I've been struggling with my mental health on and off for 20 years since I was in my teens. Recently I've had reactive depression on top of my other issues due to some upsetting life events.
Right now I feel so down that I don't want to live anymore. I have no more fight in me. But I can't take my own life because I have seen what that does to a family when a relative committed suicide. I can't put my family through that again.
I've tried to get help from mental health services but because I have no plans to harm myself they don't take my feelings seriously.
I just feel like I'm in limbo and swimming in a sea of emotional pain. I have no idea what to do and I can't cope anymore.
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Ardraven
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Hey friend. Have you actually seen a therapist? Sounds like your family has a history of depression. I have a family history involving mental health disorders and suicide and feel the same way you do. So let's get you some help. We are all here when you need to "vent" or need some feedback. I strongly suggest mental health therapy and/or meds if you're not already taking them. Can you tell us more about what's going on in your life? I'm worried about you.
I certainly don't mind going in to more detail, I just didn't want to make the original post an epistle.
You're right about family history, my mother has depression, she's stable now but was really bad when I was a kid and I had to care for my sister a lot of the time. Then depression got me too in my late teens and got worse quickly. I have depression, generalised anxiety, social anxiety and I've had occasional spells of mania and psychosis when things have been worst. I was worst in my early 20s when I attempted suicide and survived by a fluke then was hospitalised voluntarily for 3 months.
I had a little while of improving and doing better then I got in to an abusive marriage which affected my mood. My ex wife got pregnant when we thought she couldn't and social services got involved and wanted to take the baby at birth so I left my ex wife and applied for a divorce and care of my daughter. They said they didn't think I could care for a young baby on my own so my daughter was adopted.
I was devasted and had another bad spell but I just about put myself together and carried on.
I met a lovely lady who like me had had problems and bad relationships in the past. During this time my uncle took his own life and my other uncle found his body. That's when I saw what suicide does to a family.
My wife got pregnant and I was hopeful but worried. Inevitably the midwife involved social services but since we were both quite stable they agreed just to monitor the situation.
Unfortunately my wife couldn't sleep in hospital and was acting a little strange so of course they changed their minds and did a full assessment and claimed there was "risk of future harm" so I lost my son as well.
The only way I know how my daughter is is a yearly letter and last month we were told that my son's adopters wouldn't participate in the letter scheme so I have no idea even how my son is. It's too much and I'm sinking without trace but I can't do what my uncle did to my family and my kids if they come looking for me in the future.
I've had help from mental health services in the past and I currently take sertraline as an antidepressant from my gp. I went back to mental health services and a nurse did an assessment of me. She said she was sorry I felt this way and would give me some leaflets. Then she said that she didn't have any more copies and gave me links to find them myself on the Web!
It's kind of nice in a way that you're worried about me but don't worry too much, you have your own stuff to deal with!
Hi you've managed to put your feelings in writing without harming yourself for me i feel it's a step to confronting the way you feeling now. I may not have the right or comforting words for you now however I have to say you are strong to even consider your family... Why not use it to your advantage they've seen suicide in the family, capitalize that talk to them so they can be your pillars and support you. You need that and they need you too :-)...
Thanks for that advice, I don't get to see my family as much as I'd like cause I have physical health issues that mean I'm stuck at home a lot but after reading this I called my mum on the phone and had quite a good little chat. Sometimes I get so in my head and the problems seem so massive that I need a little kick up the backside like that to remember that there are little things I _can _ do that will start to help a little 😊
Forgot to add that it's almost impossible to know the exact right words to say to someone who's really suffering but for me at least it makes a difference if someone has any nice words for me.
Thanks, I had to get the feelings out somehow cause bottling it all up was just making it all feel even worse. I've hovered in the background of this forum and written the odd reply. Sometimes it's easier to open up to people who aren't in your daily life, if you can find somewhere like this that has a safe and supportive atmosphere. If you add to that I've always found it easier to express myself in writing than speaking out loud and posting here myself for the first time just seemed like a good way to get this horrible stuck way I'm feeling off my chest.
Wow hearing what you have been through makes me feel like I should have nothing to complain about, but I know we all deal with our own things.
I have noticed a common theme here where a lot of people have either suffered some type of loss or feel isolation and loneliness. I guess it’s a vicious cycle of having anxiety/depression which gets made worse by life events, that causes isolation which fuels the anxiety and depression.
I do think you are incredibly resilient, tough, and considerate to think of others during your pain. I myself lately feel like I don’t have much fight in me anymore, but don’t see suicide as an option. Knowing my luck, I will mess it up and end up even worse off than I am now.
When I was in my 20’s I had a lot of fight in me to try and overcome my anxiety but now in my mid 30’s I feel like I have suffered too long and just don’t have it in me to keep trying. But I keep going every morning, wake up, and do the same things. Surviving. I just worry what my breaking point will be or if I’ll spin into a mental breakdown or something. I only keep going at a bare minimum because I don’t want to starve or be homeless.
It's funny, only last night I was reading someone else's post and thinking "wow, they've gone through so much, maybe things aren't so bad for me" and then I used the exact words "I don't think I have any fight left in me" when I was texting a friend. I think the specific feelings related to depression and anxiety can cause us to think down similar lines sometimes.
Emotional pain is so subjective that I don't think comparing degrees of trauma or suffering is meaningful after a certain point. If you reach your personal point of "too much" then your feelings in dealing with that are as valid as anyone else's.
Survival is my only measure of success at the moment. If I can do anything that makes me feel a little useful in the course of the day then that's a bonus but barebones autopilot functioning is all I manage most of the time.
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