Suicidal.

How are you doing today, Zeb?

I was thinking, if you want community AND more routine, one place to find that is on this thread:
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/41225/3-good-things-again
There are several people who seem to post on this daily/weekly, so it wouldn’t be out of place for you to post on there every once in a while.

Best wishes.

Bad day today, did some art with a friend (she is an art teacher) but still in pain.

Regarding thread - I'm struggling to think of anything good at all, let alone finding 3 good things - at least, I can't see the good in anything while I'm going through this struggle.

There is a fundamental challenge in my world view, which is that I no longer see life as a good thing.

Bad day today, did some art with a friend (she is an art teacher) but still in pain.

Regarding thread - I'm struggling to think of anything good at all, let alone finding 3 good things - at least, I can't see the good in anything while I'm going through this struggle.

There is a fundamental challenge in my world view, which is that I no longer see life as a good thing.

When I’ve felt suicidal in the past I didn’t really want to die - it was more about just not being able bear what I was feeling and being desperate to stop feeling what I was feeling. It was because I’d been feeling so much mental pain and fear for so long, and I was exhausted by trying to stop feeling so terrible, and had run out of ideas to help myself and out of hope that it would ever get better. And the ‘trick’ of depression and anxiety is that it has this knack of making you unable to see ‘outside’ of the tunnel thinking that comes with it. It stops you from being able to see ‘outside’ of the walls that your depressive  thinking is building up around you. Thick walls with no windows, and it feels like no doorways out either. But it’s a trick, a lie. In reality there ARE many other ‘doorways’ (and far preferable ones than suicide) to get you out of how you are feeling, out of that dark room. In a way the act of suicide means you’ll forever remain in that dark windowless room - because it forever puts a stop to the POSSIBILITY of ever getting better and enjoying life again. Suicide means the opposite of ‘escape’ really - really it means you’ll never escape that darkness. To see light again we need to OPEN the doors and windows - not lock them forever! 

