BPDRecovery.com: Forums

So, hopefully tomorrow I can schedule an appointment to see a therapist. That appointment probably won't be for another 2 weeks and in the meantime I have to go to school and somehow sort out my feelings for my ex while he comes back into town on Saturday. And, oh by the way, most of those feelings of love and longing are tied up with an intense fear and loneliness. I'm being exposed more and more to being alone and I really hate it.

Also having to deal with the reality that I'm going to have to move back in with my parents because I've spent all my trust fund money and I can't find a job, much less keep one. Part of the reason is the BPDish behavior, part of it is the fact that my knee is injured, part of it is that I have no real experience and am not a "people person." I can't get on state disability because technically, I'm still financially dependent on my parents. Ditto for financial aid for school. I suppose I could start the application process though.

I'm signed up for the DBT waiting list, but odds are that by the time I get in, I'll have to move and start the whole waiting process all over again. Meanwhile I feel like I'm drowning.

In my hometown I have one friend. One. At least here I have to use both my hands to count my friends and acquaintances, and that's not including the 8 people I live with. Knowing its all going to end suddenly in 4 months when my money runs out just makes it that much worse.

Even if I had a qualified professional to talk to and even IF I weren't tongue-tied around almost all mental health professionals, how can I possibly decide what to start with? Most of my most pressing issues are probably unfixable (I can't just not feel bad), so anything I do end up doing will feel trite, and I'm afraid I'll lose faith in the process and give up. Never mind that 4 months really isn't enough time to actually create a relationship with a therapist, especially if I only see them twice a month, which is all my insurance offers.

Will going to therapy up here be worth it?
If not, can I live with these feelings?

I don't want to die but I honestly can't imagine there being a life worth living out there for me. I think that doing the right thing for me (though obviously not for those that love and care about me) would be to commit suicide. I'd like to think that the reason I don't is because I care too much about those people, but I know in my heart that that's not the real reason.
Maybe its hope that even though I can't see it now, things still might turn around. Maybe I'm just plain ol' afraid of death and the pain of dying.

My mind is spinning. Somehow I don't think shoving SSRI's down my throat will fix this. But what else can I do except go to school, keep a glass of water and pills by my bed, and keep trying to convince my friends that they want to hang out with me? Oh yeah, and once every two weeks drive for 45 minutes to stare at the ground while some snobby prick LCSW pretends to be "helping" me.

I feel like I'm suffering so much for such a paltry reward. Its too much.

Hehe, did I intimidate everyone with my long-winded, extremely negative tone? Or is this board really that empty?

Sometimes I really don't know which view of reality is the correct one.

Anyway, to those reading, if you're out there:

Turns out the appointment with an insurance-paid appointment isn't for another 3 AND A HALF weeks! WTF! ...and to think that I went to my insurance outpatient psych to avoid having to go to inpatient!
Also the DBT waiting list is months long. Months!

I decided, after talking with my mom, to put the "am I gonna have to move back in with my parents (600 miles away)?" question on the back-burner for now. Who knows, maybe I will get a job. If I apply to one place a day (not that there are enough jobs I'm qualified for out there to do that)... at the very least I'll have A LOT of experience applying for jobs!

I also decided to go into private therapy, even though that means I'll burn through my money faster. I'm going to try to put myself on a $5/day spending cash budget to attempt to save money.

So, all is not lost. Maybe someday... yeah. Maybe someday.

If you can get into a DBT program ... DBT is a structured program that builds skills. There will be a path to follow; you needn't feel lost trying to prioritize

Yeah, and apparently the DBT my insurance offers is like a five-month program. That seems pretty friggen intense to me. But, if it makes me feel better in the long-term, it'll totally be worth the 45 minute drive.

Hey bewilderness

nope, you did NOT intimidate everyone with your sharing. THIS is the place where we can ventilate, and people can understand. Em "normal" people sometimes don't understand "why we are so negative and so easily overwhelmed" sometimes...

