Feeling like my time is done...

[JD68225]

I would have preferred to chat online with a counsellor, but as I am overseas apparently this is not allowed on this site. Seems they think only those currently in Australia need help...

When I was 19 (I'm now 47), on a wet, dark, cold Sydney night, I came close to taking my life. I was a very messed up kid. After some time I  went home. I feel like I've been on borrowed time since then. 28 years later I'm beginning to feel this borrowed time may be at an end. I'm still a messed up kid.

I've filled those 28 years with a lot, most people would say I've lived a life. I've spent close to half that time overseas, travelling, living, working, volunteering. Loved and lost and loved some more, women from a range of different countries. Managed to finish a degree and get myself a pretty solid, well paying career. And yet at no time at all have I felt "grown up" or stable.

Done a pretty good job of suppressing these feelings a lot of times. Going out with friends, drinking, travelling to new places. All the distractions your could imagine in the world. But focusing has always been an issue. Doing anything long term the same. I get bored very easily, and since heading to South America 3 years ago and earning money from working online, I simply don't think it would be possible for me to live a "normal" life again.

But now financial issues are coming into play, once again something I have been running away from these past 3 years... but you can only run so long and so far. So time to pay the piper, but I'm thinking it might just be easier to call it a day. I'm no closer to being an adult, being responsible, being able to form any sort of meaningful, in depth relationship with another human being. I can form plenty of fun-loving, drinking and dancing relationships, got friends all around the world. And they are friends, it's just that I am incapable of really letting anyone in. And at 47, maybe it's just a whole lot simpler with this and the money and everything else to just... well, thank the powers that be for the extra 28 years I got out of life, and just move on...

I head to Buenos Aires for a wedding in a few weeks, and will spend 4 or 5 months there, and perhaps that would be a great city to call it a day...

beyondblue's clinically-trained moderators often work offline (invisible to you) on issues relating to suicide or self-harm. At the same time, general supportive comments from the community are encouraged. If you have concerns around suicide or self-harm, please phone our support service on 1300 22 4636.

[white knight]

Hi JD68225,  welcome here and I hope I can help.

Some issues in our lives can seem to be so large, so unbeatable...yet could be so small in the scheme of things. Take for example finances.  Money, lack of it can be so debilitating, degrading and unclimbable. Yet going bankrupt is just a step one can take that (in Oz) simply restricts one from obtaining large loans for a period of time.

It isnt that big a deal. And sooo many people yearly do just that. In a world of credit cards (often several) or simple bad luck (eg loss of income) it is so common and is not something to be ashamed of.

Recently I wrote a threa don here topic was : "Been there done that".  as being one trigger to a depressed life.  Boredom as you say can make one feel like you've done everything and no further stimulation is possible. I agree. I'm another example. I know how you feel.  So I ask you, before you make your final decision that you consider a few options that might not have come to mind. Those can be- helping other people, helping animals, educating people on tourist type tours, and the list goes on. Capitalising on your experience.

But of course I'm concerned for you with you loneliness.  I'm sad for you for this reason. I've found my soul mate 4 years ago in my wife that I'd known for 25 years then. She was once my ex wifes sister in law and I was her husbands best man. At any rate I have the relationship you yearn for. I decided before my wife and I got togather I'd keep searching until I found this woman of my dreams....and I'd never stop.

It was a crusade. It was a mission. And I needed to fight for it- why? Because like you are now I would be unfulfilled without that soul mate. When the chips are down we Aussies fight on, in the legends of our kind. There are so many women looking for exactly what you seek. Having said that I totally understand where you are at. Many of us have been at the same point you are now. You are not alone if you keep on this forum. This forum is full of volunteers like me and we care.

I care because it keeps my boredom away.

Please keep in touch.

[beyondblue_Online_Communi]

Hi JD68225

Hopefully you have received our offline email with referrals to services you can access while overseas. We're sorry you were unable to access webchat.

Given beyondblue is primarily funded by Australian Governments (both National and State/Territory) and members of the Australian public, we need to ensure that our service is accessible and available primarily within Australia.  Unfortunately, given the nature of the internet, the most practical way to go about this is to geo-block international IP addresses from our web chat service.  Our email service is accessible internationally however, so please feel free to contact us via that channel: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support

You are also welcome to continue using the forums.

[geoff]

dear JD68225, I want to extend our heart warming thanks for you to reach out to other people who have or still are feeling exactly the way you are.

You can travel around the world pursuing jobs, new ventures, meeting different people, but perhaps it's trying to find yourself, and at the moment your having trouble in being able to this, but this certainly doesn't mean that you won't.

