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Did you write or quote this OP. I'm deciding whether or not to read it. Like I probably won't read it if you didn't write it. Maybe just snippetsApologies for the length of the OP, and the subject matter.
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The details of our troubles and heartaches aren't important. Suffering is suffering. I've had a wretched life, always been living in darkness. Only about the last 10 or so years have I even learned to arm myself with a sense of humor, to put on facades of being cool, at peace. But in recent times, this very year, I've been spiraling further into depression and thoughts of suicide. Only yesterday I had probably my darkest day of mind, where I gave up all hope and motivation. Spent all night shedding tears at myself. How pathetic. I've always been the type who looks down on that. World's smallest violin. Get a grip. And never talk about feelings in real life because it's too self-absorbed and drives people away, unattractive to be around, no one can help anyway, you're driving yourself off a cliff and all people can do is stand and watch. They can't go with you, can't stop you. I've always just internalized it, engaged in that self-discourse, always finding things to say to tell myself to keep my hopes and spirits up during dark times. But in recent times, I've been unable to help myself. I can't bullshit myself anymore.
What it is exactly is that once you see things, you can't unsee them. Once you see thru things, the true nature of things and how god-forsaken everything is, you can't undo it. You can only bullshit yourself, and engage in dreams and hopes. Or, re-evaluate dreams and hopes, tailor them back down to whatever is most realistic as the years keep going by. Where once realistic dreams and hopes were anything high and mighty, little by little they get smaller and smaller. But then it gets to a point (where it has with me) where you see NO HOPE anymore. Frizzled up. It seems, or perhaps is, there's no longer a distinction because the difference is so minimal now between them, and the gap between "realistic" and "implausible" seems so far apart over such regular everyday things. Reaching a level of absurdity that small hopes seem impossible.
Simply said....reaching a point where you have a great deep general unhappiness with life and yourself that clings to you like a demonic presence, that filters thru your every minute. No respite from outside or inside. If you're feeling ok with yourself, the outside world/people making your life miserable, determined and directed right at you. When you're feeling okay with the outside world, people are being cool/nice, suddenly it rises up from within you, your own thoughts/memories torturing you. Days when both outside and inside rip into you. Used to be like days on end of peace, then the occasional dark day. Over the years, it gradually turns into day on and day off, feeling peace, feeling darkness. Up and down like a yo-yo. Time, gradually seeping over you like sludge, covering you all over, till your every day is depression.
There are going to be people here who DO have great happy lives, happy with their lot. But a lot of people can also admit they're deeply unhappy....the usual reasons....shit job, bad pay, only enough to get by day to day, no home, no partner or a bad partner for them, don't see their kids, lost their kids, poor health or recent humbling ailments, they look at their age (30-50) and think they're so fcked compared to where they SHOULD be, where others their age are, they're embarrassed with themselves, life sucks. This is essentially the thing.
So I asked some guy i know if he was happy, the other day. I saw him again today, and he asked me why I asked him that. For once, I gave in, and told him in short everything I posted above. He responded with interesting words of advice that I feel like sharing. This guy always has an insightful and different way at looking at things. Whenever we chatted in the past, he always makes me laugh or think deeply just the way he sees things, how he talks to people, etc. Very different, the WAY he puts things. In regards to my opening up about depression, he said, essentially (trying to remember what he said)....
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So you remember your childhood and all the dreams and aspirations you had, and now you look at yourself, your life and wonder what happened? Why did it all go wrong? Why so much suffering and hurt? Can't take it anymore? But really, did you ever stop to think that your whole life has always been as bad as you're now feeling?
When we were born, crying and screaming so much. Thru those early years, all the illnesses we suffered thru -- chicken pox, measles, all the inoculations, the physical hurt on our bodies/skin of all manner of things. The growing pain years as our body grew. What about our first day at school? Crying when our mother let us go. What about years at school, all the bullies, teasing, bad experiences, emotional scarring we went thru. All the other physical accidents we had, broken bones, burned skin, cuts, bruises, from fights in the playground, sporting injuries, or general youthful misadventure. What about all the times girls rejected us in school, made us feel ugly or weird. Nights we cried. What about braces and other corrective surgery we endured growing up that made other kids laugh and tease us. On and on the list goes of life thruout our years, making us hurt and feel low about ourselves.
