Finn dAbuzz wrote:
It is a matter of choice.
The simple physical act of smiling, even if forced, can trigger changes in your brain chemistry that equate to positive emotion. How much more powerful is laughing, having fun, engaging in affectionate gestures with the people you love. You can, if you want, push yourself into a more positive place.
However, whether we call it self-reflection or self-indulgence, the choice of preoccupation with self is one we make not because we are too lazy to pursue joy, but because we find it somehow desirable to be wrapped up in melancholia, to be absorbed in our selves.
The key, I suppose, is that if you lean towards the light, you shouldn't allow those who lean towards the dark to bring you down.
It’s not so easy as that...
I know how close to the edge I get and it isn’t a case of being caught up in a drama or wrapped up in melancholia
Far from it " the people who know me and have met me know different. Simple would be a huge achievement - sometimes it doesn’t work “simply” " because you can’t control external factors or control all aspects of your health " no matter how much you ‘will’ it or want it to work. Some you can, not all.
I’m not reading this thread the same way now " it’s taken over 2 years to speak about some things, so here’s as good a place as any to try and get it understood from the another side.
It’s not being miserable and melancholy. It’s a very real feeling and hard to explain.
You see, it’s hard to imagine not having your life " you know what you have, you know in some ways what you’re capable of, you know that maybe if you pushed just a wee bit harder you could get “more” from life - (I'm talking physical restrictions)
So, tho this is not how I’m feeling right now " it is how I’ve felt and it’s there, right on the edge
There have been many times over the last 5 years that, getting to a point of no longer caring, was there. Where you go to bed at night and it’s not a conscious “not wish” to wake up, it’s just, if you didn’t wake up... well, that would be OK. It’s not suicidal thoughts or the opposing thoughts of how you could improve your life " you’re simply “thought out” " when you don’t wish to think any more, you don’t want to contemplate the next 10 days or 10 months or 10 years " just, it
is like knocking on heaven’s door... and if the door opens... well, you can just wander through and you’d never have to think or feel again, you wouldn’t feel tired again of the fight, whatever the fight is " health, family, whatever it is. It's tiring. Pain is tiring.
It isn’t about residing in a deep abyss, or wallowing in self pity, and thinking that everything is so awful in your life " because it isn’t, you
know it isn’t " and it’s not about pretending to be positive and upbeat and “oh what a perfectly happy little life I lead” because life’s just not like that either, not all the time " it isn’t about those extremes " it’s just about having to think and whether you wish to think about anything again. I guess it’s the most incredible selfishness really, to actually not have to want to think about anyone or anything again.
I can sit here and cry as I write " coz I know that if I weren’t here my family and friends would be distraught... but you know what... there have been times, many, when I woulda wished that truck coming towards me had taken me out, or my car tyre blew out and I wouldn’t have known anything about it, or simply, that I just didn’t care whether I woke up or not. Not suicide. Just... no longer caring and fate taking a hand, relieving me of the responsibility. It didn’t mean I didn’t love my children or family or friends. It didn’t even mean I wanted to be dead. It just means that you get to point that... you no longer care. The point was reached.
Then it usually levels off again - the pain becomes a little less or the rollercoaster is a little smoother.
You still get up every day, shower, put your makeup on, grab your Eleanor Rigby by the door, go to work, meet friends, smile, laugh, cry, whatever... just regular life... you take your pills to make sure you’re doing what you ought to be doing and to try and fix your body up so that it can move the right way " trying to improve your life... you can still get joy at every stunning sunrise and every beautiful sunset, you can see the world thru wondrous eyes...every sound, every colour, every single dew drop and rainbow, but sometimes you reach that point where... it’s not that those things don’t matter or aren't important " it’s that
your life no longer matters to you. It matters to everyone else " it just doesn’t matter to you.
You don’t have to be old and sick and dying.... or young and sick and dying.... you don’t need to have had horrible things happen to you in your life or huge obstacles to have overcome, it’s not about being lonely and depressed or angry and frustrated " your life can be so good in so many ways, fulfiling, happy, thrilling, normal, steady, calm - and you can mean the world to people and be loved and love back " but when things get to “that point” where you’re simply tired " you’re just tired of life throwing things your way and you’re tired of being sore and hurting, and right, life ‘aint fair and everyone just has to get on with it " and you do " you get on with it " but you can still be of a mind where if heaven’s door opened, you still may wander through. It's not that you don't have everything to live for, it's that everything to live for can be, at times, very tiring.
I don’t think it’s madness, it’s not depression " perhaps it could be seen as the easy way out " but it’s not, there’s nothing easy about leaving those you love behind....it’s not that you even want to do that, but when those who love you see the pain you are in, and you see how much it hurts them, and you KNOW it’s not going to change " well... that point can be reached.
So then you get to a point before that when you cut out the people in real life so you don't have to let them see your pain. Like Bill's Grandfather. Or perhaps you don't have to be old and dying. Perhaps you cut out people in your real life so you don't have to see their pain watching you as you struggle.