You are certainly going through a lot of things or STRESSORS, all at one time.

Perhaps, try some self-talk. Tell yourself that you will take one thing at a time.

And should you need to ventilate or 'release' anytime, there's always this place. Personally I think it's rather empty, but not TOTALLY empty. There are still people coming in and out

Thanks mere and auspicious!

Don't mind if I do another round of unloading...

I do have the habit of trying to take on the whole world at once. I know this. I know everything, in fact. Everything except how its all going to turn out.

So much is happening, people coming in and out of my life (sometimes simply, sometimes not) and I don't even feel like I'm really the person I was ten minutes ago sometimes. I act pretty much the same from day to day, but looking back on the frantic 2AM call to one potential therapist I can't imagine what possessed me. I know if the exact same situation were to come up, I'd do the exact same thing. But looking back, that action seems slightly mad.

How can I know I'm being ridiculous yet fail to even WANT to act differently?

My mum says these kinds of questions are what therapists are for, but I don't know. I've never actually had the opportunity to try.

Why do I keep trying the same thing (therapy, for example) over and over, only to unconsciously sabotage myself before it even has a chance to work?

I want some kind of reassurance that everything I've ever done, all my yearning, hoping, struggling, has not all been in vain. When will I stop running in circles and start moving forward?

When will things stop being so damn complicated?
Why do I beg for help when I know nobody can?

I think a lot of self-sabotage and staying stuck is because change is scary, and our dysfunction is what we know and therefore more comfortable. So we play all sorts of mind-games with ourselves to talk ourselves out of therapy -- what if this doesn't work? what if I don't like myself if I change? what if person a, b, or ca doesn't care for me anymore if I change? And then there's always the old "I'm going to fuck this up anyway so why bother trying" line.

It's a risk, trying to change. We don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. So you have to make up your mind that you're really, totally, finally and completely done with being a mess, and then you have to commit yourself to the process and push yourself through it. There will be definite speedbumps on the way -- it's not an smooth path. But, as easy as it is to say "see, I told you this wasn't going to work, I quit," you need to keep going forward. Backward is nowhere.

I think it's ironic that many people with BPD think nothing of risk-taking behavior when it comes to impulsive stuff like sex, substance abuse and so forth, but we won't take the risk to try to get better.

Thank you Sari, I really appreciate your words. Part of me thinks I should apologize for ranting on, because its really a lot of work on your part to read and respond.

Anyway, its hard, deciding whether I'm really truly ready. Part of me is like, "I'm fed up with screwing my life up and feeling shitty. I'm ready to change! What do I do first?"

But then I realize that progress is slow, and failure is an ever-present possibility, and nothing is as clear-cut as I'd like it to be. Yesterday I'm sitting in the therapist's office and he asks me why I'm there, and my heart is pounding and I can smell my own sweat and it occurs to me that I'm terrified. Terrified without even knowing it.

With the throbbing impossibility of ever putting it into words- fits, episodes, crying spells, anger, irritability, depression, loneliness, the meaningless of life, loss, questions of whether I am a good person, social awkwardness, what to do with my life, with the next ten minutes...

How can I possibly pick amongst those? How can talking about them possibly help? Even those words are insufficient...

...but back then I was trying to think of what to say and only saw, only heard, only felt a hugeness and I pushed it away and said I didn't want to talk about it. And still I knew that thinking about it was pushing me to the verge of tears.

Obviously I'm not ready. I want to be, though.

I think being ready to tackle your problems is a bit like being ready to have a baby; you're never ready, but you attempt the task and will rise to it.

I don't know if this will help you, but one of the approaches I try to take with new things is "it's only the wrong choice if I regret it". That means that anything i don't regret doing is probably helping in some way.

If you have trouble speaking in therapy maybe you could do something like print this thread out and read your posts, or give it to the therapist to read. I've given plenty of written excerpts from my journal to my T in therapy for him to gain insight into my thoughts and feelings.

