Venting I’m tired of “Overcoming” and “Persevering”

[BlueWidow]

I'm tired of people telling me I need to "overcome" obstacles in my life and "persevere". People who overcome obstacles and push through difficult times are held up in our society as noble and inspiring.
But what if you feel like you've been doing that your whole life and it just never ends? My entire life I feel like I've just been overcoming one obstacle after another and every time I think I can finally stop and rest. . . . here comes something else for me to overcome. It's never ending! And as I get older and sicker it gets harder and harder to overcome things. Things that used to be small now seem very big and difficult to overcome. At this point, I can't even do every day activities like paying bills. I used to be on top of everything. I was extremely organized and I never missed a deadline. Now I have to have most of my bills on auto pay because if I don't, I might forget to pay one of them. People are constantly yelling at me because I didn't return their call or answer their text or whatever. I will think that I actually did answer them, only to find out that I didn't answer them at all, I just thought I did.
Nobody has any understanding of how difficult it is just to get out of bed every day.
Every morning I get out of bed, I get dressed, I get my bed ready so that if I need to lie down right away I can, and (if I'm lucky) I still have the energy to go get myself a cup of coffee before I have to sit down because I'm already so dizzy and exhausted that I can't hardly hold my head up. I spend my days in my bedroom sitting in an office chair which I moved into the bedroom so I'd have a chair to sit in to watch TV. I'm either sitting in the office chair or else I'm lying in my bed on pillows that I have propped up so that I can watch TV. That's all I do. I don't even really go into the other parts of my house, except to the kitchen to get something to eat. I've never sat in my living room EVER. . . And I've lived in this house now for over a year. I have a PC in there and I go in there when I need to use it, but I have a Kindle and my phone and I usually use those when I'm doing things on the computer, unless I need to print something out. My bathroom is inside my bedroom. What I mean is, it's a master bed and bath room so I don't have to leave my bedroom to go to the bathroom. I hope that makes sense to people. Then I have my closet which is also inside the bedroom. It's a nice little contained space for me and I feel safe in here. I have everything I need right around me. All my stuff (including my SN and other ctb supplies) is all in the closet where I can get to it easily. And it's just a few steps from my bed to the bathroom if I need to go in there. I usually stay in here with the door closed most of the time because I don't feel safe even when my bedroom door is open. I have food stored all over my house because I hoard it. It's a behavior that's left over from when I had a severe eating disorder about 10 years ago. There's no one in the house but me, but I still have the need to hide food all over the place. I don't feel "safe" unless I have little packets of crackers, little candies and mints, and things of that sort nearby. I have a little cabinet in my bedroom that I keep that type of stuff in.
Anyway, what started this whole thing was that I've been going back-and-forth about whether or not to leave a note. Sometimes I think I'd like to leave a note and explain things to the few people that are going to be left to care about my death, but sometimes I feel like I don't owe them any explanation and, if they had been paying attention, they would've already known what was wrong. During the darkest time of my life last year, absolutely no one came to help me. That's why I don't feel like I owe them any explanation now, nor do I feel like I have any requirement to accept any advice they would give me now. When I was begging people for help, absolutely no one came. Therefore, the same people don't have any right to tell me how to conduct my life now, or whether or not I have a right to end it. I feel like I've done everything I can to try to help myself and nothing has worked. I've been on every antidepressant pill imaginable and I've been to countless different types of therapy over the years. The only thing I haven't done is ECT. I've thought about it before, but after reading about it and hearing comments from other people on here who have had it, it just scares me.
I don't like needing people for anything, and as long as I'm alive I'm going to need people. As I get older and sicker, I can't do all the things I used to do and I'm going to need people even more. And people, in my experience, are not reliable. And they certainly won't help you unless there's something in it for them. Every tiny obstacle seems like a huge mountain to me.

It's so stupid because even something as simple as changing a lightbulb is difficult in the house that I live in because it has cathedral ceilings. I didn't know it had cathedral ceilings before I bought it. My sister-in-law, who is a real estate agent, actually helped me buy this house because I had never bought a house on my own before. She chose this house and helped me purchase it before I even got here. I moved here from the other side of the country after my husband passed away. So something as simple as changing a lightbulb is difficult because the lightbulbs are way up high and they're going to be impossible to change when they go out. That's another reason I don't stay in my kitchen very often, particularly at night. I don't wanna run the lights very much because I know that someday they're going to burn out and I'm not gonna be able to replace them. It's already happened in my garage. The light burned out nearly 7 months ago and it's still out because I can't get up there to change the lightbulb and I have no one to come around and help me. It's little things like this that are just never ending and I'm sick of dealing with. It seems like that's all life is-just an endless series of obstacles & little problems that you have to deal with. And then of course there are the big problems which are even harder to deal with. The whole thing just makes me overwhelmed, dizzy, and exhausted. I just don't wanna deal with anything anymore. I just want everyone to leave me alone. All I want is some peace. That's why I've decided to ctb.
I've come to realize that there's no peace in this life, no rest. It's just one damn thing after another and it's endless from the minute you're born to the minute you die. Dying is the only thing that stops it. I'm ready for it to stop. I'm ready to not feel like shit anymore. I'm ready to stop crying every day and being stuck in this room alone. I miss my husband. I've almost forgotten what it felt like to have his arms around me. I hear his voice when I sleep, sometimes it's like he's right next to me talking to me. It's so clear and right next to me, but yet so far away. I feel like somebody stuck a knife in my heart and my stomach and they're just slowly twisting it, twisting it, twisting it! I just want the pain to stop. I just want to rest and be at peace.
Thanks for listening.

