SomewhatLoved
I now know the depths I reach are limitless
- Apr 12, 2023
- 449
If you are to take away only one thing from this post, please understand that life (for many of you) can be better, but it may still not satisfy you, and it will likely not be what you think.
I haven't used this site regularly in probably almost a year I would imagine. I used to be an on-and-off user, sometimes daily for months, sometimes only once or twice every now and then. It seems my last activity was on Oct 9, but even then I was barely present as between August - October of 2025 I only seemed to have been active on about 4 days. Something recently has been calling me back here. I've found myself reflecting a lot on my "recovery", and thinking about where I came from. I logged in and looked at my profile to find I have been a member for 3 years and 6 days. Sadly, I did not get around to doing this sooner otherwise maybe this could have been a birthday post for my account. Anyways, I want to give advice to other people who are maybe standing where I once stood, so here is a bit of my story and my thoughts on life and having not killed myself when I really felt I should have. Obviously everyone will differ in their story, and this experience may be completely different from what others have gone through/are going through, but I hope maybe this perspective can be useful for some.
When I joined this website I was 18 years old, and now I am just about 22. At the time I joined, I had been unhappy my whole life. I was unable to regulate my own emotions, I was such an incredibly anxious and insecure person - I grew up in a home where expressing how I felt was almost always met with anger, so, I found myself unable to be vulnerable as an adult because vulnerability meant danger. All my friendships sucked, my relationship sucked, I was pessimistic about a career. When I turned 20 things became a lot worse - my relationship fell apart, I lost almost all of my friends, I made an honest effort to make new ones (I can look back and truthfully say I tried my best) but the people I seemed to meet were all toxic and just made things worse. I had no goals in life, and to top it all off, I can genuinely say that I believe I had developed psychosis or just plainly became delusional. I had become disconnected from reality in the most literal sense where I (on a few occasions) had visual hallucinations, but in a more general sense, I was completely delusional. I had all these things I believed about how the world worked, and a lot of them were absolutes. I believed I was fated to die, like in an almost prophetic way. I had physical urges and sensations of pressure in my head, and felt that if I could relieve that "pressure" by blowing my head apart with a shotgun, I would find peace. I had watched people of committing suicide by shooting themselves in the head, and I thought that it was beautiful - I hope it goes without saying that this is not a normal reaction. I felt peaceful watching people die. I genuinely believed that my brain wanted to "feel" the air.
On the other hand, my thoughts of recovery were also extreme and absolute. I believed that in my life, I would either be hopelessly sad and destitute and that my life would end in suicide or some kind of gruesome death that was semi-self inflicted (like dying "unintentionally" by engaging in the high-risk activity of blasting myself down the highway at an exorbitant speed on my motorcycle), or that I would get past all this and life would be simple and happy... but just like my other absolutist thoughts were wrong, so is this.
The truth I would like all of you to know, is that if you are thinking either extreme, chances are neither is true. You are not fated to die, life is not meaningless, you are not doomed to be sad forever. Yes, there are cases of people completely disabled by their mental illness to the point that they cannot change anything about their life, but chances are that is not you (even if you think it is, I know I did at one point too). If you put in some amount of effort each day and genuinely try to build a better life, you probably can. However, this agency will vary for all of us - and some of us have better circumstances or agency than others. But on the other hand, things will not just magically go away. I would venture to guess most people here have some sort of trauma, imprinted negative mindset, or adverse life experience that we cope with and carry through life with us each day. We can change our thinking and improve our lives, but some of these things stay with us for life (especially if you have a personality disorder, PTSD, or something similar).
So back to where I came from...
When I joined this site, I was 18. I was working a minimum wage job that I absolutely did not want to do for the rest of my life. I was taking part-time college courses to try and escape, but I had no real ambition for the career I chose. I chose something I genuinely enjoyed, but I did not see a job as a reason to live - even a good one. I did not like socializing or people, and I still don't. I am easily exhausted in social settings, and although I feel less anxious around people now, I will probably always be an "introvert". What has changed? Well, I'm now graduated and working a job that gives me some level of joy, it's also challenging and I enjoy developing myself. I have more meaningful friendships now, I have a girlfriend who I care about, and I feel accepted socially - even if I still enjoy my time alone. I find joy in motorcycling, weightlifting, and video games. I have hobbies, I have a job. I have social acceptance. I am lucky enough to be financially stable, and I am grateful for the fact that I kept working towards my goals even when I genuinely believed I would die and that I was just keeping up an act so my family would not realize it until it was too late.
