My Quest for a Meaningful Life (possibly triggering)

[xn728]

hey sister im 51 now ,and i feel like you do a lot of the time ,,but like onika says weve got a long time yet ,,,,so lets make a deal ,,stick around girl ,,and lets see who can live the longest ,,,,,im glad to see you post ,,
and your feeling a little better ,,stick with it sister ,,,,onika has good advise for both of us here ,,,hugs love kenn(((((sister))))),,xxx

[shatteredhopes]

ugggg...the thought of living 25 more years horrifies me...thankfully after many years of hard living and not taking proper care of myself for a long time, I doubt my life expectancy is that long...my luck I would finally find happiness, purpose, and love, then croak...or be one of those people doctors can't figure out why they lived so long after the way they lived, suffering the whole time...

boy I'm in a negative state!

I can't even seem to get enthused about writing up the piece with my concept...I think about it and its written in my mind, just when I sit down at the computer I just don't feel like doing it...maybe tomorrow

It was an icky day rainy and snowy all at once and there is water trickling in my basement, which I hope isn't a messed up pipe but just flooding a bit from so much precipitation (which it has done once before so hopefully that's all it is this time)...

Anyway ((((((((crystal, brother ken)))))))) thanks for the support.

Just feeling so darn sad so many bad memories, dreams won't let me forget, and too many triggers...

[crystalgaze]

Just wondering how you are!

[shatteredhopes]

Thanks (((((((crystal))))))))) for checking in!

Well, I wrote up my idea and submitted the piece to the paper, but haven't heard yet whether they will publish it. BCC'd three casual friends and got good feedback, two gave especially rave reviews on the piece and idea. I sent my other two ideas/articles to elected official I know, but haven't heard anything back, and likely won't...for all I know he doesn't even have power right now after the Washington blizzard so don't know if he's even gotten them yet. Came up with a huge project idea that I think will be great and give me something to work on and do volunteer work with end result a great product that will benefit the community enormously if it works out okay...but will go about it slow as its hard for me to stay motivated and feel well enough for anything but short stints of time.

The pain and grief just wash over me at arbitrary moments from so many losses...reminders are everywhere, even just a word can send me over the edge...

So I am plugging along...doing what little I can when I can and hoping someday to be able to do more but I'm not going to beat up on myself because I've been through so much and am hurting and depressed and suffering from the PTSD so any little thing I can do will just have to be enough for now.

Skipped a political meeting today. Just didn't feel like going and didn't want to be around anybody. Isolating is unhealthy, and I do get lonely sometimes, but for the most part I just don't want to fake happiness and deal with people.

The project I came up with is wonderful and needed and important, but I just don't feel excited about it at the moment. Not just because I know my huge limitations right now, as taking it slowly would be fine, but just because I am feeling sooooo darn sad. I had a bath, washed my hair, got those rave reviews of my idea and write-up, had two cups of cocoa, have stuff to make a homemade pizza for dinner, a roof over my head and heat to keep me warm, laughed at some of warmies jokes, much to be grateful for and should have perked me up...still I just want to curl up under the covers and fall asleep and not wake up.

Life hurts. So much.

[TackingIntoTheWind]

You've accomplished a lot today. I can understand entirely the need to curl up in a duvet and rest. I feel much the same after a day in which I suspect I've accomplished far less than you have.
However, ( Please don't hate me for nagging! ) I am going to say that I do hope that you wake up tomorrow. I hope that you wake up to carry on the good work that you've started, the good work that afterall no-one else can complete as you can. At the risk of stating the obvious, nobody can have your ideas other than you, implement them the way you can, be exactly who you are. Lightbulbs may be all the same, but people are unique, no unique human being can ever truly be replaced.
So, and truly I am not minimising or disregarding your painful feelings, I'm afraid that I am going to ask you to keep plugging on! I want to see what happens next with your plans..........

[shatteredhopes]

Thank you so much (((((((((tacking))))))))). I know somewhere in my head that what you say is true, but just don't FEEL it anymore...you can only be treated like dirt, like nothing, hurt by many for so long before you start to feel like something is wrong with me that makes all these bad things happen and people treat me the way they do, and that maybe I am nothing. My dreams have died, I have suffered far too much loss and trauma to cope. I don't know what I could ever do or receive to bring happiness back to my life again.

I used to be so confident, have good self-esteem, and believed in my ability to accomplish much. I know in my heart I have done some good throughout my life, but it just isn't enough anymore. I'm weary. I'm tired of struggling to accomplish the littlest things and when I finally do its anti-climatic...I tried too hard, I dreamed for so much, I lost too much...I'm tired of it. I'm tired of hurting and suffering and being disappointed and struggling even when it comes to doing good things for my fellow man.

