Story What I know about recovery, and what I don't know

[JustAStory]

Hello to everyone that will read this post, or just a few lines of it!

This is my first post on this community and something about it troubles me a little.
As somebody that has lurked on this forum for a while, it goes without saying: I have contemplated suicide, and I can't say it's completely out of my mind yet.
It makes me extremely nervous to write it, even though is something I've already told somebody (my therapist) three years ago. But three years sometimes can seem like an eternity, and I thought this idea would never cross my mind again. That I "recovered". Even more: that I was wrong, that I never really thought about it.

It strikes me now as obvious: recovery exists. But, it is not an easy balance, and we who walked the line once should always keep an eye open.

There is another reason this post troubles me a little. In my weeks reading the forum I've seen pain I did not know could grow this big. I read stories and goodbye threads, and it has been heartbreaking. Many of those stories were extremely humbling: even though, outside of my depressive bouts, I go through my life saying myself I'm "strong", I think I'm nothing compared to the real strength that is showed by people that pull through some incredibly painful stories of trauma, abuse, and chronic illness.

The thing that pulled it for me, at first, was illness. This is not factually correct however, because I was coming from a story of chronical isolation and loneliness.
Thinking about it now is strange, because I've always been good looking, with a pretty good economical situation and academically gifted. However, my parents constantly withdrew me from all social situations, because "I had to study", and I somehow grew up terribly afraid of emotional and physical closeness. Around my teen years I understood something was wrong, and started "masking" it: while at school, I was able to have basic social interactions, but after school, I did not participate in any social activity.

When I was 22 I had an imporant health scare, something that required a couple of years to be taken care of.
I know many people who go through terrible illness with incredible determination. I didn't. I broke. I was sure illness robbed me of my best years and that I would be unable to overcome my loneliness - I had this completely certain sensation that my mind was so scarred that I would not be able to be the same person, and if I wasn't able to forge relationships before... who could ever like this man scarred from his pain? I also felt like my mental state had "devoured" my brain, and I could not ever think sharply as before.

Now, I won't tell you that depression lies and that you shouldn't listen to what it tells you... but in my case, this was definitely the case.
The problem is, it took me 4 years to search from help. 4 years of complete social withdrawal, living exclusively at home, abandoning the university even though I was at the top of my engineering class... at that time I didn't know of forums like this, but a little search made me discover the now infamous "exit bag" methods, and I was pretty set to it.
It's a bit cliche to say, but what helped me this time was a good physician that prescribed me Amitriptyline. It took a while. A couple months of no progress, followed by maybe another year of slow progress (I remember going to my little cousin graduation party fully intoxicated with benzos because I couldn't manage the shame of her graduating before me).

Along the road I reconnected with some guys from my school years and we became closer than ever. And I met a really sweet and stubborn girl that accepted my inability to develop relationships (I was also still a virgin, of course), and thaught me all I know about "loving", and by that I mean, "living" inside a relationship, communicating, understanding, listening...

We had our highs and lows for 5 years, and then she left me. As far as I know, she fell in love with another man, but we had our highs and lows and I have no hard feelings for her.
What I know is that, finding myself alone, my depression and suicidal ideation came back. This time I found myself contemplating a fall from a very high floor.
This was extremely scary. I thought I had recovered. I started therapy, and have been in therapy for 3 years.
There were a number of things I grew up terrified by, like driving and sports. I started engaging in these activities, and found them satisfying. I rediscovered old hobbies, like music. I was able to graduate, and find a nice job. I got a number of diagnostic labels, and I guess they are pretty obvious - and frequent, around here.
This did not happen in a matter of weeks. I was a complete mess for 7 months, trying to stay away from windows, passing all my day in my bed, neglecting my hygiene (spent way too much at the dentist for this...), even something basic as watching Netflix on my cellphone was too extenuating. But something start moving, again.