Things are better. But are they spectacular? No. Even happy people struggle and work hard every day, nothing in this life is guaranteed and if you want to live a happy life, you have to work hard every day to keep up with life. Because if you stop changing as life does for a moment, if you fall behind on maintaining your peace, you can fall back to where you were before. I think to be happy in life you have to find joy in that struggle. You can want a fancy car, a great marriage, financial success, a good career... whatever. But to be happy you have to stand in those moments and be happy where that car breaks down or unexpectedly has to go to the shop or where your spouse is fighting with you and it seems like you might not make it as a couple. You have to fall in love with the process of reaching success and making the money you want so bad, or fall in love with struggling and working hard and competing with others to reach the career goals you want. Because in life shit goes wrong. In my worst moments, I imagined a "happy life" as some perfect/idealistic dreamworld where everything is great every day and nothing goes wrong. For most of us, that peace is not the average day. You have to enjoy the struggle - and honestly? I think if I could have chosen to not be born, I would have. Because I'm not sure I love that struggle.
Life is hard. It is a struggle. I am at a point now where I have improved so much as a person that I don't think my life will ever end with suicide. Of course my circumstances have improved, but what is most important is I as a person have improved and my ability to respond to circumstances and challenges in life is a lot greater than it used to be. I am doing well, probably better than I ever have. Yet still, I think back to the worst time of my life and the closest I ever got to suicide. I had planned to kill myself on November 30th 2024. I did not want to see Christmas that year or a new year. I wanted that to be the last year of my life. Had I gone through with it, I think I could have died peacefully. Life is what you make of it, and ultimately my life had not been going well for 20 years. I think if you did anything for 20 years and it had not gone well - a career, an investment, a business - you would likely look at it and say "alright, this isn't working. It's time to do something else". So why is it any different with life?
If you want to live, then fucking go for it. Again, most of us have some level of agency and some level of ability to influence change. Do you WANT to be better? Does some part of you deep down WANT to live life, a better life? Go for it. The reason I didn't go through with it is because I realized on some level deep down, I wanted to get better - I just believed I wasn't destined too. If you are like me, try. We all end up dead either way, so if some part of you wants to live, you might as well try - you can always end your own life later anyways. If you don't want to live - maybe it's not for you. It's your life, no one has the right to tell you what to do with it. Maybe there are people who will miss you and be sad you really saw such little purpose in life, but it is yours to live and your own fate to seal.
I haven't used this site regularly in probably almost a year I would imagine. I used to be an on-and-off user, sometimes daily for months, sometimes only once or twice every now and then. It seems my last activity was on Oct 9, but even then I was barely present as between August - October of 2025 I only seemed to have been active on about 4 days. Something recently has been calling me back here. I've found myself reflecting a lot on my "recovery", and thinking about where I came from. I logged in and looked at my profile to find I have been a member for 3 years and 6 days. Sadly, I did not get around to doing this sooner otherwise maybe this could have been a birthday post for my account. Anyways, I want to give advice to other people who are maybe standing where I once stood, so here is a bit of my story and my thoughts on life and having not killed myself when I really felt I should have. Obviously everyone will differ in their story, and this experience may be completely different from what others have gone through/are going through, but I hope maybe this perspective can be useful for some.
When I joined this website I was 18 years old, and now I am just about 22. At the time I joined, I had been unhappy my whole life. I was unable to regulate my own emotions, I was such an incredibly anxious and insecure person - I grew up in a home where expressing how I felt was almost always met with anger, so, I found myself unable to be vulnerable as an adult because vulnerability meant danger. All my friendships sucked, my relationship sucked, I was pessimistic about a career. When I turned 20 things became a lot worse - my relationship fell apart, I lost almost all of my friends, I made an honest effort to make new ones (I can look back and truthfully say I tried my best) but the people I seemed to meet were all toxic and just made things worse. I had no goals in life, and to top it all off, I can genuinely say that I believe I had developed psychosis or just plainly became delusional. I had become disconnected from reality in the most literal sense where I (on a few occasions) had visual hallucinations, but in a more general sense, I was completely delusional. I had all these things I believed about how the world worked, and a lot of them were absolutes. I believed I was fated to die, like in an almost prophetic way. I had physical urges and sensations of pressure in my head, and felt that if I could relieve that "pressure" by blowing my head apart with a shotgun, I would find peace. I had watched people of committing suicide by shooting themselves in the head, and I thought that it was beautiful - I hope it goes without saying that this is not a normal reaction. I felt peaceful watching people die. I genuinely believed that my brain wanted to "feel" the air.
