KuriGohan&Kamehameha
想死不能 - 想活不能
- Nov 23, 2020
- 1,722
When people say to the suicidal that things get better, I think they neglect the toll that is taken by years of forgone opportunities. Once that time is gone, you can never get it back. Such losses can snowball over time until they create a disastrous avalanche. When you've missed the starting gun, it is near impossible to find equal footing with the other sprinters on the track.
In epidemiology, one can measure YYl (years of life lost) to assess the number of potential life years that are lost as a consequence of premature mortality. Yet, no one measures the QUALITY of life that is lost, nor the unsatisfactory circumstances one may be forced to endure in order to prolong survival.
Most individuals and institutions alike fail to acknowledge that there are so many people out there who have simply lost out on the most fulfilling pleasures life has to offer, and would not regain even a sliver of a chance of pursuing them (lest miracles existed, and if you believe in miracles you're probably already high on the religious hopium copium)
There are certain life events and developments that one can never experience once they've been deprived of the initial presentation. An example of this would be comparing the outcomes of a child from a loving, stable home-with access to good education and all the necessary resources one needs to succeed- to a child who hails from a neglectful or abusive family in abject poverty.
There is a longing in my heart (and the hearts of many others, I am sure) for an adolescence that I will never have. I often see fancy grammar schools, sixth forms, and private schools when I am out on train journeys, see children sitting outside the schoolyard laughing, joking around, and being carefree with their mates. I never got to experience this.
I can't fathom what it is like to attend a school that actually cared about teaching its students. Growing up in a rural, impoverished shithole, I did not have a choice in where I studied. You go to the one run down school in your area, there are no other options. Most of my classes did not even have textbooks because the school could not afford them. You had slim pickings in the subjects offered. By design, you are trapped in a cycle of destitution, where you cannot succeed in higher education because you lack the foundational knowledge to progress in your studies.
Of course, you are a child and you don't know any better. You have no conception of what you're missing out on. Living in such an area also primes you for being ostracised and cast out. There is no freedom of thought or ideas. Everyone subscribes to the same religious beliefs with an almost cult like fervor. I was probably the only child in my year who did not believe in this religion, add being autistic on top of that and you've got the perfect recipe for bullying and isolation.
I didn't even have a loving family waiting at home for me during the vast majority of my childhood. My father drank himself silly, so I rarely remember anything positive about him, only the few spells of agony he endured prior to his death like trying to shoot himself in the face in front of his child.
My father's relatives abused me heavily by keeping me locked indoors with no human contact, throwing things at me, screaming all of the time, threatening to kick me out, getting institutionalised and leaving me to almost fend for myself, threatening to tell people I was bisexual so I would further be harassed and potentially disowned by other family members, etc.
Tell me, what sort of life was that? I missed out on so many of the things that one can look back at fondly. I had no dates, parties, or nights out during high school. I had no puppy love romance, no connection with my peers nor any of the adults in my life, no mentor to guide me, no assistance whatsoever. My only friend for many years was my Foster sister.
Of course, everyone says things will get better. What a load of drivel that is. Once you hit the magic age of 18, you're thrust into the adult world with little consideration. If your childhood was rife with abuse and neglect, you're expected to simply get over it. People with loving families, success, and endless amounts of friends and lovers will tell you that you're mentally ill and simply not trying hard enough to overcome your past.
No one seems to recognise that childhood development shapes nearly every angle of our lives. From our personality traits/disposition, to our outcomes in education and work, our relationship dynamics, our desirability in the eyes of employers, partners, and friends. They neglect all the socioeconomic and epigenetic factors that further poison your future once you've drunk from the well of traumatization and sorrow. To most people, it is always possible to bounce back from any tragedy even if you have little to no positive life experiences that would give some tenability to their worldview.
To my knowledge there is no program or treatment plan out there (with the exception of that village in Belgium which has always taken in the so called undesirables of society such as those with schizophrenia, psychosis, severe cognitive impairments, etc) that seeks to rehabilitate individuals who have severe trauma and no social connections through no fault of their own.
Stoic based therapies place all the onus on the individual to remedy his pain. You are the problem. You aren't doing enough CBT, DBT workbooks. You aren't putting yourself out there. It is almost comical that the people who vehemently push this line of thinking have never suffered any of these problems themselves. I'd like to see the average therapist or psychiatrist try to justify cognitive behavioral therapy as a panacea if one could sinulate the experience of their family members, spouses, professional collaeges, and friends suddenly vanishing one day, leaving them isolated and alone.