 

[DoNotLet2]

I totally understand you. Dude lost feelings in his legs and one arm a few years ago (he's kinda popular in Poland). Now he is happy and he doesn't understand the people who give up. He doesn't often mention that he has rich parents that paid for his treatment...
It's always the same. A person goes through hell surrounded by supporting people and then stands out of the crowd and says "COME ON PEOPLE, THE HELL ISN'T HARD, YOU CAN'T DEAL WITH IT 'CAUSE YOU'RE WEAK". And it really annoys me so I understand you. There's nothing wrong with your attitude.

Well, do you have depression or a disability that destroys your ability to move? I didn't understand.
I feel sorry for your lost *hugs*

 

[BlueWidow]

I totally understand you. Dude lost feelings in his legs and one arm a few years ago (he's kinda popular in Poland). Now he is happy and he doesn't understand the people who give up. He doesn't often mention that he has rich parents that paid for his treatment...
It's always the same. A person goes through hell surrounded by supporting people and then stands out of the crowd and says "COME ON PEOPLE, THE HELL ISN'T HARD, YOU CAN'T DEAL WITH IT 'CAUSE YOU'RE WEAK". And it really annoys me so I understand you. There's nothing wrong with your attitude.

Well, do you have depression or a disability that destroys your ability to move? I didn't understand.
I feel sorry for your lost *hugs*

Thank you for your comments and for listening to me.
I have a lot of different things wrong with me healthwise, and it seems like I get new problems on an almost daily basis.
My main problems right now are:

I've had a low thyroid problem for 23 years.
For about the first 13 of those years, I was treated with the wrong medication, even though I kept telling my doctors my symptoms had not gone away and were in fact getting worse as time went on. My doctors ignored me and told me that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was "cured" and that any problems I was having were not due to my thyroid, but were simply my own fault. Therefore, I kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker. This is also the period when I got the eating disorder because I was gaining weight due to the low metabolism from the low thyroid and the doctors started blaming every problem I had on my weight. In response to that, I started starving myself and I lost all kinds of weight and got down to 80 pounds. The doctors didn't care at all that I was so thin. Not one doctor said a word about it. In fact they were all thrilled that I had extremely low blood pressure. My blood pressure was so low that I would pass out all the time and the doctors thought that was just wonderful! Finally in 2009, I got so sick that I couldn't get out of bed. I was extremely exhausted no matter how much I slept and at my peak I was sleeping up to 22 hours a day. I was so dizzy I couldn't walk through my house unless I held onto things as I moved along. I was in severe pain throughout my body. All of my joints hurt and it was hard for me to move. Even with all of this, my doctors continued to ignore me and tell me that my problems were all in my head.
Finally, after a year of this, I found a doctor that was willing to give me a different thyroid medicine. I had been on Synthroid which is what they give to just about every person who has a low thyroid, but it only works on about 70% of people. The other 30% are like me and they can't absorb the hormone because it's a synthetic hormone. My body doesn't recognize it and just passes it through. The problem is that hypothyroidism can kill you. If you are hypothyroid long enough, you will eventually go into something called a myxedema coma and you die, but the doctors don't take it seriously because it takes decades for you to get into this condition. Meanwhile you spend all of your time while you're getting sick fighting with the fact that you have a very low energy level, you're gaining weight even though you're not eating anything, you're cold all the time, your body temperature & your metabolism are practically nothing. And you can't focus on anything because of the brain fog. It's pure and complete hell and it's made even worse by having Drs continually tell you that it's an easily treated disease and just dismissing you as if what you are going through isn't important because they've now cured your disease with their magic Synthroid pill.
I was eventually switch to another pill, a natural thyroid drug called Armour Thyroid. This pill helped to some extent, but it still didn't make me completely well and overtime has stopped working. The doctors only response is to keep raising the amount that I take, but it doesn't seem to matter how much they raise it, it still doesn't make any of my symptoms go away. I think they let the disease go for so long and treated it with the wrong pill for so long that now there's just no way to control it. Since the pills don't really work for me anymore and it's very difficult for me to swallow pills, most of the time now I just don't even bother taking them.

