I think a lot of us have been through depression or anxiety and at some point and felt the way you did. In my case several things help me get over my situation. The first thing is to try not to be alone. Surround yourself with people you love or that are positive and happy. Next was meditating in my situation compare to others who might be in a worse situation, for example with some type of chronical condition or having no food or place to live in. And finally being thankful to God for the good things you have in life for example health, a job to maintain a decent living, a family, a beautiful earth to live in and other things you might not notice that are a blessing to have. In other words having a spiritual need can bring happiness to ones life. A lot of the questions we think we don't have an answer to can all be found in the Bible. People think to look at the Bible just as a spiritual book but it also contains a lot of practical advice about dealing with anxieties and normal everyday problems. People all over the world have found happiness from reading and studying the Bible regardless of their emotional or physical situation. I hope you can get over your situation but know this, it is easier to deal with a problem when you know you have the most powerful being in the universe backing you up. Please take the time and browse this website when you get a chance jw.org and you can find the answer to the questiom you posted about why keep living?
Ask HN: Why keep living?
71–80 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#72I think a lot of us have been through depression or anxiety and at some point and felt the way you did. In my case several things help me get over my situation. The first thing is to try not to be alone. Surround yourself with people you love or that are positive and happy. Next was meditating in my situation compare to others who might be in a worse situation, for example with some type of chronical condition or having no food or place to live in. And finally being thankful to God for the good things you have in life for example health, a job to maintain a decent living, a family, a beautiful earth to live in and other things you might not notice that are a blessing to have. In other words having a spiritual need can bring happiness to ones life. A lot of the questions we think we don't have an answer to can all be found in the Bible. People think to look at the Bible just as a spiritual book but it also contains a lot of practical advice about dealing with anxieties and normal everyday problems. People all over the world have found happiness from reading and studying the Bible regardless of their emotional or physical situation. I hope you can get over your situation but know this, it is easier to deal with a problem when you know you have the most powerful being in the universe backing you up. Please take the time and browse this website when you get a chance jw.org and you can find the answer to the questiom you posted about why keep living?
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#73because feeling even the worse feelings is superior to dying which feels like nothing. get your head around this concept.
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#74Dear Soul,
Above all else, please remember that this will always be true: No matter what "IT" is that shattered your dreams or caused your run-in with the law or brought about your recent upset, IT IS TEMPORARY AND WILL PASS. Everything passes...time, sadness, and yes, even the good times. But please know that you will only experience happiness from within when you understand that these things are temporary.
YOU AND YOU ALONE are the master of your world because only you can change your perception of what goes on around you. Once you accept that these negative experiences are temporary AND you have the ability to DECIDE whether these TEMPORARY things are going to cost you the most Precious gift you've been given (life), then you'll have no more thoughts of suicide. You'll understand how your life is worth living AND you'll begin to see how your absence would impact the lives of those you love.
Think back to when you were a child and got hurt. Did that physical pain last forever? This won't either...
Take care of you. YOU are PRECIOUS and you are LOVED.
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#75Hello, formerly suicidal depressed twentysomething replying from an old throwaway account here.
As you might have noticed, I did found some reasons for continuing to live.
However, I won't tell you! If I told you my reasons, you would find them trivial because I would talk about my family and friends, I would talk about beauty of nature, warm bread, long and lonely morning walks, and other blah blah like this. Also, you might not even need all these things right now to feel better. The whole point here is not the reason.
I've been locked into my house for about one year because of a major depression that degenerated into agoraphobia. I whispered my own name and found it not to be familiar anymore on some nights. No wonder I felt suicidal!
But I kept repeating to myself: "One day I'm going to be fine again. I just have to hang in there a little bit more". And it worked. That simple thought gave me something which stands between hope and curiosity. That simple thought made me feeling prepared to something good. They say you have to be always prepared to handle bad things, but sometimes we forget to be prepared for good things! With this in mind, I found the strength to continue living, which resulted into understanding what was the cause of my depression in the first place (I won't tell you that either), and then one little step at a time, whitout even noticing it, I found myself living a happy life (...again).
I'm not a doctor but these practical things helped me a lot feeling AT LEAST alive during that time:
- math exercises; there is no way 2 + 2 is going to equal 5, do some simple math and enjoy the relief of dealing with something that works as expected everytime
- keep notes of what you do everyday; depression flattens your days, and it gets harder for you to distinguish yesterday from the the day before yesterday and this gets the whole thing harder
- write down some day-by-day to do list; simple things just to get to the end of the day with the feeling of having done everything that was supposed to be done
- turn off the computer; when in an alienation-prone mood, computers don't help at all
- do not expect gratitude from other people; right now your mood cannot possibly rely on someone else! Do good things and forget about it. You have to be the only one to know how good you can do right now
And in the end, put yourself first. Yes, I said it, be egoist until you find out who are you now, what you want now, what you need now, and why you feel so crappy now. One day you're going to be fine again, you just have to hang in there a little bit more.
