I dont know what to make out of my mind recently. I am having a ton of confusing thoughts, or, less thoughts, moreso confusing feelings. The trouble is, I am not having any noticible feelings. I dont feel happy, I dont feel sad, I dont feel angry, and it is really confusing me. I have been under a crippling, otherworldly boredom lately, but that has passed, and now there isnt anything. A couple of weeks ago I thought I may have been depressed, but that passed, so I dont know what to think anymore. My brain has been going at a million miles an hour, its bouncing around lefft right and center, but there isnt much on my mind. I'm not thinking about much in particular, but I still feel the force of my brain working really fast, on something, but I dont know what. I am not one to contemplate suicide, nor am I even one to tolerate hearing about suicide. It has always been my opinion that suicide is an overdramatic way to chicken out of life, and is pointless and anyone who commits suicide deserves to die anyway. But lately I have been thinking how nice it would be to just sleep, sleep and never wake up. The obvious way to do this is suicide, but I am a wuss and cringe at the thought of bringing physical harm to myself. So there is no danger here, I dont think I could ever bring myself to suicide. But I still think about it all the time. Death to me, seems the only way to silence my mind, and just rest. Am I in any sort of danger thinking like this? I dont think I am, but I dont really know. My life at the moment is just so empty, dragging by at not even a snails pace. And I cant stand the thought that I have decades more of this, that life will be so very long. I just want to get to the end, I want the punch-line, I dont care about the rest of this joke we call life. I mean, whats the point of it all? We live, we die. Its a meaningless process, no purpose at all. Even if we did have a purpose, any practice of that purpose is long gone. What effect would I have on the universe, if I died, right now. Who would care? My family? My friends? What do they matter to the universe? My death wont create new worlds, it wont destroy anything. There isnt, somewhere out in space, a gigantic star, that upon my death, will collapse, creating a giant black hole that sucks in all matter in the universe, thus spelling the end of existance. I just cant see where my life is going. I dont know what I am going to do in the future, I dont know where my education will take me, I dont even know how long I have to live, and how much more of my life I will have to endure. There is no direction. Heck, I havent even left the house today, I have gone no further than the clothes line. What is my purpose? What am I to accomplish? I have to purpose, I am to accomplish nothing. It just goes on and on until I die, the end of an empty life. If it is pointless, why do it? You dont pluck the wings off a chicken and tie them to a horse do you? No, because that is completely pointless. You dont go for a swim just to see how much water will drip off of you when you get out do you? No, thats pointless. So, why do you live a lfie, with no direction, no purpose, just sitting around waiting for your heart to stop. Why? Why do we do it? What do we get out of life? And why, after 16 years on this earth, have I not gotten any of it? Why dont I enjoy life, why dont I have anything to show off when I get to the end. Most of you can say, hey, in that life, I had a good job, I did well for myself, I had a fulfilling love life, and I lived my life well. But when I get to the podium at the pearly gates, all I will have to say is 'I drank some water, I ate some food, and I tripped over a few times'. I have nothing to show for myself, I have accomplished nothing, and I will accomplish nothing. If there is nothing to accomplish in partaking in an activity, why bother doing it? Let me ask you this: If you were asked to run 3 km, with a turtle in your pocket, and upon reaching the end of your run, you have to scream MAYONNAISE!, would you do it? No you wouldnt, because a) you dont want to and b) there is nothing to gain from it. This is my life. A 3 km run, with a turtle in my pocket. At the end I must scream mayonnaise. I dont want to do it because 1. It is an exhausting experience 2.The turtle will most likely be biting me the whole way, and 3.The only thing that comes out of it is a turtle that has died of dehydration. My life exactly. So, tell me, why should I live? Why shouldnt I jump off a bridge right now, and go to sleep forever? If you can give me a good answer to that, and I mean a really good answer, maybe my brain will shut the fuck up and let me relax.
