It's always uplifting to know that we are not alone...
And is there a better, more noble way to overcome depression than through helping others who suffer from it?
It's like one of the most renowned poets said: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." (Maya Angelou)
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9 comments:
Yesterday I had all but committed myself to suicide. It was not an easy decision. It was the ONLY one. I wanted to contact you so badly. I wanted to vent, and for you to soothe me as you always do. But those negative voices popped up and informed me that I should not bother you. That I had no right to burden you with my feelings. That that would be quite selfish. So I skipped work, lied in bed and cried all day, while the voice went over our meticulous suicide plans. I wasn’t crying for me, I wanted to go, I felt almost excited at the prospect of never opening my eyes to this world ever again. I was very sad and afraid for my kids. I knew my actions may cause them to suffer with the very illness that was killing me. But yesterday not even that guilt could stop me. I dragged from my bed to gather my chosen instruments of death…only to hear a strange voice calling me from the roadside. I ignored him for as long as I could….tears of frustration rolling down my face. I finally stamped outside to see what the man wanted. And there he stood, his joints disfigured, his face grimacing in pain. He was pleading for help, …sigh…I gave him…..alot more than he had expected…his eyes filled with tears…I ducked my head so he could not see my eyes….I returned to my bedroom even more angry. Now I was infused with greater guilt. What right had I to be so unhappy? When so many people are suffering much worse than I could ever imagine…Who am I to believe that I deserve happiness when the whole world is suffering….I dragged myself to work today…tears just below my lids, burning…..I would leave lunch time the voice said……find a quiet place it said…so the kids won’t be the ones to find u….i opened my facebook, idily, grudgingly…. n there u were…..Clicked on this link and now my hands can barely type these words, due the tremor…my eyes cannot read my own words due to my tears. When I saw myself mentioned, idk, it was like the tightest hug ever. So I guess I live to fight another day……thank you one again friend
ngeri
Please answer my previous post, if you can.
What's your previous post lrina? l didn't see anything.
Hi Elizibeta,
firstly i have to say how impressed i am so far looking through your blog..it definitely resonated with me and when i began reading it and about your experiences your life has parallels with my own. I also see the sense and logic in your words and how you removed your conditioning to enable you to bear then beat depression.
So my own story...i've been battling depression for over 20 years now, maybe my whole life without knowing it possibly, i'm 43 now. Like Elizibeta i grew up in europe, a western european country i wont say which one, and now i live in the southern Pacific.
I had a very hard childhood...and adulthood so far )) I was raised by working class parents both alcoholics both from abusive backgrounds, i recently found out when reconnecting and forgiving my mother she had come from such a large and poor family she had been put into care due to poverty at a young age, she was rescued by a kindly aunt and my mother did not utter a single sound until she was 6 as she was told by her aunt..she has little memory of her early childhood so i am assuming it wasn't very nice, .her mother only took her back when she was old enough to earn money and contribute to the family.
My father was a mechanic and debt collector a nightclub bouncer and a very good motorcycle racer, he was semi professional and maybe could of been very good, a professional if had the finances at a younger age and support. I did not know until i was 15 and my new sister arrived on our doorstep we were his second family, we were never told.
I grew up in a state housing working class poor neighbourhood in the 1970s a very tough time when men were men...my earliest memories are of violence drinking and arguing, much of my early years are memories of my mum and dad leaving us in the car while they got drunk for hours at a time at the pub, with the occasional coke and chips passed through the window...generally followed by arguments and violence later at home.
If i was expecting any better treatment outside of this world i was in for a huge shock, the outside world appeared to be just as unwelcoming, i was desperate for attention and a sensitive caring polite child if fact my resistance to haircuts and my red cheeks i was often mistaken for a girl when i was little ))...this sensitivity was to be my downfall i now understand, that need for acceptance, to be shown love or to be part of a social group.
I had a few friends as a child and i realise now as it has continued into adulthood, i would align with people who needed me either for my physical protection because they were weak or the fact id give you the shirt off my back if you asked, if fact you didnt even need to ask id offer it for that temporary high of feeling loved, normally followed by a low when let down by these same people.
I realised i could be popular by being brave...id had so many beatings at home and school etc not much scared me by the time i was 11 or 12, i was also bigger than most boys a few years older than me, i was 6ft plus at 16, so being the kid that would do anything climb that tree jump off that building ride a bike faster etc etc...risk taking because my modus operandi you could say. )
Anyway i could go on for ever about the really horrible things i went through as a child, but then we would have war and peace..... lets just say at 15 i got into motorbikes one of the only times i felt love from my father was our shared passion for this, even from a young age id be flying around on the back of his bikes at over a hundred miles an hour....i realised very quickly i was better than everyone i met riding bikes and was great at repairing them, but as usual my risk taking meant i with breaking bones literally monthly to my mothers horror.