Besides that, I have also suffered from severe depression for pretty much my entire life. And now on top of those things, I'm going through menopause. I also think I've got the beginnings of arthritis because my joints are starting to hurt again. Every morning I wake up and all my joints, particularly my hands, hurt when I bend them. I have to force myself to bend them even though it's painful for about an hour when I first wake up in order to work out all the kinks.
For right now, after about an hour, they stop hurting as much, but it used to be that I could work the kinks out in 10 minutes. Then it became 20 minutes, and so on. Now it takes me an hour to work them out and I know as time goes on it's going to be longer and longer that I'm going to be in severe pain and unable to move my hands and the rest of my joints without being in pain and then there will come a day where the pain just won't go away no matter what I do or how much I try to work it out.
I believe it was Phyllis Diller that said getting old is not for sissies. Getting old sucks. I never wanted to live long enough to be old. People tell me I'm "only 50", but I feel like I'm about 200. I got tired of being alive when I was 12. I've been wishing to be dead ever since then. The only reason I didn't do it sooner is because I wouldn't have wanted to hurt my husband. Now that he's no longer here, I have nothing stopping me, except getting my method down and finding the opportune time to do it when I won't be found. I'm hoping that time is coming very soon now.

 

[DoNotLet2]

Oh, hormone problems suck *hugs* You have very poor access to doctors, I guess? They should calculate you have menopause. Hormones are complicated. You should have access to professionals. Hopefully you will find peace.

 

[MourningHeart]

Im sorry for you having that hard time especially after loosing your husband. I know quite well how painful it is to lose the one you love.

People have a different sense of pain, of suffer. And all endure differently. If you suffer too much and feel like there will never be relief - how can someone else dare to tell you what to do in this situation, how to live - and even what to feel. Lifes perception is subjective.

Its always the same - once these people themself face a traumatic situation… they all cry and feel despair - long enough and they will suffer as well and want to be relieved from all their pain. No matter what kind of or what situation they are in. Once they get better, they can get very ignorant. They want you to live according to their own lifes, force their decisions on you.

Some people face obstacles over and over again - have to persevere their whole life. If youre living like that for long enough, of course you are exhausted. Its your mind, your feelings. There is nothing wrong about.

Noone can endure everything all the time. Noone.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I've read your story. What a horific situation. I get it (at least as much as anyone else can). I'm similar, trapped in one or two rooms and unable to keep up all the practical stuff life entails. Doctors just don't listen do they, they give you the pills then think that's it you are sorted.
I'm sorry you feel so isolated without your husband. I'm effectively alone too and it's so hard to even want to continue. Why should I?
I wish there was something I could do to ameliorate your situation. You will find many people on here who can sympathise and who you can offload to. It's not a practical solution but it can help a little.

 

[BlueWidow]

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a similar situation to me. I certainly wouldn't wish it on anyone else. Well, except for perhaps some of the doctors who I feel are partly responsible for putting me in the situation I'm in healthwise. That's the frustrating part for me. I feel like if I had gotten the proper treatment for my thyroid at the beginning, maybe I wouldn't be struggling so much right now. People tell you to go to the doctor and get some help, and then you do so and the doctors don't help you. Then of course when you're not "helped", it's all your fault.
What do they expect you to do?

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a similar situation to me. I certainly wouldn't wish it on anyone else. Well, except for perhaps some of the doctors who I feel are partly responsible for putting me in the situation I'm in healthwise. That's the frustrating part for me. I feel like if I had gotten the proper treatment for my thyroid at the beginning, maybe I wouldn't be struggling so much right now. People tell you to go to the doctor and get some help, and then you do so and the doctors don't help you. Then of course when you're not "helped", it's all your fault.
What do they expect you to do?

You've hit the nail on the head there. I'm alienated from my brother and sister now. They get angry at me for second guessing doctors and don't understand that you just can't automatically trust them. Doctor are just as flawed as the rest of us.

 

[BlueWidow]

I've read your story. What a horific situation. I get it (at least as much as anyone else can). I'm similar, trapped in one or two rooms and unable to keep up all the practical stuff life entails. Doctors just don't listen do they, they give you the pills then think that's it you are sorted.
I'm sorry you feel so isolated without your husband. I'm effectively alone too and it's so hard to even want to continue. Why should I?
I wish there was something I could do to ameliorate your situation. You will find many people on here who can sympathise and who you can offload to. It's not a practical solution but it can help a little.

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a similar situation to me. I certainly wouldn't wish it on anyone else. Well, except for perhaps some of the doctors who I feel are partly responsible for putting me in the situation I'm in healthwise. That's the frustrating part for me. I feel like if I had gotten the proper treatment for my thyroid at the beginning, maybe I wouldn't be struggling so much right now. People tell you to go to the doctor and get some help, and then you do so and the doctors don't help you. Then of course when you're not "helped", it's all your fault.
What do they expect you to do?
It does help that there are people in similar situations here that you can at least share common struggles with. The people in my real life don't wanna hear about my problems. They just want me to pretend like everything is fine, even if it isn't. And God forbid I should try to talk about my husband and how much I miss him, or even say his name. The minute I mention him people turn and run. Everyone just wants to pretend like he didn't even exist, including his own family.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a similar situation to me. I certainly wouldn't wish it on anyone else. Well, except for perhaps some of the doctors who I feel are partly responsible for putting me in the situation I'm in healthwise. That's the frustrating part for me. I feel like if I had gotten the proper treatment for my thyroid at the beginning, maybe I wouldn't be struggling so much right now. People tell you to go to the doctor and get some help, and then you do so and the doctors don't help you. Then of course when you're not "helped", it's all your fault.
What do they expect you to do?
It does help that there are people in similar situations here that you can at least share common struggles with. The people in my real life don't wanna hear about my problems. They just want me to pretend like everything is fine, even if it isn't. And God forbid I should try to talk about my husband and how much I miss him, or even say his name. The minute I mention him people turn and run. Everyone just wants to pretend like he didn't even exist, including his own family.