There are times I had to watch my child cut himself to pieces and I couldn’t stop him. I watched him attempt suicide once and I stopped him. There are times I wondered whether all the other times he hurt himself, daily, or when the school found him that day, whether to go through what he did was just too cruel, whether dying would have been easier for him. Can you imagine saying that? Can you imagine even thinking that? Wondering if death is more acceptable than that sort of life. Where does quality of life come in? At what age and who chooses what the quality should be? Who controls that? Of course, many people live in depression or have problems or disorders that other people say don’t exist.... but that’s not the point either.
You can talk to people to gain perspective " but perspective only comes if you can erase those images in your head and put it somewhere where it doesn’t hurt you. Perspective about whether you should care enough whether you live or die is non-existant - because it's en entirely personal conclusion. No-one would wish you to die unless you are in horrendous pain etc... we get some kind of ‘relief’ when those we love or learn about, after enduring horrible suffering, have died... but the suffering can start way before for the final outcome.
We only wish for the physically sick and deathly people to die. We don’t wish for the mentally sick to die. Yet... watching someone hurt every day mentally.... that’s no less painful that seeing someone in pain physically and a pill can’t always alter the mental pain, just like it can’t always cure the physical pain.
Not for my kid anyway.
So, you keep hoping, and praying in some odd way, that a mental illness will improve or a reasonable quality of life can be found. And when you’re physically sick you hope and pray that someone will come along with a new pill, or a cure or something and it will get better, or make it easier, or more tolerable.
Better for whom, if that doesn’t happen?
Today we live ‘til, on a real good stretch, just over a 100.... however, life at 18 could already feel like a lifetime already. Age is relative too...
I think it’s when you get past the suffering stage, that’s the teller.
I know I have a truly wonderful life. I do, I know I’m blessed. I can go on and have an ever better life if my health does not deteriorate " and even if it does, I can still keep going because that is a choice I make and I don’t want to give up yet. I want to live a long time with those I love.
That doesn’t change anything to do with my child tho. No matter how positive or good my life may be, which of course does affect my youngest child, it will make no difference to my eldest child. I cannot teach him, I can’t help mold him, I can’t rewire the negative threads he has. I cannot make it right. I cannot change or make those decisions go away. I cannot stop what he will do in the future. I cannot make a difference to his future nor can I control anything he does. I mean in a mental sense. Not in a controlling what a child does sense.
“at what point does one just stop caring? Does everyone have a limit which, when crossed, quits?”
What point do you have to stop caring about what someone else thinks or does, and just do what you think is right or best for you? At what point do you just call it quits?
For your own sanity.
At what point do you say I am not a mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son, husband, wife, partner, friend etc... I am responsible only to me - I have to only think of myself?
That could mean you may will yourself to die, you choose not take medication, you let nature take it’s course " which can be ugly and cruel, short or long.
It could also mean that you stop caring, you choose to live on, you let nature take’s it course and enjoy everything there is to behold in your life, but you simply stop fighting for what you believe in because if you fight you will be broken; if you stop caring it cannot break you.
It could also mean that you get on with life, take your meds, roll along, live life to the max of your capabilities and wait for your time to come " acceptance that it will.
It could mean that in a very proactive way, you’ve called it quits in advance " you’ve made a living will " you’ve chosen to die at your time should things turn around on you again " you won’t fight, you’ll let go and be at peace.
Who is to say what’s right or wrong? If someone commits suicide " it’s seen as wrong. Having stopped my child doing that " I consider it was the right thing to do so I would say suicide is wrong in those circumstances. Yet, we can choose not to take medication or refuse medical treatment and tho that will hurt those that love us, couldn’t it be that the decision to call it “quits” is better in the long run. Is it being selfish to say “I’ve had enough” even when people want you to go on and fight it and “you have everything to live for” talks. It’s making a choice and trusting other’s, those near and dear, will understand that the choices you make are to be respected.
It’s hard to watch someone in pain, but it’s harder to watch the person watching you who is helpless to make it better too. My parents had to watch my pain at times. At times I think it was harder for them than it is for me. Just as is it harder for me to watch my child’s, than perhaps it is for him to use a knife. Now, they don't see me, I don't see him. Is the pain better or worse. Who knows?
Making choices about when you’ve had enough will be biggest choice you ever make, it can also bring you peace with the battle you have in your head about it.
The point is you can be a normal, every day run of the mill average person whose had a few issues to deal with, big or small, (that’s just all relative how big or how small), and you could know others who have endured far worse and your issues bear no comparison. We all live in different worlds. It’s not that someone’s life is better or worse or who’s got the biggest story or who shouts loudest, there’s no competition.
We all have to live in the skin that we are born in and if that skin gets torn and twisted, gnarled and doesn’t fit, you can’t take it off. You can deal with circumstances, you can address issues, we climb our figurative mountains and we can be blind, deaf and some us can be dumb " we learn to adapt " and when you no longer have the will to adapt " you reach the point. I think everyone has a limit.
I hope and pray that no-one I know and love reaches their limit. If they do, then I’ll hope to be there for them and hold their hand.
