Depression kills

[Kinnikinnick]

Sorry for your loss.

I’ve lost a cousin and at least two high school friends to suicide.

Be kind to each other and be there, it makes a big difference.

Ive had depression and when friends follow up and look in after you it makes a big difference vs when friends dont return calls or follow up it can contribute to the downward spiral.


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[Cono Este]

It will only get worse.

Weak leave, strong remain.

You’re a piece of shit. Can you tell us what cancer feels like too?

People with depression wear ankle weights all day. Everything they do is at a disadvantage to a pussy like you.




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[SB]

Yes I can tell you what cancer feels like,

Lash out at truth all you want, Nothing changes,

How you like them commas?

[Cono Este]

No one chooses cancer, and no one chooses a chemical imbalance dip shit.


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[Danno]

Sorry for your loss, FC.

And to all of those suffering, please reach out.

[swissiphic]

Sincerest of condolences, out of sympathy, out of empathy. Tears in my eyes, I'm really sorry for your loss, Flyoverland Captive.

I deal with depression. Big, Capital D Depression. Feel free to stop reading now as the following words are heavy. If deemed inappropriate for this thread, call me out and i'll delete it. I don't know if this hurts or helps...I just feel like writing about my own experience and I'm still kinda caught in a state of kinda narcissistic survival mode of thinking.

The world is a changed place, the time for holding shit back is over.

Words aren't coming easy today as the present mental state remains handicapped by a recent bout with the good old big D. Presently, still trynna shake the light touch of a lower case d.

There is a place beyond what a healthy mind can conceive of being unfathomable darkness. It is a vacuum where the sense of "I" has been diluted to the point where it feels like one looks at life through a gray, hazy, fingerprint smeared window...and they're not your fingerprints because you can't reach out your hand and extend a finger to press on said window because it feels like your hand and finger don't really exist. Input from the five senses has been severed. One can't eat, because there is no appetite. One can't listen to music because music doesn't make sense anymore and the sounds just seem like one big jumble of mechanical noise. One can't read because the ability to make sense of the words has been quashed by a lack of neurons firing in their proper time sequence. Etc.....

One exists in a state of empty, nihilistic indifference....just lying there...waiting....for nothing...because there is no ability of the mind to conceive of something to wait for.

And that would describe the lowest of the lows. Been there, done that. Hope to never go back. The total consumption of being by the vacuum almost took my life, but i fucking crawled back to the light by the skin of my teeth.

I owe my life to my cats, my partner, family, a whole lot of friends, other beautiful people, places and things. The cats and people part may be obvious, but the places and things part might need some explanation. As the incremental healing and recovery unfolds, places and things become anchors of memory of good times...tiny little bubbles of recollection of feelings of joy emerge...and the beginnings of thought patterns develop where one wishes to relive such feelings...prolly a sign that the neurochemical imbalance is juuuuusst starting to begin that process of rebalancing in the brain...neurons start firing 'correctly'...or something like that. And thus begins the process of moving from the state of the unfathomable vacuum beyond darkness, into darkness itself...and back to the light of living and feeling alive amongst the living, and, fate willing, back to normal functioning within whatever context one's life is framed by.

I vividly recall the day where I got out of bed, had a shower, ate, and was able to fucking tie my own shoes to head out the door and play 'grass' with my cat who was scratching at the door wanting someone to play with. It was sunny and warm. The feeling of heat on the skin felt good. I decided to untie those shoes, because I could...and walk bare footed on the grass. The physical numbness the body experiences while in a state of deep depression had relented and the little micro feels of feeling grass on the feet was 'felt' and the feeling was good. The mirror neurons fired a bit, and the recognition of happiness on my little cat's face triggered the slightest feeling of empathetic happiness in my being as well. We played 'grass' for a bit. In hindsight, that accomplishment, at that time, was like climbing Mount Everest, untrained, with no oxygen...but making it...and feeling good about it.

And thus began the journey back to life...and eventually back to TGR and all the other little and big things that comprise a normal life.

