despair

Today in India is Diwali…a festival of lights and life…of sweets, gatherings and gifts. Don’t know if it’s just my age or the effect of medicines but there’s a coldness to it all. There’s certainly sadness. I have lost everything of my immediate family - no spouse (divorced), no kids, no siblings. My parents were too old in any case and are gone as well. Professionally too i have been severely jinxed and a disaster and had no option but to go dormant. I have little to celebrate and can’t contrive myself to join the surge of celebration. Not that I don’t see the value of festivals. I’m a firm Hindu and cherish its faith, traditions and values. Always do my little ritual in the morning, praying for what little mercy the Gods can bestow and shield me from further calamities and disasters that my life otherwise has been over-chequered with.

Right now I’m shut in my apartment with my tiny dog who is all anxious and edgy with so many crackers going off in the neighborhood. I can sense the buzz outside and the buzz, excitement, shopping over last few days is so palpable. You can’t escape the celebration rubbed so hard on your nose - your facebook, insta, X newsfeed is full of acquaintances and friends sharing diwali greetings… in new attires, gatherings and celebration…yes…it’s terrible to be alone. But i have not broken down yet. I wondered first if somebody will call me over…few friends did call to wish me perhaps, few texted…i just didn’t feel like acknowledging. With no sense of joy, celebration & enthusiasm what do I partake in even if say I was invited over kindly by a friend? (my kins save for an aged uncle i’m totally & rightfully disconnected with) I have surfeit of sorrow, grief, despair and anguish that practically nobody acknowledges but yet want to share their positive vibes which I find incongruent, false and phony! Probably they mean well but it’s better i’m left alone to stew in my despair. There’s more honesty there…

Diwali is supposed to be a festival that wards off darkness and brings in hope, health and prosperity. It is when, in more figurative than literal ways, your life is suppose to light up. Alas…just about lit a candle, a single lamp in my room to emit some lustre…most of the lights have all but extinguished. Mere embers remain… fighting to keep complete darkness at bay. Also probably a life of suffering, loss, grief I find to be painfully truer even as I miss the celebrations, exuberances, optimism, meanings which may again be in bad faith, that people display in such festivities. Indeed till some years back I too was less pessimistic and more hopeful. Wish I could sign off by saying happy diwali…A festivity of lights that has dimmed…how soon will it extinguish? 😢#Grief #despair #Loneliness #dread #Anxiety #SuicidalIdeation

I had some success beating back depression and having better sleep (see previous post). But just as I succeed in taking steps to recovery, I slid back today. I took a long nap for no reason other than, “why not?” I had no reason to nap for so long or at all. Just none.

Am I wishing I was dead? Are all these oversleeps and long naps a form of suicidality? Just wishing I could close my eyes and the world would go away?

I want this to stop. I want to live my life! I have to live my life. What can I do to stop sleeping and shutting the world out?!
#BipolarDisorder #Bipolar1Disorder #BipolarDepression #Sleep #oversleeping #suicidality #Willtolive #despair #DepressionNaps #MajorDepression

I came across this - ‘sometimes in grief rock bottom so feels like home than a place of discomfort & joy is the scarier emotion.’

So is one’s sense of reassuredness obtained more in our seeming gloom, grief & misery? Is pain and anguish the overarching and more truer condition of our living? Not sure which philosopher it was - Schopenhauer or Spinoza or Kierkegaard who had a similar premise but speaking for myself, all the loss, defeats and shame I have endured, suffering has been more determining of life’s trajectory. Even as i cannot but acknowledge few moments of exaltation, joy and contentment, the larger narrative of misery and despair renders me deeply suspicious, indeed dread whatever seeming moments of happiness that objectively speaking is on hand. For example I should be elated today for my book has finally been published. But the occasion has only made my deep sense of loss more pronounced, absences of folks I hold very dear more acute and my grief so apparent.