The reason you shouldn't jump off a bridge right now is because the alternative is better. We're all going to live our lives, then die. There is nothing we can do about that. But if you're going to die at the end, what's the point in having a miserable time for all the time before? If we're all going to die, why not just enjoy the life we have before our time comes? Yes, by your description it is effectively pointless, but isn't sitting around moping and contemplating suicide even more pointless? We have been given an amazing gift in life. You can choose to say "I'm bored, let's end it." Or you can choose to get up off your ass and make some life choices. And even if you don't know where your education is going to take you, even if you don't have a clue what's in your future, keep striving for the future anyway, because for all you know something amazing may happen to you and you will be glad you decided to live. Honestly, I know how you feel. I once went through something similar, where all I could think was "We're all going to die, so what's the point in living?" Thankfully I managed to pull myself out of it, and I'm so glad I did because there are so many things that I have yet to experience, so many decisions I have yet to make. I truly hope you get out of this way of thinking, and when you do, like me you will be glad you chose to live your life to the full. (*hug*)
Thats all well and good, but fun is an elusive creature. They are solitary beasts, few and far between. Though a fun may be small in size, they have a vicious appetite. Upon finding a life, a fun will latch on, injecting a venom that causes sever hallucinations. The victim is made to believe that they are enjoying life, whereas the reality is that the fun is eating away at their soul, creating large holes filled with nothing. When I do have fun, it is simply punctiation between the pointless, expansive rift of joylessness that engulfs me. I may watch a good movie, or read a good book, or watch some entertaining tv. Now lets say I live for 3 million hours. 1 movie amounts to about 2 hours, a good long book, maybe 10 hours if I read it slowly, some good tv, lets say 1 hour. So that is 13 hours I have had fun, and 2,999,987 hours of nothing. Not enough fun to constitute a life well lived, you would need at least a 1/2 ratio of fun to have lived well. I dont think I will ever jump off a bridge, but thats the worst part. Due to my cowardice, I am forced to live a life of horrifying uselessness. I wont kill myself, but a good terminal illness would go down a wonder right about now. I dont want to end it, I just want it to end.
I remember feeling dead inside and void of emotions, it was as if I was looking in on my life from a far away place but the window was tinted so all I could see were the negative and dark features... But eventually our family had a big argument over problems my sister was going through and it riled something inside of me so I took my sister aside and cried the most I have ever cried in living memory and came out to her as gay, after that point it was as if my vision cleared and I started to feel everything again from feeling liberated to also feeling afraid and small, it was four days later that I joined EC. I would say it is in one way a form of emotional reppression and it sucks the life out of you, it's horrible because it will not shift but as soon as I tried to explain my situation to my sister everything inside that I hadn't even realised was there came flooding out like the cork was removed from the bottle... You may feel you understand life and you understand your existence in this world but are you sure you are not just down a pit so deep you cannot see the light? My advice would be to try and explain what you feel to someone you can confide in, love or just trust.
Theres the thing. Dead inside, void of emotions. I dont have any emotions on the subject of my life. All I know is that the only thing that will happen upon my death is four sad faces. And thats at the most, I dont actually know how many of those four faces will be sad. What is really getting at me is the fact that I cant do anything about it. I am a snivveling coward in all areas of life, so I cant end my life, I cant talk to anyone about it, there isnt anything I cna do but endure it until it goes away. It will pass, just like everything else in life. At least I hope it passes. I feel like I have been put infront of a firing range, but the guns all turned out to be loaded with blanks. I ma teetering over the edge of insanity, this way, thay way. I am in a bad mood, I am enjoying myself, I am contemplating my death, I am not contemplating my death. Why cant it just stop? Why cant my mind be at rest? It is torture, I dont even know what I should be thinking about all of this. And it is all in my head. By looking at me, you wouldnt have a chance of guessing that all this crap was wizzing through my brain. You would think, 'hey, that chap looks pretty normal.' Here I sit, whittling away the hours on the computer, not an expression on my face. It is a short walk to the kitchen for something pointy to stab through my stomach, or maybe the drug cabinet for some pills to swallow. Theres a good bridge about a k away, or I could tie a noose. I could talk to someone about it, maybe get some help. I could see a cousellor, or a therapist. But I wont. I wont and I hate myself for it. No matter how close the pointy deadly things are, I wont use them. No matter how easy help is to get, I wont get it. I am a coward, and the world would do better without me, but I cant even grant it the favour. I wouldnt want anyone to murder me, I dont want them to get the blame. Or someone speeding down the road in a car, they would be traumatised if they killed someone. So I am left to die slowly and miserably. I would my body to begin decaying right now, right here. But it wont, I am alive and I have to live with that fact. But I cant even despair over it. There is no sadness that my life is pointless, no anger that I must live it. No happyness that maybe someday it might end, or I might get over this. Just the crushing knowledge that I wont die anytime soon.