People on here want to hear you. It can help a little to offer support too though It can be exhausting. It's the best that we all can do though. It''s not much but it's something.

 

[BlueWidow]

Another thing that really bothers me is that I know when I am gone, they are either going to be crying over my ashes or else they're going to be upset with me and claiming that I didn't try hard enough to get my life together or say that I took the easy way out or something. I don't want either of those reactions.
I've been to the funerals of people, such as my dad, where people he hadn't seen in years showed up to his funeral and cried over his casket. Yet in the last years of his life when he was very ill, he used to ask me all the time
" Where is everybody? Where are all my friends? Where's all my family? How come nobody ever comes to visit me?". I know it's hard to visit a person when they're ill, but I really think it's stupid to ignore a person when they're sick and dying and then go cry over their casket after they're gone. If you can't be around me and listen to me when I'm alive, then I don't want you crying over my ashes when I'm dead. And I also don't want anyone claiming that I didn't try hard enough either because that's crap. I've been trying for most of my life to improve myself and my situation. The only thing that ever made my life better was my husband. As soon as he passed away, everything that I gained from knowing him started slipping away from me.
I just feel like I was born with some kind of a flaw where I can't seem to handle situations in life that other people have no problem with. It's been this way my entire life.
When I was born, the doctor said I was going to die and they told my family to leave me at the hospital and not become attached to me and just let me die. I wish they had all listened. Most of my family did listen, but my mom and my sister Glenda (not her real name) stayed with me and basically willed me to live. Then my mom died of breast cancer when I was 3 and my sister died of breast cancer when I was 13. They were really the only two people in my family who loved me or treated me like a human being. I really wish they had just let me die, especially since my mother was already sick with cancer and knew she was going to die. I've never understood why she would want me to live in a family that hated me when she knew she wasn't going to be around to protect me. Why did she want me to live?! Why didn't she just let me die?!
I've always felt like it was a mistake that I lived. I should've died like I was supposed to.
I think that's why my life has always been so screwed up. I think my life was a mistake. I was supposed to die right after I was born, but for some reason I didn't. I continued to live even though I wasn't supposed to.
That would explain why I've never really been able to get my life together no matter how hard I try. In some ways I feel like I'm just correcting the mistake that was made when I was allowed to live when I don't think I was supposed to by ctb.

 

[trynacbt]

This sounds so exhausting to live with; I'm really sorry for your situation... I had subclinical hypothyroidism before getting on lithium—now it's gotten worse, to the point that I feel fatigued all day and just very down (more than usual...) But I cant imagine 13 years of very severe hypothyroidism. You have overcome so much already. You are so strong and wanting to ctb does not take that away from you.

 

[BlueWidow]

This sounds so exhausting to live with; I'm really sorry for your situation... I had subclinical hypothyroidism before getting on lithium—now it's gotten worse, to the point that I feel fatigued all day and just very down (more than usual...) But I cant imagine 13 years of very severe hypothyroidism. You have overcome so much already. You are so strong and wanting to ctb does not take that away from you.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I feel for anyone who's had to go through similar things to what I've had to go through. I'm at least happy that we have this forum and we can all sort of share the struggle.
Hey! The color of my name just changed on here from a dark blue to a lighter blue.

 

[MisanthropicLycan]

It sounds like you really have been to hell and back. With all the tragedy you have endured no one has the right to judge you for desiring the peaceful rest of death as an end to the pain and strife. Mental illness alone is brutal enough but having to deal with the loss of so many loved ones and thyroid disease like you have must be a horrendous nightmare. I'm sorry you've had to go through this.

I can strongly relate to much of what you struggle and suffer with and I can empathize greatly with your pain. I have bipolar depression and I have had hypothyroidism for over ten years. I was on the natural Armour Thyroid first but when I felt like my symptoms still plagued me I was switched to the synthetic Synthroid pill and I still feel like I am plagued with the symptoms of the disease.

It sucks enough to deal with the lethargy and anhedonia caused by severe depression but when you add the symptoms of lethargy and brain fog caused by hypothyroidism on top of depression- it is a dreadful recipe for constant bitter exhaustion and miserable fatigue. I don't feel interest in anything at all and I find no pleasure in any activity or hobby I use to enjoy. I feel like every last drop of vitality has been drained from my bones. Totally crushed, broken and defeated. I have zero energy and no will to live. I feel like a walking corpse.