The existential crisis - of loss of meaning, of no emotional peg to hold on to, the hollowness of positive affirmations, emptiness, the very collapse of hope, the uselessness of faith, sacraments & prayer - is so permanent, structural, so default that the so called affirmative, hope inducing path not to speak of so called moments of celebration & joy, appears so misguided & pathetic.😕

My ex is descending into vegetative state and i’m unable to provide any succour or reassurance to her…😢I love her so deeply…being with her was much more than being with a person…there was our house, our beautiful garden, our soul enriching dogs…it was elevated living in every sense of the word all coming together in her. In her presence, company I grew, my soul nourished and my spirits soared…But her ailments consumed her reducing her to an existence of excruciating pain (people can’t even begin to comprehend how debilitating her illness is) and agony. Yet she braves it all. She doesn’t want to give up. i still can’t & couldn’t deal with her suffering. And she couldn’t deal with my suffering me & she insisted on separation . I failed as a care giver. I felt so then and I feel so more now. Is it my love morphing into something evil that is causing her to suffer? To love is to suffer as someone said. The painful poignancy of it all. The appalling conditions of existence with its ordeals, misery & aches being showered on few in unrelenting flow🤦🏽 if my condition is such, imagine what she is undergoing saddled with both excruciating mental & physical condition.

The free who may have been following my posts here would probably figure my drift. Most may barely comprehend what i’m babbling about. I often don’t comprehend it myself. Figuring all these in isolation & loneliness is all I have for attempts at reassuring me by few (maybe well meaning) with bare cognisance of such travails, shame & suffering has been more damaging… most don’t even bother or attempt anymore. They have had enough of my moping & lament and my seeming inability to get over for many years now. But this grief is my own and overwhelming and i won’t allow anyone to trivialise it.

For as things stand i’m my own best friend, counsellor, confidant even as I’m my own critic & enemy. I dedicate the book to her - the endearing, bravest soul I know notwithstanding being rejected. The research, the writing, the readings, the visits, my work…all that the writing of the book involved her presence was constant. But it was no therapy. Today the despair and anguish has only flared up. What satisfaction or contentment leave alone celebration or joy when the most dear to me not around…?!!😢 I do want to be cherished, hugged and in the least desire quality time of deep conversation, over food, drink and drives -things which did transpire between us for sometime but alas ! Very voodoo of life undid it all and in certain viciousness! 😔 #Grief #ComplicatedGrief #Pain #Rejection #Shame #despair #Depression #Loss

I am trying to live with a mind that's constantly high or low; with no in betweens! Sometimes it's hard to face myself. Sometimes it's just hard to live, period.

I wake up to fight the same demons that I fought yesterday; it's a daily struggle! I'm just trying to live in this world but I must admit that these suicidal thoughts paralize me sometimes.

I know that on a physical level I'm alive but on an emotional level I feel dead inside like I am ready to collapse because I'm drowning in my sorrow and pain. . . .

Being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is very hard to accept because people judge you and try to make you feel like you're not normal; in reality normal doesn't exist anyway.

Having BPD and dealing with such intense emotions and struggling to even know who you are sometimes can make one feel hopeless honestly speaking but as a suicide attempt survivor I am not going to give up this fight!

Yes; trying to live with BPD is extremely difficult but I know I am not alone. I know I survived for a bigger purpose than myself. I know that I am more than my diagnosis. My identity is not defined by my mental illness.

I am trying to live, to do better, to survive, to have hope, to love again, to dream again, to fight, to be strong, and be brave in this life.

Because as long as I am breathing, there is life in me and that means there is purpose in me and I will never give up on that and neither should you.

We can fight this. We're in this together!

#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Trying #Suicide #SuicideAwareness #SuicidePrevention #Life #SuicidalThoughts #youmatter #fight #notalone #keepfighting #NeverGiveUp #Pain #sorrow #despair #Depression #BPD

#Depression
#despair
#Suicide
#988
#help
#mighty
#Sadness
#MORE than sad