It is even slimier when all of the mental health organizations push this same trite rhetoric upon disabled people. On all of the government health websites, they always shoehorn in a paragraph about depression and anxiety when writing the articles on chronic illnesses, encouraging people with chronic pain and illnesses to take antidepressants and seek therapy to deal with the gravity of their diagnoses.
This sort of advice a slap in the face because not only does it undermine the struggles of those who are actually suffering from incurable anhedonia/depression, but it deflects blame and actively prohibits any discussion regarding the factors that cause a disabled/chronically ill person to be miserable.
No, taking an SSRI is not going to magically relinquish your despair when you realize you are too sick to hold down a job. It won't bring back the friends and loved ones who leave you behind for being ill and disabled. The void left by the absence of proper care and human connection will still be salient, as nothing can replace the platonic and romantic relationships one will inevitably desire throughout their time on earth.
Yet everyone eats all this up like gospel. You can always be happy/content, you just have to make the right choices and adopt the right mindset. I was reading posts on the multiple sclerosis subreddit after I had my MRI today, and a young man lamented that his life had become meaningless since he became permanently disabled and unable to do the activities he loved anymore. Everyone told him he was just having an irrational depressive spell and that life was so valuable.
My question is, if you are deprived of every experience that one would constitute as a pillar of what makes life worthwhile in the first place, how can one pontificate that you are truly alive in the absence of them? Survival at all costs is the penchant of our DNA, I know this, but it seems like people are truly blind to the reality that there are fates worse than death.
I do not see how these turbo optimists can expect people who have been suffering for years, if not decades, to make up for lost time that they will never recover. I am 22 years old and my body is permanently enfeebled. These are supposed to be the best years of my life, the peak of my youth. Instead I am bedridden most days, suicidal, and miserable.
I cannot help but become bitter and jealous when I see all of my friends from university going to nightclubs, having frequent parties, drinking all night, excelling in their studies, and going to fun outings and holidays with their families.
One of my uni housemates typically goes only a day or two a week without going out with someone. When I went to view houses, most people's bedrooms had dozens of photographs everywhere of their friends, families, and adventures. Even my best friend ignores me most of the day to hang out with his roommates, go to parties, do drugs, hang out with his family, and play video games. All things I cannot do from the confines of my prison.. I mean bed.
All I do is struggle for no gains or rewards, desperately trying to keep my head above water in a system that would prefer incapacitated people like me to drown. I am expected to smile, be happy, keep up with my coursework, and function normally as if I am healthy and able bodied with ample social. support.
Then they wonder why I want to die.
In epidemiology, one can measure YYl (years of life lost) to assess the number of potential life years that are lost as a consequence of premature mortality. Yet, no one measures the QUALITY of life that is lost, nor the unsatisfactory circumstances one may be forced to endure in order to prolong survival.
Most individuals and institutions alike fail to acknowledge that there are so many people out there who have simply lost out on the most fulfilling pleasures life has to offer, and would not regain even a sliver of a chance of pursuing them (lest miracles existed, and if you believe in miracles you're probably already high on the religious hopium copium)
There are certain life events and developments that one can never experience once they've been deprived of the initial presentation. An example of this would be comparing the outcomes of a child from a loving, stable home-with access to good education and all the necessary resources one needs to succeed- to a child who hails from a neglectful or abusive family in abject poverty.
There is a longing in my heart (and the hearts of many others, I am sure) for an adolescence that I will never have. I often see fancy grammar schools, sixth forms, and private schools when I am out on train journeys, see children sitting outside the schoolyard laughing, joking around, and being carefree with their mates. I never got to experience this.
I can't fathom what it is like to attend a school that actually cared about teaching its students. Growing up in a rural, impoverished shithole, I did not have a choice in where I studied. You go to the one run down school in your area, there are no other options. Most of my classes did not even have textbooks because the school could not afford them. You had slim pickings in the subjects offered. By design, you are trapped in a cycle of destitution, where you cannot succeed in higher education because you lack the foundational knowledge to progress in your studies.
Of course, you are a child and you don't know any better. You have no conception of what you're missing out on. Living in such an area also primes you for being ostracised and cast out. There is no freedom of thought or ideas. Everyone subscribes to the same religious beliefs with an almost cult like fervor. I was probably the only child in my year who did not believe in this religion, add being autistic on top of that and you've got the perfect recipe for bullying and isolation.
I didn't even have a loving family waiting at home for me during the vast majority of my childhood. My father drank himself silly, so I rarely remember anything positive about him, only the few spells of agony he endured prior to his death like trying to shoot himself in the face in front of his child.