This time I thought I really was stronger, that I really worked on my issues... and a couple years ago I knew the person I thought would be the love of my life.
I won't spend too much on this, let's just say I was wrong. She was a really succesful and lovely girl that was going through a very hard separation from her previous relationship.
She started going out with me because she loved the sex and the care I had for her, but wasn't interested in a relationship. However, she really enjoyed the love and the care I had for her, so she kept coming back and hinting at our future together. We also started talking abouth the possibility of children. But, after a couple of years, when she finished medical school and got a new job, a new house and new friends, she just left me over text and never looked back.

When I found myself again broken and suicidal, there was one thing I could not tolerate: that the end of a relationship had undone everything I had done in the last 13 years to try and stay strong, and especially all the hard work I did in the last 3 years.

I believe encountering depression in my twenties has made me a more understanding and sensible person, more attuned to the suffering of others. Somehow, during my highs, I have even thought "it was for the better". However now I also know, because I've seen it happening twice, that this thick fog of desperation can come back: for me, it has been illness and romantic delusions.

For the last months I have been lurking this forum and had my mind set on a couple of methods.

Still, I know that even very long bouts of depression can come to an end. I know that "recovery" can be so good that you forget, for years even, what it meant to feel so bad. I know something that for other people can be "minor" can trigger another episode for me. That it can mean months of pain.

If there's something I'd love to give a little hope about to anyone here is that even after being suicidal for years, it can get better, to a point where you ask yourself how was it possible you had been in so much pain.
If there's something I'm afraid of, is that it can come back.

This year has been pretty harsh lately, but right now, I'm set on living. I don't expect to feel good the next couple of months. I don't expect Christmas to be easy.

Maybe, the one thing I hope is to have a nice trip the next year. I spent this entire summer on my bed, with my mind in very dark places. I hope by next summer I will feel so good I'll travel the world a bit, by myself. I don't know if I will be able to, but who knows, Sometimes years of pain can be canceled by something good. I hope I can get out again.

I'll post again in a while. Thank you!

 

[affirmatice]

I just wanted to say that I feel the same way. And I think it is a commendable goal we set for ourselves. As you said - being set on living.

When we're suicidal, there can be a multitude of reasons, each individual unique. My story is vastly different from your story. But at it's core - we don't see hope for the future. We know today is hard, tomorrow will be hard, next week will be hard, next month will be hard, and we can't see an end in sight. That's what drives people to suicide, in my opinion.

So the question is, how can we continue to live when we have no hope? It seems impossible. So like you said, I guess we can try to live just to live. We may not see a better future, but maybe, just maybe, there is one out there - even if we can't see it. I know tomorrow will be hard. Incredibly hard, just like today was. But I haven't chosen to die yet.

 

[JustAStory]

I just wanted to say that I feel the same way. And I think it is a commendable goal we set for ourselves. As you said - being set on living.

When we're suicidal, there can be a multitude of reasons, each individual unique. My story is vastly different from your story. But at it's core - we don't see hope for the future. We know today is hard, tomorrow will be hard, next week will be hard, next month will be hard, and we can't see an end in sight. That's what drives people to suicide, in my opinion.

So the question is, how can we continue to live when we have no hope? It seems impossible. So like you said, I guess we can try to live just to live. We may not see a better future, but maybe, just maybe, there is one out there - even if we can't see it. I know tomorrow will be hard. Incredibly hard, just like today was. But I haven't chosen to die yet.

This is a really hard question.

I don't have a definitive answer, but there are things I can chime in about.

First of all, the road to recovery has been extremely long for me the first time around, it's been years.
At the time, a feeling I often had was: I will not recover. Ever. And even if I do, I lost all this time, so I will forever be scarred!

I was extremely wrong about the first part: indeed, I recovered, starting slowly, with some rebounding, but overall steadily, when I really started looking for help and accepting it.
I was somewhat wrong about the second part too: for years I didn't care too much, if not for the occasional sad or melanchonic thought, about my darkest moment.
Now it's pretty clear that I was somehow scarred, as my difficulty regulating emotions holds the potential to trigger a relapse when some major change happens in my life, and this is definitely something I want to work about.

