time the intrusive thoughts slow down and sometimes even go away for brief moments. But, staying on the abilify seems to be a struggle for me. I think part of my illness is the irrational thoughts I have concerning whether or not I should take my meds.

 

Recently, I have given into the thoughts and have been obsessing about suicide. I have been researching it and preparing my goodbyes to the people I am going to hurt by killing myself. Instead of writing notes to everybody, I have been making short videos trying to explain my thoughts and my actions. It is really hard to actually say goodbye to your mom and dad and other loved ones in your life. It seems like I am having a tough time justifying the pain I would cause them by killing myself. I just can’t bring myself to tell my mom goodbye and until I can do that, I can’t kill myself. I have to say goodbye.

 

So, here I am with all these obsessive thoughts about suicide and the dilemma of not being able to do it because of my loved ones. I feel stuck, trapped…trapped in a life that I am not sure I really want to be living. At this point, I am just going on for the sake of others. That is not how I want to spend my life.  

I thought my death would bring me peace and quite, but I think my suicide attempt showed me that when I die I will experience nothing. After death I will no longer exist in any form. Death is nothingness. Well, what good is peace and quiet if I can’t truly experience it? I also have an internal drive that tells me that if I die, I will never know what happens—what the world thinks about me. It sounds kinda weird, but curiosity is a part of what is keeping me going. That and the desire for peace and quiet are my reasons to live. Oh, and combined with the quilt I feel for putting my loved ones through such a difficult time. The hospital constantly pointed out that I would be hurting a lot of people.

Thinking of the 11 year old is difficult. I don’t have a picture of her in my mind the way I did the younger kid. I think it is because when I think about her I winch and shut my eyes. It is strange not being able to picture yourself at that age, but it is like I can’t remember or better to say I won’t remember. My initial reaction when trying to bring up her image is an overwhelming sense of shame. I can’t believe I lived like that. For god’s sake, I lived in a crate. Where was I suppose to take a shower? Where was I suppose to wash my clothes? There was a trailer there, but it had no heat, no stove, no refrigerator—the rats were so bad you could not sleep in it. It was safer in the crate. It was safer down by the river. At one point I gave up brushing my hair—it was so matted, I could not get a brush through it. How could the school system let me come to school like that? How can I ever admit I was like that? No respectable person would live like that.

Mainly I sit around thinking or fantasizing about shooting myself. I feel like a failure—like nothing I have done in this world has made a difference. I just got out of an appointment with my pdoc and he said these are the things we all worry about—whether we matter—have we accomplished anything—have we made a difference in the world—what is our purpose for being here…I think what he was getting at is that I am not the only one who thinks these thoughts—even he thinks them about himself. The difference is I am sitting around with a gun while I think about them. He reassured me that I do make a difference to the people around me and that right now I am viewing this all through a filter of depression. Things will become clearer and look differently when I am not so depressed. The question is…can I make it out of this depression?