Today doesn't mean "never"

When I wanted to die there was a lot of urgency to it.  There were times I felt like if I didn't do it "today" it wouldn't happen.  In fact on one of my "almost" moments, where I thought I'd come up with a foolproof method, I was very angry at myself for not going through with it right then.

It's funny how when you're on the edge it's like the will to live and the will to die are in this huge battle within you.  On that day, my will to live won the battle by saying this:

You don't have to say 'not ever' just not right this minute. 

 If you can get through today you can get through.

That thought let me off the hook for the moment but didn't preclude my will to die winning later.

I remembered that little statement many times over the years when I wanted to give up and it kept me going a little longer. The todays turned into weeks and then months and eventually the idea of staying seemed much more appealing than leaving so here I am still.

Think about this if you're really on that edge.  Consider staying today... you can always change your mind later.

Dying should be beautiful

A long time ago I heard this story about a long forgotten tribe:

When the man knew his time was coming, he called his entire tribe to a grand celebration.  Special garments were made from the finest materials, and each woman of the tribe added her special gift to the garments, in the form of a prized bead or object, intricate stitchery, dyes, woven designs and the like.  A sash was also made which told the story of his life from birth, through boyhood, to his marriage and family to his contribution and status in the tribe - right up until the grand event. 

The man donned his special garments and was the guest of honor at the celebration, which lasted for many days.  There was dancing and great feasting and many stories.  The man himself told stories as did the tribe members and the children listened with wide eyed wonder.  There was much laughter and celebration, and the highlight of the celebration was the gifts.

As the man knew he wouldn't be in the world much longer, he no longer needed his material possessions, so he carefully chose new owners for his things and bestowed these precious gifts upon his family and other members of the tribe.  Everyone from the oldest to the youngest received some special item from the man, and all were delighted.

After the celebration was done the man went quietly into his teepee and lay down to sleep, smiling as he drifted into dreamland because he knew he wouldn't return to the earth world the next morning.  Sometime during the night he was overwhelmed with love for his life, his people and his world, and his heart overflowed and burst, freeing his spirit to go on.

To me this is the way we should die.  It should be a joyful occasion, a celebration of life, and a time spent with those we love in happiness and peace.  Death, like life, is a transition to another plane of existence and can be joyful. 

I've had the occasion to witness several deaths and I've seen people exit this word in very beautiful as well as extremely painful, lonely and sad ways.  It makes me sad for those who miss out on a beautiful dying experience. 

What do you think?

12 reasons you may be suicidal that will really piss you off

You may think that you want to die because life isn't worth living or because the pressure of the world is just too hard.  And that may be right.  But there may also be outside influences that are trying to take you down.  These influences cause you to NOT be you, and can make you want to die even if you aren't really that way. 


I don't know about you, but when I learned that some of this stuff was causing me to not be me I got really pissed off!

