COMING OUT OF THE (Suicidal) CLOSET.

So, it  turns out that it took me about 11 years to admit to  my family that I want to die.  As I said in my profile, my depression has been on and off, and to different degrees. So I don't want to die all the time, but there are times I've considered it quite closely.

One of the strategies we the depressed use, because we are too fussy to just die (I'd cut my wrists but I'm sort of hemophobic - which means I fear blood), and because we still care enough to not hurt our loved ones, is to try to kill ourselves  from the inside.  Now I haven't been able to talk about  this to many people because to be honest it does feel a bit dramatic and stupid now that am a bit more lucid (and quite humilliating when am down there in the dark), and it is also a harder concept to grasp. I will focus then  in the other way of dying, the I-want-to-throw-myself-from-a-cliff wanting to die.

The funny thing is that when I told that first one person on my family -who appears to be the toughest- that I felt like dying, that I've got no more things to live for and don't want to live anymore... guess what? I was told that she has felt the same way!!. Now, I can imagine not everyone will react the same way, some will be actually baffled because they had no idea what was going on with you, others will probably deny or stigmatize it or maybe they would actually want to support you. BUT one thing is for sure you will feel RELIEVED  Somebody out there, who you care about, knows. You have allowed your balloon of misery to deplete a bit more by letting some pain out and/or haring it where  it was possible.

Do expect as well to feel ashamed too.  No one wants to be seen as the weak, the victim. But hey, everyone has feelings!! Just that yours are intensified right now. Maybe you are just a sensible person. Maybe its just the way you assimilate things. What about all those existentialist philosophers pondering about the meaning of life? Do you think they would not be feeling a bit like dying if they were questioning what's this life for? Would you think of Nietzsche as weak? (If you did he probably wouldn't care anyways).

I compare this feeling of shame to the concept of sunken costs. This is a concept that is related to business and economy, and also frequently to poker. In essence, in poker at times you don't have that much of a good hand, but you have invested so much money on it, for sake of the bet,  or the excitement or perhaps because of pure pride, that you just keep on betting, even if you are more likely to lose in the end. So instead of withdrawing, swallowing that pride, you  keep playing AND ultimately end up losing the money -and your pride.

Being ashamed of having suicidal thoughts is just like that. You hold on to your feelings of shame and probably pride so much because you don't want to lose. But if you actually swallow a bit of that pride, let go of them, you can keep on playing on the next round life has to offer.

So come out of the closet, choose wisely, and let someone know today that you'd been feeling like dying.

Recipe for Depression

Today is not a good day.
Today I am not inspired to neither continue the previous post or get out of bed. I cannot say I'm not inspired to write because I am in fact writing this post. I'm still deciding if it is because I'm feeling slightly sick or slightly depressed. Maybe both.

Anyways, I think the difference between a good day and not so good day lies in the first thought one has in the morning. That first vision or feeling or saying to yourself when you open your eyes. Where I live is cloudy a lot of the time so at times waking up to see a grey sky is not the best of starts. But today I woke up thinking about someone who died recently, If I should have called that person more often and if it would have made any difference. Then I just felt a bit bad with myself and then like not moving...

So, to summarise, here's the recipe for depression:

Ingrediente:
- A bunch of self-defeating thoughts
- A pinch of guiltiness
- Anxiety al gusto.
- Some drops of self-pity.
- Low mood/lack of energy seasoning

Method:

1. Let the very first thought that go through your mind be something gloomy. It can be a memory from something you have done wrong, or it can also be a feeling of imminent doom.
2. Add up a bit of annoyance since its not the first time its happening and its happening again.
3. Feel that you are slipping lower and lower into your bed, feeling like nothing good will happen to day.
4. Keep on mulling on those things you haven't accomplished and never will accomplished.
5. Think on the things you are not accomplishing right now and mix some anxiety/stress in.
6. Check Facebook and think of  all those people who are happier than you could ever be or have what you could never have. Compare yourself and think of yourself as a proper loser. In fact, think that this only happens to you and only you.
7.  Do not get out of bed, feel tired or with lack of energy and start again from step number 2.

Feel free to add your own ingredients to give that personal touch.

Enjoy and be miserable!


Keep posted.

Guilt and Excess of Resources pt.2.

Being flowy into life also means being GRATEFUL. Being grateful is the opposite of guilt. So destiny decided to not give you Cancer (yet, you never know anyways right?) or any amount of misery that could justify your depression, so you have a family that supports you and friends and a house and maybe even a dog.. be grateful for that.

It is not the easiest to be grateful when one is unhappy. Also when we (the depressed) are unhappy we might not see beyond ourselves. All we focus on is on how much of a repulsive being we have turned out to be, on the fact that we will never get out of that stage, on the things we haven't done so far and the things we will never do, and for that we are a failure; scum of the Earth.

However, make a little hole in that balloon of -miserable- selfness.  Let some air out, take a breath and think for a bit in those things that you do have OR maybe those things others have given you. It doesn't matter if its a lousy birthday card from the dentist or if someone spared you riding the bus when you didn't have enough money. Someone has thought of you, someone has noticed you regardless of how shitty/dead you are feeling inside. So say Thank you. AND before you start to think "but-this-is/means-nothing-I'm-still-a-waste", start thinking instead of other details, maybe of people who are a bit more significant to you... think about the fact that you have been given so much... that you might not be using it right now as you would like, but you've been given...and you are constantly being given...

This takes us to the next point: LISTEN. The balloon of selfness is so full of ourselves and our perception of mediocrity that we just plain forget or believe we can't or just plain don't want to listen to others. This could be for a couple reasons: one is that we think that THEY don't understand, another one is that we can hardly understand ourselves either (we actually do, its more like not forgiving oneself for not sorting out things already), another one is that we also think we are not worthy of being listened to.

