Was told at 17 by a therapist "I would never be loved" and for someone who doesn't know me, someone couldn't be more correct. So not paying much attention to that at the time I proceeded to drink alcohol, racking up DUI's. Luckily no crash or injuries in any of them, but enough of them to lose my license forever, by the age of 40. Now at 56 and sober over 10 years life sucks so incredibly bad, and the future looks even more bleak, there's only one way out. Who am I leaving behind? No one gives a crap about me. I have no friends and my brothers won't talk too me. I always would ask myself. "What the hell is wrong with me"? And of all places I found out what it was, it was a driving test to possibly get my 'hardship' license to drive, which is basically unaffordable. The test was more about psychology than driving. My mom used to hit me when I was small. All these memories came back at once, and I remember the last time she hit me I was about 10. I grabbed her arm mid swing and told her she never doing that again, and didn't, but she didn't love me at all. I was the oldest and my younger sister by 2 years has since died in 2002 from cancer. Her and both my brothers (now live) lived happy, productive lives while I'm just a complete loser. There's no changing me or my mind. I've been trying for the past 3 years to figure out a solution to live and there is none. I see only loneliness, poverty and misery in my old age, so I am GTFO of here. I got no time for this sh*tbag world anymore.
I'm not a therapist, and I'm not a doctor but I'm about the same age as you are and, while my life's experience has not mirrored yours, it has in some regards - not all - paralleled it. I post essays about suicide not because I know what causes it or how to prevent it but because I've contemplated it and always pulled back from the edge - till now - for reasons I'm not entirely certain about. Whether cowardice, fear, lack of knowledge of what might lie ahead, or a residual sense of caring about those I would leave behind, or my belief system. In some ways, shame and desperation have impelled me to the abyss, and shame and desperation have drawn me back from it again.
My problems have not disappeared, they are still here and I am having to contemplate unpleasant solutions to resolving them. None of which now, at this time, consists of taking my own life. Because, when I search the horizon for a glimmer of hope, I always find one. And it is not given to me by others, but by myself. I inspire me to keep on going. And that is something I'd like you to consider.
Although I said this many years ago to someone very close to me, I should have said it to myself, and it was this: you live your life as a reflection of the lives of others. Instead, we should live our lives as a reflection of ourselves. That does not mean to reject the world in its entirety because, David, if one person in the world cares about your situation, then that is me. You have one admirer in this universe. That should give you the strength to find the other: yourself.
I have nothing to gain from you. I don't seek you out as a source of satisfaction or pleasure or benefit or financial uptick. You are a name in a blog comment. But you have commented on my blog, and that has now formed a link. Whether you wish it or not.
The manner in which I escaped from my downward spiral was to cast off those who prove to me that they have nothing to offer me. The criteria for that will be different between me and you. In my case, I asked people to help someone else and, when they refused point blank, I as good as told them they didn't need to include me as their friend any more. For me, a friend is not someone to go to the bar with, or spend a day fishing with, or sharing a joint. It can be that, but much more than that, it is someone with whom I can share and feel and indulge my innermost feelings and those friends are very few, and far between. Even if the distance between me and them is but a blog comment.
Thanks for your comments Graham. I have ZERO friends and really never have. They were the ones you talked about, fishing and bar hopping. I don't even have those anymore. I never had anyone, including my parents I could ever talk to about ANYTHING. In psychological terms I have what is called a fearful, disorganized attachment style and it all stems from abuse during my formative years. It's an invisible handicap that has negatively affected every aspect of my life. It makes it impossible to form close relationships even though I tried. The only thing that's kept me going for the last few years is a hope that now that I know what the hell happened, maybe I could help myself, but it's impossible. Some people think I'm gay because I have no woman in my life and never have, and that wasn't from lack of trying. I'm not ugly either, I've had plenty of one nighters and a few 'couple weekers' but that's it and that's when I was drinking. I don't even try anymore. I have my own floundering painting business for decades and here I am a few years from retirement age and I think I may qualify for about $300 per month from SS if I were to live to 65 and no other retirement source. If it weren't for my elderly father I would - for a fact- already be dead. Now in the past few years EVERYTHING has doubled in price but liquor and drugs, and I don't buy those. I'm not even writing everything here, it's much worse than this. I'm simply not going to make it.
I so wanted friends in the past, I would do anything for them. That never works, however. The people you think nothing of will occasionally thank you. Those you go out of your way for will drop you like a hot potato.
They say that to be loved, one has first to love oneself and I'm never sure what that means. What will normally happen in such situations as this is that I will make a couple of well-meaning suggestions to you, like some agony aunt, and leave you to get on with things. Because much as I sympathise with you, you are not involved enough in my life for me to feel bound to engage with you beyond what we have already exchanged.