1. Hormones - We are physical, biological beings.  We have hormones in our bodies that go up and down and all around and they can severely mess you up.  Hormones are at their highest activity around puberty then again around midlife when both men and women go through a sort of menopause.  They can also get out of balance due to trauma or stress, and sometimes it takes years to get back to center.  Hormones are VERY POWERFUL!  Ask any girl who turns into a basket case once a month!  They are part of you yet out of your control and they can wreak havoc on your life.  If you find that you have cycles of feeling suicidal then a little better than back to the loop again then it could be at least partially hormones.  You may want to consider keeping a chart to see if you can figure out a pattern.
2. Speaking of patterns, the moon can and does influence our moods and for some people this can be severe.  As emergency room workers and they'll tell you that more mental patients come in around a full moon.  Our bodies are something like 70% water and the moon has a huge affect on water (think about the tides).  So it makes sense it affects you and me too.  Pay attention to your moods and see if they coincide with lunar cycles.
3. Prescriptions - Did you know that many of the mass shootings in recent years were caused by people on anti-depressants and other anti-psychotic drugs.  Did you know that certain anti-depressants list among their side-effects "may cause thoughts of suicide." Really?  Why the hell would anyone give a depressed person something that makes them even more depressed?  But it happens every day!  If you're on these drugs then do your research and see if they could be contributing to you feeling suicidal.  If so give your doctor a piece of your mind then insist on something else!
4. Vitamins/Minerals - Lack of certain nutrients can really mess with your body.  For me a severe lack of Vitamin D-3 contributed a lot to my depression.  I also found out my gut flora was really messed up, which made me feel bloated, depressed, confused and generally sick.  Taking probiotics regularly helped a lot.  It may be different for you so do your research and see if you might have deficiencies that need to be addressed.
5. Nutrition - By this I mean what you eat regularly.  Most people, whether they know it or not, are sensitive to sugar and it can really wear you down both physically and mentally.  Try eliminating it for a couple weeks and see if it makes a difference (for me it helps my moods even out and also helps me maintain focus and concentration).  What also helped me was to look at the foods I ate most and stop eating them for a little while.  What I found is that once I was in a downward cycle, my body actually craved food that made it worse.
6. Food Allergies - I read a story once about a child who was out of control, and it turned out that child had a severe milk allergy.  Once dairy was eliminated, an entirely different child emerged.  It makes me so mad that my entire personality can be affected by food I eat, and that I have to discover it myself through trial and error!  But really... once I took the time to figure it out then my health and mood changed a lot.
7. Really old trauma - It's so unfair that something that happened 5, 10 or even 20+ years ago can keep affecting us forever.  When we're severely traumatized that emotion can actually be stored in our physical body, and can affect us for life.  Sometimes therapy can help and often alternative medicine and healing can help release it better than conventional means.  What's important is to realize that it's not really you.  It's trauma caused by something outside you and once you release it you will feel very different.
8. Lies you are told - I'm going to tell you a secret.  I'm very against organized religion, the media and anyone with an agenda to influence my life.  From birth we are told many lies about how the world is and we believe them because hey - it's from birth.  Waking up to those lies and seeing them for what they are pisses you off majorly, and it also shows you a lot of truth about the world.  Plus things start to make a lot more sense when you realize that much of what you've been fed for years is pure BS.
9. Diagnosis - Some people are really sick and need help.  But a lot of people are diagnosed because that's what people do.  They label and categorize and then stick people in little boxes that fit certain criteria.  Unfortunately in our world a "diagnosis" becomes part of our identity.  We can't live differently because we are biopolar or depressed or adhd or whatever.  Says who?  Diagnosis is "their" opinion of you.  Their opinion doesn't count.  YOURS does.  Do you really want to let someone else tell you who you are?
10. Peer pressure - This is so cliché as we mainly apply it to teenagers making bad choices.  But it's so much more than that.  Think about how much we are pressured to conform to family values, religion, community, culture, and other outside ideas of "right and wrong."  Even if we rebel and go the opposite way, it's still those opinions that are influencing us.  I REFUSE to let anyone else tell me how to live!  In fact I ignore them completely and if someone tries to exert their influence on my way of thinking and living I just boot them out of my life.
11. Caught in the loop - This is chicken and egg stuff.  You are depressed and you have chemical imbalances.  But which came first?  That question really can't be answered because they feed into one another, but if left unchecked it puts you into a wild, out of control spiral that eventually takes you right off this planet.  It's not real though.  It's a lie that gets you under it's control doesn't let you out.
12. Psychic Attack - People can and do send negative energy your way, often without you even realizing it.  Heck sometimes they don't even realize it.  While a lot of people don't believe in this, let me tell you it's real and it does happen.  A good spiritual mentor can help you deal with this type of negative energy, and it can change your life for the better once you get those assholes out of your field.

Anti-Depressants and Psychiatric drugs linked to violence and suicidal tendencies

Here are some links to interesting stories illustrating just how much damage anti-depressants can do:


http://www.drugawareness.org/c-span-in-memory-of-911-the-antidepressant-connections/


http://psychiatricfraud.org/2011/04/the-real-lesson-of-columbine-psychiatric-drugs-induce-violence/


http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/


http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/are-the-new-generation-of-anti-depressant-medications-contributing-to-school-shootings.html


http://www.drugwatch.com/ssri/suicide/


http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=66


These are just a very few.  Google it and you'll find dozens of others.

The education system sucks

This post is mainly for teenagers who are stuck in high school and absolutely hate it!

Let me be brutally honest:  The education system sucks.

I don't care if you're in public or private school. Unless you're homeschooled by very progressive and enlightened parents, the education system sucks.

I'm telling you this because you may be in a situation where you hate school and yet people are trying to convince you of the merits of "working hard and getting good grades."

You're not stupid.  It sucks and you know it.  End of story.

------------------------

Beginning of a new story....

Education DOES NOT suck!  Education is absolutely amazing, fun, engaging, enlightening, and it makes you want to keep learning and growing.

Education means learning.  It means discovering new things, figuring out how different pieces fit together to form a whole, seeing the world differently, exploring new ways of thinking and interacting and so on.

The best education is self-education and pursuing subjects you're interested in.  There are so many things to learn and do in this world that you couldn't possibly do it all in one lifetime.  In fact it would take hundreds if not thousands of life times to experience it all (bonus for those who believe in reincarnation). 

There is learning in happiness and learning in misery, in easy as well as hard times, in illness and health, in great relationships and terrible ones, and in living and dying.

What's terrible is that we've twisted education into a dry, boring, institutionalized, life-killing, soul-sucking bureaucracy.  Ugh!

So if you're stuck in school and have a few more years before you can escape, what do you do?

------------------------

You could lose yourself in video games or TV, sitting around and bemoaning your fate.  You could simply refuse to participate, not doing the work or showing up, or even dropping out entirely.

Or you could decide to start on your own self-education.  Find something that interests you and throw your time and attention into that.  If the subjects in school support your interests (for instance math is needed in lots of different areas) then learn those solely for the purpose of pursuing your own interests.  Take advantage of the things they offer that fit into what you want (high school is free - you have to pay for college so learn it free if you can). 