However, now I can see that not seeing the end in sight does not mean that the end is not here.
In 2011 I definitely could not see me starting to live a normal life again in 2015. Still... it happened.

And, in hindsight, all the typical cognitive distortions that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy books describe, such as "having a black-and-white point of view" about the world or "imagining the worst possible outcome for every situation" were there for me, but I couldn't accept this, because I continued to tell me I "really" was hopeless.

Of course, now I am in the depths of this thick fog again, all these things sound strange, like they can't be true... and even though i definitely know they are, because I've already been there, it's extremely hard to believe them.

I've started medicating again and will definitely start looking for a therapist again tomorrow.

 

[affirmatice]

This is a really hard question.

I don't have a definitive answer, but there are things I can chime in about.

First of all, the road to recovery has been extremely long for me the first time around, it's been years.
At the time, a feeling I often had was: I will not recover. Ever. And even if I do, I lost all this time, so I will forever be scarred!

I was extremely wrong about the first part: indeed, I recovered, starting slowly, with some rebounding, but overall steadily, when I really started looking for help and accepting it.
I was somewhat wrong about the second part too: for years I didn't care too much, if not for the occasional sad or melanchonic thought, about my darkest moment.
Now it's pretty clear that I was somehow scarred, as my difficulty regulating emotions holds the potential to trigger a relapse when some major change happens in my life, and this is definitely something I want to work about.

However, now I can see that not seeing the end in sight does not mean that the end is not here.
In 2011 I definitely could not see me starting to live a normal life again in 2015. Still... it happened.

And, in hindsight, all the typical cognitive distortions that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy books describe, such as "having a black-and-white point of view" about the world or "imagining the worst possible outcome for every situation" were there for me, but I couldn't accept this, because I continued to tell me I "really" was hopeless.

Of course, now I am in the depths of this thick fog again, all these things sound strange, like they can't be true... and even though i definitely know they are, because I've already been there, it's extremely hard to believe them.

I've started medicating again and will definitely start looking for a therapist again tomorrow.

I'm glad you are looking for a therapist. That was my first step that I took recently. I have only been to 2 sessions so far, but the goal is every week. For me personally, the suicidal thoughts didn't start until the last few weeks. But the depression was there for a long time.

I honestly relate a lot to your story. Like you, i grew up in a relatively well-off family. I attended a top college and recently started working a job that pays incredibly well. I have many positive traits on the outside, good looking, tall, etc.

Without boring you with too much specifics. I deal with a chronic health condition of sorts. And while it may not be immediately apparent to others. This is something that has made me incredibly shameful, angry, and depressed about myself. I have deep feelings of being unlovable, damaged, and I feel like I will forever be abnormal.

So this one thing, and the way it affected me mentally, has already caused me to lose out on the great college years of my life. And I continue to struggle with accepting it to this day. In my mind, I simply don't see a way out. Because it's tied to my physical body, my appearance, and it will never change. So without even consciously thinking about it, I started to consider suicide.

As you mentioned in your comment. I experience all the cognitive distortions. But I can't tell if they're distortions or not. To my mind currently, they feel like 100% the truth, and it feels like anyone else in my shoes would feel 100% the same way. One thing I recently started reading about was the escape theory by Baumeister. And I feel like it's a little helpful to read about, simply because it helps me understand that the way I'm feeling is actually very predictable and studied. And thus, maybe I may feel like it is certain my life is over, but in actuality, it's an expected human reaction to deeply unfortunate events.

There are 6 steps in total, I'll outline them
1) An event/circumstance occurs in your life that falls very short of your own standards or societies standards. In my case, this is dealing with a chronic health issue that I find shameful, unattractive, and generally looked down upon by society.