That's what will normally happen. But I'm not that kind of normal. I'd like you to listen to this song, which you may well know, and tell me which of the characters described in it you identify with and whether there are any in it which you would identify me with. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHus88oxvLE
A well-known Bognor restaurant-owner disappeared
Early this morning
Last seen in a mouse-brown overcoat
Suitably camouflaged
They saw him catch a train
"Father of three its disgusting"
"Such a horrible thing to do"
Harold the Barrel cut off his toes and he served them all for tea
"Can't go far", "he can't go far"
"Hasn't got a leg to stand on"
"He can't go far"
I'm standing in a doorway on the main square
Tension is mounting
There's a restless crowd of angry people
"More than we've ever seen
Had to tighten up security"
Over to the scene at the town hall
The lord mayor's ready to speak
"Man of suspicion, you can't last long
The British public is on our side"
"Can't last long", "you can't last long"
"Said you couldn't trust him, his brother was just the same"
"You can't last long"
If I was many miles from here
I'd be sailing in an open boat on the sea
Instead I'm on this window ledge
With the whole world below
Up at the window
Look at the window
"We can help you"
"We can help you"
"We're all your friends
If you come on down and talk to us son"
You must be joking
Take a running jump
The crowd was getting stronger and our Harold
Getting weaker
Forwards, backwards, swaying side to side
Fearing the very worst
They called his mother to the site
Upon the ledge beside him
His mother made a last request
"Come off the ledge,
If your father were alive, he'd be very, very, very upset
Thanks for taking time to converse with me Graham. I hadn't heard that song before although I like Genesis and Phil Collins. Just not familiar with the early stuff. There's only one thing keeping me above ground and that's my dad. He's 80 and kind of take care of him, he's still pretty independent, but he's 80 with a liver transplant in 2006 and 2 replaced knees so I keep the house in order. Once he either dies or goes to the nursing home, that's when it all will bury me. I just know myself and my track record and the future is very bleak. An economic windfall might keep me alive, but I'll never be happy. I'll keep reading your posts. Today's was good about being a minority. I am a minority in many aspects of life in America and in general except my outward appearance as it relates to country.
It was only when pressing "enter" on my last message that I remembered this newspaper article that I'd read a few months back. I remember commenting on it, saying, "Why does the writer conceive of the inability to forge friendships as a negative?"
What I was kinda driving at today (and I know that getting onto my wavelength can be a quantum leap) is that a minority - you, me, anyone - is a majority to ourselves.
You are likely doing your father a huge service by caring. Elderly parents can be a lot of work. My mother died in hospital in 2007 and, the night before she expired, I was alone at her bedside till late. Supper had been ordered but she was in no fit state to eat anything, except that dessert was a gelatine pudding - what you probably call Jell-o. This I spooned slowly into her mouth, and she could swallow it down without difficulty. Just as, it struck me, half a century previously, we had also done, but with our roles reversed.
All of a sudden she asked me a question, out of the blue, to which I had no answer that I could give based on knowledge, research, experience or certainty. I simply felt that the answer I gave was true but would later have recriminations against myself that I had lied to the dying with a simple expression of panacea. The question my mother asked me was, "Is there an afterlife?" There was no opportunity to evade it or to procrastinate, so I replied, "Yes."
The way a parent tells their child that there are fairies or Santa Claus. A wicked, white lie. What I said, I reasoned, would not alter whether I was right or wrong. But she was kind enough to return somewhat later to tell me I had been right.
Good article Graham. You are right, of course, suicide is not painless for those left behind. I had 3 daughters. The two eldest had terminal cancer around the same time. Both discussed suicide with me. I knew they were in excruciating pain and told them if that's what they needed to do, it was okay with me. Each of them slipped into a coma before death so they died of cancer, not suicide. I was not okay with them dying of cancer, but would have been okay if they had actually committed suicide to get relief from endless pain. The eldest died September 12, 1999, 18 day before what would have been er 46th birthday. The next one died January 16, 2000, she would have turned 40 in May. My youngest daughter had clinical depression. She did commit suicide, probably accidentally, when she fell into the swimming pool in a drunken stupor and drowned. I was working 3000 miles away at the time. She was 51. Of the three, I felt sorriest for her. Mental illness may not be as physically painful as cancer but it certainly is emotionally draining for the patient, her children and those left behind.
Paul eventually made it out of Kenya to Ontario, Canada. He's happily there now, starting a new life, and still campaigning for gay rights in sub-Saharan Africa. He will never return to Uganda.