The problem is that you're depressed. You're depressed enough, and you've been depressed long enough, that the cloud you're in has become your natural state of being. And in a depression, the brain starts feeding you some bad info. It can do that. We've all seen a coin on the floor and thought it was a bug. The brain's not infallible. And one of the main symptoms of depression is not just the "what's the point?" feeling, but the feeling that one has some sort of insight into the human condition. I know - I've been there. I remember feeling that everybody else was living a deluded existence, blissfully unaware of how horrible and cold the world really is. And that that was perhaps even sadder than the "true nature of things". The thing is, of course, that I was wrong. It wasn't the rest of the world that was deluded - it was me. To the vast majority of people on this planet, life ISN'T running a race with a turtle in the pocket. Life is a usually-interesting, often-enjoyable, but occasionally-painful experience. And, again, to the vast majority of people, it's damn worth it. What's the point of it all if we're just going to die? Well, what would be the point if we DIDN'T die? Why would I bother getting up and doing anything, knowing I could do it tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or next century? Death is life's way of telling you to "hurry the fuck up" and live. You can remain where you are. Pondering the questions that bigger minds than yours and mine have pondered throughout the centuries, hoping for some new insight that suddenly will make it all make sense. Or just hope that the clouds will lift and you'll find your footing. I "got over" my first depressive episode on my own, without drugs or therapy. But it was an extremely long, extremely painful process, and there's no guarantee that it'll just spontaneously happen. Or, you can take active steps to make it happen. To join the rest of us. To stop seeing the coins as bugs, and seeing life as pointless. But you're going to have to want to. Lex
Believe me, I am not enjoying this, I want to get some help. I want to get over this, to get my head out of the storm clouds and back into the warm sun. But I wont. I will sit here, and mull it over in my head forever until it either goes away, or I die of natural causes. This is the real problem, I wont do anything about it. I have lived with myself long enough to know that I wont. There are four other people in this house I could talk to about this, but I wont let myself. Alternatively, in the kitchen, in the pantry, is a bag full of peanuts. It takes a single peanut, and I go out like a light, its that easy. But I wont, I will think about it, but I wont do it. Trust me, I really, really wish I wasnt so unhumanly pathetic that I cant even get help, but the truth is, I am. I am not just a pointless existence because my life is empty, I am pointless because I wont do anything about it. I am a stubborn, lazy, cowardly, moronic piece of crap, I contribute nothing to society, and even death is too good for me. I dont even know why I am reaching out like this. I know that no matter what anyone says, no matter how good the advice I will get is, I wont do anything about it.
come out. It helped me a lot. when you come out you feel this amazing feeling that feels like it will never end, and it got me right out of depression.
You sound like you're fighting with yourself, do you realise how pointless that battle is? all you're going to do is hurt yourself either way... One half of you is wanting to help the situation and the other is hindering it out of doubt and depression, work yourself out, look deep and find some willpower to do something about your situation rather than just accepting you won't do something. Just don't do anything stupid, it's not as if the world is against you it's your own mind you're fighting with, give yourself a chance.
You may find this interesting. Trying to find the meaning of life is pointless. There is none inherently. You have to find your own meaning. Your own personal meaning - life doesn't wrap it up in a box and give it to you. Our earth is extremely extremely tiny in comparison to all of the universe. But, look how much there is to explore on this tiny planet. Even just on our tiny earth itself there is so much. So much to be intrigued by, and there is so much not yet discovered. I take comfort knowing I will hopefully someday (if humans don't destroy the world first) that I'll be able to travel around and see the world. Enjoy the little pleasures the world has to offer you. There's so many. Everything you take for granted. There's lots of enjoyment to be had in life that everyone so easily misses. If you are bored of life, find a new project. Go learn a language, start a garden, buy a pet, find a hobby, get a job, there's so much you can do. There isn't a meaning to life, but you can make your own. Life changes every year. That change is very dramatic over say, 5 years. In 5 years I bet you will have some idea what you want to do with your life and will think totally different than now. Just hang in there, enjoy life while it's still here. Life is short. Hope I help rather than make things worse. :/ Almost decided not to post.