Like Sari said, part of what is likely at play for you is a fear of changing, and I'm hearing big fears of failure in your words. IMO there is no failure to recovery except not to try it, bc most certainly without trying you will not succeed. We all recover in different ways at different rates, and I can almost guarantee that the way it looks once it starts happening is not like you have imagined. Your concept of failure and success will likely change throughout your recovery.

So, tonight is the start of Yon Kippur. I'm not even Jewish (am using electricity on Sabbat), but enough people that I live with are that I figure, why the hell not? I'm already quite hungry, having eaten very little today until I had dinner at the Chabad house. I guess deciding to fast is my way of attempting to kick my own ass, see if I can do it. I mean, its only one day anyway...

Yesterday (was it just yesterday?) something happened with my therapist that's put my head in a spin. Just one little innocuous question that's made me really feel the full force of what I hate about therapy, something I can't quite articulate, and the fact I can't find the words for it is infuriating.

The question was, "how was talking just now?" ... and immediately I shut down, felt unreal, then, later, after the defeatism which was after I left and told him "I'll call you," ...today I woke up to a phone call from my insurance-paid therapist (my back-up, really) who told me that I'd missed our appointment.

Well of course the next available appointment is in the second week of October.

I want to scream and bang my head against the wall and drink myself into an oblivion, but I hate the taste of alcohol, it would break the fast, I've never hurt myself on purpose, I'm afraid of physical pain, and I know none of it will make me feel any better, especially if my roommates start to wonder what they should do about me. And I do have to hold together for school.

And I know what any halfway sane person would tell me, that I'm being too rash, that I shouldn't end therapy based on that one experience, but no one knows how it is, how often this has happened, how I've tried to ignore it and it ends up ruining everything, and I can't even explain it. If I could, I'd explain it to my therapist and we'd figure out if it can be overcome and I would know what to do next.

My roommates are going to some party, and though I feel completely and utterly soul-tired, I feel like if I spend too much time by myself I'll die. Or wish I was dead, and then... so, I'll probably go.

My ex and I are talking again, and next week D&D will start up again, and soon, after the 4-year quarter starts, the endless partying will hopefully slow down and maybe I'll be able to hang out with my roommates and friends without alcohol being prerequisite.

Tonight is the first night I haven't (so far) smoked illegally, and I'm craving it even though physically, I don't feel withdraws. I don't know any other way to take away the edginess of suffering.

So as ridiculous as it is, I'm turning up the volume on my headphones, sitting back and hitting "submit." I'll probably regret it. Talk about failure. I've got everything, but it doesn't make a difference.

Hang in there Bewilderness!

I know it's hard ... sounds like you are making some good choices though - separating the feelings from actions.

There's a tough, but good quote from Marsha Linehan - "you can feel like a mental patient, but you don't have to act like one."

Feelings, as much as some of them can suck, do come and go. Hang in there!

Heh. How old are you? It took you that long to become this skilled at thinking and acting in Borderline ways. Five months to undo all of that sounds like a pretty sweet deal in that conext, eh?

How are you doing these days? Are you still talking to someone therapy-wise?

Seems like I'm using this post as a sort of public blog... thanks for putting up with it!

These past few days I've been crying over everything. I wake up and immediately regret my return to consciousness. On Yon Kippur I yelled at my roommate for wanting to have sex in our room, and the next day, they were doing it and I was so mad I accidentally busted down the door. Now she won't even acknowledge me as a human being with feelings and needs. I ask her to respect me and she says, only if you respect me first. I can't undo the past and she's using what I did as an excuse to treat me cruelly and unfairly. Of course she doesn't even want to try to see things from my point of view; she demanded, later that day, to know why, so I listed a bunch of things she did that contributed to my anger and she just justified them all while concluding that I had prematurely decided I hated her. So now I kind of do.