2) You negatively attribute this failure to yourself. Meaning you view yourself as a failure, as less than others, there is an extremely severe negative viewpoint of oneself. In my case, I feel extremely guilty and hateful of myself - because this chronic physical condition was partly due to embarrassing and poor decisions in my youth.

3) You have high self-awareness. And this self awareness becomes incredibly debilitating. Because you feel that you will never reach a certain standard that you have set for yourself or that society has set. I personally have an extreme self-awareness, specifically when it comes to my appearance, attractiveness, and physical health.

4) This affects you negatively. Not much explanation needed here, all of the previous factors cause your mental health to become severely painful and seemingly impossible to manage.

5) Cognitive deconstruction. This is one that I don't fully relate to, but I have felt it, it is one of the later steps in this chain of events. Essentially, your mind becomes such a difficult place to live in, that you begin to resort to lower levels of thinking to avoid self-awareness. For example, avoiding thinking about the past/future, you don't put thought into the meaning of your life, you resort to basic stimuli (games, drugs, etc), and you begin to feel emotionless.

6) Dishinhibition. I don't feel fully confident explaining this. But basically, at this step, you lose all the things that might be stopping you from suicide. You lose fear of death, fear of pain, and this is a dangerous place to be in.

I'm not sure if you relate or find that useful. Personally, I do, because matching my feelings directly with these steps, shows me that this is expected. This is "normal", in the sense that other people who have been suicidal, have likely experienced very similar thought patterns. Even if the initial cause of their struggles is vastly different than mine. And it's helpful for me to remember that I'm not alone. Walking around the streets, it may seem that everyone is happy and healthy - or at least, better off than me.

But the reality in the USA alone, over 50,000 people died by suicide last year. And that's only the number that have actually succesfully done so. likely there were many more that attempted, and many more that had ideations. So... we're not alone. And I just hope that there is a path forward for us.

 

[JustAStory]

I read your thread and your life story just minutes ago.

Stop me if you think I'm too blunt, but I really, really strongly encourage you to seek both psychological and medical help.

First of all, there's without doubt something (even if costly) that can be done for your condition. Even if it costs a lot… it's not a bad deal if it helps saving your life!
But I also believe it's important to find a good therapist and understand why this touched you so deeply.
Because probably there is something deeper that you need to address. There was for me, definitely.

I also have to say that I lost almost my entire 20s due to depression and health concerns. I went through the University years with exactly 0 dates.

It's not nice. It's not good. I would have loved to live that "crazy college life"… But, at least for me, I can assure you the people you will meet in your future won't care at all, and after a while I stopped caring too…it won't help living in the past.

EDIT: I contacted my therapist from a while ago and I'm going to see him wednesdey in lunch break... I'm happy I'm actively doing something...

 

[affirmatice]

I read your thread and your life story just minutes ago.

Stop me if you think I'm too blunt, but I really, really strongly encourage you to seek both psychological and medical help.

First of all, there's without doubt something (even if costly) that can be done for your condition. Even if it costs a lot… it's not a bad deal if it helps saving your life!
But I also believe it's important to find a good therapist and understand why this touched you so deeply.
Because probably there is something deeper that you need to address. There was for me, definitely.

I also have to say that I lost almost my entire 20s due to depression and health concerns. I went through the University years with exactly 0 dates.

It's not nice. It's not good. I would have loved to live that "crazy college life"… But, at least for me, I can assure you the people you will meet in your future won't care at all, and after a while I stopped caring too…it won't help living in the past.

EDIT: I contacted my therapist from a while ago and I'm going to see him wednesdey in lunch break... I'm happy I'm actively doing something...

I am seeking both medical and psychological help.

Without a doubt, there is something deeper there to address. I grew up with very low self-esteem, probably at least somewhat related to an emotionally absent and verbally abusive father.