I also got into a group a gang u could say of like minded boys we were 16...id found it, at last my peer group respected loved i felt i was home, these guys would die for me Sadly alcohol and drugs would follow. The same year my dad did his usual and went for my mum...i was now big enough to maybe win the fights id been losing all these years...during the fight he bit down on my small finger so hard and damaged the nerves it still doesn't work correctly nearly 30 years on....but he never hit me or my mum again after i hurt him that bad.
I ran away and my mum never defended me for protecting her and so i was left homeless hurt and disenfranchised and eventually she left my father...i slept rough for a long time stealing milk bread off doorsteps and from shops when i could,
Eventually a friends mother took pity on me in took me in, i got a job, but continued to be wild on bikes had some serious accidents and taking lots of drugs...they were really great times compared to my life before believe it or not.. my best friends my brothers...causing problems to the local police never getting caught...they always had my back.
One day my best friend started acting strange...and he never stopped, we were taking lsd speed weed u name it partying all the time, when my friend eventually went completely mad and was institutionalised at 20 i knew it was time to stop.
I cleaned myself up and got myself into college on a mechanical engineering course....i felt the most positive of my whole life, i was great at something and respected i hadn't had confrontations from bullies for a long time, i got super fit and could do 100 press ups, 50 with someone sat on my back. played sport..my father stopped drinking sorted his life out..we were friends, I finally felt maybe life wasnt that bad after all. ))
I competed in a motorcycle race, my father helped me...to shut me up about being better than him i think to be honest, id never done this before, never seen the track the bike anything, at the end of the weekend id finished 5th 4th and 3rd in a national event beating over 40 of the countries best riders, including a guy a year older than me with lots of experience and money...he went on to become a world champion and tv presenter. My father being how he was instead of being proud lost interest in helping me...im sure because he didn't want the attention taken off him continuing his dream.
When i woke up in hospital 3 weeks after the accident I was 21 and a half years old, my neck broken in 3 places my shoulder in pieces my right arm amputated and internal injuries to name a few of the injuries, the right hand side of my body paralyzed unable to talk. It took a year in hospital 14 operations and rehab...id been hit by a 80 year old guy on the wrong side of the road on a blind corner...after that day i started believing in a god a higher power....not the god as marx says, the opiate of the masses, a control mechanism of the state, but a higher power. within 30 seconds of my accident a nurse on her way to work resuscitated me...i was dead. The police and ambulance turned up, the officer a probationary asked what happened the guy said it was my fault, i was on the wrong side of the road, that was the end of it. the police said to me later the only reason i wasn't being charged with dangerous driving was because i would be paying for it the rest of my life.
i was always hurting myself pushing boundaries, but never stupid to the point of being on the wrong side of the road....we would prove it 7 years later in court...yes it took that long to prove my innocence
So there i was 21 years old a mess every dream gone...disabled broken. But as usual i wouldnt give up. I learnt to walk talk got over the paralysis it was like a stroke they say because of the spinal nerve damage.. I was told because i only had lost my arm i wouldn't get disabled benefits from the state while i was recovering.... i fought this myself learning the law and won, i then got told i would never be able to drive a car (manual shift) without disabled adaptions...i became the first person to pass their driving test in my country steering with my knees during gearshifts without disabled adaptions. ))
I went back to work met a great girl and an amazing social network through her, i played sports again. Life was good other than my insecurity about my amputation...you have no idea how cruel people can be making jokes about u having one arm,normally after a few beers.. and the years of trips to the supermarket with children saying "mummy mummy look at that man with one arm" it took its toll on me and i think now i had post traumatic stress disorder...when my girlfriend got pregnant with son things got harder for us.
i know i could of treated her better at times, id shut down never get angry id learnt to close the anger off because of my fear of losing control i often wanted to run away and sadly id repeated my childhood traits of maybe choosing her for the attention rather than having similar personalities or goals and often felt used...but i loved my son so much i was determined not to repeat the history of my parents, that was for sure. after 7 years together which to be honest were the highlight of my life she decided to tell me she had decided she was a lesbian.
i know we do not choose our sexuality and i cant blame her for that...i always had my suspicions to be honest, but was so determined to bring up my son it didn't matter...and because of my childhood i also became so non confrontational in that relationship even a sentence uttered at a decibel over talking made me run for the hills for the fear of the old violent me returning.