Even imagining the long and difficult road to recovery makes me want to collapse from exhaustion. It feels like an impossible task. In the past I have pulled myself out of some really deep pits of despair and gotten better but now it is different. I feel like I don't have any fuel left in my spirit to keep fighting. I don't want to have to fight anymore. I just want to crawl into a deep dark hole and die. I want to disappear.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Another thing that really bothers me is that I know when I am gone, they are either going to be crying over my ashes or else they're going to be upset with me and claiming that I didn't try hard enough to get my life together or say that I took the easy way out or something. I don't want either of those reactions.
I've been to the funerals of people, such as my dad, where people he hadn't seen in years showed up to his funeral and cried over his casket. Yet in the last years of his life when he was very ill, he used to ask me all the time
" Where is everybody? Where are all my friends? Where's all my family? How come nobody ever comes to visit me?". I know it's hard to visit a person when they're ill, but I really think it's stupid to ignore a person when they're sick and dying and then go cry over their casket after they're gone. If you can't be around me and listen to me when I'm alive, then I don't want you crying over my ashes when I'm dead. And I also don't want anyone claiming that I didn't try hard enough either because that's crap. I've been trying for most of my life to improve myself and my situation. The only thing that ever made my life better was my husband. As soon as he passed away, everything that I gained from knowing him started slipping away from me.
I just feel like I was born with some kind of a flaw where I can't seem to handle situations in life that other people have no problem with. It's been this way my entire life.
When I was born, the doctor said I was going to die and they told my family to leave me at the hospital and not become attached to me and just let me die. I wish they had all listened. Most of my family did listen, but my mom and my sister Glenda (not her real name) stayed with me and basically willed me to live. Then my mom died of breast cancer when I was 3 and my sister died of breast cancer when I was 13. They were really the only two people in my family who loved me or treated me like a human being. I really wish they had just let me die, especially since my mother was already sick with cancer and knew she was going to die. I've never understood why she would want me to live in a family that hated me when she knew she wasn't going to be around to protect me. Why did she want me to live?! Why didn't she just let me die?!
I've always felt like it was a mistake that I lived. I should've died like I was supposed to.
I think that's why my life has always been so screwed up. I think my life was a mistake. I was supposed to die right after I was born, but for some reason I didn't. I continued to live even though I wasn't supposed to.
That would explain why I've never really been able to get my life together no matter how hard I try. In some ways I feel like I'm just correcting the mistake that was made when I was allowed to live when I don't think I was supposed to by ctb.

Wow I could have written a lot of that. I was a mistake too. I was a month premature and shouldn't have lived.
I've thought when I've gone that my sister and brother will be devastated. Ironic that they may cry then but treat me with disdain now. Maybe grief is easier to deal with than a seriously ill person.

 

[BlueWidow]

It sounds like you really have been to hell and back. With all the tragedy you have endured no one has the right to judge you for desiring the peaceful rest of death as an end to the pain and strife. Mental illness alone is brutal enough but having to deal with the loss of so many loved ones and thyroid disease like you have must be a horrendous nightmare. I'm sorry you've had to go through this.

I can strongly relate to much of what you struggle and suffer with and I can empathize greatly with your pain. I have bipolar depression and I have had hypothyroidism for over ten years. I was on the natural Armour Thyroid first but when I felt like my symptoms still plagued me I was switched to the synthetic Synthroid pill and I still feel like I am plagued with the symptoms of the disease.

It sucks enough to deal with the lethargy and anhedonia caused by severe depression but when you add the symptoms of lethargy and brain fog caused by hypothyroidism on top of depression- it is a dreadful recipe for constant bitter exhaustion and miserable fatigue. I don't feel interest in anything at all and I find no pleasure in any activity or hobby I use to enjoy. I feel like every last drop of vitality has been drained from my bones. Totally crushed, broken and defeated. I have zero energy and no will to live. I feel like a walking corpse.

Even imagining the long and difficult road to recovery makes me want to collapse from exhaustion. It feels like an impossible task. In the past I have pulled myself out of some really deep pits of despair and gotten better but now it is different. I feel like I don't have any fuel left in my spirit to keep fighting. I don't want to have to fight anymore. I just want to crawl into a deep dark hole and die. I want to disappear.

Yes, I completely agree with everything you said. It sounds like you went through the opposite way that I did. I was on Synthroid first and it did nothing for me and now I'm on Armour Thyroid. Even though I'm taking 300 mg a day, it's still not enough. I'm still exhausted, dizzy, and having brain fog.
The newest thing for me is the menopause.
Before, for most of the time I've been hypothyroid, I've been cold. Even in the summer in 90° weather I could walk around sometimes wrapped in a blanket because I was cold. But now, because of the menopause, I'm having hot flashes and even some entire days where it just feels like I have a fever. It's very strange because I'm not used to being hot, I'm used to being cold. And usually once I get through being hot, then I freeze again. I can lie under the cover and turn on my heating pad on my bed and I'm still laying there shivering. It's awful.
I've only ever been depressed, not bipolar, as far as I know. I do have some periods where I get restless and I pace around the floor endlessly because I can't sleep, but I've been told by doctors that that isn't bipolar, it's just anxiety. But I've heard that bipolar can be very draining because you're going up and down, back-and-forth all the time. I was in a group therapy group one time that had several people that were bipolar. They would describe what it was like to be manic and then depressive and it sounded horrible. Of course I'm very familiar with the depressive end of it, but the manic doesn't sound any better. I'm so sorry to hear that you have this horrible illness. I can also totally relate to you not wanting to go down the long road to recovery yet again. That's what I get frustrated with. Constantly having to pick myself up and move forward. At some point you just get so tired of doing that. You just wanna stop and rest. It seems like that's all life is- a series of obstacles that you have to overcome and pick yourself up so that you can move forward to the next obstacle that you have to overcome and pick yourself up, etc, etc, etc until you die. What's the point?!
Anyway, thank you so much for your response and for reading my story.
I wish you peace. If you'd ever like to PM me sometime, i'd love to talk to you one on one. I'm not very tech savvy and I'm not sure how to PM someone, but I could probably figure it out.