My latest idea I've pretty much talked myself out of even trying at least for now. I give up. All I can do right now is just try to comfort myself as best I can and try not to end my life.

Thanks for caring ((((((((tacking))))))))). At least it it nice to talk to people who do understand.

[crystalgaze]

Hi there S-hopes! I have a thought for you!

Now that you are tired of it... You CAN change it!

Please dig deep & when you begin to or see that you are feeling low in a way you don't want, tell it:

"I WILL NOT HAVE YOU MANIPULATING ME ANY MORE!

I AM RECLAIMING MY LIFE, SO GET USED TO IT!

STOP RIGHT THERE! *breathe*

I AM CALM & YOU WILL NOT WIN TODAY.

YOU WILL NOT WIN. YOU ARE NOT WINNING."

Um... It's something like that..... Try it; maybe it will work? It's just an idea I had.... hopefully to encourage.... (That's my intention, but somehow it may not always come off that way.)

Now.... Please pat yourself on the back because you have MORE than done a good job lately. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!

[TackingIntoTheWind]

Excellent advice from (((( crystalgaze ))))! in fact I'm printing it out for my own use!
Sometimes that's all any of us can do, comfort ourselves and not end our lives. But please DO comfort yourself and DON'T end your life! Who knows if the world could manage without you? Actually, you may think that the world would get on quite well without you, I feel the same sometimes when I'm at my lowest. But you never know how things are going to turn out... I have a degree in history, and one of the things that fascinates as well as frightens me about history is that you can never tell how things might have been different with only the smallest change. Remove one person, however insignificant they may TEMPORARILY seem, and our whole world, our whole now could have all fallen apart. For example, what would have happened if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ended his life in the middle 1920's? He'd lost the 1920 election as Vice-Presidential candidate, he was paralysed with polio from the waist down, it seems inconceivable that he wouldn't have experienced moments of sheer despair when he contemplated the future. But what would have happened without him? No New Deal, no help for the Allies at the start of the war, no Social Security?
There is no way of knowing what you might yet accomplish in five, ten, twenty years time. And, if you're not around to accomplish it, there is no guarantee that any other person may ever fill the gap that you would leave if you're not around to accomplish those things.
On a less epic scale I know how it is to feel that you are just struggling along, trying to cope, to survive, with no joy in anything. However, I know from my own experience that these feelings, however dark, frightening and powerful do come and go, and I can, if only from time to time, find moments of joy, comfort and happiness. The little things are important! For me, things like finding an episode of Star Trek Voyager that I've never seen before, collecting a couple of books by a favourite author that I've ordered from a bookshop, or being able to help someone else in some little way.
Don't be deceived by your feelings, powerful and valid though they definitely are. " Though hopes may be dupes, fears may be liars. " as someone once said.
Okay, okay, enough with the my nagging! But take care, and I hope you feel a little better soon.

[shatteredhopes]

((((((((((crystal))))))))) good suggestion and always appreciate your encouragement!!!!!!! Guess for me sometimes my feelings are just so much more powerful than my thoughts. And those who hurt me, in some ways, have gotten the best of me so far, because I used to be confident, loving, and forgiving...now my confidence wavers with my moods and I know what it is to feel hate....I don't like it and I'm working on it. I know anger is a stage of grief, but I do feel hatred and wishing those who harmed me ill is holding me back from achieving more inner peace. So maybe I should take that mantra you suggested with the hatred...I am forcing myself to pray for them every time I think ill of them...I think that would help my confidence too, if I could somehow get back some of myself that I have lost, even though I can't get back the other things I lost, if I can reclaim myself, I will 'win.'

((((((((((((tacking)))))))))))) so wise my friend. I love the example and the quote about hopes and fears, I'll remember that...I often think in terms of ordinary people who accomplished something extraordinary... An African-American woman who had accepted segregation and discrimination as a fact of life, after Emmit Till's murder said enough is enough! Angry, defiant, likely scared, but brave, she held her seat on the bus...thus Rosa Parks helped launch the civil rights movement. Or the young man who cativated the world and called attention to human rights abuses and absence of freedom in China as he faced down a tank at Tiannamen Square. Neda, martyred in Iran. You are so right, we never know when our life could make a tremendous difference. I told someone that once, and said, if you take your life, you take all those you could help with you...I need to heed my own words.

Recently it has just been hard, and I received a disappointing e-mail, and I will be sooooo glad when valentine's day is past...I am watching the Olympics and half expect to see a shot of my ex in the crowd as he lives not to far across the US border from there...