It can feel like suicide is the only way out of feeling how you feel - but it really isn’t. Even if you do absolutely NOTHING you really will eventually feel different to how you feel now. In fact if you stop TRYING to not feel what you feel it will probably change even more quickly. I sometimes think that it’s the working at trying to feel better that is part of the problem - the attempts to run away from how we feel is actually part of the problem. It’s like we’re running on the spot and just digging deeper and deeper into the ground as we run - digging a hole for ourselves and sinking deeper in. What would happen if instead of fighting how we feel we just accepted it? As in ‘at this point in my life I feel absolutely totally TERRIBLE, but I’m just going to let myself feel terrible, and get on with my life. In actual fact we can still walk, eat, watch, tv, tidy our room, go to the supermarket etc etc even when we feel deeply unhappy. We FEEL that we can’t, we just feel glued to the bed or sofa, but you test it you find that our depression just actually stop us from washing, walking, shopping etc - it just makes us FEEL that we can’t. Call it’s bluff. And doing all these practical things can actually be really helpful because it gives us something to do - rather than focusing on how terrible we feel becoming like a full time job. You can let feeling terrible take a back seat for a while while you clean the car, or decorate your room, or go and buy something you like from a local bakery. Just let your mental state ‘be there ‘ - just radically accept it rather than trying to fight it and make it go away. Because we can’t always control what our mind is doing, but we can be more accepting of our mind’s dysfunctionality - and make friends with how messy our emotions and thoughts are, and eventually make friends with it, because it’s a part of us. Maybe think of it as like a damaged leg, which you might think “my leg is hurting right now and I can’t walk properly - it’s hampering my ability to function - so I need to take care of it, give it rest and allow it time to heal”. You don’t chop your leg off when you’ve hurt your leg! You take care of it and give it the time it needs to heal. Your mind is hurting now, and it’s hampering your ability to function. So what’s needed is not to ‘kill your mind’ - what’s needed is that you take care for your mind, to care for it and let it rest, and to allow it time to heal. It’s probably just very, very tired. I remember reading once that a mental breakdown is largely just an exhausted mind. Give it time. It needs to recover, you need to recover. You need care, and rest, and time to heal. You need to stop fighting how you feel. You wouldn’t stare at your broken leg and shout ‘get better now or I’ll kill you!’ - that would be so weird and ridiculous! But that’s what we are saying to our poor struggling minds when we consider suicide. ‘Get better mind or I’ll kill you!’. It’s not very kind to our mind and also it only makes you feel worse!  And if we carry out the threat it probably won’t ‘work’ anyway because most suicide attempts fail. For that large majority people who have tried suicide they wake up in hospital feeling so SO very much, hugely  worse, with damaged twisted bodies, in agonising pain,  or unable to use their hands anymore, or with damaged liver and kidneys etc etc. Disastrous consequences. When all they had to do was WAIT to feel better, maybe trying a few strategies and therapy along the way to make them feel a little better while they wait. Forgive your mind Zeb, it’s trying its best for you. Take care of it, allow it some time to heal, it’s been through a lot. You mention having been prescribed many medications - your mind has had to cope with being treated like a guinea pig too with various pharmaceuticals being used on it. It’s been through a lot. It’s not your enemy and you don’t need to kill it. Even in its tired and overwhelmed state it’s enabled you to come on here and reach out to others, and probably helped others too because sharing how you feel on here may have been read by someone else who is feeling the same way, and now feels less alone because you’ve shared your story on here. Even in our darkest moments our minds are working away trying hard to find solutions for us - that’s why they get so tired sometimes! Your mind is actually trying to save your life - that’s the irony. Let it save you Zeb - allow it to do that, and give yourself at least the hope of better days ahead. I bet you that one year from now if you come back on here you will definitely have had a least SOME good days, some happy moments, some interesting experiences, some nice meals, some fun days out, some beautiful sunsets, laughed at some stupid thing on tv. It’s bound to happen that something in that year will have been good, even if there’s been pain and struggle as well at times, because life is often a mix of the two, and sometimes the balance is not what we’d choose admittedly. But there’s always light and dark - there’s always light out there somewhere even when your temporarily living in a dark room for a while. There’s still some light out there somewhere - waiting for you. It’s just that at the moment you feel it’s too painful to wait to see it. So please just wait, and don’t act on how you feel. Do something practical in the meantime - it can be surprisingly therapeutic to ‘do’ rather than to focus on what we think and feel. 

I wish you well Zeb. As you can see people on here know how it feels and they do care for each other in this community - there’s so much kindness and support on here. You’re not alone.. It’s not easy to feel how you feel but it is survivable. Be patient with your poor, tired mind, it just needs more time, and more love and care. 

Hi again Zeb, sorry to hear your feeling that way and your in pain, i understand it, I've been there, so i know how deep it goes, its a struggle now but its not forever. it seems that way when your going through it in that moment, and you feel as though nothing will ever get any better, and its been going on for a long time, but it will, give yourself a chance, things will improve, sometimes it just takes a while. you mentioned that you have a few friends, in one of your other replies, and one today that you spent some time with, that's the best thing for you to do at the moment, try and spend more time with those people in your life, your lucky to have them there, its hard, but trying to focus your mind elsewhere on something else while spending time with them can help. i know that's easier said than done, because it was the same for me, try and take things one day at a time, try not to think about the future too much at the moment, some days will be good and others won't, there are a lot of other people going through the same thing, so your not alone feeling that way, it looks like a lot of people are trying to help you here as well, take care of yourself, talk to you soon.

One good thing is that you have a friend who’s an art teacher who enjoys spending time with you and is keen to help you feel better. That’s no small thing. Life might not feel like a good thing right now, but the only way to witness an improvement in that state of affairs is to stick around and wait for it to happen. Most likely it will happen in time - you’ll either start to feel slightly better, or you’ll start to feel worse (and I’m not sure you think that’s possible from what you say). Aren’t you just a bit curious to see how things play out? Life might surprise you with some happiness in the not too distant future - it really can happen.