Had lots more to write...but that was exhausting, so I'll stop. Time to hug my loving partner and go give the cats some treats, sip a cup of coffee and step outside to greet this beautiful day.

Godspeed to everyone here. If you're dealing with depression, anxiety, panic attacks or any other form of mental struggle, please p.m. if you wanna talk. I'm not a councilor, have no formal training, but; I have a war chest full of management and coping techniques that worked/works for me at least and I'm happy to share...and, I do fucking care.

[TahoeJ]

Ask people you care about (and others) how they're doing every chance you get; and mean it.

This is good advice even for those who aren't clinically depressed, just circumstantially... or even if they aren't just a good practice in general. I've been going through some very rough times the past 6 months (divorce, etc.) and my friends constantly checking in on me means more than they probably realize.

[rideit]

Thanks for sharing that with us, Swiss. It takes strength to share. Stay strong.

[buttahflake]

Thanks for sharing your struggles, swissiphic. It’s important to get it out there, so others can learn and realize they aren’t alone in this, it effects all demographics. The more we talk about it the easier it will be for people to get the help they need. Anyone who would stigmatize this illness as being weak is a douchebag. Again, thanks.

[Core Shot]

It’s the little black dog that followed Winston Churchill.

Comes and goes but it’s always close by.

I’ve been losing faith in humanity in general, mostly due to in person sociopath encounters. Fucking sociopaths.
If you’re depressed don’t kill your self without culling a few sociopaths from the breeding pool

But most of all don’t kill your self.

It rips a hole in the continuum

[ill-advised strategy]

You’re a piece of shit. Can you tell us what cancer feels like too?

People with depression wear ankle weights all day. Everything they do is at a disadvantage to a pussy like you.




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I dunno.
I’m weak AF. I used all my strength.
It’s not a literal thing, but I was so incredibly strong for many years of really intense life, burning the candle at both ends, I did so much. It feels like I just ran my tank dry, burned my whole firewood pile by January...whatever.
It definitely often feels like some cosmic clerical error was made: all the vibrant, beloved people who die early and leave me taking up space like a shell.

Also, I can’t overstate this: “help” is a mythology. You can’t report somewhere, push the “I give up” button, and be issued a skeleton that works and a job that doesn’t suck and sit in some brain-zapper that fries all the bad memories and regrows all the concussion mush. Brains are complicated and unfixable. We live in a sink or swim society where the consequences of failure are physically and emotionally excruciating, and the powers that be hold onto these power structures with a deathgrip because fear of these excruciating failures is the whip that drives their labor forces like livestock.
What they do have, in the way of help, is somebody who listens to your irreconcilable grievances with the realities of life as it exists and says, essentially “welp, hang in there buddy”. The goal is generally to get you back in the yoke, laboring...not really to find what kind of a life would be healthy and happy and get you there, that’s recognized by the system as unrealistic...so the goals of therapy are more like “remove the threat” and “get this work-unit back into the workforce” and “make a living for the therapist”.
They have places where they lock you up with no belt or shoelaces. They have drugs that make you simultaneously numb to the things that upset you and the things that give you joy.

So anyway, whatever. As long as our society mainly values human life and things like comfort and health and happiness only as commodities, only as they relate to competitions over capital and competitions over economics as opposed to valuing life and the things that make life worth living in a more holistic and qualitative way, we’re going to have people who cannot win those competitions and cannot tolerate the excruciation of being on the losing end.

[El Chupacabra]

Sorry for your loss, FC.

[Cono Este]

I’ve had mild depression most my life. Even when I was on top of the world as a trader, standing tall in the Chicago trading pits, i knew something was wrong. When I was cashing gigantic checks and still not happy. Ive always pushed myself to do less than fun things. Swim 10 miles a day, trade and fight with A-holes all day, I grew accustomed to leaving my nose on the grindstone. I didn’t know anything else.

I though I knew what depression was, and like all I tried to imagine what goes through someone’s head when they choose to do the un thinkable, and then I experienced it first hand.

