A Good Life

As I wrote once, life becomes a big project of coping with daily problems on a daily basis if you have mental health issues. It's not easy, for it requires changing your mindset, which is an ongoing process with countless failures, and if you come from a toxic environment, e.g., a narcissistic family, like me, you need to undertake serious actions to protect your well-being, sometimes, even in legal aspects.

The most challenging task for me (and the most crucial at the same time) was to find out ways of fighting suicidal thoughts. How to find a reason for living? Where shall I search for my motivation? I was prepared that my resignation notions would never fade or go away. At least, I successfully fought delusions about it.

Sometimes, I just need to let go. Retreat. Give up. I do it because mental health is more important than anything else. Besides, these so 'important' things at that moment usually turn out to be a noisy background only.

Nevertheless, I had this one delusion that improving my accommodation would make me feel better mentally. So I did everything I could to provide myself with all those basic things most people don't even think about as they are so obvious: home, good healthcare, nutritious food, proper clothes, vacation... I have even adopted a dog - my big child's dream - and befriended many friendly people. The list of things I delivered is imposing. Yet, at some point, I realized that my mental health was precisely where I started my journey. 

"Wow!" I thought to myself. "Just wow! Nothing has changed, so what's the point of all these efforts?"

Well, there is one. Very expensive psychotherapy taught me that struggling with severe trauma requires having good 'items' I can turn to so that I can rest for a moment before I start another battle. Without them, I am exposed to being re-traumatized. Ergo - I have one more broken Russian Doll to deal with.

We, Suicidals

 We are a different species. Nobody can actually understand us; others can only accept that we exist. But honestly, that's enough, as lack of acceptance is one of the factors that kills us in the first place.

I don't know how it is to want to live. I just don't. If I had ever known, I forgot when I was five or six.

Why? What for? For this pain? For never-ending torment?

I can never predict when it will hit me. But it's easier to function knowing I'm not free from this burden. It is part of me; it's me, and I cannot deny myself. That's what the costly therapy taught me. 

The first baby step is to accept and love all your parts, even if no one in this world would do that. I'm sorry, especially when no one would do that. 

I was so tired of searching for the will of life in me that this effort was consuming the remnants of strength I had left. So, I stopped. I simply live life as it is, day by day.

My Story

It is good until it is not...

All the effort, all achievements are for vain. Yesterday, I was holding up looking into the future with hope, and today, everything vanished and I again want to die. Just die, disappear... I fell apart into small pieces. My heart feels unbearable pain.

Seemingly, I know the reason, but in fact, I am far from my own truth. It is still hidden. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been thinking about death, I wouldn't have wanted to kill myself, never in my life! 

My story, just as the story of my grandmother's and a couple of other people I've known, concerns unfulfilled love - being unloved by people we love the most. But when I was six, I wasn't able to name it like that; I wouldn't say that my parents broke my heart, especially my mother did, simply because I didn't know she doesn't love me. My father was absent, so, in the child's mind, the fault was on my side, not his. There was something wrong with me... 

That's why now, I relentlessly seek for people who don't love me and who for sure wouldn't have the will to want to be with me in order to experience this ordeal time after time. 

The Abyss

Today, I read on Twitter about the suicidal death of a woman, young, beautiful, smart and kind person, who was a TV star broadcasting the weather. As someone commented, 'no one knows what for real is in other person's head'. 

Well, I may tell you - it's an Abyss. 

A couple of times, I had these strange dreams about traveling into the darkness where there was simply big Nothing. The Abyss. And this is how most of my days look like: traveling into the darkness.

Why?

I can tell you that too. 

Me, as a baby and toddler, waiting for my mother coming back from her various 'entertainments' - those were the moments when I was traveling into the deepest darkness in the Universe, for I was dying thinking that she would never come back.

Me, as a ten-year-old and as a teenager, waiting for my mother coming home after work - those were the journeys into the evil darkness, for I was sure that, once she comes, she will torment me again and again.

This is waiting for something bad. 

And, as in my case, it always comes. Being abandoned by my mother (and also by an absent father) was as much dreadful as her being around. An impossible situation, without salvation. And it lasts. It has never ended. This is how my brain works. And my body. 

After work, I am coming back home and I am terrified though there is no one here who could hurt me. I sit in my flat and I am trembling when hearing any noise behind my double door.  And sometimes, bad things happen - and these are the moments I cannot deal with. 

You have no idea what kind of 'stupid' issues may trigger someone to commit the suicide. Except they are not banal, not for us, for they are the wide road to the darkness.

The Only Companion I Have

In the book "The Notes from the Abyss", I wrote that I distinguished at least five main factors that may lead to suicide thoughts... 

