I'm lost in this life, it's beyond understanding.

[Ms.Me]

I am new here and just wanted to say hello...please help. I looked into ordinary chat rooms, but find the most sensible conversation comes from troubled folks who contemplate more than the superficial and the nonsensical. My life has reached a cross-road and I don't know where to turn. I have truly tried everything and have come to accept there is no answer for me. I live completely isolated, not by choice but because of life-long experiences, necessity and circumstances. I have no family–I think we are all an irreconcilable embarrassment to each other–or friends, who were ever only users and abusers. Relationships only last a short time, and I can't keep trying. There's no point. I don't fit in, have never fitted in, and my family of birth has the same affliction; but while they have dropped their standards in order to try to fit in with everyone but never achieving it, they have lost their self-respect and their true selves. I am trying to maintain my true self to represent my family. I think of it as my responsibility and I wouldn't be happy doing otherwise. I would love to work through this with a skilled psychiatrist, but I had one and he betrayed me in a way that remains life-threatening. I tried two others since, twice each, and they thought my situation humourous. I have no trust in therapists. Trust is earned and I see no reason for it when I see what is being termed 'treatment'. I am a dead woman walking and fight the urge to end my misery in recurring waves, daily. It is hell. That is what my detractors want.

I am doing an online course that gives me a great deal of fulfillment, but socially, I have never found my 'fit'. I never will and I just don't know what to do. No-one can fix this for me. I have to find my own way, but there is none and I just don't know what to do. 

[Sophie_M]

Hi Flamingo23, 

Welcome to the forums and thank you for your bravery and openness in sharing here and that you've found this community to seek help. We can hear how difficult things have been for you, we’re so sorry that’s been going on. We’re reaching out to you privately to make sure you’re ok.  

We hear you've had difficulties with therapists and psychiatrists in the past, for support, we really recommend contacting the Support Service by phone on 1300 22 4636. If the BB service isn't a great fit for you right now, we really recommend at the Suicide Call Back service on 1300 659 467, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. You can find online chat for both.   Itmay be difficult, but it sounds like it would be a really good time to update the GP on how you’re going, especially since you’ve been having thoughts about suicide. If you’re feeling suicidal or are having thoughts about harming yourself, it's important that you take immediate steps to keep safe. If at any point you feel unable to keep yourself from acting on your thoughts about suicide or self-harm this is an emergency and you need to call 000 (triple zero).  

We’d really recommend having a look at the Beyond Blue safety planning app, Beyond Now. You can read about how it works and where to download it here.

You can even call Lifeline and compete it with one of their counsellors over the phone if you'd like.  We hope that you find our forums to be a safe and supportive space to talk through your thoughts and feelings. Our community is here for you, and we’re sure they’ll spot your post soon enough and have some kind words and understanding for you. 

Kind regards, 
Sophie M 

[Timeless]

Hi Flamingo23, 

I have just signed up to the forums and the main reason for doing so, was because of your post. Firstly, I want you to know, that you’re not alone! 
I honestly thought for a moment, that I was reading a post that I had recently written and shared within another forum. I’m still a little spun out, if I’m honest. 
I know what you’re going through and please reach out if you’d like to talk and thank you for having the courage to share! 

Sincerely, 

Timeless 

[Ms.Me]

Timeless and Sophie,

Thank you for your replies. I just needed to reach out. I've been doing this for quite a while, and know how to deal with the situation, but sometimes I just wonder what I can try next. I really have tried it all. I don't know what I want or need anymore, to be honest. I'll drop in from time to time, but I'm just feeling like I need a reliable compass, and reliable, sincere folks in the real world. To be honest, I am sick of having problems and no life! I just want to live a fulfilling life but I can't do that on my own. I need people who value what I value. We don't need to have the same opinions all the time as I am aware we are not clones of each other, but we just need to be able to respect each others' differences, and be going in the same direction. What a bind!!

[therising]

Hi Flamingo23

I feel for you so deeply as you reach this overwhelmingly challenging crossroad with no obvious sign of where to head.

'To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment' - Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is a highly skillful call, the call to be our true self. The skills required must be great enough to manage what can be incredibly challenging, overwhelmingly stressful and deeply depressing at times.