That crisis, which led to my moving to another room in the house, also led me to go back to my therapist on Tuesday. The whole session I spent explaining what happened. Later that day, I went over to my ex and made out with him before snuggling up and falling asleep in his lap to a movie. I'm still angry at him without knowing why, and I want more. I'm complaining non-stop about him, but a big part of me wants to do that night all over again, as confusing as it was. I feel like I'm leading him on or something, and everything about it is so painful.

I can't hang out with my other roommates anymore because *she's* always there, and the whole fiasco made it so that I couldn't study for my math test on Wednesday. I failed it, and its 1/4th of my grade.

The financial/job problem is still hanging over my head, and I feel like I'm incapable of having any sort of satisfying relationship at all. The rest of my housemates I feel treat me like a child or else simply distrust me. Also, only one person ever contacts me except when absolutely necessary, and I kind of distrust her motives for caring because she told me once that according to a self-analysis she fulfills all the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. I know its unfair to use that confession against her, but its always in the back of my mind anyway.

I don't know what to tell people because although I don't try to be a bad person, I guess I sort of am. No one understands, and I don't blame them. I can never explain my feelings and actions within my current view of myself, although I can come up with some ideas of how my behavior is the best way I know how to get what I want and need.

It seems like there's always some crisis or another. I'm on Lamictal, but my life has only gotten worse. I refused SSRI's because they did nothing to control my most troubling symptoms. They did, however, improve my overall mood in the long-term, so I might write to my doctor (who I see late October) and let him know what's up.

My life is one giant self-pity party and knowing that fact only pushes me deeper down the spiral. I want my mom, or dad, or god, or SOMEONE to take me in their arms and tell me that everything's going to be alright, that I don't have to face life alone, and for all my flaws someday soon I'll live again instead of wandering lost through a web of emotions. I need someone to believe and make me believe that I'm not a bad person, that my actions make sense, that I do mean well, and that I'll find a way.

But Mom and Dad are no longer enough, God doesn't exist, and no one else has enough energy to care. Even if they did, I'd probably push them until they broke. I am alone, I'll always be alone, and I don't know how much more I can take before... before what? I decided long ago that suicide isn't an option, but well, its always available... not that I've ever seriously considered doing it, for all the times I've sat on the freeway overpass or threatened to jump. It's always been another way to get attention, because no amount of attention is ever sufficient.

Getting better happens from the inside out ...

All those swirling feelings inside are what spill over outside and mess things up around you.

Trying to fix everything around you (or getting consumed thinking about trying to fix everything around you) feels like a sick game of whack-a-mole.

But find better ways to work with those swirling feelings inside of you ... and the things around you, outside of you, will start getting better.

But it happens from the inside out, not the outside in.


When can you start DBT, or other structured therapy?

So... as far as structured therapy... there's a new DBT group through insurance 50 minutes away starting on Thursday. Which conflicts with my Spanish class. Also I have my next appointment with my new therapist on Thursday.

I'm keeping a list of things to do so my mind doesn't feel so overwhelmed by all the stuff it has to keep track of. Its only partly working. I feel so completely tired, and though luckily its bedtime, I have a feeling that even a good night's sleep won't wash the fatigue away...

But at least I can fall asleep, because I know there's nothing I feel I need to solve tonight in order to relax. A few nights ago, it was not so.

The idea of self-awareness is to use self-knowledge to act constructively upon.

Think of your thought patterns like carving pathways through a forest. The pathway of "self-pity" is well traveled and carves a deep rut in the ground. The branches have been cleared so it's easy to fall into that well-used path.

The "constructive action" path is barely even there, bc you usually walk along the self-pity path. It's a difficult path because it's overgrown with scrub so you need to actively carve your way through the underbrush to get through. But each time you travel this path it becomes an easier path to travel. Each time you don't travel down the pity path it has a chance to grow over and become a less easy option.