Towards the end of this relationship i really started to feel the depression, the not eating sleeping all the time, taking every word uttered by friends the wrong way...thinking to much about what people thought about me. At the same time many so called friends had ripped me off financially really hated myself and everything that had happened to me, I got to the point i wouldn't go out in busy places started having anxiety attacks...generally freaking out.
I got into my next relationship and left europe...lets just say she was very aggressive and even before i met her she had a reputation for being angry, i never loved her but to be honest i couldn't be on my own then...the constant pain from my injuries were getting harder to deal with as i got older....then four years ago i had a brain haemorrhage and was diagnosed with a brain tumour...not long after this we split up, had a huge argument her screaming hitting me and i lost it...i punched through the wall, like the old days..no control and hit her once in the face giving her a black eye,,,,id finally become my father id hit a woman
i was lost she took me for everything financially and that was the day i took four bottles of sleeping tablets and morphine and a litre of jim beam.....well gotta have that last drink eh ))
I woke up in the police cells the next day cracked ribs from the resuscitation....id died again.
i got charged with domestic violence and was put into a mental health ward i cried for four weeks and lost 25kg during my hospitalisation. Thats when i realised there is no help from the mental health system...generally over educated arrogant doctors with no life experience who would not last five minutes in the real world, or deal with ten percent of what ive lived through "take these pills don't stop taking them" this does not help you rebuild your life after such events...when you cant even look a person in the eyes without crying like a baby..8 weeks later i was on my own again the other side of the world no family no friends
Im four years on from this and have literally just been surviving but what i don't understand is why i keep surviving?? Im finally getting back up slowly looking at buddhism a religion that i took a interest in while in asia, meditation, reading again and trying for more.. and i'm obviously here looking for answers to my pain guilt and depression...but still literally everything gets me down at times i don't go out see people for months...and when i do i feel i get used a lot for either my skills or assets. Everyone just thinks im a great guy tough as boots etc. I suppose i put on an act a lot...im in pain all the time and kinda lost my drive.
thankyou for the blog it makes more sense than anything else ive ever read...im just hoping ive got enough strength left for one final push at a life with a point and a bit of peace ))
I wish i could contact you mam. Wanna know how exactly you protect your mind from all the depressing/negative thoughts.. I have an enemy in life who every moment keeps doing something to annoy me and hurt me. How do i make myself mentally free from it and those thoughts?
“Simply Thankyou”
Introduction:
After more than twenty years of fighting depression, many psychologists and many psychiatrists and so many cycles of medication, this simple personal insight brought me home!
To all those beautiful people who have suffered from depression I would like to say “Thankyou, Simply Thankyou” for doing such a wonderful job. Thankyou for being such beautiful and courageous messengers , such shining beacons!
I hear your pain , I have felt your pain, and now I hear your message and I hear it loud and clear for your message is simply the pain of humanity and the way it has to live now. The way we are living now is so wrong, so wrong, there is so little human-ness left in the way we live. We need to change, and we need to change now! So now relax in the knowing of a job well done, your message has been heard, that there has never been anything wrong with you, you are simply a gifted messenger!
I know that place you go to; that deepening, darkening tunnel, which you shuffle down with trembling knees, and your body full of terror and panic. I know that place you go to, where the tunnel ends, where your bare feet are on solid ground but your toes are dangling over nothingness, an empty abyss, and it is so dark and frightening. Then dimly just ahead there is a feint outline, misty at first, that slowly forms into a shape, a doorway, and it's only about five feet away.
And I know that moment when you are rocking on the balls of your feet, trying to decide wether to jump or not. “ I wonder if I can leap across in one bound or shall I take a few steps back and take a running jump?”
Then for some reason, you stop rocking and plant your heels firmly back on the ground, and from somewhere deep, deep inside you grab hold of something primal, something essential and you turn around facing back the way you came and take a deep breath. I thank you in this moment for choosing to return to life rather than taking the leap of death.
All ahead is blackness and you squint your eyes and then dimly percieve a minute spec of light, so small you are not sure it is real at all. So you slowly retrace your steps, and that little spec of light gets bigger and bigger as you shuffle fearfully upwards.
You are heading back to the light and it is your light, and it is getting brighter and brighter until it's the colour of Cornish Ice cream and you can feel it's warmth enfold you, and suddenly you are out of the tunnel, back in the gallery of life.
So you take your light and sit down, and relax and look back at where you came from. The tunnel is gone, the entrance has been bricked over, then plastered over and some artists have painted a mural over the place honouring the purpose of the tunnel.
You are Home, you are safe! Well done and Simply Thankyou!
Namaste' Bob and Barnaby Eden. Woof.
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