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Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
#1
Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Recently, almost a month ago, I hit a low point in my ongoing battle with depression. For a very long time, several years now, I think, I've periodically found myself passively wishing for a natural death, coming at moments when I felt "tired of living". This time I fell even deeper into depression, thinking about how I would actively do it, rationalizing that "few people would even care" and, "for those few who do love me, life would go on" and planning out what I would write in my suicide note. I was just "so tired" of living and "couldn't take it anymore" and would welcome "the sweet oblivion of death". I even felt this creepy sense of calm and relief in planning such things out. Thankfully, I didn't follow through with my plans and instead sought help. 

A bit of background. For the last 17 years, it feels like life has been kicking the crap out of me, nonstop, 24/7. I must have lost $300K of my personal fortune when the housing market crashed in 2008 and my once pride-and-joy turned into my personal-toxic-asset. My wife's health completely collapsed and she's virtually bed-ridden in her 40s and I've become her care-giver. My business has been suffering all the while and all my hard work to turn it around has been for naught. All these years it's been a case of constant financial crisis, robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul. I'm now looking at inevitable bankruptcy. I partly feel like a failure. I partly feel angry at the world. I played by the rules and worked hard and still I arrive at the prospect of ruin. 

I've never been religious but when I got out of school, I bought into all the self-help tenets of pro-activity, goal-setting, positive-thinking and otherwise taking your destiny into your own hands. I was a believer and I was going to apply all that and be a success at my business. None of that crap worked and I feel as disillusioned as those who lose their religion probably do.

I'm not sure when exactly depression set in. It creeps up on you. The constant living in crisis mode, the non-stop stress, the feelings of helplessness and the anger at the world all took their toll on my psyche. 

WERE I superstitious or religious, it might be possible for me to think Depression is a conscious "demon", the way it tempts you deeper into itself. You lose interest in things you once enjoyed, which makes you more depressed. You withdraw from friends and family, which makes you more depressed. You stop exercising and lose energy, becoming more sedentary, which makes you more depressed. The final destination of this downward spiral is suicide. 

When I reached out to my therapist, the first thing she did was take me off the Adoral, which coincidentally I'd been put on the days before my thoughts of suicide. I also talked with my wife about my feelings, which was a difficult conversation to have despite my rationalizations that "life would go on" for her. She cried and assured me not only of her love for me but all of her family and so many other lives that I touched that I couldn't see in my mentally-ill state. Depression makes you feel worthless and unloved but it's all a negative delusion. Far from not mattering, my suicide would haunt her for the rest of her life and destroy her emotionally. It would also hurt so many in her family and mine that loved me. 

I'm struggling to climb back from this abyss. I won't lie. While I no longer think of killing myself, I still have to fight off thoughts of wishing for a natural death or just being "tired of living". Still, it's progress that I've made in the last few weeks. 

Any advice?
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
...      -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
...       -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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#2
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
@DeistPaladin

I'm sorry you're struggling with this. I also have a long history of mental illness and I'm well acquainted with the downward spiral. I'm woefully unqualified to offer specific advice on this, but I can say that not giving up and sticking with my therapy has worked for me.
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#3
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Do you allow for yourself the possibility that the seemingly inevitable terminus of this situation will not actually result in your ruin..but relief and a chance at reinvention?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#4
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Hug
big time, brother. Your story is very touching. I don think i have any good advice, but you have at least your wife and you seem to love each other. Thats something, isnt it?
Cetero censeo religionem delendam esse
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#5
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Sorry to hear this. And don't know enough about the 17 years and what treatment or types of treatment you have received.

Just a thought, there is a new medication out (at least in the USA, not sure where you live) for treatment resistant depression. Just approved within the last week(?). Talk to your psychiatrist, might be worth a shot. It's a modified for of ketamine in a nasal spray, Spravato. Works on the NMDA receptor. 

https://www.spravatohcp.com/?&utm_source...esketamine

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/909933

Wishing you the best.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#6
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Keep talking. No one can come up with a better solution for your problems than you. One of the first things negative emotions and depression do is cause tunnel vision in our persoective. We isolate ourselves from others that could and would have input. 1-800-273-8255 if you have no one to talk to. Someone without any skin in the game came assuage your perspective. You can PM or email me anytime as well. We are a community here, and even though I'm not an always welcome person or perspective here specifically, a community should support it's members. A lot of people in this community have dealt with depression long term, and you should never be ashamed to seek out like minded people who might just be a little further along a path to recovery.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post

always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
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#7
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
You can start smoking and drinking in moderation. Although you will die sooner, but you will be happier.
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#8
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
(March 11, 2019 at 2:41 pm)purplepurpose Wrote: You can start smoking and drinking in moderation. Although you will die sooner, but you will be happier.

In all seriousness, my sobriety is one of the things I have going in my favor, in terms of surviving that is. Drugs and alcohol break down inhibitions which makes following through with suicidal thoughts that much more likely.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
...      -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
...       -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
Reply
#9
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Points for an unconventional suggestion though, lol.  Wink
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#10
RE: Fighting Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
Communication is always important.

Find someone, family, friend, professional, you can trust to open up to.
Dying to live, living to die.
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