Lived Experience Forum

[Aonaran]

Hi all,

I'm a new poster here, and finally stepping up to say hello.  New to posting, that is, but I've been reading here for a while.

My main reason for not posting is that I haven't known what to say about myself.  I still don't.  I've nothing to be proud of;  I'm ashamed of how I've ended up, and what a failure my life has been.  I've been heavily depressed for most of it but done my best to be a "brave little soldier";  spent a little over twenty years on anti-depressants which merely dulled me as I watched life slipping out of my grasp.

I've tried.  Really hard.  I don't have a lot of contact with other people, because ... well, I simply don't trust people any more, and there's not a soul on the planet who cares about my well-being or even existence.   I've reached out for help several times to so-called professionals, but it hasn't gone well.  I don't have a reason to be here any more, but i'm too much of a coward to do anything about it.  (More shame.)

I'm not fishing for reassurance or compliments.  I'm aware that what I've said doesn't sound inviting of help or kindness, but it's my way of saying "I Exist", in an honest assessment.

I don't know what it would take to ignite my pilot light again.  I really wish I did.  But I suspect things have gone too far into the dark to ever escape the numbing shadow of What Might Have Been.

I admire those who can be positive, and brandish hope.  Good luck to you all.

[CherryBomb]

Hi Aonaran,

Welcome to the Forums, and thanks for writing your first post. It's a challenging thing to do for many members.

Enduring what seems like a never ending cycle of darkness and despair can make it hard to see any light. I want you to know that you are not alone, and there are people that care for. I care, and think many people on this forum care, and can relate to you through common experiences. @Rick @BatGuano @kenny66 @kristin @Alessandra1992 @kato @Loopy to name a few people on this forum, are among many others in this community who can relate to you through common experience.

I understand how tough it can be to reach out particularly when you've been burned by people who you thought you can trust - this does not mean that every experience will be the same. And though you think you have no reason to be here anymore, these are just thoughts, you need not act on them. It takes strength to endure, not weakness. And it takes strength to open up as you have done today, be proud of this.

If you feel at anytime that you might harm yourself, I strongly encourage you to seek support and talk to others on the following numbers.

Lifeline 13 11 14

Suicide call back service 1300 659 467

Emergency services 000

Again welcome to the community. I looking forward to 'seeing' more of you on here.

CB

[kristin]

Dear @Aonaran 

Welcome to the forum, I'm so glad you've decide to join in the conversation!

I've increasingly been aware of many folk like yourself who are not yet feeling ready to jump in, but are reading and observing nevertheless. That is fine, I think we all understand that it is a terribly hard thing to break through the slience and isolation of many years and speak up - even anonymously. You are all welcome here .

I do love your Gaelic name choice. Hopfeully being part of the forum here will help you feel less of a loner, and that you belong here.

I like your honesty and courage. It takes guts to say "something", especially when you feel you have nothing of value to say. But I think you do have something. I see that you are a survivor of a debilitating MI for over 20 years. I don't want to minimise your sense of desperation in wanting to end your life, but I'm glad you haven't. It takes a great deal of courage to live through that feeling, please don't miss that important message in your journey. 

I think as you get to know more of us here on the forum you will find that we do care about your existence & your well-being.

Having lived with episodic severe depression for 35 years myself, I really understand that feeling of carting an enormous millstone around your neck physically and emotionally every day. And if you've been through that for 20+ years with very little support I'm really sorry, because that is hellish to deal with even when you have support.

I know that it might sound odd, but one of the most important things that has helped to shift a lot (not all) of my depression has been learning to have more compassion for myself when I am stuggling. To acknowledge there is a reason for me feeling that way, even if I can't see it at the time, or it takes years to find it. So please try to be gentle with yourself, as you would with someone you really care about who is having a terrible time through no fault of their own.

You say "I suspect things have gone too far into the dark to ever escape the numbing shadow of What Might Have Been". What might have been in the past is not now, but as another friend on the forum @Rick says - "hope endures", so please hold on to that. I'll look forward to hearing from you again soon. Take care.