If they don't support your interests then get by them but don't worry about acing them.  A "D" is still passing and while D's won't get you into a top college they also won't hurt you 30 years down the road when you've built a life around what you enjoy.

If you can get a job in what you're interested in that's even better because you'll be learning far more than you can in a classroom, spending time around people who have similar interests and bonus: get paid something for doing it.  Even if you don't get paid, you can still work as a volunteer just for the experience and sheer enjoyment.  Plus volunteering can turn into paid work.  Trust me I've done lots of free work that turned into a paying job later.

------------------------

So to sum up.  The education system sucks.  Education doesn't.  What do you want to start learning about?

It's up to you

Today I have good news and bad news for you.


The good news:  You are responsible for your life.


The bad news: You are responsible for your life.


I'd love to say it's someone else's fault.  When I was at the depth of my depression and waiting moment by moment to die I looked for someone to blame it on.  And I had people.


Oh yes did I have people!


I'd been in abusive relationships, had people scam me out of tens of thousands of dollars, gone without the basic necessities of life for years, been shafted by the church, deserted by the god I believed in, and on and on.


But you know what.  Through it all I ultimately blamed myself.  "I" didn't have to stay in those relationships, fall prey to the scammers, live with nothing (I could have gotten welfare), left the church and god instead of going back time and time again, begging for forgiveness and help that never came, and so on.


When we want to die we often go back and forth between blaming others and blaming ourselves.  And of course if we're religious we blame god, then blame ourselves for not being good enough. 


Guess what.... it doesn't matter.


Why?


Because in the end it's really up to you and no one but you.

• You can blame others or blame yourself.  It doesn't change anything.
• You can say if only (this or that were different).  It doesn't change anything.
• You can insist you can't change anything.  You're right and nothing changes.
• You can blame the system and you're right... it sucks.  But it doesn't change anything.
• You can blame your education (or lack of education) but that doesn't change anything either.
• You can blame religion and you'd be at least partly right.  But it doesn't change anything.

The ONLY thing you can change is yourself.

• You can start doing your own thing, ignoring others.
• You can make a plan for your life (you can always decide to die tomorrow).
• You can stop worrying about what others are doing (you can't change them) and focus on yourself.
• You can use the system to your advantage or circumvent it all together.
• You can get education in something you're interested in, leaving the rest of the BS behind.
• You can leave a religion that doesn't work for you (and may be a huge part of the problem) and find one you like or none at all.
• You can find people who are more like you - kind of like your own tribe.
• If you hate your job, quit and get a different one.
• If you hate school change your classes, learn at home, or stop going for now.
• If your relationships suck then get out of them.  No one is worth dying for... not literally or figuratively. 
• If you are sick then you can see what can be done to get well.  Often outside conventional medicine as they don't have all the answers.

You have ULTIMATE POWER over your life.


It may not seem that way and it make take time and effort to regain the power you lost but trust me.... you DO have ultimate power over your life.


That, my friend is a very freeing thought!

5 Reasons I didn't kill myself

1. I was afraid I'd mess it up.  Yep this was probably the biggest one.  To me the idea of being a vegetable or mentally/physically challenged to the point I was stuck in a body that didn't function and fully dependent on others for my survival was even worse than not being here at all.  If I couldn't figure out a "sure thing" I wasn't going to do it.  I never had complete confidence in any method I could think of so I never did it.
2. I didn't want to leave a mess.  Weird huh?  I wasn't even concerned about the emotional impact on my family at that point because I was convinced they wouldn't miss me and the world would be better off if I wasn't here.  But I really didn't want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up.
3. I don't do drugs.  I don't even take Tylenol.  Can't stand it.  So the idea of death by drugs was abhorrent to me.  Also, I had this vision (see #1 above) of not taking enough or the right kind and ending up with half my brain cells missing, unable to do anything but drool for the rest of my life yet strangely aware I was trapped in an even bigger hell.  So that wasn't an option.
4. I felt like I wasn't allowed.  This wasn't some moral or religious thing.  I simply felt like I came here for a reason and this wasn't it so I literally wasn't "allowed" to leave yet.
5. I think I liked being a victim and martyr.  I'm not sugar coating here... my life sucked!  Even by outside standards people told me they couldn't believe all the crap I had to deal with.  But still, there was something in me that was content with wanting to die but not doing anything about it, but at the same time not doing anything to make my life better either.  It's a sucky place to be, let me tell you!  And sad thing is a lot of people are exactly there.  Even if they're not ready to get off the planet, thousands if not millions of people have given up on life and walk around like zombies waiting to die. 

Notice there was nothing about loving my family, staying for my kids, my dog or whatever.  That's because I didn't feel that way.  At the time I truly believed the world would be better off without me and no one would care anyway.  I don't know if this is true or not and really it doesn't matter.

We are born alone, we die alone, and in between we have relationships but ultimately we are still alone.  Therefore we have to do things that are right for US, not anyone else.  By the way this realization was one of the most liberating things I ever figured out.  More on that here.