I had all kinds of bad things happening at once, personal loss, job stress, dog dieing, mother almost dieing, kids, ex wife, job stress like no other, and then it began.

I was ok for a few days, brushing it off with my usual arrogance, then I woke up one morning and something was very different this time. I had zero hope left. I knew I couldn’t be alone and drove to my sister for a few days. Then the usual happened, one relative reminded me of my job, the other of my schedule with my kids, no one told me what I needed to hear, GTFO out for a while.

It progressed for a few days and I was told by a family member to go see a doctor. Well, they prescribed me some heavy shit, shit I normally avoid, I don’t believe in pills. But I took them.

The next morning was the darkest day of my life. I took my son skiing and felt like the grim reaper was standing above me. I stayed busy with my kids but my mind began to race out of control, and the pain got worse. Then came the time for the kids to leave.

I can’t describe how the mind works, but it had quit on me. It began to obsess with how to cut off the pain, it was over whelming. I should have gone to the hospital. It spun up, and out of control. It had to stop. I had no control. I made one last phone call to an ex GF and thankfully she answered. I was a step away, and in no control of myself. Minutes left. I then found a counselor and saw them Bi weekly for a yr.

Let’s just say when you hear about people walking down to the Golden Gate and jumping, they are not walking, they are running. I never though I could have such an involuntary loss of self control, that my mind would seek anyway to stop the pain, but I now pay attention to stories of people trapped etc and do the unthinkable, like cut off their arm. It’s not natural. The mind is not to be fucked with, certain involuntary instincts will kick in if you let it.

It’s something I never knew possible, not even with 30 yrs experience with depression.

Change your lifestyle, your job, your priorities, none of it is worth that.






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[Flyoverland Captive]

Thanks for the honesty here, folks.

My sometimes-suicidal friend says for him, it has never been about wanting to die, or having no hope, or feeling completely helpless; it's about hurting, and just wanting the pain to stop.

[::: :::]

It's sort of amazing how many folks i know who have some form of depression, most of them pretty high-performing folks

i have two in my family for whom meds did work. One no longer needs them; the other is currently benefiting from them and only just beginning to realize that they are doing something after 8mos (tho the rest of us have seen it quite clearly)

No med cocktail is guaranteed; but I have seen them work (I have also seen one push someone off the edge unfortunately). Always paired with counseling and family support.

Much love to everyone dealing with depression. Hope & strength to you & your families. Don't hide it; take advantage of resources; your family & friends will help to the extent they are able.

[MontuckyFried]

I'm so sorry for your loss, FC. It truly pained my heart to read your post, but thank you for sharing. That couldn't have been easy to create this thread.

[hawkgt]

Sorry for your loss FC. Have had way too much experience in this over my life. It sucks.

Hey mags..... hang in there. Look out for others, get it off your chest, share your feelings. Shit can get real dark and a fucking hell of a time to turn on a light.

[Grape_Ape]

I'm sorry FC. Please don't beat yourself up. You sound like you were a great friend.

[gaijin]

Don’t forget about those help lines, guys. They’re magnificent.

In my “No Shame” past, I was battling hard in Tokyo. I was being strategically destroyed by verbal abuse. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

Anyway, while flipping through my contacts for somebody I saw Support Line. I had forgotten that I had put that in my contacts.

I called. And that women helped me more than I knew someone could.

Eight months later and I still routinely call every month or so just to thank the person at the other end for answering... reminding them that their volunteering is so greatly needed.

A) they’re anonymous. You can say whatever the fuck you need to.

B) they’re professionals. They know what to say back.

There is free and accessible therapy out there. I’m telling you it helps.

[doebedoe]

Vibes FC.

Some very real shit here. Well written ones too. It is a herculean task to do so when you mental faculties are so drained by their own doing.

For the past several months, I've had the this back in my life for the first time in 6 years in a way that has shut me down. My life is mostly built around managing it: choice of employment, meds, therapy, exercise, journaling, walking the pup. And yeah, the drinking. Most all my habits are -- at root -- about making sure I stay here.