Personally, I'm one of those mind/body/spirit gals, which has come to serve me well over the years in managing my mental health. It's an area that strongly covers the challenges of maintaining and developing your true sense of self. While psychology and biology cover much of who we are, I believe who we naturally are also includes a soulful element, an element we can suffer so much through at times. From a soulful perspective, I've come to understand the crossroads in my life. While to walk the path of choice (when it comes to choosing and maintaining who we are) is hard enough, the crossroad moments offer the choice of continuing along that path or choosing the path that will develop us even more or choosing the one that will lead us off course, also known as the path of conforming to the ways of the world. A process of elimination can be helpful. 'I cannot go back. If I remain on the path I'm on I'll continue to suffer in a number of ways. If I choose the path of conforming, I will face a loss of love for myself'. This leaves only one choice, 'I will choose a path I have never traveled before and I will travel along it with guidance'.

The people who've traveled a fair ways down the path you choose will be the one's who've already worked out how to navigate it to some degree and they're the one's who'll show you the greatest compassion, for they've been where you are. Such a person could be someone in the community, someone on the internet (a network of people) etc. It has been said that life is a network of choices, a network of intersections or intersecting points. The ultimate challenge comes down to knowing how to work the net❤️

[Ms.Me]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, therising. Unfortunately, for me, I have travelled the only paths allowed me in my life, and not one was in my best interest. I trusted those who should have been there for me, but betrayed me in unforgiveable and unsurviveable ways, used me, abused me and left me to...

I have come to the conclusion that perhaps we are not in control of our destiny; that it has already been decided for us by our ancestry. It shouldn't be, but that is how it currently seems to me. I have tried everyway possible to change my life's path and thought I had achieved it, then I was betrayed by the person who, I thought, had my 'safety harness', at a time in my life when I will not be able to recover. I am resigned to it, but my distress level at times, is unendurable. It is the betrayal that I will never be able to recover from. It was the last of many. The betrayal, the two-facedness, the pleasure they take in my pain and destruction...without conscience.

What possible reason is there that my entire lineage cannot escape this outcome? Why are some of us allowed to use and abuse others to get ahead; but others, like me, are left to pay for their success, and never know any ourselves–except in ways that only benefit us in inconsequential ways. Why do we get wise too late?

Is the whole of society structured that no-one–no underdog–can change this embedded system? That is–success depends on the status of whom they conquer, so that they can claim their status and all that belongs to it when they are brought mercilessly into subordination? Such has been the pattern of my life and my paternal forebears.

Today isn't good but I just keep plodding as long as I can. 

Cheers, therising. Stay well.

[therising]

Hi Flamingo23

I think life can be cruel, typically based on the people we find in it. Then you hear about folk who's lives change dramatically, from incredible sufferance to something unrecognisable. While people will often say their sufferance comes down to how hard they worked to escape it (I give credit where it is due), more often than not they have come across someone who's made the difference they desperately needed, in order for them to become who they are meant to be. An employer who took a chance on them when no other would have, a chance meeting with someone they've never met before who happens to say exactly what they need to hear at that time of life, someone compassionate with good instinct steering them in exactly the right direction. It seems so unfair that not everyone gets to meet the kind of person who makes all the difference.

I have the greatest of respect for all those who have changed the systems that did not serve the underdog. I imagine such challenges to be emotionally overwhelming at times. Sometimes I wonder how they would have managed the depressing nature of those systems, the stressful aspects that come with finding ways in which to do it and the incredibly enraging factors that must come with initial resistance and lack of help from those who wish to not change a damn thing (to suit themselves). I believe we need more 'trouble makers' in this world, more fighters, more rebels.

Perhaps this current generation of young people will change so much, largely based on their sensitivity. With the ability to so easily sense what's depressing, what's stressful or angering, what injustice feels like, what oppression and suppression feel like, what passion for the underdog feels like, what narcissists feel like, everything will begin to change. Until then, those who are left to feel it all continue to suffer the most.

We are creatures largely driven by emotion. Good leaders are those who direct the drive and keep it fueled.