I'm Tired and Don't Want To Go On

Such a nice, positive, motivating post! Thank you!

I like this!

Another one: "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for."

Which brings to mind this Walt Whitman poem, used in one of my favorite movies ("Now, Voyager"):

I don’t have any clever words for you. Just know that I think the same, and understand what a struggle it is. The week of Christmas I even put a tank of Nitrogen gas in my Amazon cart. Ugh!
I guess the only thing that keeps me here is the fact I’m not done. I have books I want to read, fish I want to catch, foods I want to taste, and nature I want to explore with my dog.
Notice all of these are solitary experiences. I just am not emotionally cut out to be in a world of people. You sound like a very sensitive person too. I think we struggle more than the rest. ❤️

I have received so much support on this board that I hesitate to write honestly about how I am doing. I also do not want to make anyone feel worse. I also want to be honest. So, I will try to report without influencing.

I am quite depressed. Seven on a scale of zero to ten. What that means to me is that I think about suicide all the time but am not prepared to risk making my life worse.

I am still quite anxious again, seven out ten. This is especially troubling as I have not had this kind of anxiety before.

I am not sleeping. I have no trouble falling asleep. I wake up every two hours. I never get more than two hours uninterrupted.

I do not believe my providers really know what to do. In fact my research has convinced me that no one really knows what to do. I do not believe they even know what is going on with me.

I believe the lack of sleep is feeding the anxiety and depression. I believe that very high level of medications I have been on for fifteen years are responsible for my sleep disturbances. My sleep problems started two years after being put on medication. My doctor actually said "two hours at a time is fine as long as you are getting a total of eight". My providers are trying to treat the depression with Lithium and the anxiety with Buspar. They have me taking Seroquel for sleep and it is not working. I do not intend on continuing it as it has terrible side effects. I take Benadryl for anxiety because they will not give me Ativan any more, even though they had me on three milligrams a day until I stopped it. I have requested .5 twice a day. No one is addressing the sleep disturbances. I believe that the depression and anxiety will decrease or perhaps even go away if I can get get a good nights sleep.

I do not believe the life has any intrinsic meaning. I believe that my best years are behind me. I believe that very few people would be negatively affected by my death. My friend would miss me. My mother could mourn me. My sisters would be relieved. My ex-wife would be relieved as the truth of our parting would be less likely to come out. My children have not had any knowledge of me for over ten years. Reuniting with their disgraced dad is probably not high on their list. And my ex-wife and children would get my disability income, which is actually quite substantial. So all in all my death wouldn't even be a blip in the universe.

I am trying to get a second opinion on my condition but as many of you know getting an appointment with a mental health provider is not easy, unless of course one goes to the emergency room and waits, untreated, to get into a facility. I will never go back to the emergency room. It's like going to the local jail and asking them to lock me up.

Unfortunately I do not have access to a quick and painless way to end my life. I try to follow a rule of not doing anything to make my situation worse. Given that rule, my only option is to keep trying to get well by working with the broken mental health care system.

Everyone on this board has been incredibly supportive. I want very much to post positive messages and I will continue to do so were I have something to offer. In the mean time I, like so many others will shuffle through my day hoping my life comes to an end soon.

My everyone live in good health and peace.

I am sorry that you are in so much pain.

I’m grateful for all of the comments and sharing here. I’m 55 and pretty much bedridden as of gosh ten years at least although have had a few seasons where I was able to work part time but the jobs never lasted longer than a year.

I can’t accept that I am helpless to get needed help and change my circumstances. I hate it and in turn I feel deep feelings of disgust and contempt toward myself that I can’t get up and work a job. Geez.

I hate my life and feel very uncomfortable saying that. It’s something that I have tried to not think or say bc I think it will give it just more power. But sometimes I just need to be able to say what is the truth. I don’t have one person I can talk to. Literally, my mother and sisters cut me off 10 years ago , my father has Alzheimer’s and it’s me with my 17 yr old daughter . I am though super grateful for her and grateful she is as great and stable as she is, makes straight A’s and also works part-time .

I graduated from college with interior design degree and then worked 25 + years as a Photostylist, editor for multiple lifestyle magazines as well as doing floral design.
But after ongoing traumatic experiences and intense stress in 2014 I had some sort of “break” where I started stuttering and couldn’t think clearly. This was on top of becoming sick with an autoimmune disorder no one knew of at the time.
I’ve had mild depression all my life but the traumatic events and the consequences endured bc of those seem to have changed me forever.

Has anyone else had similar experience?

Hi. I’m a Brit living in Oman. How I got here I’ll never know. But here I am. I’m not going to suggest that things get better or any of that self help book rubbish. I’m 73 and whilst I have some health issues and have suffered from clinical depression most of my life what really bugs me is getting old. One of the things that bugs me even more is when people tell me how lucky I am to be 73 and how many people haven’t lived this long and how many people are worse off than me. I’m not stupid. I know all that. But it’s me I’m talking about. Sounds selfish right? But I loved being young, handsome and full of hope for the future. But there ain’t much future left at my age. I look in the mirror and see the body of a man growing old without me. I am full of self pity. I’m entitled to feel self pity at my age. But one bit of advice I hope you don’t mind my saying is this: for some insane reason humans think that being content or happy is normal in spite of all the overwhelming evidence showing us that human misery is the norm with the odd dash of happiness if you’re lucky. So, and for me this is optimistic and not pessimistic, what we should be adapting to is unhappiness. This is reality. Once we stop thinking that life should be full of happiness and face reality then suddenly things don’t seem so bad. Because always striving to be content or happy is what makes life more of a struggle. It’s unnatural. Do I sometimes think I don’t want to continue living? Pretty much every morning. But then I think actuality why bother to top myself when I don’t have long to wait. Something that also bugs me is when someone smiles and says “have a nice day!” Is that an order? If so it’s a bloody stupid one. And I’ll have a pretty miserable day if I want and I know this is true of most people of my age unless they’re taking enough pills. So embrace misery and if happiness walks with you for a few steps know he won’t stay long and just enjoy his company whilst knowing that he’ll be moving on.

Yo dude. I’m 73. It doesn’t get better. Life is bloody miserable most of the time. That’s the norm. I liked your rant. I rant a lot and enjoy it. What the Hell, there’s not much else to do. I think I’m embracing misery and the regular morning thoughts of what’s the bloody point. Not long to wait so I can’t be bothered to cut life short. I’m a coward. Or perhaps just too lazy. Join the club and avoid people who laugh too much in crowds. It simply hasn’t hit them yet.

Dogs are better company than humans.

karim1950, I agree that most of life is suffering. I also know that for me if I have a purpose in my life the suffering doesn't seem so bad. I expected to be with my wife, helping my children through college at this stage of my life. My illness and/or the treatments for that illness took that away from me. At my worst I am, for all the reasons you've state, actively suicidal. I've spent a lot of time there lately. I don't know if it is mental illness or all the psych meds I've taken, but sometimes the desire to take my own life is urgent.

Today, I'm a little better. I think I may still be able to make a difference in my ex-wive's and children's lives. On really good days I'm foolish enough to think I might be able to make difference in the care and treatment of mental health patients. And when I am really dreaming, I think I can resume my place as a contributing citizen.

For me being relevant is very important. I know life is pointless. Given that reality all that matters to me is alleviating suffering wherever I can. We who have suffered with mental illness and the medieval attempts at healing us, know what it is to suffer. I find that this suffering has allowed me to care about people in a way I never did before.

Maybe if I can do something with this knowledge I can make some sense of the last fifteen years of my life.

I wish you peace and good health, for as long as you want it.