 

[justanotherday]

I'm tired of people telling me I need to "overcome" obstacles in my life and "persevere". People who overcome obstacles and push through difficult times are held up in our society as noble and inspiring.
But what if you feel like you've been doing that your whole life and it just never ends? My entire life I feel like I've just been overcoming one obstacle after another and every time I think I can finally stop and rest. . . . here comes something else for me to overcome. It's never ending! And as I get older and sicker it gets harder and harder to overcome things. Things that used to be small now seem very big and difficult to overcome. At this point, I can't even do every day activities like paying bills. I used to be on top of everything. I was extremely organized and I never missed a deadline. Now I have to have most of my bills on auto pay because if I don't, I might forget to pay one of them. People are constantly yelling at me because I didn't return their call or answer their text or whatever. I will think that I actually did answer them, only to find out that I didn't answer them at all, I just thought I did.
Nobody has any understanding of how difficult it is just to get out of bed every day.
Every morning I get out of bed, I get dressed, I get my bed ready so that if I need to lie down right away I can, and (if I'm lucky) I still have the energy to go get myself a cup of coffee before I have to sit down because I'm already so dizzy and exhausted that I can't hardly hold my head up. I spend my days in my bedroom sitting in an office chair which I moved into the bedroom so I'd have a chair to sit in to watch TV. I'm either sitting in the office chair or else I'm lying in my bed on pillows that I have propped up so that I can watch TV. That's all I do. I don't even really go into the other parts of my house, except to the kitchen to get something to eat. I've never sat in my living room EVER. . . And I've lived in this house now for over a year. I have a PC in there and I go in there when I need to use it, but I have a Kindle and my phone and I usually use those when I'm doing things on the computer, unless I need to print something out. My bathroom is inside my bedroom. What I mean is, it's a master bed and bath room so I don't have to leave my bedroom to go to the bathroom. I hope that makes sense to people. Then I have my closet which is also inside the bedroom. It's a nice little contained space for me and I feel safe in here. I have everything I need right around me. All my stuff (including my SN and other ctb supplies) is all in the closet where I can get to it easily. And it's just a few steps from my bed to the bathroom if I need to go in there. I usually stay in here with the door closed most of the time because I don't feel safe even when my bedroom door is open. I have food stored all over my house because I hoard it. It's a behavior that's left over from when I had a severe eating disorder about 10 years ago. There's no one in the house but me, but I still have the need to hide food all over the place. I don't feel "safe" unless I have little packets of crackers, little candies and mints, and things of that sort nearby. I have a little cabinet in my bedroom that I keep that type of stuff in.
Anyway, what started this whole thing was that I've been going back-and-forth about whether or not to leave a note. Sometimes I think I'd like to leave a note and explain things to the few people that are going to be left to care about my death, but sometimes I feel like I don't owe them any explanation and, if they had been paying attention, they would've already known what was wrong. During the darkest time of my life last year, absolutely no one came to help me. That's why I don't feel like I owe them any explanation now, nor do I feel like I have any requirement to accept any advice they would give me now. When I was begging people for help, absolutely no one came. Therefore, the same people don't have any right to tell me how to conduct my life now, or whether or not I have a right to end it. I feel like I've done everything I can to try to help myself and nothing has worked. I've been on every antidepressant pill imaginable and I've been to countless different types of therapy over the years. The only thing I haven't done is ECT. I've thought about it before, but after reading about it and hearing comments from other people on here who have had it, it just scares me.
I don't like needing people for anything, and as long as I'm alive I'm going to need people. As I get older and sicker, I can't do all the things I used to do and I'm going to need people even more. And people, in my experience, are not reliable. And they certainly won't help you unless there's something in it for them. Every tiny obstacle seems like a huge mountain to me.