Everyone with depression and this can range from being slightly depressed to the extreme where you feel as though the world is crashing down upon us, and this is how you feel now, which is how normally we feel, makes us feel hopeless and there is no end in sight.

With my depression there was nothing positive for me to look forward to, because I had lost a successful business which I had started myself, and had at least 6  months work in front of me, but it stopped, so all the people I had worked for thought the worst of me.

I felt the same as how you feel, there was no joy any more, no target to work towards and friends, where the hell have they all gone, they all dropped off, no different than someone losing weight where the kgs just drop off.

What you are doing appears to be pretending that you are enjoying life, but you are far from this, because you have no one to share your life with, and by travelling so much is only replacing your chance to settle down, desperately hoping that there maybe someone out there to connect with.

The experience which you have achieved is enormous and the capability of handling situations should be first class, so your worth should be too good to throw away, and we don't want this to happen to you, and because this is a concerning post we would like for you to contact the website that BB hs suggested, and more importantly we would want you to keep replying to us, you can overcome this feeling with the help of the many people on this site, so please take the most care that is available of yourself. Geoff.

[Neil_1]

Hi there JD

Like White Knight, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to you to Beyond Blue & thank you for coming here and providing your post.

Not only have you been battling this mental illness for such a long time, it appears that for the majority of it, you’ve been battling it on a solo basis as well?  From what I could gather, there’s been really no-one else who you’ve been able to confide to or to just have a shoulder to lean on for support.

That’s something that is so awesome about this Beyond Blue community – that people can come on here & though it’s only via the internet, everyone who comes here is given unconditional support & when appropriate, advice as well.

In regard to the on-line chat scenario for Beyond Blue, it may well be just the fact that when you tried, it may have been after hours??  Either way, I will look into that for you, as it’s very important that it be available for everyone.  I know of others who are overseas, who may not use the on-line option, but they do come here and post.

JD, you’re 47 – I’m 49 & we share a common theme – you feel as though you haven’t grown up – for me, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  Having said that, can I use the old cliché, that yes, it appears that you’ve compiled an awful lot in your years so far – makes me seem hellishly boring really.  When to compare some of the sites, sounds, tastes and delights you would have, it would be quite amazing.

Hey, Chris de Burgh had a song back a ways back “Don’t Pay the  Ferryman” – and it went on and on to say Don’t pay the Ferryman, until he gets you to the other side.  You mentioned something like that it’s time to the pay the piper.  Let’s aim to pay the Ferryman – but the other side is years and years away yet.

You’ve mentioned places you’ve been, different jobs you’ve worked, finishing a degree – you are one hell of an intelligent and well grounded person – that’s how you come over, which is brilliant.  You’ve got many friends all over the world – amazing – and are able to have a good time with others.  But to open up to someone, that’s where the mental illness rears its ugly head.

In all this time, have you ever sought out professional assistance – GP, possible counselling and/or the use of anti-depressants?  That would be interesting to know, as you make no mention of it in your post.

I hope to hear back from you soon.

Neil

[JD68225]

What really makes this IP blocking an issue is that I have obviously reached the stage where I want to talk to someone, someone who is qualified in some way to talk with someone in my situation, and yet I'm being stopped from being able to. Email conversations are by their very nature delayed, so I can interact with someone in real time. Forums like this suffer a similar problem... even now I'm trying to remember or form the thoughts I had through my head as a lay restlessly not sleeping last night, but they are not just fragments of ideas, of thoughts, which I'm not really sure my memory will do justice...

Everyone here has written great info, I'm sure there are people who have gone through far worse than me and dealt with it. But one of the things I've realised when I hear others talk about their depressed thoughts, I often had no idea what I could do or say for them. Each of us is so different from everybody else. I kind of "self treated" myself from travelling, and it did work to a certain extent. Well, it got me 28 more years that I didn't think I'd have at one stage. But obviously I wouldn't be going through the thoughts I am if it had worked completely...

One of the things that has me step back from the abyss 28 years ago (and it was an abyss literally, even though they had to edit my first post that described where I was), was the thought of what my actions would do to others, my family mainly (at 19 I didn't really have my friends having left my school days well behind me). That was really the only thing that stopped me. Yet now I've lived through the

death of friends, people who went way before their time (not from their own hands but from accidents), and I can understand now that even close friends you are able to move on from them over time. Time heals as they say. So I can understand that my loss would be painful for some people in the short term, but they would move on with time. It's the nature of the human brain.

I'm already putting distance between those I know and care for. I'm about to leave a country I've been in for half a year, and leave someone who I care deeply about but know that we're not "soul mates" or anything like that. She loves me I know, but you can't manufacture the same feeling from yourself if it's not there, as much as I would love to feel the same. Hence it's better to break her heart a little now to save breaking it much worse sometime in the future if it is my time.