I'm also extremely hyper analytic of myself and of others. Particularly when it comes to appearances. For a long time, I built my confidence up solely based on my outward attributes. had extremely extremely high standards for my physical appearance, because it was all I knew about being confident, and about being accepted. For the most part it allowed me to relatively content in most parts of my life. Because in my brain, I measured myself up against everyone. And was able to satisfy my ego by saying, I'm taller, I'm fitter, I have better hair, I'm making more money. Whatever.

Then this thing happened. And it completely destroyed my foundation of self, and my already fragile sense of belonging. Ultimately, I can say that what happened is highly unfortunate and uncommon. And in my mind, I feel certain right now, that I will never measure up, I will never feel normal, and I will never be attractive. That's how I feel.

I did meet some very amazing girls in college. And while part of my mind finally felt like I was loved and accepted. I still kept this secret hidden from them. And as the relationships progressed, the burden only became heavier on my soul. It's not something I can share easily or confidently. So almost all relationships that I had started to make me even more depressed once I realized that there was something holding me back from fully enjoying myself and fully accepting the love that others were showing me. This reaffirmed in my mind that I was abnormal, damaged, and incapable of something as fulfilling as love.

I'm hesitant to share my story, because it's extremely embarrassing for me to talk about. And also because I feel like others will simply not understand the emotional and mental affects it has had on me. Someone on the outside may think this is addressable and not the end of the world. But to me, it has literally brought me to the point of considering suicide - that is the impact it has had on me.

 

[JustAStory]

I am seeking both medical and psychological help.

Without a doubt, there is something deeper there to address. I grew up with very low self-esteem, probably at least somewhat related to an emotionally absent and verbally abusive father.

I'm also extremely hyper analytic of myself and of others. Particularly when it comes to appearances. For a long time, I built my confidence up solely based on my outward attributes. had extremely extremely high standards for my physical appearance, because it was all I knew about being confident, and about being accepted. For the most part it allowed me to relatively content in most parts of my life. Because in my brain, I measured myself up against everyone. And was able to satisfy my ego by saying, I'm taller, I'm fitter, I have better hair, I'm making more money. Whatever.

Then this thing happened. And it completely destroyed my foundation of self, and my already fragile sense of belonging. Ultimately, I can say that what happened is highly unfortunate and uncommon. And in my mind, I feel certain right now, that I will never measure up, I will never feel normal, and I will never be attractive. That's how I feel.

I did meet some very amazing girls in college. And while part of my mind finally felt like I was loved and accepted. I still kept this secret hidden from them. And as the relationships progressed, the burden only became heavier on my soul. It's not something I can share easily or confidently. So almost all relationships that I had started to make me even more depressed once I realized that there was something holding me back from fully enjoying myself and fully accepting the love that others were showing me. This reaffirmed in my mind that I was abnormal, damaged, and incapable of something as fulfilling as love.

I'm hesitant to share my story, because it's extremely embarrassing for me to talk about. And also because I feel like others will simply not understand the emotional and mental affects it has had on me. Someone on the outside may think this is addressable and not the end of the world. But to me, it has literally brought me to the point of considering suicide - that is the impact it has had on me.

Of course it can be both things... something can both be adressable (not easy, not quick, but adressable nonetheless), and at the same time create an incredible amount of pain.

I am no therapist and can't say anything really meaningful... but often the expectations others had of us while we were growing up plants in us the seeds of completely unrealistics standards for ourselves... and this can become destructive.

As for sharing the intimate details of such a difficult story, I believe there are ways, but it's not simple.
Not for the story per-se, but for the deep emotional and personal ramifications it had. But as the relationships mature, there is the space to touch on such topics.

I'd probably never share about feeling suicidal. This is something I only ever said to my therapist and once, in passing, to my best friend. What really shocked me was that she, a perfectly "normal", happy, social girl, confessed me she had been too years before while living abroad. Pain is indeed common, and kindness is rare.
Even knowing this, I feel like it's something i prefer not to share.