Was told at 17 by a therapist "I would never be loved" and for someone who doesn't know me, someone couldn't be more correct. So not paying much attention to that at the time I proceeded to drink alcohol, racking up DUI's. Luckily no crash or injuries in any of them, but enough of them to lose my license forever, by the age of 40. Now at 56 and sober over 10 years life sucks so incredibly bad, and the future looks even more bleak, there's only one way out. Who am I leaving behind? No one gives a crap about me. I have no friends and my brothers won't talk too me. I always would ask myself. "What the hell is wrong with me"? And of all places I found out what it was, it was a driving test to possibly get my 'hardship' license to drive, which is basically unaffordable. The test was more about psychology than driving. My mom used to hit me when I was small. All these memories came back at once, and I remember the last time she hit me I was about 10. I grabbed her arm mid swing and told her she never doing that again, and didn't, but she didn't love me at all. I was the oldest and my younger sister by 2 years has since died in 2002 from cancer. Her and both my brothers (now live) lived happy, productive lives while I'm just a complete loser. There's no changing me or my mind. I've been trying for the past 3 years to figure out a solution to live and there is none. I see only loneliness, poverty and misery in my old age, so I am GTFO of here. I got no time for this sh*tbag world anymore.
Hi David.
I'm not a therapist, and I'm not a doctor but I'm about the same age as you are and, while my life's experience has not mirrored yours, it has in some regards - not all - paralleled it. I post essays about suicide not because I know what causes it or how to prevent it but because I've contemplated it and always pulled back from the edge - till now - for reasons I'm not entirely certain about. Whether cowardice, fear, lack of knowledge of what might lie ahead, or a residual sense of caring about those I would leave behind, or my belief system. In some ways, shame and desperation have impelled me to the abyss, and shame and desperation have drawn me back from it again.
My problems have not disappeared, they are still here and I am having to contemplate unpleasant solutions to resolving them. None of which now, at this time, consists of taking my own life. Because, when I search the horizon for a glimmer of hope, I always find one. And it is not given to me by others, but by myself. I inspire me to keep on going. And that is something I'd like you to consider.
Although I said this many years ago to someone very close to me, I should have said it to myself, and it was this: you live your life as a reflection of the lives of others. Instead, we should live our lives as a reflection of ourselves. That does not mean to reject the world in its entirety because, David, if one person in the world cares about your situation, then that is me. You have one admirer in this universe. That should give you the strength to find the other: yourself.
I have nothing to gain from you. I don't seek you out as a source of satisfaction or pleasure or benefit or financial uptick. You are a name in a blog comment. But you have commented on my blog, and that has now formed a link. Whether you wish it or not.
The manner in which I escaped from my downward spiral was to cast off those who prove to me that they have nothing to offer me. The criteria for that will be different between me and you. In my case, I asked people to help someone else and, when they refused point blank, I as good as told them they didn't need to include me as their friend any more. For me, a friend is not someone to go to the bar with, or spend a day fishing with, or sharing a joint. It can be that, but much more than that, it is someone with whom I can share and feel and indulge my innermost feelings and those friends are very few, and far between. Even if the distance between me and them is but a blog comment.
Thanks for your comments Graham. I have ZERO friends and really never have. They were the ones you talked about, fishing and bar hopping. I don't even have those anymore. I never had anyone, including my parents I could ever talk to about ANYTHING. In psychological terms I have what is called a fearful, disorganized attachment style and it all stems from abuse during my formative years. It's an invisible handicap that has negatively affected every aspect of my life. It makes it impossible to form close relationships even though I tried. The only thing that's kept me going for the last few years is a hope that now that I know what the hell happened, maybe I could help myself, but it's impossible. Some people think I'm gay because I have no woman in my life and never have, and that wasn't from lack of trying. I'm not ugly either, I've had plenty of one nighters and a few 'couple weekers' but that's it and that's when I was drinking. I don't even try anymore. I have my own floundering painting business for decades and here I am a few years from retirement age and I think I may qualify for about $300 per month from SS if I were to live to 65 and no other retirement source. If it weren't for my elderly father I would - for a fact- already be dead. Now in the past few years EVERYTHING has doubled in price but liquor and drugs, and I don't buy those. I'm not even writing everything here, it's much worse than this. I'm simply not going to make it.
I so wanted friends in the past, I would do anything for them. That never works, however. The people you think nothing of will occasionally thank you. Those you go out of your way for will drop you like a hot potato.
They say that to be loved, one has first to love oneself and I'm never sure what that means. What will normally happen in such situations as this is that I will make a couple of well-meaning suggestions to you, like some agony aunt, and leave you to get on with things. Because much as I sympathise with you, you are not involved enough in my life for me to feel bound to engage with you beyond what we have already exchanged.
