I DON'T WANT TO SURVIVE, I WANT TO LIVE!!!

[woofwag]

You know it's bad when your only emotion that hasn't died yet is the instinct to survive. When your heart keeps beating but it doesn't feel loyal to you, but rather its own ritual of pumping blood over and over and over, like a continuous prayer to a religion you don't practice. You know it's bad when eating and drinking feels like betraying yourself, because to love what's lost is not to love at all, and you've lost the will to live, so why are you feeding something that has nothing left to do now but degrade? You know it's bad when death feels like a kindness. Because at what point is suicide merciful? The body doesn't know the difference between oxygen and helium. It knows to breathe. It knows the process to survive, but even when there's nothing there for it to give to the cells to fuel them, it just keeps doing what it knows to do. But all those cells are starving and the neurons are collapsing. It doesn't panic. It doesn't know better. It doesn't know that it's the last thing left to die.

I'm not the kind of person to think that I'm draining resources from the world by fueling this body. Yet I've never felt thanked by my body for helping; only punished for not doing exactly what it wants. The world feels like one big punishment for daring to exist, and for every battle I win against it, I'm still losing the war. It doesn't feel noble to bear a miserable existence. It feels like I'm the heart pumping the same tired blood, but the difference is that at least real blood is going somewhere, while I spin in circles like a dizzy mouse, sure to someday be caught in the metal snare of whatever trap I wander into. I'm so sick of it that it makes me nauseous. I don't want to keep biting at scraps, darting back into the walls of my sorrow as I wait for something good on the other side to show up, something that isn't a momentary spark of joy, because even those can be dangerous, even the most beautiful things can be full of poison, people who I trust who betray me, dopamine-driven tasks that only leave me more lethargic, drugs that bring me high then lower than before, all the money and sex and fucking piles upon piles of garbage, all of it plastic, all of it trauma, and it won't ever degrade. Not in my lifetime. I can't heal if the world keeps dumping more shit on top all the goddamn time.

You know it's bad when the poison looks better than staying safe within the walls. You know it's bad when safety feels more dangerous than just getting it over with already. Can't we just do more than stay surviving in pain? Can't we just fucking live? Because right now, it feels like the only way out of this pit is a rope that'll take my neck with it.

 

[timf]

Using a combat sort of lens to describe one's struggles tends to leave one with a feeling that even victory would be empty. It might be interesting to describe things through a gardening lens.

There are still hazards such as weeds, but the context offers a harvest as a positive outcome rather than just the end of combat. Additionally, a perspective can be held that considers what can be grown. In the midst of struggles consideration can be given, even if only peripherally, to elements in life that one can control and offer respite, entertainment, and even solace.

The combat lens can be useful for dealing with a particular problem, but the gardening lens can be useful to consider what can be built, or controlled that might add to one's life.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Using a combat sort of lens to describe one's struggles tends to leave one with a feeling that even victory would be empty. It might be interesting to describe things through a gardening lens.

There are still hazards such as weeds, but the context offers a harvest as a positive outcome rather than just the end of combat. Additionally, a perspective can be held that considers what can be grown. In the midst of struggles consideration can be given, even if only peripherally, to elements in life that one can control and offer respite, entertainment, and even solace.

The combat lens can be useful for dealing with a particular problem, but the gardening lens can be useful to consider what can be built, or controlled that might add to one's life.

I really like the gardening analogy. It makes sense too- if maybe we could change our perspective so that maintenance is expected and we view it more like that rather than a battle each time.

I suppose the problem is still- what if we don't enjoy gardening? What if it really gives us next to no pleasure for the backbreaking work it still requires? Whether it's weeding or defeating our nemesis, if we don't enjoy it, is there so much difference? It's still something we're loathed to do but, need to do, or else life will become even worse.

I think that need to do something we have no desire to or may even outright dread. Plus, the knowledge of the terrible consequences if we don't do it may still give us that same sense of anxiety. Maybe it's less intense than through the combat lense but, maybe that also means we feel less motivated to do whatever it is. Because, it isn't a battle we have to win. It's a patch in the garden we may just surrender to the weeds.