It's so stupid because even something as simple as changing a lightbulb is difficult in the house that I live in because it has cathedral ceilings. I didn't know it had cathedral ceilings before I bought it. My sister-in-law, who is a real estate agent, actually helped me buy this house because I had never bought a house on my own before. She chose this house and helped me purchase it before I even got here. I moved here from the other side of the country after my husband passed away. So something as simple as changing a lightbulb is difficult because the lightbulbs are way up high and they're going to be impossible to change when they go out. That's another reason I don't stay in my kitchen very often, particularly at night. I don't wanna run the lights very much because I know that someday they're going to burn out and I'm not gonna be able to replace them. It's already happened in my garage. The light burned out nearly 7 months ago and it's still out because I can't get up there to change the lightbulb and I have no one to come around and help me. It's little things like this that are just never ending and I'm sick of dealing with. It seems like that's all life is-just an endless series of obstacles & little problems that you have to deal with. And then of course there are the big problems which are even harder to deal with. The whole thing just makes me overwhelmed, dizzy, and exhausted. I just don't wanna deal with anything anymore. I just want everyone to leave me alone. All I want is some peace. That's why I've decided to ctb.
I've come to realize that there's no peace in this life, no rest. It's just one damn thing after another and it's endless from the minute you're born to the minute you die. Dying is the only thing that stops it. I'm ready for it to stop. I'm ready to not feel like shit anymore. I'm ready to stop crying every day and being stuck in this room alone. I miss my husband. I've almost forgotten what it felt like to have his arms around me. I hear his voice when I sleep, sometimes it's like he's right next to me talking to me. It's so clear and right next to me, but yet so far away. I feel like somebody stuck a knife in my heart and my stomach and they're just slowly twisting it, twisting it, twisting it! I just want the pain to stop. I just want to rest and be at peace.
Thanks for listening.

I am also sick of constant obstacles to overcome. I am sick of the daily struggles of life. I am tired( emotionally and mentally ). As for your living situation... perhaps you would be happier in a small condo or apartment? A house can be very overwhelming... upkeep, ect... space you don't want...

 

[MisanthropicLycan]

Yes, I completely agree with everything you said. It sounds like you went through the opposite way that I did. I was on Synthroid first and it did nothing for me and now I'm on Armour Thyroid. Even though I'm taking 300 mg a day, it's still not enough. I'm still exhausted, dizzy, and having brain fog.
The newest thing for me is the menopause.
Before, for most of the time I've been hypothyroid, I've been cold. Even in the summer in 90° weather I could walk around sometimes wrapped in a blanket because I was cold. But now, because of the menopause, I'm having hot flashes and even some entire days where it just feels like I have a fever. It's very strange because I'm not used to being hot, I'm used to being cold. And usually once I get through being hot, then I freeze again. I can lie under the cover and turn on my heating pad on my bed and I'm still laying there shivering. It's awful.
I've only ever been depressed, not bipolar, as far as I know. I do have some periods where I get restless and I pace around the floor endlessly because I can't sleep, but I've been told by doctors that that isn't bipolar, it's just anxiety. But I've heard that bipolar can be very draining because you're going up and down, back-and-forth all the time. I was in a group therapy group one time that had several people that were bipolar. They would describe what it was like to be manic and then depressive and it sounded horrible. Of course I'm very familiar with the depressive end of it, but the manic doesn't sound any better. I'm so sorry to hear that you have this horrible illness. I can also totally relate to you not wanting to go down the long road to recovery yet again. That's what I get frustrated with. Constantly having to pick myself up and move forward. At some point you just get so tired of doing that. You just wanna stop and rest. It seems like that's all life is- a series of obstacles that you have to overcome and pick yourself up so that you can move forward to the next obstacle that you have to overcome and pick yourself up, etc, etc, etc until you die. What's the point?!
Anyway, thank you so much for your response and for reading my story.
I wish you peace. If you'd ever like to PM me sometime, i'd love to talk to you one on one. I'm not very tech savvy and I'm not sure how to PM someone, but I could probably figure it out.

I'd love to chat one on one with you sometime. Feel free to message me anytime you'd like. I can always use someone to vent to as I have very few friends willing to listen. Thanks.

 

[BlueWidow]

I am also sick of constant obstacles to overcome. I am sick of the daily struggles of life. I am tired( emotionally and mentally ). As for your living situation... perhaps you would be happier in a small condo or apartment? A house can be very overwhelming... upkeep, ect... space you don't want...

Yeah, I actually kept calling the place I live in a house. I actually lived in a fairly large house when I was living with my husband, but a little over a year ago, I moved across the country to a 2 bedroom 2 bath condo. One bedroom is completely filled pretty much floor to ceiling with most of the stuff I brought here. I have unpacked very little because I just haven't had the energy. Plus, I figured I probably wouldn't be staying here long anyway because I'd either ctb or have to move out within a couple of years. It only really consists of a kitchen, living room, and then the two bedrooms and two baths. Yet I still only use mainly the master bedroom and bath and the kitchen. It's got an open floor plan, which is part of the reason why I probably don't sit in the living room very much. I feel too open and exposed in there.
I do have an HOA and they take care of the outside of the house and the lawn care in the front yard. But i'm responsible for everything inside the house as well as lawn care inside my fence. The two things I hate most about this house (but was unaware of before I bought it) are:

1) I have a giant backyard inside the fence which I have to pay someone to keep mowed in the summer. It's a complete waste of space because I never go out there and I have no pets, such as a dog, that could run around in the backyard. It's a complete waste of space and money. People have advised me to get a dog, but I just don't have the energy for a dog, nor the money. Plus since I'm planning to ctb, I don't want to get a dog and then just end up leaving it. I also have a long painful history of losing pets that I was close to as well, so I haven't had a pet since I became an adult. I lost too many pets as a child. I don't need anything else in my life that I'm just gonna become attached to and then have to watch die.

