Depression - Suicide - Feeling nothing

With the conversation of suicide everywhere this week it is hard to ignore.  You hear that it is so selfish and why would a person with seemingly everything end there life?  I am not a mental health expert and I can only share my own experience with depression and thoughts of suicide.

For me I felt so bad for so long that the thought that I had to face another day feeling the same way made me want to end my life. The truth is I didn't feel bad I felt nothing for what felt like years.  I had experienced depression and grief since I was in my early teens but at those times I could connect the sadness and grief to something.  The death of my mother - the harsh treatment of me by my family - when my husband left.  These are obvious moments that required grief and I knew they would end.  The last time when it hit me it started out as grief but it never left me.

Our minds and bodies can go against us. In the world of recovery the meetings help to root the really screwed of thinking we have when we get there.  The steps simplify our view on life giving us the space to step get out of our heads and listen to what works for other people. The program saved me mainly by giving me a place to escape from myself and helped me to stop blaming myself for everything. It didn' work this time.

What my last experience taught me was that sometimes you can go so low that your mind will not let anyone in and if you are in a program and you are suppose to be further along people don't recognize the pain behind the mask. By this time you are the one giving support and not being supported.

It is those that talk a great talk that will suffer in silence until something breaks.  The ego is reluctant to step out of the lime light and say to another person "hey I don't want to live anymore. Is that normal?"

You can never know what is in the mind of another person. These days people post such happy things on social media and we want to believe that their lives are great.  It is a cover maybe even for the person putting it out there. In my life people ran and I didn't blame them.  I wanted to run too but had no place to go.

I think for myself looking back now I did tell some people but it was so out of character for me I don't think they understood how bad it was. How could they?  What saved me besides grace was this blog for one and the idea if I wanted to end my life I could choose to do it tomorrow. Giving myself 24 hour increments until eventually I felt better.

I wanted to be free from -- Feeling  Nothing.  I do want to add that I found out later that medically I some serious thyroid problems on top of menopause and the loss of the life I use to have.  I call it the perfect storm.  I always believed that talk therapy solved most emotional problems but today I think that the body and what I am feeding it affects my mental state more than I want to admit.

When your depressed you don't eat or you eat sugar and fat. Your brain has nothing to work with.  When you are down you aren't really interested in taking care of yourself you aren't interested in anything.  That is the point - that is real depression.  You just want out and sadly you aren't rational enough to value your presents on this earth. You just want to feel better and see no options. 

Something to push against - depression - joy

I got a return call from my Aunt last week.  A call I made before Thanksgiving she told me that she had had another heart episode and the medication they gave her to calm her down had a side effect of a psychotic episode where she was seeing people and she was flying.  I told her people pay good money for those kinds of hallucinations.  Unfortunately she continued to take the medication and it took her into deep depression and that is why she hasn't called.

She said she would never be the same again and that she would never complain about being blue or sad for just a day or so. I related my own experience to her and she was shocked.  They actually visited me one day during that time a visit I barely remember.  I do remember making hot chocolate with mini morsels and canned milk for their granddaughter that came with them. She said it was the best hot chocolate she had ever had. It is the small things, right?  Apparently in the depths of despair and contemplating suicide I can make some mighty fine hot chocolate.

I can laugh about it now because I am not there now.  In fact I am better than ever and actually making plans. I have signed up for a cooking class on knife skills just to see if I can learn something new. I have had a cooking spark just below the surface and I am going to see if I can re-kindle that flame. In my old life it was a passion but since then nothing. For some odd reason I made beef stock last weekend and was binging Chopped the TV cooking shows. Little signs that something is stirring up something I thought was dead forever.

I am also drawing up a planting plan for my side yard.  I worked all day yesterday cleaning the space out.  It is about 15 feet wide and is terraced with four levels. The front of my house is at street level and the back goes down to an inlet off the river.  It is mostly been full of leaves and wild things since I have been here but I think I am ready to do something with it.  I have also had a sudden interest in house plants and I have filled my house with new plant friends. This was a passion I had in my twenties and basically haven't had an indoor plant since.

Most of my life I have been pushing against something.  I felt that life was about surviving and preparing for some unknown thing that was coming. I have had pockets of happiness but the fear was just below the surface warning me to not get too comfortable and in time, what a surprise, the voice was right. When my mind couldn't accept that it couldn't solve this problem and decided no more it sent me into long term sorrow.  Eventually even the sorrow vanished and I had only emptiness. When you experience this long enough you get to a place of acceptance this is all there is and you just keep moving. Many times I didn't see a reason to go on I did anyway.

When you live in crisis your mind is fully engaged it has something to push against. A constant to do list of time filling accomplishments. Valuable things that must get done to stop impending disaster. But when disaster comes anyway for me my mind blew a gasket. I bottomed out when I realized that bad things couldn't be stopped by any action I could take. I gave up and stopped participating in life what is the point?  Life just kept moving forward without me people came and left jobs ended an began life didn't really need me to do a thing. I became a watcher.

I watched while people stressed over the smallest things. I felt free to just be and not get too attached to the outcome.  I think now I am waking up to the idea that everything does not have to have great meaning.  I don't have to save the world or accomplish anything for that matter. I do have to accept life the way it is today and try to enjoy what is right in front me. To not judge myself so harshly when I just want to be, instead of do, sometimes.