Kindest regards,

Kristin

[kato]

hey aonaran,

Yes you do exist!

It is fantastic to see your first post spouting here i am, this is some of what i have been through!

I think it is a perfect first post,

Welcome to the Forum, i hope in time you can find it in you to share some more about the journey you have been on, from what i can gather there has been issues with the health system letting you down, i know for myself i have been let down as well, and i know others here have also had that pain.

You are not Alone and you are welcomed

I truly hope that the strength you have and the insight of some of the members here can help you gain some trust here, i would really like to hear more from you, but i understand that it takes time

for me trust has to be earned, i have to believe whole heartedly from someone before i open up that door, i found here under my pseudonym "Kato" trust was easier to allow, as i am anonymous, i can go on a ramble of thoughts to clear my head, not asking for feedback but welcoming any that came, I hope this helps you to share more of your journey/story

i know it might take time, but i will be happy to listen/read when your ready,

regards

kato

[Rick]

Hello Aonaandran,

My name is Rick. I have read your post with interest and empathy.
I have live with hopelessness for too long myself.

For some the journey that is Mental Illness is mild and manageable.
For so amny other of us it is like breathing barbed wire. 

It just really f@cking hurts. Not for a day. Or a week . 

But always. 

Oh yes we have the occasional good day. But a good day for many of us is an ordinary day for those who don't have MI.

Some people prefer to say that we're special. I say bollocks.

We're damaged.  We are shamed by our weakness and inability to fit in.

We are shamed that we even breathe.

But............. That is unfair. Yes I know fair does'nt come into it. I figured that in the 8th grade.

But then again we are not fair to ourselves. 

What shame is there is cancer? Or menigitis? the common frickin cold?

There is no shame attached to a physical illness.

What many don't really understand is that MI is a physical illness. It's a neural, chemical illness and it's a nightmare. But it is physical.

I ask you as a fellow MI sufferer to consider this. 

Be ashamed if you are a poor human being. If you hurt people for kicks, if you kick dogs be shameful. Be not shameful for having a disease.

Dis ease. Not feeling ease. The opposite in fact.

You took a punt posting tonight.

Don't want to draw attention but need to be more than an observer?

If that's it, well it's only natural. I mean here is a place people exclusively by frootloops.

Come together Like a kind of tribe and what? Drawing strength?

I deleted my first couple of posts before posting them. Then, the first post that I was reallly open in got responses which I was'nt prepared for. I deleted it too. Cos those responses though kind and thoughtful, cut me, shamed me,bled me.

But I continued to read and to post replys and post new discussions as well.

I'm not saying that this is utopia. But it is safe. A place to question the self hate. Maybe not the core of it which , sounds runs so deep with in you but the small hates. The small shames for the innocuous.

Please my new friend, keep posting, it is a small balm for the soul and gy God you sound like you deserve some relief even if you don't believe it or believe you want it.

I have found a version of hope here.

I know it is available to you too if you can let it. 

Even though it's against all evidence and even though I still wish I was'nt here

I know that

Hope endures

Rick

.

[Rick]

hi Aonaran

It's a day and a half every day aint'it.

I hope that with you reading posts from others that you will continue to have the confidence to post.

I found it a bit of a trick at first. But I have to say that Mostly when I get on forum and post the personal I generally feel purged if not content.

I hope you feel the same.

Those of with a deathlonging live hour to hour and this makes for a long day. 

We need more people like yourself to speak if only so others will know that they are not alone in the experience.

Will this make us less lonely? I don't know, sometimes it works that way for me.

The function of this forum is not just to connect folk with MI but to be a place of safety for expression.

You have been brave to share. well done!

I am impressed by your courage to be so honest.

Rember that if you need to talk, we are hear to listen. Most of us don't assume to offer advice because we know that everyone's life is different. 

So no advice from me.

Thank you for sharing and overcoming what must have been a difficult barrier to express.