What you think is your choice. Unfortunately the choice of going down the constructive path is only one that you can make.

Can you see the choice you are making when you state that you will always be alone? Indeed, if nothing changes, nothing changes, so in that case, yes, you will always be alone.

SO....if your insight tells you that pity parties push you deeper down, what's a constructive option that you can choose?

Its always hardest for me to gain perspective when I'm in the thick of living. Which is always. All of life takes place in the forest, which I can never see because I'm stuck looking at all these individual trees!

Perhaps looking at it in terms of "why it is this way" instead of "how it should be" is helpful initially. Judging myself for being self-pitying sure isn't constructive! But I can see how doing so may have potential benefits.

More importantly, what are the benefits of self-pity? There must be some, otherwise I wouldn't have needed to walk that path so many times. What is at the other side of the path that I need and how can I get it without having to walk through the swamp of self-pity to get it (like I usually do)?

I find it hard to believe that there could be an even more difficult way to get there... walking through the swamp is about the least efficient way to get somewhere... even less efficient than cutting through an uncleared path, I think.

Nor can I for the life of me figure out what the potential benefit I get (or once got) from the self-pity.

At least that's a more satisfying question to ask than "what the bleep is wrong with me?!?"

"Chain analysis" - looking at a past "incident" and trying to work backwards and figure out the chain of what happened - can be useful.




Probably the same benefits as, say, substance abuse - a short term coping mechanism that causes lots of problems and really doesn't get us where we want to go in the long run!

Coming from one who has hosted some of the world's greatest pity parties, I consider myself to be quite an expert on the subject ;-)

I think self pity is about being a victim. I have been a victim of unjust circumstances in my past, and I've been held in a pattern of that. Feeling that the 'abuse' (or abandonment) hasn't ever stopped makes me a constant victim of it. The pity party occurs bc I simply haven't known how to stop the cycle. I think self-pity arises from not having answers to the perpetual cycle of victimising. The ironic thing is that I have been a victim, as an adult, really only of myself and it has taken me a very long time to understand how I actually am the one who abuses/abandons me the most. And after a good odd 20 years of it, it becomes habitual to just fall into victim mode, without taking the route of constructive analysis (which Auspicious referred to) and action.

Who knows what lurks along that path of change? It is actually hard changing lifelong habits. A leap of faith is required, bc how do we know what happiness looks like, when we've never really experienced it? What are our fundamental operating mechanisms when being a victim is removed?



Yes! The problem with walking through the swamp of self-pity is that you actually don't get anywhere at all. You just get bogged. The other path will take a while as you're clearing the underbrush, but progress will be made.

Life is clearing a new path, constantly. For life to be rewarding I need to be constantly growing and growth is hard. But hard like climbing a mountain - it hurts your legs but the view at the top is magnificent and with enough exercise your legs'll look and feel fantastic.

I'm so glad to read that you can see there is no more difficult path than remaining stuck. Once you see this, you kind of have to move forward, because you just cannot blind yourself to what you've already seen. Making unhealthy choices through ignorance is one thing, but making unhealthy choices with knowledge is very difficult to justify.

One more thing...back to the past, where true unjust victimisation did occur. For myself, I truly do pity that little girl. She (I) had no choice in the matter and was completely ill-equipped to escape. I am very sad for the child I was. Acknowledging the unfairness that was dealt to me in my childhood I think helps me to understand that the child within me that remains today needs to be treated better. Pity is not what my inner child needs now. She needs love, to live happily and to heel, and the adult me is the one who can give her that. Can you relate that to yourself in any way Bewilderness?

Its been awhile and I kind of want to just type my heart out.

One of the things about BPD that just doesn't click for me is the whole abuse/self-destructiveness aspect to it. It was never useful for me to consider myself "depressed" and I always get kind of pissed off when people use that label on me. Depression is my reaction to what's going on within and without me. Its not the core of the problem. But neither is abuse-inflicted BPD or bad brain chemistry. I was never abused by anyone growing up or after. For what it matters.