This thread is tough and helpful to read. May be reaching out to a few of you who have more experience with anxiety and panic than myself. (And my favorite new one: intrusive thoughts.)

If you're one of the mags who I've failed to respond to all season (Truth, ISBD, others) -- sorry.

[ill-advised strategy]

Here’s what they’ll say:

You can’t control [xxxxx] but you can control how you react to it!
Just take it one day at a time!
Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Imagine how hurt everyone will be without you!

It’s just a script. It’s a script for a distraught 19 year old who just got broken up with and drank a bottle of vodka. It’s not really a script for someone who’s lived a full life wherein they’ve realized in detail how awful it is to be a loser in the game of life, and how few people win at it, and that they’re past the point of being able to get on the right side of that divide.
They can’t repair your brain, or your knees, or your back. They don’t have $100,000s for a real effort to fix you.
It’s just “hang in there buddy”

[MakersTeleMark]

Here’s what they’ll say:

You can’t control [xxxxx] but you can control how you react to it!
Just take it one day at a time!
Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Imagine how hurt everyone will be without you!

It’s just a script. It’s a script for a distraught 19 year old who just got broken up with and drank a bottle of vodka. It’s not really a script for someone who’s lived a full life wherein they’ve realized in detail how awful it is to be a loser in the game of life, and how few people win at it, and that they’re past the point of being able to get on the right side of that divide.
They can’t repair your brain, or your knees, or your back. They don’t have $100,000s for a real effort to fix you.
It’s just “hang in there buddy”

So what? If it gets you one more day to maybe find a sliver of clarity it seems like a net positive.

[muted]

Here’s what they’ll say:

You can’t control [xxxxx] but you can control how you react to it!
Just take it one day at a time!
Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Imagine how hurt everyone will be without you!

It’s just a script. It’s a script for a distraught 19 year old who just got broken up with and drank a bottle of vodka. It’s not really a script for someone who’s lived a full life wherein they’ve realized in detail how awful it is to be a loser in the game of life, and how few people win at it, and that they’re past the point of being able to get on the right side of that divide.
They can’t repair your brain, or your knees, or your back. They don’t have $100,000s for a real effort to fix you.
It’s just “hang in there buddy”

Sorry man. You are right. Not in your ‘loser’ opinion at all, but right in the fact that shit is wrong and fucked up how we help each other.. I wish I had really gotten to know you when we skied together, instead I put up up a weird facade like we all do (well not everyone does this, damn those extroverts) with strangers we don’t know well, yet we know each other so well through this site.

[ill-advised strategy]

So what? If it gets you one more day to maybe find a sliver of clarity it seems like a net positive.

So I think this is my point:
When it’s about buying somebody time to get over some acute lack of clarity, there’s “help” for that.
There’s lots of suicide that’s not really about an acute lack of clarity, and actually it’s more like an overabundance of clarity. “Help” doesn’t really make a person unsee their position in the world, and when you can see 5 moves ahead and it’s checkmate, a lot of people don’t want to play it all out move by move.

[Cono Este]

So I think this is my point:
When it’s about buying somebody time to get over some acute lack of clarity, there’s “help” for that.
There’s lots of suicide that’s not really about an acute lack of clarity, and actually it’s more like an overabundance of clarity. “Help” doesn’t really make a person unsee their position in the world, and when you can see 5 moves ahead and it’s checkmate, a lot of people don’t want to play it all out move by move.

I think as I get older I realize. that it is about one day at a time. Ask any 80 yr old. They are just happy to get up. Their friends are mostly gone, siblings etc. maybe because I only work with seniors I’ve now learnt this, but life only becomes more of a challenge as we get older. I have a friend with 500mm and he has cancer at 45. It’s not worth anything to him now.

I get up now, go to the gym, go get coffee, ignore the little shit like back talking 15 yr olds, pissy ex wives who make more than I do taking my money, they can fucking have it! They haven’t figured it out yet.

One day at a time dude.


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