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?
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
"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