That's what will normally happen. But I'm not that kind of normal. I'd like you to listen to this song, which you may well know, and tell me which of the characters described in it you identify with and whether there are any in it which you would identify me with. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHus88oxvLE
A well-known Bognor restaurant-owner disappeared
Early this morning
Last seen in a mouse-brown overcoat
Suitably camouflaged
They saw him catch a train
"Father of three its disgusting"
"Such a horrible thing to do"
Harold the Barrel cut off his toes and he served them all for tea
"Can't go far", "he can't go far"
"Hasn't got a leg to stand on"
"He can't go far"
I'm standing in a doorway on the main square
Tension is mounting
There's a restless crowd of angry people
"More than we've ever seen
Had to tighten up security"
Over to the scene at the town hall
The lord mayor's ready to speak
"Man of suspicion, you can't last long
The British public is on our side"
"Can't last long", "you can't last long"
"Said you couldn't trust him, his brother was just the same"
"You can't last long"
If I was many miles from here
I'd be sailing in an open boat on the sea
Instead I'm on this window ledge
With the whole world below
Up at the window
Look at the window
"We can help you"
"We can help you"
"We're all your friends
If you come on down and talk to us son"
You must be joking
Take a running jump
The crowd was getting stronger and our Harold
Getting weaker
Forwards, backwards, swaying side to side
Fearing the very worst
They called his mother to the site
Upon the ledge beside him
His mother made a last request
"Come off the ledge,
If your father were alive, he'd be very, very, very upset
"Just can't jump, you just can't jump"
"Your shirts are all dirty
There's a man here from the BBC"
"You just can't jump"
"We can help you"
"We can help you"
"We're all your friends,
If you come on down and talk to us Harry"
You must be joking
Take a running jump
Thanks for taking time to converse with me Graham. I hadn't heard that song before although I like Genesis and Phil Collins. Just not familiar with the early stuff. There's only one thing keeping me above ground and that's my dad. He's 80 and kind of take care of him, he's still pretty independent, but he's 80 with a liver transplant in 2006 and 2 replaced knees so I keep the house in order. Once he either dies or goes to the nursing home, that's when it all will bury me. I just know myself and my track record and the future is very bleak. An economic windfall might keep me alive, but I'll never be happy. I'll keep reading your posts. Today's was good about being a minority. I am a minority in many aspects of life in America and in general except my outward appearance as it relates to country.
How are you today?
Well, I hope. Let me know how you are.
It was only when pressing "enter" on my last message that I remembered this newspaper article that I'd read a few months back. I remember commenting on it, saying, "Why does the writer conceive of the inability to forge friendships as a negative?"
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/26/i-have-fallen-out-with-friends-and-colleagues-why-philippa-perry.
Ms Perry answers as if losing friends were something that needed to be addressed, "cured", "remedied". I'm not so sure she's right.
Well, thank you for your support. I value it.
What I was kinda driving at today (and I know that getting onto my wavelength can be a quantum leap) is that a minority - you, me, anyone - is a majority to ourselves.
You are likely doing your father a huge service by caring. Elderly parents can be a lot of work. My mother died in hospital in 2007 and, the night before she expired, I was alone at her bedside till late. Supper had been ordered but she was in no fit state to eat anything, except that dessert was a gelatine pudding - what you probably call Jell-o. This I spooned slowly into her mouth, and she could swallow it down without difficulty. Just as, it struck me, half a century previously, we had also done, but with our roles reversed.
All of a sudden she asked me a question, out of the blue, to which I had no answer that I could give based on knowledge, research, experience or certainty. I simply felt that the answer I gave was true but would later have recriminations against myself that I had lied to the dying with a simple expression of panacea. The question my mother asked me was, "Is there an afterlife?" There was no opportunity to evade it or to procrastinate, so I replied, "Yes."
The way a parent tells their child that there are fairies or Santa Claus. A wicked, white lie. What I said, I reasoned, would not alter whether I was right or wrong. But she was kind enough to return somewhat later to tell me I had been right.
Good article Graham. You are right, of course, suicide is not painless for those left behind. I had 3 daughters. The two eldest had terminal cancer around the same time. Both discussed suicide with me. I knew they were in excruciating pain and told them if that's what they needed to do, it was okay with me. Each of them slipped into a coma before death so they died of cancer, not suicide. I was not okay with them dying of cancer, but would have been okay if they had actually committed suicide to get relief from endless pain. The eldest died September 12, 1999, 18 day before what would have been er 46th birthday. The next one died January 16, 2000, she would have turned 40 in May. My youngest daughter had clinical depression. She did commit suicide, probably accidentally, when she fell into the swimming pool in a drunken stupor and drowned. I was working 3000 miles away at the time. She was 51. Of the three, I felt sorriest for her. Mental illness may not be as physically painful as cancer but it certainly is emotionally draining for the patient, her children and those left behind.
Paul eventually made it out of Kenya to Ontario, Canada. He's happily there now, starting a new life, and still campaigning for gay rights in sub-Saharan Africa. He will never return to Uganda.
Good for Paul, and thank you for letting me know he is safe.