Anyways, for whatever reason this  happens the point is that it is NOT helping. So why not try something different? Why not leave aside that balloon (which is already deflating anyways because we had made a pinch with the gratefulness remember?) and start putting some air into the one of your depleted esteem? Why not listen when others actually recognise things in you that you don't want to admit or dismiss. That's right, here comes the dreaded emphasis on personal resources. Now I will not tell you how wonderful you are and amazing because you were chosen, you were the winner sperm betweeen thousands of millions that wanted to take the ovule, you are a fighter and a winner. That is how you were created and we all have been created that way, so thanks mother nature, that's about it.

 Now, you are someone with a history and some idea of where he/she wanted to go, you are someone who has certain skills that others may or not may have and with the ability to learn things - Oh yes, you can learn and associate things,  otherwise you wouldn't be even able to move the mouse in your computer  and am quite sure you can learn to LISTEN. Listen when others see the good things in you, and also Listen when they might give you a critique that might (or not) help you.

By the way,  LISTENING is selective.   You definitely tell things to yourself like "I'm such a failure" and you listen don't you? So why not listen when someone actually appreciates something you have done, and think.. Hey, maybe I am/can be the way this person has described me. Maybe I am kind of nice or smart, or kind or.. _________ (fill in here whatever quality others admire and you deny to ever had/ have anymore. You get the point.

The other side of Listening also involve in believing that most of the people you know or you read about want the best for you, and not caring if other people think otherwise - remember, be selective.So if someone mentions you to do some activities, try to listen and go and do some yoga or karate or whatever. Have a look at the book someone said it worked for them, you never know, and if anything a bunch of books in your shell might make you look cleverer. If someone tells you to stop being such a wimp, try to listen and think, just a bit out of yourself, if maybe, just maybe, you are actually  having attitudes that are derogatory to yourself and therefore this person would like to see you stronger - but he/she is out of ideas of what to tell so just summarized in "wimp".

What if you could actually perceive yourself the way others actually perceive you? Instead of the way you think others see you?



Keep posted.

Guilt and Excess of Resources - Part 1

There are many depressed people who are so because someone they knew died, they have a life-altering sickness or someone they know (rather close) is sick, people who don't have enough money to survive, people who are being constantly abused by others (rather close). These people are depressed because they have a motive to be so, and most of the time they lack of resources to get out of that situation. 

However there are others, the ones that I belong to, who are depressed in no such conditions. Others who have a fairly happy family, who are not filthy rich but still have enough money, who have people who love them and want all the best for them. Even worse, people who are smart and capable with many skills.  And we are still fucking depressed!!  

And then we feel guilty. We feel guilty because there are others who are worse than us and are carrying on. We also feel guilty because we have everything we can possibly have or wanted, and we know that we have the resources to achieve whatever we want, and we are still depressed. Then the guilt starts leading into self-hatred, because no matter what we do we can't seem to get out of this state.. and so goes on.

The first type of people might be depressed for what experts call "exogenous depression", caused mainly by stressing events. The second type is what it is called "endogenous" depression, which means it comes from within (taken from netdoctors.co.uk, it seems scholarly articles refuse to talk about depression in a more general way). Basically this means that one gets depressed for apparently no reason  AND that one can get depressed over and over and over again. 

Great! 

Ok, so perhaps making classifications is not the best thing to do, but my point here is that it is hard to be this depressed when we have "everything". Of course we don't have everything; we want to have happiness and we don't have it! But in our minds we don't have a reason to be depressed, and still are, so, again, we feel guilty. We might even want to be as miserable as these other people, because then, at least our depression would be justified. If only someone we knew died... we could be understood


As a sidenote, I think this guilt steams as well from the fact  that we have (or used to have) many ambitions. At least in my persona, I used to be a very ambitious person, always wanting more from life. How can one want more from life when one has everything? Guilt again.  See, depression just  guiltifies everything. The point is that these ambition of living is making us also strive for things RIGHT NOW, that might take A LITTLE WHILE to achieve. THEN we don't get them because they are so impossible , and newsflash: take time, and we fall again into the guilt circle, and get more depressed. 


So what do we do then?

HAVE A SENSE OF CONTROL. You see, when you are depressed, you think that you have either "lost"  or that you just plain "don't have" what it takes to do the things you want or wanted to do. And it doesn't matter if everyone around you tells you the opposite- in fact many times it makes it worse. So probably the best thing to do is regain that sense of personal control. One has a sense of control when one does things one planned to do. Having control also means accepting that things didn't exactly go the way you wanted. It means accepting the fact that you feel like shit, even if it is "just because".

So start practising. Think of something you want to do but haven't done, because, for example, you were feeling guilty. Pick up a friend you haven't talked to because you feel you have overwhelmed them too much.Tell yourself: I WILL TEXT THIS FRIEND. No, don't complicate yourself, just write the following text: "Hey, how are you?". AND if you don't manage, don't berate yourself. And allow  yourself to feel some control over your life. YOU decided to call/text him if you did , and YOU decided to not call him and YOU decided to follow the advice of some blogger you don't know and ever heard of.

So, if you actually mange to talk to your friend, you might feel better (or you might not, but you already know that). If you don't manage to talk to your friend, at least you tried, and if you tried, hey at least you are able enough to hear other's advice. And if you didn't try, that's perfectly OK, you chose not to. See, to an extent having a sense of control also leads into being a bit more "flowy" into life (I know we hate the optimists and the positive, because we can't be like them but we can talk about that later), and a bit of guilt free.


Keep tuned to the next post.