Hope in many forms endures

Rick

[BatGuano]

Hi Aonaran,

Mixing up my science fiction movies here, but isn't your icon/thumbnail the proto-human Moonwatcher from Kubrick's '2001...'?

The scene the still is from is where the apeman starts the use of tools.  With a bone as a weapon in the movie, (it was a rock in the book).

I would suggest that the discovery of tools is metaphorical to your situation as you describe it.

For myself, its been a long road.  Ways and skills of coping with my MI have been discovered, either by myself or with help from others.

I don't mean that you have to do anything.  Sometimes you just have take it easy, rest for a while.  It is, as I've said, a long road.  Just keep an eye out for anything that could help you.

And may the Force be with you. 

[Aonaran]

Feasgar math dhuibh uile,  (Afternoon, everyone!)

Thanks for the replies. folks.  I'm sure you've all experienced for yourselves how welcome they are, especially on a first post.

And now ... a second post seems maybe harder than the first. 😉

Firstly, the replies.  It's interesting, what we read into other people's posts, how we hear our own echoes in what they're saying.  Some of the comments I could strongly relate to;  others, not so much;  but they were all welcome and appreciated.  That said, to clarify:  I don't hate myself;  I'm desperate that some of the issues I've been dealing with my entire existence are still with me, still twisting my path, and I'm perhaps bitter and definitely angry at the responses of those I've turned to for help and made myself vulnerable to, who've used me to play out their own games and left me to deal with the consequences ... but I don't hate myself.  It's true my self-esteem is not exactly shining, but that's a different thing.  And I don't want to die;  I'm in despair at the path my life has taken, and find even thinking about all the dreams I used to have to be too humiliating to bear, but I don't actually want to die.  Put it into the passive-voice flipside of that:  I don't have any purpose, so no reason to remain alive.

What was hard for me in stepping out of the shadows to post was, simply, fear of abuse.  I'd be really keen to hear how many can relate to this, but I seem to have been born with a Cosmic Kick Sign branded indelibly on my spirit.  My entire life, people have gone out of their way to abuse me and deride me, taking every opportunity to be mocking and unkind when it wasn't called for.  Both my parents used to shout at me constantly (I haven't a single memory of either of them speaking to me in kindness or affection) and I spent much of my childhood injured from physical abuse at their hands.  Of course, it didn't take long for my siblings to learn that they could treat me the same way with impunity, and the pattern has stuck with me my whole life.  I've lost most jobs I've had to bosses who fired me in fits of childish spleen-venting -- not out of misbehaviour or poor performance on my part, but, as more than one has screamed at me, that they just didn't like me.  The firing bit I could deal with -- it happens, more often than any of us would like, and most people, I'm sorry to say, are not fundamentally decent or principled in their behaviour when it comes down to basics -- but the fact that people seem to take a personal pleasure -- quite extreme pleasure, sometimes -- in being angry and abusive towards me, scares the crap out of me, and really sends me into a downward spiral.  "What did I do to engender that?" rings in my head, but of course there's no answer, so all that's left is the sickly residue that brews up a strong does of, "I'm the kind of bloke who ..."

I have some considerable physical issues going on for me now -- a few years back, I fractured my spine in three places and it's never properly healed, so that dramatically limits my physical mobility, and on the heels of that I developed heart failure, which means I have no energy any more either, and am in and out of hospital -- so I don't get out much.  I use the Internet for companionship, but it's a very ugly place -- we all know how rabid people can get when they wield the cloaked power of anonymity in their web posts, but it's particularly bad around me -- I'm like catnip to the trolls.  I'll post a civil, reasonable comment in a calm discussion thread, and out of nowhere someone will appear with a jeering tone and a fistful of ad hominems and lay into me.  And it happens over, and over, and over ...

I don't get it.  On rare occasions when I venture out -- when I have the energy, and the courage -- passing cars will stop at the bus stop where I'm standing for their occupants to scream abuse at me.  I know everyone has some level of experience of this sort of thing, but for me, either on the street or on the web, it is quite literally a daily ocurrence.  What the flippin' heck is this all about?  I have no idea.