I just cant get the ball rolling. I'm scared. What if nobody takes me seriously? Or maybe I find something about myself I dont want to know. What if I cant get the help I need, or what if it doesnt work? What if instead of helping, everything just gets worse? Maybe it does help, and everything is fine a dandy, but sometime in the future I am bound to go through this again. Or what if I dont get help, and I do something stupid, or live the rest of my life in a horrible depression. I dont know whats worse, living with a problem, or trying to get help, and not finding any.
An admirable attempt, but I'm not sitting here contemplating the meaning of life. Im contemplating my personal purpose in life. I know that life has no 'meaning', life is simply a biological existance whose purpose is to reproduce and propagate the species. Nor is there any real 'meaning' to human life, we eat, we sleep, we live. Getting a little philosophical here, but what defines life well lived? Do you have to accomplish anything, or simply be happy? I dont have either of those under my belt, so I wouldnt call my life up till this point well lived. Im sure there are people out there, living in the gutter, who are right as rain, and just happy to be alive. But why, with all I have, am I not happy. Anyway, thats all a bit philosophical really. Life is life, its whatever you make of it. Mine just isnt very good.
Well, I thought you meant in general. Pondering on the meaning of life should bring in some philosophy... Everyone will have a different definition of a life well lived. Find your own definition and live according to it. My opinion, as Edie of desperate housewives said : "Life is short and mostly sucks, gotta grab as much good as you can while you're on this side of the dirt." I.e. Try to enjoy life as much as you can while you still have it. I also want to learn a lot of different things. Find your passion in life and find a career you enjoy as well as hobbies. Make friends and spend time with your family and strengthen your relationships. Find good people to share your experience with. You want a happy life and finding meaning? Well, when you can find out how to be happy, and how to create your own meaning, then your life was well lived. Your life is very good, and you'll soon see how lucky you are. Learn to appreciate what you have and it'll make you much happier. It might be hard to do now, but trust me, we're still young, you need to let your mind and body mature more before you make any judgments about how good or bad life is. This is the time of life to figure out who you are and a lot of teenagers are depressed. But most end up figuring it out and grow out of the depression phase. Give it time. Trust me. I'm still figuring it out too. /end spouting the bullshit that is how my mind thinks/
A friend I went to school with once mentioned "I don't want to die, but I would be ok if I did, I really want to see what happens when we die, and it seems to take forever to get there without doing it yourself. I also want to know what will happen through my 'life time' and theres really only one way to experience that, by living." You're way of thinking sort of reminds me of him. Living can be pretty lame, but just wading it through and see what cool things happen during the time you're here, you may aswell try and enjoy it. Unsure if this really helps or is even fully on topic but yeh.
I tried suicide for different reasons than you. My simple answer later became....if your life didn't suck so bad you would never know how good you have it later on. My life's a hell of a lot better. I saw no place to go. No way to get out of my crappy life. I thought that stabbing myself would solve everything. It did, but only because I didn't die. People who suffer worse than anyone else will eventually find a greater happiness. No bullshit. You will see.
After reading your initial post this segment really stuck with me, as I can vividly relate to feeling the same way. What's the point of it all? I firmly believe the point of living is, as the Dali Lama says, to be happy and to achieve happiness. The pursuit of happiness is the point of life, and often we learn many things and meet many people along our respective journeys. I myself often used to wonder what my lot in life was, and still do on occasions. What makes you happy? You may not know now, but that's the whole point. What effect would you have if you died right now? Well I for one would think you would have a tragic effect on the world, being so young. Of course your family would care, as would your friends. And while they may be just another cog in the cosmic machine we call life, you never know how profound an effect your untimely demise could bear on the world around you. My advice is concentrate on finding what makes you happy as a person, and then strive to do that. That is the meaning of life - at least it is to me.