Life has always been bad! As bad as it is now! So why now all this drama, depression, thoughts of self-harm? So you can't unsee things now, a general sense of hopelessness. I guess, when we were younger, despite all the pains we still had high hopes/dreams, still felt like things would correct themselves out, things would become good, or even just better. Ok. But life never came with a guarantee. No promise existed that anyone, let alone everyone, by the age of 30, 40, 50, 60 would attain "happiness" or MEANING.
You see a lack of meaning now. You overhear conversations with people, watch people go about their lives, all excited, excitable, getting stressed about things that are important to them but that you SEE are all insignificant really. People just carried away by their own self-significance, everything is so exciting and interesting when really you see it is not. Nothing to enthuse over anymore, you are so bored, so distraught of meaning, no energy, dejected, just a blur all racing by you, a foot in the grave. Ok. But the fact is we all feel and see it. That stench of shit of life.
Imagine there's a big pile of shit over there, an open sewer. Are you going to choose to go sit in it? Or would your natural instinct be to move as far away as possible from it? The stench of shit is still strong over here, far away from it, but it's much much less than the stench is over there where the open sewer is. Where you're mind is, you're choosing to go sit in that open sewer, which is against everyone's natural instinct. Why are you doing it when you would never do it? The ONLY thing you can control in this life is the relationship you have with your own self.
Fine, the world is terrible, and people are mainly horrible. You can't stop the outside from trying to and achieving attempts at character assassination, at determinedly attacking you and beating you down, at railroading your hopes and aspirations. Women you love, friends you meet, family, total strangers...they all daily either by choice or indirectly all hurt us. But you should never let that affect your own relationship with yourself. Sure, when the whole world is beating you down and making you feel bad about yourself, it's hard not to also start beating yourself down, accepting what they say/think about you. That you're not worth it, that you're ugly, that you're stupid, that you're boring, etc. Hard to find the resolve and reasons to like yourself. But that's the only thing you CAN control. It's really just a trick of the mind, a literal switch like a light switch. You CAN learn to control it, to turn it on when it is off. Just like you choose to turn it off when it CAN be turned on...then so too can you choose to turn it on even tho it wants to be off.
Every day, great depression hits me. Out of nowhere, a thought will come from the inside, aiming to make me feel bad about myself. I learned to talk to it, to tease it with sarcasm...."oh you're back again! look at you, big airplane trying to crash-land here, well, sorry mister, not today, you'll just have to keep on flying over".....ok, it sounds stupid, but the more and more i talk to it like that, like being playfully contemptuous with a little brat, the less of a huge specter it becomes, the more you start treating it like a nuisance that it is. It worked for me. I can't say it will work for you. Everyone is different. For some people, penicillen helps, for some it can be like poison. There's no one answer, one remedy, one method. You just have to keep trying, and finding what works for you.
Ok, so shaking bad things off is hard. What did you eat yesterday for lunch? Do you still have the taste of that food in your mouth? No? Ok, you went on a holiday recently, spent 6 weeks overseas having the time of your life....then the day you got back, and subsequent days back....do you still have that taste in your mouth? No! Suddenly it seems so far back, you're here now, back in the daily grind. That's how it is. Everything good and bad is fickle by nature. It's fleeting, comes and goes. You yourself admit this when you talk about how yesterday was one of your darkest days, the shredding inside, the weeping you couldn't stop, walking thru the day like a ghost, distraught, alien to the world, a foot in the grave. But today already you are not that bad. You are standing here relaxed, calm, a little life in you still, turning your head looking at attractive women who smile at you, having desire fire up again, talking about how enjoyable it was sitting outside bathing in the sunlight, etc. Yesterday you were this broken person, today you're you're normal self. This is life. It's fickle. Feelings come and go, you can't get ensnared in it. I mean, you literally cannot get ensnared, your own mind won't, it's always churning over, always changing, always adjusting. You just have to get better at letting it churn over, change, adjust. Your subconscious mind wont even let your conscious mind stay somewhere. The subconscious has to keep moving, keep performing its functions -- both bodily and mentally.