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#76ground hog day / kill yourself. literally, kill yourself, but do it FOR something. what would you kill yourself to achieve? Think big. If you wouldn't kill yourself to achieve that thing, you are not thinking big enough. you'll know what it is, when you can say with a smile on your face: "Yeah, I would kill myself for THAT!" And that IS what you should do...because you are going to die no matter what.
the variation on this is groundhog day. So, you killed yourself and magically were transported back to your body the moment before dying. no one knew, only you. you are free, absolutely free from any sort of obligation to humanity or to live a certain way. basically, you get a true do over, but you are starting where you are. you can do anything. What are you going to do?
the reality is, every day is a do-over. There are no rules in life. everything about life comes from the inside out. things interact, but all those interactions are choices and coincidences that add up to what? No one, and I mean no person ever really knows what's going on, because all the action is happening down at the level of molecules. magically, your ideas can cause your molecules to do things.
there are no "rules" in the universe. there are just atoms and molecules interacting according to how they interact. It may look like there are some rules, but that's people just telling stories to describe what they think they see molecules doing. but it's all just stories. The secret is your ideas affect your molecules. how you connect and think about your ideas affects what your molecules do. that is real magic. ideas and "feelings" have nothing to do with molecules, with the molecules in our cells, in your brain, in the toe of the President. Molecules do what molecules do: atoms interacting with other atoms via their electron shells. yet somehow our ideas can make molecules do things. it's truly weird, wonderful, and amoral.
I would ask you to do 2 things before you shift your molecule dissolution date forward. 1) Practice meditation. simple attentive breathing, or using a mantra like "rom" for 20 minutes where you keep bringing your attention back to your breath, or to repeating the mantra. It is difficult to do and takes practice. As you get distracted from your breath or repeating the word, gently let go of those distracting thoughts and return your attention back to your breath or to the word. Try it for 2 weeks, everyday... it can't hurt you or anyone else by trying it. 2) pickup a copy of the book "Impro: Improvisation and the theatre" [ http://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-John... ] and try the various exercises described in the book. It's a book you can start reading on any page. Improvisation and perception exercises show how make believe our experience actually is. People have made everything up. I'll happily send you a copy if you like.
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#77Dear Soul, Above all else, please remember that this will always be true: No matter what "IT" is that shattered your dreams or caused your run-in with the law or brought about your recent upset, IT IS TEMPORARY AND WILL PASS. Everything passes...time, sadness, and yes, even the good times. But please know that you will only experience happiness from within when you understand that these things are temporary. YOU AND…
"""
Once you accept that these negative experiences are temporary . . . then you'll have no more thoughts of suicide.
"""
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#78Suicidal thinking is always something you need to see a good doctor for. A woman finding a small hard lump in the breast or a man finding a small hard lump on a testicle would see a doctor right away. I know you say you can't afford it but you need to talk to a doctor before you say you can't afford it. Anxiety and depression respond well to cognitive behaviour therapy. Ideally this is done with an experienced qualif…
Sorry, I don't live in Silicon Valley where everyone has a six figure salary and the solution for feeling bad is to see a doctor. So many of the reasons why I don't stem from money issues, but also time issues (I'll probably never get days off, vacation time, etc. at my current gig, and that eats up 11-13 hours per day including travel because of the bus system here).
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#79ground hog day / kill yourself. literally, kill yourself, but do it FOR something. what would you kill yourself to achieve? Think big. If you wouldn't kill yourself to achieve that thing, you are not thinking big enough. you'll know what it is, when you can say with a smile on your face: "Yeah, I would kill myself for THAT!" And that IS what you should do...because you are going to die no matter what. the variation o…
"""
ground hog day / kill yourself. literally, kill yourself, but do it FOR something. what would you kill yourself to achieve?
"""
When I went to execute on step 1 of this plan, life beat me down harder and I decided to stick where I was not add more stress to the situation, which made me feel useless and worthless.
My point being, telling people who were once suicidal to kill themselves is probably not a good idea, even if it's for the shock and awe factor.
Re: Ask HN: Why keep living?
#80Suicidal thinking is always something you need to see a good doctor for. A woman finding a small hard lump in the breast or a man finding a small hard lump on a testicle would see a doctor right away. I know you say you can't afford it but you need to talk to a doctor before you say you can't afford it. Anxiety and depression respond well to cognitive behaviour therapy. Ideally this is done with an experienced qualif…
Sorry, I don't live in Silicon Valley where everyone has a six figure salary and the solution for feeling bad is to see a doctor. So many of the reasons why I don't stem from money issues, but also time issues (I'll probably never get days off, vacation time, etc. at my current gig, and that eats up 11-13 hours per day including travel because of the bus system here).
You asked for advice. Seeking medical attention for a medical condition is good advice. What you do with that advice is up to you. You're free to ignore that advice. But you shouldn't dismiss it for bogus reasons; just be honest and say that you don't want to see a doctor.