[JD68225]

Does that mean my mind is made up? No not at all. If it was I don't think I'd be writing this, I think I would just go and do it. But it is much harder not being able to speak with someone in real time, at those moments I do feel most vulnerable. Speaking with someone in a second language and without a shared heritage I don't think is something that would help much, not at this stage.

Someone mentioned bankruptcy with regards to the financials issues I'm facing, and it's something I have thought about, at least for one area that I am having problems with. But from what I've read I'm worried about a couple of things: 1) I would need to return and stay in Australia. I believe they confiscate your passport for a certain period. I'm not sure how I'd deal with feeling "trapped" in that way. 2) No access to even a small amount of credit card balance. No emergency funds so to speak. 

I have thought about simply "disappearing" from Australian credit authorities. I do have a second passport (British), so could probably do that. Though I don't really want to break any laws, nor basically rule out being able to return to Australia indefinitely.

...and now I'm rambling, with no one to be able to bounce my many confused ideas off, sitting here along in front of a non-responsive laptop screen, it's kind of easy to end up doing this...

[Neil_1]

Hi there JD

Thank you so much for your response(s) back.

This no ‘on-line’ availability for chat service is certainly not helping your situation right at this moment and I hear you when you say that this way of conversing is limited and obviously is not instantaneous.  But I am reading a number of other things within your posts.

I’ve experienced my share of death in this life so far – and I’ve never experienced short term pain – it’s an ongoing horrible grief that still continues to haunt and trouble me.  As you say, everyone is different and everyone will react to death in their own way.  I cannot say this though with regard to a death by suicide;   as the deaths I’ve been horribly subjected too, were by accident and by disease.    Pain and grief experienced from the loss of someone close is I believe without doubt is the most horrible of emotions to encounter – and from personal experience it is not just for the short term.  I realise that there are people out there that are affected short-term, and then somehow they are able to move on with their lives.

But this is something that I have suffered from for a long time now – the horrible thoughts of the deaths and the loss and I suffer almost on a daily basis for the losses in my life.

I could go on a whole lot more but what I’m trying to express here is that, even though you say you’re now beginning to distance yourself from loved ones – as you have a greater plan in store for yourself, you really cannot predict how a tragic death will affect anyone.   The human brain/mind is an extremely powerful beast and you just will never know – that if someone was to experience the loss of someone else (because of whatever means), who is to say that because of this, this person may in turn begin to commence suffering from their own depressive feelings/thoughts.

So yes, just wrapping up – you can’t predict how people would react to a tragic death and that short term pain can end in long term suffering, sadness, heart-break and a whole host of other horrible emotions.

Kind regards

Neil

[White_Rose]

Hello JD

I've just come across this thread as I have been 'off-line' for a while. I am so sad for you that you are in such pain. It really is a horrible place to be. I know, we all know, where you are and how dreadful it is. 

I did try to take my own life. Why it did not work I have no idea, but here I am 14 years later, alive even though at times this is not what I want. My family were horrified, in part because they had no idea of how I felt.  Like just about everyone here, I successfully learned to wear a mask.

I had 30 years of an unhappy marriage before I found the strength to leave. I fell into a major depression about a year after the separation which lasted for many years.  Then I thought I had found my way in life with a fulfilling volunteer job that fitted all my skills. Unfortunately I ran foul of the parish priest who bullied and abused me so much I left the job and collapsed into depression again. Still trying to get well again.

This probably makes you feel even more depressed but I am trying to make a point. While I had something in my life that was giving me satisfaction I was coping very well. I knew I was giving back to the community and expanding the service we were offering. Yes I had a few down days, possibly because I was doing too much. I fell apart because of the machinations of someone else who could not bear not to be in control. It's a long, sad story and most unedifying. But now I know how to get meaning back into my life I can start to rebuild.

It's not easy and there are times when I do want to fall off the planet. These times are becoming less frequent, although having said that I not coping too well at the moment. I have wanted, and still do at times, someone to take care of me, make all the horridness go away, make my life wonderful. Sadly for me I realise I must do the work myself.

I live alone, feel I have never had a soul-mate and would love to be with someone who I believe is my soul-mate. It seems to me that it will never happen to me. Far too old, (certainly old enough to be your mother) and I feel I do not have the requisite ability to love. So I am trying to live my life as best I can by finding a purpose, a way of giving to others that both satisfies me and helps others. Wow! That sounds very pompous. Isn't meant like that.

I'm not sure if my words will make any sense to you. I feel this is the most mixed up post I have ever written. I hope it will be useful to you.

Please let us know how you are going.

LING