Well, I thought I was very honest by doing so, and that I am opening up about my real experiences and feelings. But the list is not completed. There is one particular thing making my life unbearable and turning my daily basis into nightmare. 

It is fear.

Not an anxiety, described in specialistic literature (e.g. by Joseph LeDoux), but rather the terror...

What I am afraid of?

My own mother. 

Since I remember (since I was two or three-year-old), I was scared to death in her presence. 

Now, imagine this situation - you live with the person you love the most; you are depended on her in every aspect of your life; you are alone and nobody knows what you're going through... And that person is your tormentor, some kind of lunatic that hurts you every time you look at her, and sometimes she's nice and seems to have quite clear mind.

First of all, I was afraid that she's gonna kill me. Literally. Unbelievable? Unheard of? She wouldn't be the first parent who kills the child after all, would she?

Second, I was physically maltreated. Tapped, pinched, brutally treated (e.g. when dressed). And couple of times severely beaten. I was constantly experiencing some kind of pain. All day long... 

Third, and probably the worst for my nerve system, I was humiliated, ashamed, offended, or just left alone, e.g. when she had decided not to talk to me for three days out of no reason. I don't remember any good day in my life with her. 

To sum up - I am trained only to be scared. The fear accompanies me in every second, every minute... and it never leaves me. But I want to leave the fear. I don't want to feel it anymore. But nothing helped. NOTHING! The death seemed to be the one and only solution.

To be honest, I was trying to find the remedy in wrong places and with wrong people. And this is not odd if we consider that I didn't really named the problem. Even when my friend, the lawyer, has been telling me that I am nothing to be afraid of, that the law protects me - I didn't feel a relieve. I think that I am only at the very beginning of my road to something better...

Anchor

I'm sure, you all know the touching stories about people who were trying to commit suicide, but, just before this final act, they met someone kind who told them not to do so... 

And how many people did NOT meet such person? 

I didn't.

I am invisible with my problems. Just as many other people are. 

We shouldn't be deluded - vast majority of population not only has little awareness about mental health problems, but they are not even interested in increasing their knowledge or empathy. We are alone. 

And I think that it is huge mistake to wait for someone who could help us. It is waste of time. Moreover, this attitude may lead us to making our condition even worse. 

I didn't kill myself only for one reason - Faith. I believed in God and I entrusted Him... But the example of my grandmother showed me that sometimes it is not enough. There is something missing that I should have given myself. And this one thing is God's gift: a talent. 

If I feel badly - I write. 

If I have problem that seems to be unbeatable - I write. 

If someone hurts me - I write.

My late uncle, while fighting with certain issues, was baking the cakes (and they were delicious). 

And everyone should find this one thing that become our anchor keeping us safe and alive.

Adoption is not an Option

I've never told about that anyone. I didn't even say this thing to myself, I didn't write it down in my diaries, thinking that if I will avoid the truth it would disappear. 

It didn't. 

The truth has this one feature that, when denied, it becomes real 'problem', it grows and tugs us stronger and stronger, until something breaks...

I regret I was born. 

Simple as that. Yet... appalling and unbelievable. 

I regret I came to this world and that I live my life. Why? At the first glimpse, because of the pain I live with. Because of the shame I feel though there is no reason to feel it. 

But when I go down deeper into my emotions, I see this unspoken thought suggesting that I shouldn't be born, because it would make some things easier... 

The question is what things? And for whom?

The demonic answer is that for me. I'm serious. I hear that 'voice' in my head. But this is ridiculous. 

I remember very well the countless situations my mother had been saying that she 'regrets' I was with her, because, if it wasn't for me, she could go out for a date with this handsome policeman... or do anything else. She was the one who was constantly pondering how her life would look like if she didn't have me. And she is not an exceptional situation, for we all heard about parents telling their children that they ruined the parents' lives only by coming to this world. 

So, by thinking I regret I was born, I still protect her. She didn't abort me and this is something good (but nothing extraordinary), however she had no ability to take care of me and she wasn't mature enough to find me someone who would ensure better protection and upbringing for me.

14 Reasons

The reasons I find myself not worthy of living:

1. I am not fully healthy

2. I cannot cope when working with psychopaths 

3. I spend money - for food, clothes, shoes, bus tickets, books, furniture (yes, basically everything)

4. I am not young

5. I am not pretty 

6. I am not skinny

7. I have no husband nor kids

8. My publisher is a thief 

9. My books don't sell well

10. I didn't provide any positive input for the society (I am not a good person)

11. God did not listen to my prayers (when I asked for one specific thing)

12. I don't speak to my family

13. I breathe

14. I am terrified 

Now, look at the list above and add one sentence: "and this is my fault". 