My self-pity isn't about me be being a helpless victim of some external circumstance-- its about me being who I am and therefore bringing all this shit down upon myself and whomever gets the not-so-bright idea of staying close to me. I guess you could say I do consider myself a victim, but I'm a victim of myself!

I recently locked my keys, cellphone, and wallet in my car while I was at school, a good 8 miles from where I live, (which is far better than if I had done it when my school was 30 miles away)... for the third time in a 4-month span. This most recent time I was distracted by having just run into another car in the parking lot and having to deal with the embarrassment and exchanging of insurance information.

I managed to get $5 for the buses to my house for the spare and the buses back to school, and luckily someone was home to let me in, but during that time it was all I could do to keep from crying my eyes out in front of the other bus passengers. That's actually the most mild example I can think of.

I can't for the life of me figure out why I remain stuck. I wish I could just rip myself out of my skin-- out of my self-- but I don't trust anyone to be with me or myself enough to try drinking myself numb.

I've thought again briefly of suicide these past few days but I don't particularly relish the idea of putting myself through the pain of dying when I won't even be around to experience the relief at the end.

I confronted my T about how I don't see the point of going to therapy, and he wasn't able to give me any real answer to my question, so I'm no longer in therapy until I can figure out, based on absolutely no information, whether I can afford to pay for a "service" that has been of absolutely no use to me so far but may be helpful in some way in the future. My insurance therapist canceled yesterday, which means its been two months since intensive outpatient and I still haven't even met this person whose supposed to help keep me from having to go back into the hospital.

So... what am I a victim of in this case? My HMO? Apathy? The mental health industry?

I figured out awhile ago that the only reason I keep trying to hack the system is because it makes me scared not to. The promise of maybe someday having a better life as a result doesn't help. Its a very enticing carrot and I'm a very frustrated horse, scared of starving.

I guess the thing about being stuck in the swamp is that even if you WANT to turn around and start cutting a new path, you're still stuck. I am very much stuck in the swamp. I'd stick around and play in the muck if I could, but I'm afraid of the flies and the leeches, so I keep struggling and keep going nowhere.

How the hell did I get here? How the hell do I get out?

Depression may well be more of a symptom than the core of the problem, but the sheer fact remains that it is debilitating. Depression effects your energy levels, your attitude, and thus, your overall ability to address the very core of the problem. That is useful to know - that you're limited whilst in a depressive state and that will effect your outlook. Useful bc being aware that your outlook is seen through depressed eyes means you can pretty much tell yourself that things just aren't that bad, which allows you to begin developing a better attitude, and thus a more constructive game plan. Anti-depressants have certainly allowed me to see things more clearly, stop expending all of my energy on just staying afloat, and really address the core reasons I become depressed.

Therapy is also extremely useful to understand what is wrong with you and figure out solutions. A person who is suicidal, which you have clearly been, even if you choose not to go down that route (few do), is a very good candidate for the support and guidance that therapy is designed to offer. It takes time and persistence to really see the benefits of it.

And it just IS expensive. It's hard to justify the money while you aren't seeing results, but all of that is up to you. How hard you're trying, how much you're taking your therapist's advice, and how patient you are. Expensive, yes, I think it should be free. But it isn't and when I look back on literally the thousands of dollars I've spent on therapy, which has over a very long period of time been one factor that has turned my life around, I think it's been worth every cent. Despite all of my doubts along the way. It's cost me a lot of money to save my life and make my life one that is worth living every second of. Sounds like a bargain for all of that really.



So, you're a victim of yourself because of "who you are"? You're a victim of "who you are". Yes, that certainly does sound like a victim complex. How do people address "who they are" when who they are is a victim? Hmmm.... honesty, persistence, courage and often enough, therapy!



