You Can Do It

[captainballs]

Anyone who is truly suicidal knows a sad fact: life is optional, and if you leave right now it won't make a difference in the overall flow of the universe. In fact, you are probably acutely aware that the human race as a whole will one day disappear and none of it will have mattered.

I am posting not to give you permission to wallow in these thoughts, but to let you know that these facts can liberate you as they have me.

For almost 2 years, my life has been on a bumpy but upward trajectory. The beginning of the end of a long and miserable 10 years of opiate and benzo dependency was heroin addiction. You know your life is bad when the best week ever is when you have enough money to commit suicide painlessly, and it takes six months of daily hustle to get there.

But I hung in there, and I hang in there still. I don't consider it my life goal to be clean, sober, or even successful. In fact, I have found that when you are going through rough times life goals and dreams can be forms of emotional torture that feed feelings of worthlessness.

I don't want to write a novel, so I'll end here: every day your job is to survive. Basic survival. If you make daily decisions based on what will keep you in one piece mentally and physically for one more day, people will take notice and help you. And, more importantly, all of those little decisions will add up to you looking back maybe 2 or three years later and seeing the progress as a whole. No amount of dreaming and hoping could have produced it - only daily willpower.

Keep your head down, survive, accept the pain, and don't expect life to get better. Strangely, when you least suspect it, you will turn around and realize that it got better - and also realize that this optional life is worth selecting for a little while longer.

 

[herbavore]

what a great post, captain.

I agree with you 100% that accepting that suffering is a part of life can have the mysterious effect of diminishing suffering.

A little thought experiment that always blows my mind is to focus on every brief little moment of happiness and say, "Why do I always have to go back to being happy? Why can't I suffer more?" That sounds completely ludicrous and yet we think nothing of taking the moments of suffering and focusing on them and saying,"Why am I always suffering? Why can't I ever feel happy?" In truth, both experiences are equally fleeting but we focus on the one that brings pain rather than the one that feels good. Why?

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

I see what you're saying but disagree with one thing. If you remove yourself from the universe, you WILL make a difference to its flow. I remember telling my dad about nearly hanging myself some years back, his succinct answer was "Didn't you spare a thought for those that love you?". I wasn't feeling very loved by anyone at that point, it served to show me how inverted my thought process had become. And it was a good point, removing yourself would most likely tear other people apart, even if it doesn't feel that way.