For I am blaming myself for everything - real or imagined. 

But there is something deeper, the fundament - conviction that until these reasons are live I am not worthy of being loved. 

And look at the point 14. - I am blaming myself for anxiety, my fears, psychosis that have been tormenting me for years. And this has no sense (if I think about it with clear mind), whatsoever. Yet the fear is the second 'leg' my mental problems are standing on, apart of guilt. 

The most important aspect of this situation is that I am programmed to find the new reasons as if some kind of tape with strange voice was broadcasted every time I feel better. Some evil power tries to pull me down and, in certain occasions, it is stronger and more vicious. 

But there is the truth hidden from my sight for years: the list shouldn't exist. This way of thinking is a denial of God's Law; this faul mindset that we need to 'deserve' for love, for life... And the fear I am experiencing is about I will never be good enough and I will never feel what does it mean to be loved. And if so... then the life has no sense.

Suicidal Daily Basis

In our lives, nothing can be taken for granted. But there is nothing less sure than living the life of a person with mental health problems. You don't know what the next day will bring, what may cause you're gonna feel even worse than yesterday; you cannot predict what could make you more anxious than you are daily. And you don't know if the upcoming events will ruin the fragile fundament your emotional stability depends on...

In my case, the absolute turn was when I accepted the fact that I cannot guarantee myself that I will stand another day without doing something stupid or harmful. I didn't do such a thing, still... I cannot be deluded. This awareness was one burden less on my shoulders.

For the most part of my life, I felt I was hounded. And, unfortunately, in too many situations, it wasn't only feeling but reality. I was hounded and bullied by my own mother and her family. Thus I become easy prey for other predators - at school, in the army, at my work... And this is something I cannot prevail, for I don't know whether another person will be tormenting me tomorrow and, by doing this, she or he will destroy me again. 

(Un)Aborted

As I wrote in my book "Guide for (Ultimate) Losers", people who survived an abortion or were unwanted (so the abortion was an option), very often are damaged. The natural, given by God, right to live was challenged, just as it was in my case, also after my birth when I was abused, both physically and emotionally.

For the most part of my existence, I wasn't aware of the fact that I am constantly questioning my basic rights and that, in fact, I don't feel worthy of living. My all prayers had been starting from begging Lord for death, for I couldn't stand such a situation. Maybe I was asking for His permission and confirmation that I am worthy of something, not for terminating my life? Of course, as a Catholic, I felt guilty that I don't want to prolong my existence, allegedly the biggest gift of Almighty... But I had to be honest because only honesty had been keeping me in vertical. 

God didn't take my life nor He didn't send me a solution for my problem... I shared the fate of millions of souls from all around the world suffering the excruciating pain of mental illness. And I was trying whatever I could to find the cure. I didn't find it either, but I found the answers and Awareness. I've learned about causes, symptoms and ineffective treatments that cost billions. I read dozens of books. I wrote thousands of pages of my memoirs... I know. I understand. I am aware. I've changed my life. But I am not feeling any better.

There was however something that started brightening the darkness of my 'wounded brain': the actions undertaken by pro-life groups and movements. I felt, for the first time in my life, that someone is speaking my voice, the voice I didn't have. I saw how determined these people are, how they are defending life and that their arguments are logical and real. 

The pro-lifers save not only unborn babies, but they also save everyone. 

Merger

At least a couple of times in my life, I experienced a very extraordinary situation in which I could see that, in fact, I live in two separate worlds that do not merge. One world represents the space in my brain that is responsible for the 'black hole' that leads me to suicidal thoughts. The second one is everything else.
Do you know what exactly is the world number 1? These are those scars on my amygdala made by my parents when I was so little that my brain was like soft wax which they could shape and change. These are the questions I asked and the answer was still wrong. So, in this world, I constantly ask the questions, I recreate the situations from my childhood, with the people who have the set of characteristics my parents had until I won't get the correct answers.
Leaving the world number 1 is impossible - I would have to deny my own self, for this is the core of my 'self' and I cannot simply stop being myself unless I intend to be a lunatic. But staying in this place also seems to be madness.

Well, I didn't leave this world, I just realized that its arrangement is wrong. I ask good questions and I should know the correct answers even if I don't 'feel' them. And I should try to rearrange the place. Both worlds need to be merged somehow. But I still don't know how...

My Books You Can Buy Easily

1. 'The Notes from the Abyss' [e-book] -> just check out this price!

2. 'Guide for (Ultimate) Losers [paperback] -> if you prefer to touch the book

3. 'Guide for (Ultimate) Losers' [e-book] -> just... buy it!