I tend to feel the same as OP really, in that I'm asking myself so often: 'Why am I bothering to do any of this?' So that life doesn't get worse- is usually the answer but, it's not the most motivational/ inspiring reason to keep pushing through life's chores. So, embarassingly- I don't now. I let them build up till I have to view them through the combat lens to deal with how bad they've gotten!

I love the way you described your perspective OP. Not that that's likely to mean much but, it was almost poetic in places.

 

[trashhologram]

I also want to live. Right now I just exist. I'm here, wasting my days, and not living. I breathe, I eat, I drink water, I exercise, I work... But I'm just waiting to die or for some miracle that makes me feel good again. Sure, I have good days, but most of my days are just... MEH. Not good, not bad. Plain. Boring. And then there are days that are horrible.

I can't do this for another 30 years.

 

[woofwag]

I really like the gardening analogy. It makes sense too- if maybe we could change our perspective so that maintenance is expected and we view it more like that rather than a battle each time.

I suppose the problem is still- what if we don't enjoy gardening? What if it really gives us next to no pleasure for the backbreaking work it still requires? Whether it's weeding or defeating our nemesis, if we don't enjoy it, is there so much difference? It's still something we're loathed to do but, need to do, or else life will become even worse.

I think that need to do something we have no desire to or may even outright dread. Plus, the knowledge of the terrible consequences if we don't do it may still give us that same sense of anxiety. Maybe it's less intense than through the combat lense but, maybe that also means we feel less motivated to do whatever it is. Because, it isn't a battle we have to win. It's a patch in the garden we may just surrender to the weeds.

I tend to feel the same as OP really, in that I'm asking myself so often: 'Why am I bothering to do any of this?' So that life doesn't get worse- is usually the answer but, it's not the most motivational/ inspiring reason to keep pushing through life's chores. So, embarassingly- I don't now. I let them build up till I have to view them through the combat lens to deal with how bad they've gotten!

I love the way you described your perspective OP. Not that that's likely to mean much but, it was almost poetic in places.

I think I'm struggling to understand applying the gardening lens to this scenario I'm describing, although I kind of understand. I know I don't sound it, but I generally try to be the kind of person who takes on hard tasks and takes my failures as invitation to keep improving rather than give up. But that's not what's happening in my life right now. The things that I'm upset about aren't that I'm trudging through repeated failures while living my life, it's that I'm spiraled totally out of control. For example, I am a writer. I love writing. I love reading. And I haven't been able to do either for so long because I'm constantly caught in the midst of a breakdown. I literally cannot function. I just sit around and rot because my brain doesn't work anymore. I need help but my brain and body reject 90% of medication, and unfortunately therapy can't cure my POTS/ADHD/autism/PTSD/depression/all the other billion things I have. It can mitigate, but it can't make my misery fall away. And that's not even mentioning the state of the world right now too. Pretty hard to have hope when half my country wants me to be dead just for being trans. I think if all I needed was a change in perspective to help myself be better, I would have done that years ago. This was just more of a "I'm falling the fuck apart" vent sort of thing I guess. Still, I do appreciate the kind words. And thank you Forever Sleep, for saying it's a bit poetic too -- I feel so much recently that I'm losing that part of me. It's nice to know it's still somewhere there in my writing.

I also want to live. Right now I just exist. I'm here, wasting my days, and not living. I breathe, I eat, I drink water, I exercise, I work... But I'm just waiting to die or for some miracle that makes me feel good again. Sure, I have good days, but most of my days are just... MEH. Not good, not bad. Plain. Boring. And then there are days that are horrible.

I can't do this for another 30 years.

Yeah, I understand :( I wish we could just live without being forced to do so much bullshit. I think at the very least not having to work would make it easier...

 

[fedup1982]

I wish I could die so much. I wasn't meant for this world, I get less joy and suffer more compared to most people, it's just how I'm built. Fuck life. I wish I had a peaceful method