Tell me what's so good about life

[bloodymage]

I just saw this thread. read through the whole thing, praying you were OK. I'll continue those prayers. There's no advice I can give you that hasn't been given, but maybe I can give you something else; a mirror that'll make you look attractive. To wit:

• I suffer from severe clinical depression, insomnia and sleep apnea.
• My mother died when I was 20.
• My sister, my only sibling, committed suicide when I was 23.
• I flunked out of UCLA. Now I know it was medical.
• I was mugged in the Navy causing permanent damage.
• I flunked out of college again, still unaware of my condition.
• My oldest son, adopted at 5, has had 27 life-threatening surgeries.
• My second son had open heart surgery at 5 years of age.
• My third son is ADD.
• My wife accused me of sexually abusing my sons and divorced me. She works for the DA. She got a permanent restraining order after CPS concluded there was nothing to investigate. She decided what was mine and what was hers and put "my" stuff in the garage, but would not allow me to pick it up. Our house foreclosed and what belongings she deemed mine were gone with it. I've never had enough money after the separation to hire a lawyer to fight her. I haven't had any contact with my boys since November, 1997.
• My father died in 1999 of Lou Gehrig's Disease. He was the last of any family I had.
• Money from my retirement, ~$24K, intended to clear a bunch of wreckage from my life, was sucked out of my account by the courts for a debt my ex-wife had told me was paid.
• My heat is turned off because I can't pay for it.
• I just got my phone back on.
• I just received a 30-day termination letter from the USPS because I've been AWOL due to a depressive bout.

All of this and more, from a kid who was nominated to the Naval Academy and received a full four-year scholarship to UCLA! I'm 51 years old now and I've gone through enough to kill a horse and there's no sign of it letting up. What's good about life? I'm alive. I wonder at that every day. I have no one, I have nothing, there's no bright future left, but I marvel at the miracle that God has given me the obstinancy to drag it out to the bitter end.

Buck up, kiddo. Your life ain't really that bad. Give it a few more decades. I'll betcha things turn out better for you than they have for me.

 

[Piratecat]

Bloodlymage, if I were you, you know what I think I'd do? Go to the south pacific. I'd get a job on a steamer, go to some south seas island in a bad imitation of Gauguin, and live somewhere glorious where prices are cheap, the weather is beautiful, and I could get paid for honest labor.

I wish you the best of luck, my friend. You've had more than your share of pain, and I'm amazed at your resiliency.

Vyper, I'm sorry about your great-grandmother. I'm glad she got to have you with her during her final moments. I imagine she truly would have appreciated that.

 

[Ferox4]

I wish you the best of luck, my friend. You've had more than your share of pain, and I'm amazed at your resiliency.

I'll second that!

You are one strong son of a gun, bloodymage. Man, I don't know if many people could handle your situation. You have my best wishes.

Cheers.
F4

 

[bubbalin]

There are a lot of broken hurting people here, including the one behind this keyboard...

What I have to add as paraphrased roughly from Matthew 28.

...And I will be with you always to the end of the age...

There's more to this life, and somebody who is always watching out for you, even if you don't know what the hell is going on...

 

[Truth Seeker]

There are a lot of broken hurting people here, including the one behind this keyboard...

What I have to add as paraphrased roughly from Matthew 28.

...And I will be with you always to the end of the age...

There's more to this life, and somebody who is always watching out for you, even if you don't know what the hell is going on...

Here, here...

 

[BSF]

My word!

Bloodymage, your circumstances make my blood boil, but that hardly helps. I hope you get to one day see justice done, because you haven't seen it yet.

Vyper, losing family is hard. Remember the good memories. Losing the girlfriend is hard as well. But, remember that it just means you two weren't as compatible as you would have liked to believe. Remember the good times and use the bad times as a lesson to help find the type of person you are really looking for.

 

[Belen]

Wine, women, song?

As a lot of people have mentioned, we have all felt this way at some point in our lives. Having family is a good reason to stick around. If someone loves you, then things cannot be so bad!

The important thing to know is be true to yourself. Do not worry about what anyone thinks of you. If you can really define yourself, then you have already made it.

Be who you are, do not let anyone tell you who you are, and life will begin to get easier.

Trust me, time changes all things. Give yourself a little bit of it and you'll find that a year from now, you will wonder why you could think such thoughts.

 

[Hida Bukkorosu]

Hey Hida, just wanted to let you know that your post didn't go unnoticed. I've been praying for you as well. I know being single can be tough, but being in a relationship can be tough too, just as both relationships and singlehood offer different forms of happiness. The important thing isn't to expect another person to "complete" you. That won't ever happen. Only God can do that, and if you let him and He determines that the time is right, he'll introduce you to that special someone made just for you. And trust me, that virginity you're holding onto will be a priceless gift. I wish I had waited to give mine to my future wife. Hang in there.

i'm not going to go into why i don't expect this particular advice to work, on account of that would be debating religion, but suffice it to say that I tried it for 10 years and it didn't work for me. YMMV.

Well after Episode III there's the DVD's, then Peter Jackson's version of the The Hobbit, and the Chronicles of Narnia...and maybe somewhere the girl of your dreams and kids of your own to show all those movies to on your cheap HDTV. Definitely worth waiting for, don't you think?

very true

anyway, it's good to see you're doing better, uzumaki. wish i had good advice to give on how to handle the worst of it, but the way I do it is probaby a bad idea in the longterm and most certainly not healthy. still, indulging in a "vice" habit may at times be the lesser of two evils, if it's keeping you alive. As long as it's a legal vice.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Uzumaki, neither I nor anyone else can tell you why you feel like you do, or what you should do about it, but please, talk to someone when you feel that bad.

As horrible as life can be sometimes, it can also be wonderful, and it can be hard to realize that until you're in danger of losing everything. So many people who have survived suicide attempts say that they regretted trying to throw away what they had, but it was too late to stop... no one should be forced to confront that.

Stay healthy, ok? And try cookies, especially chocolate ones. They usually make me feel better. Although overdoing them just makes things worse... well, that's another thread altogether.

 

[Ferox4]

MMmmmm.......... here's to chocolate cookies!!