But it means I don't participate any more.  It's crushed my soul under a massive boot-heel.  And it's what I feared might happen if I posted here.  (Not a comment on these forums, just on my own life patterns.)  What's perhaps the scariest about all this is that the abuse often comes from people whom others experience as temperate and reasonable.  So what is it in me that incites them to behave this way?  And often, to take a naked, jeering pleasure if they've seen that they scored damage?  It's not only painful;  it's frightening and bewildering.  There's a shame in feeling that you've somehow prompted someone to behave that way;  but the anger at being treated so unfairly pushes hard in the opposite direction.  The resultant squeeze is immobilizing.

I'm an introspective person by nature.  Believe me, I've spent a lot of time examining such experiences, trying to work them out, the how and why of it, but generally failing.  I'm convinced the source is not my behaviour;  I'm not a rude or disregarding person;  I've had fairly few genuine compliments in my life, but one that I have had, and that recurs, is that I'm patient and considerate (sometimes, the most patient and kind person they've ever met.  If I'm boasting, it's a nice thing to be able to boast about.)  Whatever aggravates people to such a frightening degree is their issue, not mine, so I don't feel like I need to blame myself.  What terrifies me, though, is that it happens so often, and that I can't get a handle on it.

It's robbed me of my bounce.  In the past, I've been able to pick myself up and start out again, but each time with a little less alacrity.  And these days, I have no bounce at all.

It also means I'm wary -- actually, afraid -- of starting into anything new.  It's so damned painful being alone and purposeless, but perhaps less painful than stepping out and being brutalized.  It's nobody's problem but mine, I know, so I'm not looking to anyone else to "fix" it for me;  but I also feel powerless in the face of this blight on my life.

It's a weather report, if you will.  Quite apt, when it's just started to rain and rumble again!

Good luck to you all.

Aonaran.

[Thanks to CherryBomb for sorting out a couple of glitches.  We're in good hands here. 😉 ]

[CherryBomb]

LOL @Aonaran - Thanks for your patience while I sorted out IT stuff to get your post up.

In doing that, I can honestly say that I think you are so patient and considerate. I don't know why people hurt other people - all I know is that it's not ok. Abuse is never ok. It  wounds people, and it take time to heal from abuse. I think experiencing abuse over and over again can cut deep, making it feel like it impossible to heal.

I admire the strength you have to come on here to talk about it despite the emotional injuries you carry. I can understand why you feel like you've lost your bounce. Like physical wounds, emotional pain also needs time to heal. Part of this process of healing can be distancing yourself from others, and finding ways to feel safe around others before you open up, and can trust again. Here on the Forums, we're a pretty caring and supportive bunch - @Alessandra1992  @kato @kenny66 @kristin @PeppiPatty @Loopy are just a few members on here. Do you lovely people have any words for Anonaran?

Once again, it's so nice to have you here.

Welcome

CB

[kenny66]

Hi Aonaran

I think I know a little of your experiences but not to the same degree as you. I had 14 years of physical and mental abuse which I dont think you ever get over. Mine was quite a few hospital admissions with broken bones and such, apart from physical and mental torture which usually goes with this sort of behaviour.

I am not sure if you will agree with this but it has always been my belief that some some people can pick up on your life experiences, a sort of signal indicating vulnerability/strength and the mix of both, etc if you will. Sometimes people react to this with kindness and compassion and other times with indifference and unpleasantness. I try and only involve myself with the first group.

My first  14 years of life was people shouting at me. So I made up my mind to live in a sedate world. So now I try and remove anything that might stress me. I know that continual abusive experiences have a cumulative effect over our life so it is really important to keep away from these experiences.

Its not for everyone but I am surrounded by rainforest, quite isolated and able to withdraw from society should I need it.

So maybe its possible for you to retreat to a safer place, both online and in real life and maybe minimise interaction with bad people.