I have a deep groove in my mind that was made when I was child.  It was that life is about doing something productive every minute and that life isn't suppose to be fun.  This is the default setting that I am up against every moment luckily I do find joy in making things beautiful it does involve work but I don't mind now that I can find joy doing it..

Feeling safe - depression - suicide - utopia

I can feel the sadness in the air with our incoming president. It is hard to feel good about someone that promises to turn back time. He is the president for that small group of people that enjoyed the world when it was a little more censored.  When you didn't know every bad thing going in the world and you weren't aware of the predators living in your neighborhood and you could just pretend they weren't there and the world is safe.

Now days there is so much information coming in and only the worst is ever reported.  We want to feel safe and if someone says they will make us safe we really want to believe them.  We want someone to just fix what isn't pretty about life and take us back to the days of Andy Griffith and Beaver Cleaver.  News flash they were make believe just like the idea we were or will ever really be safe.

Holding on to the idea that things will ever be the way they use to be stunts our ability to grow and adapt to how it is now. I know personally that change is not usually something you sign up for it is forced on you but you can learn to adapt quicker.

When my life was turned upside down. The breakup - menopause and the recession my mind could not accept it.  I could not accept that what I thought would be my life wasn't going to happen.  With so much uncertainty I had a meltdown mentally spiritually and physically.  I was in shock and thought about taking my own life daily it seemed like a perfectly logical solution with such an uncertain future.

Someone recently told me that during the recession they felt so out of control that they slipped into a depression that was so severe that that regularly kept a gun near them incase they wanted end it.  They said they laid next to their spouse at night an cried non-stop and hadn't told anyone except me about this time in their life. I can't imagine not telling anyone. I told you guys and regularly joked with the people that could stand to be around me that they might find me in the garage with a hose in the window. 

Just like the conversation with my friend it wasn't that I was sad it was that I felt nothing and without out feelings I didn't really see the point of going on. People say it is a selfish act but when your mind has had a break and there is no feelings it seems like a logical choice.  You are just there taking up space and since I am alone I felt no one would really be affected by my disappearance. I know these thoughts sound crazy and they were crazy but when you have no feelings there seem to be no point in living. 

I believe my higher self or holy spirit whatever you want to call it helped me make it through the each day.  I remember telling myself I can check out tomorrow if I want.  There is always tomorrow.

For me the life ahead of me was so uncertain that my mind could not process the changes quickly enough and I snapped. We have to teach people that feeling uncertain and scared is normal there is no utopia outside ourselves.  There is no magic pill or president that will save us the pills will only keep us from thinking too much about our fears dulling our minds.

When you are at the bottom it can be too late to pull yourself out without help of some kind. I was alone most of the time and my sickness liked it that way. It wanted me isolated so it could feed me a steady stream of crap that kept right where I was for longer than I should have been. I never questioned my thoughts until one day a voice said "you are doing this to yourself" and started asking myself "is that true?" and from that point on I got better.   

I guess my point to all this is that I understand fear of the future with all its unknowns.  I understand wanted to feel safe and crawl back into a life you once imagined you had. I would have done anything to not have had to suffer and change when I was facing it but you can't go back. Going forward is the point of life moving on besides the past was never quite as rosy I my mind would have me believe it was I can see that now. 

My friend said they fear everyday it will come back.  I never even considered that. I believe it was a spiritual correction for me.  It was a perfect storm to shake me to my foundation and make me question every thought I have ever had.  It erased who I was, one thought at a time, and left nothing but a foundation.  I have started rebuilding but it is a slow process but I have nothing but time. There is always tomorrow.  

Eye of the storm - meditation

I have recovered from my temporary place despair yesterday. It is good that I know it is temporary but it is experience that has taught me that and sometimes in the midst of the storm having that information doesn't help at all.

I saw an interview with Marie Osmond about her son and his suicide and how one month before he was excited about getting into the college of his choice. I get that, despair can come up so quickly and seem so paralyzing that you would do anything to get relief. Being young you don't have experience to know that it will pass.

When I was in high school living at home in an impossible situation the thought of suicide did cross my mind. I thought I will never survive this and I was a minor and couldn't leave, I had left before and was brought back.

To me despair is when you see no way out, you believe that you will always feel that bad. I was 15 and I knew at 16 I could leave and I did. In the mean time I slept for almost 9 months. I made a decision that when I was at home I would be unconscious. I lived because I believed they were the problem and I knew that if I could get away from them I could be free. I knew that only time stood between me and freedom. If I could do something to kill time I could make it.

I am not sure why I went into all that today but there it is. I guess for me when I go to a dark place sometimes it seems more devastating than at other times. Grief is familiar and perfectly healthy really. When you lose something or someone important to you, you must grieve in some way. Despair is another animal and care must be taken to get help. You can't think your way out of despair because despair makes you think there is no solution. You need a second opinion.

So I got a second opinion yesterday from a professional. It seems perfectly clear when it comes from someone else. She is spiritual and knows I am game for anything that will make me feel better so we did a meditation. She had me lay on the floor on a blanket and imagine I was lying in the grass looking at the sky. It was clear and blue and the sun was shining and then small wispy clouds started collecting and then darker clouds. All the time I am safe in knowing that the sky was blue behind the clouds. The storm came and I was perfectly safe and then the sun returned and dried me off and the sky was blue once again and then more whispy clouds.

I feel great today and know that good or bad, this too shall pass.