So, what's the point? It's all just finding ways to distract yourself again. If I'm busy at work, I don't have time to focus on myself, my thoughts. I have this task in front of me, I have a deadline, I have to invest my thoughts in it. That's what we do. We have to just find things to keep distracting us, taking our attention away. The seen thing that cannot be unseen is always there, okay. But you don't have to pay it so much mind. Fill your time with distractions and interests. That's all we do. The thing seen that cannot be unseen KNOWS that this is all a trick of the mind we do to keep ourselves from killing ourselves or drowning in misery/boredom. That can be a hard thing to get on top of. Just got to keep trying to find ways that work. I do my job, I go home, have a nice shower, put on nice smelling cologne, put on some nice fresh pajamas, sit back with a drink and watch some youtube or TV that makes me laugh, then I put my head on the pillow, and that's MY TIME, to switch the mechanism off and recharge the battery just like you nightly give your phone the right to switch off and re-charge. WE deserve that right too, to switch off and re-charge, allowing the subconscious mind to perform its nightly task of regenerating our bodies and resting our minds. It's a thing to practice like people invest so much time practicing anything else. Practicing their music, working out on a treadmill or weights, etc. Learning to every night practice an enjoyable shower, enjoyable cologne and fresh pajamas, practicing a nice soothing drink and something of interest like funny youtube videos or dramatic movies or whatever to bring yourself to tiredness and then a peaceful sleep.
Because tomorrow is always another day. Yes, it seems, or is, like it's the same shit new day. And it is. But at the same time it isn't. There are always new adventures or new challenges that pop up. You admit that. Always you meet a new girl, for instance. There's always possibilities. Instead of being hung up about a single girl, like you say, even if that's something you're sure is love, for whatever reason it's not happening, there are always every day more and more pretty and nice girls you see and would find enjoyable to have sex with, talk with, have a laugh with. I see you, you keep looking, keep admiring the beauty you see, smile when they smile at you, get a little lift, I am sure you are indeed imaging how sweet it would be with that person, if only. Well, everyone offers something, the same as with anyone else, as in, it's all still a sustenance. The companionship, the sex, the laughter, the interaction. Look, I know love is love. And that may be the case. But every human is still a sustenance to other humans. Every person can make another person happy. You can let them. You can still enjoy something for what it is.
Other things, like job, money, etc....look, it's all fickle anyway. Look at so-and-so, I am sure he was planning his Christmas, he was working and saving money for a nice vacation. Then the other day, just like that, and he is gone. He dropped dead at home, still plenty of life in him. My friend, so-and-so, he was telling me the other day too, someone he knows, dropped dead. And another person, so-and-so, just like that, suddenly hit with a stroke. Etc. You might as well, we all have the right, to enjoy each day while we can, because like that it will go. Look at all those people making tons of money, saving so much, and what for when it can just hit you, an illness or death. They can't take any of all that with them. It would be nice, yes, to have money/etc, but it's certainly not everything. You can still enjoy your day regardless of your monetary/job situations. Making do, getting by, it's difficult, but it's not the end of the world because the end of the world is dropping dead or dropping ill out of nowhere, and it IS going to happen to all of us, we don't know when. You could be worrying and killing yourself in your mind all last week and all next week, instead of trying to siphon some fun out of it, and what a waste if the following week you drop dead, having wasted all that time hating yourself, and cowering in a corner.
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There was more, but I can't remember it all. Probably stuff you've all heard before. Probably stuff I've said to myself in some form or another. But I guess I just wanted to share, tho I couldn't replicate verbatim the MANNER in which he puts things, which is always so on-the-money and different twist.