On the other hand, my thoughts of recovery were also extreme and absolute. I believed that in my life, I would either be hopelessly sad and destitute and that my life would end in suicide or some kind of gruesome death that was semi-self inflicted (like dying "unintentionally" by engaging in the high-risk activity of blasting myself down the highway at an exorbitant speed on my motorcycle), or that I would get past all this and life would be simple and happy... but just like my other absolutist thoughts were wrong, so is this.
The truth I would like all of you to know, is that if you are thinking either extreme, chances are neither is true. You are not fated to die, life is not meaningless, you are not doomed to be sad forever. Yes, there are cases of people completely disabled by their mental illness to the point that they cannot change anything about their life, but chances are that is not you (even if you think it is, I know I did at one point too). If you put in some amount of effort each day and genuinely try to build a better life, you probably can. However, this agency will vary for all of us - and some of us have better circumstances or agency than others. But on the other hand, things will not just magically go away. I would venture to guess most people here have some sort of trauma, imprinted negative mindset, or adverse life experience that we cope with and carry through life with us each day. We can change our thinking and improve our lives, but some of these things stay with us for life (especially if you have a personality disorder, PTSD, or something similar).
So back to where I came from...
When I joined this site, I was 18. I was working a minimum wage job that I absolutely did not want to do for the rest of my life. I was taking part-time college courses to try and escape, but I had no real ambition for the career I chose. I chose something I genuinely enjoyed, but I did not see a job as a reason to live - even a good one. I did not like socializing or people, and I still don't. I am easily exhausted in social settings, and although I feel less anxious around people now, I will probably always be an "introvert". What has changed? Well, I'm now graduated and working a job that gives me some level of joy, it's also challenging and I enjoy developing myself. I have more meaningful friendships now, I have a girlfriend who I care about, and I feel accepted socially - even if I still enjoy my time alone. I find joy in motorcycling, weightlifting, and video games. I have hobbies, I have a job. I have social acceptance. I am lucky enough to be financially stable, and I am grateful for the fact that I kept working towards my goals even when I genuinely believed I would die and that I was just keeping up an act so my family would not realize it until it was too late.
Things are better. But are they spectacular? No. Even happy people struggle and work hard every day, nothing in this life is guaranteed and if you want to live a happy life, you have to work hard every day to keep up with life. Because if you stop changing as life does for a moment, if you fall behind on maintaining your peace, you can fall back to where you were before. I think to be happy in life you have to find joy in that struggle. You can want a fancy car, a great marriage, financial success, a good career... whatever. But to be happy you have to stand in those moments and be happy where that car breaks down or unexpectedly has to go to the shop or where your spouse is fighting with you and it seems like you might not make it as a couple. You have to fall in love with the process of reaching success and making the money you want so bad, or fall in love with struggling and working hard and competing with others to reach the career goals you want. Because in life shit goes wrong. In my worst moments, I imagined a "happy life" as some perfect/idealistic dreamworld where everything is great every day and nothing goes wrong. For most of us, that peace is not the average day. You have to enjoy the struggle - and honestly? I think if I could have chosen to not be born, I would have. Because I'm not sure I love that struggle.
Life is hard. It is a struggle. I am at a point now where I have improved so much as a person that I don't think my life will ever end with suicide. Of course my circumstances have improved, but what is most important is I as a person have improved and my ability to respond to circumstances and challenges in life is a lot greater than it used to be. I am doing well, probably better than I ever have. Yet still, I think back to the worst time of my life and the closest I ever got to suicide. I had planned to kill myself on November 30th 2024. I did not want to see Christmas that year or a new year. I wanted that to be the last year of my life. Had I gone through with it, I think I could have died peacefully. Life is what you make of it, and ultimately my life had not been going well for 20 years. I think if you did anything for 20 years and it had not gone well - a career, an investment, a business - you would likely look at it and say "alright, this isn't working. It's time to do something else". So why is it any different with life?
If you want to live, then fucking go for it. Again, most of us have some level of agency and some level of ability to influence change. Do you WANT to be better? Does some part of you deep down WANT to live life, a better life? Go for it. The reason I didn't go through with it is because I realized on some level deep down, I wanted to get better - I just believed I wasn't destined too. If you are like me, try. We all end up dead either way, so if some part of you wants to live, you might as well try - you can always end your own life later anyways. If you don't want to live - maybe it's not for you. It's your life, no one has the right to tell you what to do with it. Maybe there are people who will miss you and be sad you really saw such little purpose in life, but it is yours to live and your own fate to seal.