My father's relatives abused me heavily by keeping me locked indoors with no human contact, throwing things at me, screaming all of the time, threatening to kick me out, getting institutionalised and leaving me to almost fend for myself, threatening to tell people I was bisexual so I would further be harassed and potentially disowned by other family members, etc.
Tell me, what sort of life was that? I missed out on so many of the things that one can look back at fondly. I had no dates, parties, or nights out during high school. I had no puppy love romance, no connection with my peers nor any of the adults in my life, no mentor to guide me, no assistance whatsoever. My only friend for many years was my Foster sister.
Of course, everyone says things will get better. What a load of drivel that is. Once you hit the magic age of 18, you're thrust into the adult world with little consideration. If your childhood was rife with abuse and neglect, you're expected to simply get over it. People with loving families, success, and endless amounts of friends and lovers will tell you that you're mentally ill and simply not trying hard enough to overcome your past.
No one seems to recognise that childhood development shapes nearly every angle of our lives. From our personality traits/disposition, to our outcomes in education and work, our relationship dynamics, our desirability in the eyes of employers, partners, and friends. They neglect all the socioeconomic and epigenetic factors that further poison your future once you've drunk from the well of traumatization and sorrow. To most people, it is always possible to bounce back from any tragedy even if you have little to no positive life experiences that would give some tenability to their worldview.
To my knowledge there is no program or treatment plan out there (with the exception of that village in Belgium which has always taken in the so called undesirables of society such as those with schizophrenia, psychosis, severe cognitive impairments, etc) that seeks to rehabilitate individuals who have severe trauma and no social connections through no fault of their own.
Stoic based therapies place all the onus on the individual to remedy his pain. You are the problem. You aren't doing enough CBT, DBT workbooks. You aren't putting yourself out there. It is almost comical that the people who vehemently push this line of thinking have never suffered any of these problems themselves. I'd like to see the average therapist or psychiatrist try to justify cognitive behavioral therapy as a panacea if one could sinulate the experience of their family members, spouses, professional collaeges, and friends suddenly vanishing one day, leaving them isolated and alone.
It is even slimier when all of the mental health organizations push this same trite rhetoric upon disabled people. On all of the government health websites, they always shoehorn in a paragraph about depression and anxiety when writing the articles on chronic illnesses, encouraging people with chronic pain and illnesses to take antidepressants and seek therapy to deal with the gravity of their diagnoses.
This sort of advice a slap in the face because not only does it undermine the struggles of those who are actually suffering from incurable anhedonia/depression, but it deflects blame and actively prohibits any discussion regarding the factors that cause a disabled/chronically ill person to be miserable.
No, taking an SSRI is not going to magically relinquish your despair when you realize you are too sick to hold down a job. It won't bring back the friends and loved ones who leave you behind for being ill and disabled. The void left by the absence of proper care and human connection will still be salient, as nothing can replace the platonic and romantic relationships one will inevitably desire throughout their time on earth.
Yet everyone eats all this up like gospel. You can always be happy/content, you just have to make the right choices and adopt the right mindset. I was reading posts on the multiple sclerosis subreddit after I had my MRI today, and a young man lamented that his life had become meaningless since he became permanently disabled and unable to do the activities he loved anymore. Everyone told him he was just having an irrational depressive spell and that life was so valuable.
My question is, if you are deprived of every experience that one would constitute as a pillar of what makes life worthwhile in the first place, how can one pontificate that you are truly alive in the absence of them? Survival at all costs is the penchant of our DNA, I know this, but it seems like people are truly blind to the reality that there are fates worse than death.
I do not see how these turbo optimists can expect people who have been suffering for years, if not decades, to make up for lost time that they will never recover. I am 22 years old and my body is permanently enfeebled. These are supposed to be the best years of my life, the peak of my youth. Instead I am bedridden most days, suicidal, and miserable.
I cannot help but become bitter and jealous when I see all of my friends from university going to nightclubs, having frequent parties, drinking all night, excelling in their studies, and going to fun outings and holidays with their families.
One of my uni housemates typically goes only a day or two a week without going out with someone. When I went to view houses, most people's bedrooms had dozens of photographs everywhere of their friends, families, and adventures. Even my best friend ignores me most of the day to hang out with his roommates, go to parties, do drugs, hang out with his family, and play video games. All things I cannot do from the confines of my prison.. I mean bed.
All I do is struggle for no gains or rewards, desperately trying to keep my head above water in a system that would prefer incapacitated people like me to drown. I am expected to smile, be happy, keep up with my coursework, and function normally as if I am healthy and able bodied with ample social. support.
Then they wonder why I want to die.
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