But I am proud of myself for staying away from the poetry site, starting to think some about a new direction, even if not up for pursuing anything yet, and doing basic things for myself like cooking healthy meals and not comforting myself with too much junk food...except hot cocoa!

Just don't feel very brave, courageous, or confident right now...waves of depression steal those attributes...I just don't want to be one of a sad shell of a person, a bitter person from what i've been through...that's what I've got to fight...maybe being a bit reclusive right now is a good thing, not to risk more hurt and to work on some internal healing...

Thanks so much ((((((((((crystal, tacking)))))))))) your encouragement, friendship, and support mean the world to me right now...having those who understand, suffer too, and when one of us falls, the others join together to lift the fallen up, and our burdens may be too much for us alone, but in sharing them here we have others to help us carry them...

Thanks

[crystalgaze]

Not a problem S-hopes! Since you will pray, pray for yourself--that you will have strength to free yourself from the pain & from the grip of those people who have a temporary hold on you!

I'm a little snarky today.... so in this current mood, I would not pray for them. I really would pray for myself: for openness to try a different approach to tackle my problems, for courage to try to tackle the issues, for strength to withstand the troublesome thoughts, for enlightenment & power to be able to rise up once again & take back what is rightfully yours & no one else's (your life).

I have hated... & let me tell you--& I think you already know it--it took a lot of energy out of me.... That energy is better spent on yourself! You have a lot on your plate; the battles are challenging & you really don't have time to be bothering yourself & hurting up your head with people who aren't worth it.

YOU are worth it, so that's where your energy belongs! You can do it!

Don't worry about things lost. You CAN REGAIN them; you CAN RECREATE them; & you CAN RECOVER them! That is the adaptability that can be achieved. It can be done; it may just take time & a shift in mindset...

As long as you can get the ball to the top of the hill, when you push it down the hill & get a running start to jump onto it, it will keep rolling!

Take care!

[shatteredhopes]

((((((((crystal)))))))) that's really sweet and I appreciate your encouragement, but if you've ever lost anyone close to you, death and some endings are permanent, there is no regaining...its like a broken leg that doesn't heal properly, arthritic, you just eventually learn to walk with a limp despite the pain...

I am so down. I went to doc today and now I have a $40 co-pay so can't even afford that, much less therapy. Was planning to go to grocery store, but realized I forgot to pay my auto registration so no money left for eggs and bread and such. I'm so tired of this; on top of all the loss and tragedy and trauma in my life, I can't afford basics even. My doc told me to increase the wellbutrin, but can't afford to until next month. Doubt it will make much difference anyway, and will likely cause side effects so debating whether I will or not, maybe I'll try it for a bit and if it causes problems or doesn't help, cut back to current dose. I am wearing jeans, three pairs of socks, and three long sleeved shirts include flannel and still cold, but heater acting up and utilities are expensive.

Psychiatrists describe people in concentration camps going into the gas chambers still thinking they might live, something might save them, as suffering a "delusion of reprieve." That's the way all hope seems to me now, delusion. Things have been getting progressively worse over the last five years, and I dread what happens next. My ceiling is preparing to collapse in my back room and I can't afford repairs. Hopefully I can get some electrical tape to keep contained the light fixture wires, once it falls, from messing up my electrical system or starting a fire.

I am so tired and pray for death constantly...God has little or no mercy. I just started bawling when I left the doc's office, realizing I couldn't go to the grocer and how much my co-pay is, so no therapy for me again this year. Why does life have to be so hard? I realize others have it worse, heck there are 28 million people in slavery right now and 70,000 child soldiers in Burma alone, but it just seems some have to suffer so much more than others. My life has been suffering. I'm so tired of it. I'm just so tired of it.

[Mich]

Shatteredhopes - I am so sorry I have not been here for you lately. It gave me a smile to read your post about the writing you submitted and the good comments you received on it. That must have buoyed your spirits as well. My hope for you is that you can continue to do this; I wish I could read these writings. I know they are so insightful and intelligent. It was just so good to read that you were feeling good about something.

Since that post I know you have been struggling. I know your pain runs deep and if I could take away even a small fraction of it, I would in a hearbeat. There is so much good in you; so much to be loved. I hope you feel the love and support coming your way from me. I wish I had more articulate words....my brain is nothing these days. Please let's hold each other up. Keep on fighting and looking for the positive in each day. You are not alone and you are thought of each day. *hugs*

[crystalgaze]

(((((((((((((((((((Mich + S-hopes)))))))))))))))))

Just a hello & a thinking of you.

[gardener]

I have only just joined today but your post has already filled me with hope . thank you shattered hopes .

[Mich]

((((((shatteredhopes)))))) Just a post to say hello and let you know that you are thought of often. Your friend, Mich.