Well, I'll tell you why I think you remain stuck, simply from what I've read in this thread. You're not sticking with anything. You're flitting between therapies, complaining about the difficulties, putting your therapist in a position where he cannot answer your questions, to your satisfaction, and remain purely within the care of the only person who you're a victim of: you. The one person you admit that you cannot trust at all. You reject the ideas I present you with, the insight and guidance a therapist could offer you, and you swim about in the stuck muck of the same unanswered questions.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

The answers don't come before the actions, they come alongside them.



You commit yourself to recovery. You accept that you don't have the answers. You listen to others and allow time, bc answers just do not come overnight simply bc you're frustrated. You choose your course of action, even if the basis of that course of action is somewhat arbitrary.

Here, you have a course of action. You're at BPDR. There are tools, a whole bunch of them to the left of this window. Example, try the Four Agreements (they're a commitment). Not a week, or 2 months, but try 6 or 12 months.

Accept that you are limited and cannot do this all alone. Accept that there are others who are like you in many ways and can offer wisdom, support and guidance.

And rather than being a victim of yourself with no answers, turn it around and analyse your actions to discover exactly how you can behave/think differently to stop subjecting yourself to the victimisation.

Exercise. Journal. Eat well. Sleep well. Use the tools. Seek advice from those you trust. And commit to recovery.

What was that, then? An attempt to shut me up? Well, you did stop me in my tracks for a moment there, and while it may be possible to guilt someone into changing, I've never seen it happen.

I don't really know what to say. I don't want to have to stop sharing here because it bothers someone when I don't walk the line of the time-honored one-size-fits-all solutions manual for "mental illness." Because it bothers someone when I'm not getting better. It bothers me too!

I don't know how to act without the answers, and no one can tell me how to act so... so I'm living. I'm hating myself. I'm suicidal. ...and I'm here, and I'm looking for help because its the only thing I know how to do when I feel like this.

Do what you want. I can't stop you. If you want me to stop posting on this board I will, but it seems kind of unfair.

I haven't said anything about stopping posting. You want answers, I've given you some. I've given a lot. It's not sugar coated, but your desperation sounded like what you wanted was direction, not icing. It's not a guilt trip. It's answers.

What you do with them is up to you.

I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so suicidal. I've been there. It's hard. I know how hard it is. You can read over a myriad of my own posts here showing similar kinds of pain. I want to help you, and my answers may not be what you need. But I have seen people get better by applying that kind of stuff, and I have heard from them how they did it, and then I have done it too, and experienced the success of the same things. The things I've discussed above.

But, as my previous post states, if you ignore those answers that others provide you with, in people's posts, in the tools here, in the therapy room, those things that have actually worked for people in the same position as yourself (over time), then you just will stay stuck. You are a unique and special human being, who, if you can focus on recovery, will discover the unique beauty of who you are. But as you are human, your emotions are not unique. Many people have experienced the tragically fraught frustration and despair of suicidality, of not understanding how to move forward, of not knowing if they want to move forward, of not being sure if they're worth moving forward at all, and that's not said to take away from your pain, but to see that you're not alone and there is help. Because lots of people have recovered.

And that choice is up to no-one else in the world, but you. It really is. That's not a guilt trip. It's a reality and an absolutely vital one for you to grasp if you want to feel happy.

I can see you're fragile, and my direct approach may not be the kind of thing you are able to handle right now. It is said with love. I post here out of love, to help people the way I've been helped.

Thank you for being so patient with me, Sarah. I really do appreciate it. Its been awhile since I posted here and I actually ended up in the hospital (of my own choice, but still) and I spent too much of that time worrying about getting out. I haven't had much time to mull over what I'm going to do next. One day at a time, I suppose. Anyway, I'll come back to what you've written and my exchange with everyone who was kind enough to post on this thread later.

It's great to hear from you Bewilderness. I hope you're feeling better since leaving hospital, and taking care of yourself.