2) As I mentioned in my original rant, The place was built in the early to mid-1990s when there was apparently a fad going around in this area of building condos with cathedral ceilings. I'm only 5'3" so I'm short to begin with and I don't need this giant ceiling. I absolutely hate it because it turns things that should be simple tasks, such as changing lightbulbs, into difficult tasks that I can't do on my own. Also the smoke detectors are all on the ceilings and are wired into the house. It's illegal to take them down and move them in the state I live in. They have to stay up on the ceiling where I can't reach them. If I was planning on sticking around longer, I probably would eventually try to find a different place to move to. Fortunately, I don't plan on sticking around very long and I don't really have the energy to look for another place anyway. By the time I got here after everything that I went through to deal with the aftermath of my husband's death and moving across country, I was on the verge of collapse. It was pure hell. I don't wish the things I've been through in the last few years on my worst enemy.
I mainly moved here because this is close to where the cemetery that my husband's ashes are located and there's already a space set up for me next to him. My name is already on the stone. All I need to do is get into a condition where they can cremate me and put me next to him. That was my goal in moving here- to be close enough so they wouldn't have to fly my body or my ashes across the country to get me to the spot next to my husband where I want to be placed. I don't trust his family enough to actually do that. They'd probably just throw me in some random hole on the other side of the country and forget about me and I'd be stuck there all alone. So I pre-paid for everything and I moved here so that all they have to do is have the cemetery people come and pick me up and then they don't have to do anything else because I've done everything else for them. I don't even want a funeral or a memorial service or an obituary.
I know that once I'm by my husband's side again, I'll finally be at peace.
I hope you also find some peace.

 

[justanotherday]

I know how it is to live in a place where you are not comfortable. I am not in love with my living situation either. I have a downstairs neighbor that plays loud music. I have complained to the office here multiple times, but the jackass still does it. It is driving me nuts.

 

[BlueWidow]

I know how it is to live in a place where you are not comfortable. I am not in love with my living situation either. I have a downstairs neighbor that plays loud music. I have complained to the office here multiple times, but the jackass still does it. It is driving me nuts.

Yes, I can relate to that. I've lived in apartment buildings were that's been the case and I've also had neighbors who have played loud music all hours of the night. It's horrible, especially if you have trouble sleeping and have just finally managed to fall asleep after hours of trying only to be woken up by someone suddenly blasting their music at three in the morning, or of course if you have to get up early the next day for work or school.
I wish you peace and quiet.

 

[MisanthropicLycan]

I hate thinking about the future because if I am still around in a few months or a few years down the road, I dread to know the pitiful state of decay I will be suffering in...If you are like me- desperately hanging on for the next sunrise is all that is possible. Forget persevering or overcoming obstacles for now. Let's just find a reason and the strength to get through one more day! Not totally drowning in despair and finding a way to breathe while we do so.

 

[FTL.Wanderer]

Thanks for listening.

So much of what you wrote sounds like me. :( I wish I had some insight--something helpful--to offer. Of course, we're considered crazy if, for whatever reason, we don't see any point to life. In school I had a friend who'd answer the question, "What're you up to?" with, "Just waitin' to die." She didn't miss a beat. And she meant it. ... Here we are. :/

 

[CaptainT]

'Everyone dies, it's just a scheduling issue'

 

[BlueWidow]

'Everyone dies, it's just a scheduling issue'

I like that!

 

[noctiva]

I read the title of your thread and I instantly felt understood, thank you! I am so sick of the idea of overcoming and persevering. The way it is always used in conversation is in a manner where it is implied that, if you overcome and persevere, then you will be rewarded. And that just is not true, or at least for me it isn't true. There is no reward after you overcame whatever life threw at you. Life instead throws something else at you and you need to overcome again and again and again, and then you die. There's no reward, no peace, nor calm following an obstacle. Life doesn't give rewards or breathers to recuperate.
I don't think that death is a reward or a breather either, but it means that you no longer need to overcome, persevere, fight or struggle.
Be kind to yourself on the journey of life until you're ready to CtB. <3

 

[Bruceleelives1969]

I have empathy for your situation.

 

[LMLN]

I'm sorry for all the struggles you have. I have also lost my husband. I've had difficult life circumstances and he was the one brightness in my life. Now hes gone and I feel like I cannot go on.
Like you I'm tired of people saying "Dont give up!". Its so empty. Because they say it but then walk away and leave it at that. As if those words will somehow change things for me.
I'm sorry for the loss of your husband. And for the difficult life you have experienced. Feel free to pm or chat anytime. ❤❤❤

Take care.

 

[FTL.Wanderer]

I'm tired of people saying "Dont give up!". Its so empty. Because they say it but then walk away and leave it at that. As if those words will somehow change things for me.

AMEN!!!!!!!!!! What's that old saying? "Talk is cheap."

 

[deaththekid]

does anyone know how i can kill this physical body of mine so i can finally end this life cycle, in a painless matter i should add since i have no gun