Manda... Call one of the numbers... all you have to say is... I need to talk with someone. You don't have to give your name or where you are....

PLEASE... I know it isn't easy but these people on the other end of the phone line are there for you!!! They WANT to talk with you... they are trained...and they will talk with you as long as you want to talk.

There is NO shame in asking for help... you are reaching out... please let your fingers dial the numbers.

Here is another number that can help...
Boys Town: 1-800-448-3000.

Here is their web site: http://www.boystown.org/Pages/default3.aspx

ha, one of the numbers says they're open til 4pm only...i wish that's how my emotions worked. it says in case of emergency to call a diff number. i don't know if this is an emergency. i just want to talk to a doctor.

i can't even call my parents....because i spent like an hour yesterday telling them i haven't had suicidal thoughts in awhile. and now here i am. if i tell them, they'll be on their way to pick me up and make me move back to the city i hate so much.

Manda...

I hope you have contacted someone...

If you haven't... please call your psychiatrist or even a new one... call any Psychiatris's office...tell them you need to talk to and see someone TODAY.... let them know you are having some not so good thoughts.

I know the number for Boys Town has someone available 24/7.

Sweetie... YOU ARE WORTH IT!!! YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK!!!

:hug:
Abbie

thank you SO much for being there for me, abbie. although these bouts are getting less frequent and shorter in length, they still bring me down so much.

i am not a very religious person at all...but last night, i believe i got a bit of good energy sent my way from some sort of higher power. my friend that lives across the country called me out of the blue. i haven't seen him in a year (no hard feelings, we still keep in touch when we can). i couldn't believe it. he called me just as the first tear hit my cheek. i regained some hope and faith in people around me. he wants me to move to a new city by the ocean with him....he's got me tempted...but i can't keep trying to run away. i need to build.

maybe i should re think my religious views....

thanks again! you're my rock

Manda...

I'm so glad your friend called you just when you needed someone... coincidence... I don't think so... I believe that everything in our lives happens for a reason.

You are right on when you say you need to build... You've got the tools... and loads of support. Each piece you need to build with is inside of you!!

You may need a Psychiatrist to help you with finding the next piece you need and where to place it in your life.

You may need a Therapist to help you understand why things are the way they are...and help you find where you are going and what your are building.

I'm not saying that moving to the coast where your friend is located is a bad thing... or a good thing....

I want to say from experience...that if you don't have a grip on what is going on... your problems and troubles will follow you everywhere you go... You can't hide from your life.

As far as religion... That's a hard thing because each of us has our own unique beliefs. Some don't believe. Some question. Some believe and have a wonderful relationship with God. Some struggle to find their place in this world.

This is only a suggestion.... maybe try a few churches to find one that feels right. I always say I have to find a church that feels like home.

I had found that, but due to my personal problems I stopped going, but am not giving up... I am building strength and working on my life so that I can find a church home.

It may be the one that I loved... or it may be another church all together.

I know, some will say that now is when I need a church home because the people there can help me deal with what is going on.... I tried... but that just isn't me.

But please know...this may be for you... all I can say is...give yourself a chance... give life a chance... if going to church is something you want to check out--then by all means...give God a chance.

I take it one day at a time...often times though I have to go minute by minute, second by second, and breath to breath.

I can and do pray for family, friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, family of friends, and friends of family.

BUT.... I have a hard time and many time will not pray for myself... this something that I am working on.

:hug:
Abbie

thank you (as always) abbie. i've spent the weekend evaluating my beliefs. i've been listening to music and reading lyrics. i feel like i'm close to knowing what i have to do, but i'm not quite there yet. i know i need to leave the past behind, but am struggling to do so. i even just took a simple step as deleting some toxic people from my facebook.

i'm finally understanding what all of you have been saying to me--i'm in a new city and i have the ability to start fresh. why bring cracked faces into my new world? i'm trying hard. i'm trying so hard.

i'm still tormented by nightmares each night but i try and wake up knowing i create my reality even if my mind plays tricks on me while sleeping.

i think the suicidal thoughts are sometimes quieted by the simple fact: what if after i die, it's one ongoing nightmare that i don't have the ability to change?

although i really don't like my life right now, at least i know what is in it. i don't know what waits for me after death. what if it's worse? that fear has "helped" in preventing too many destructive thoughts

i'm trying so hard. i'm trying so hard. this weekend was hard.

:grouphug::hug:I count trying as success.:hug:

for some reason that just brought tears to my eyes, sue...
....thank you.

i've got shivers.

thank you.

sometimes it's nice to feel emotions and see what they do to me physically and know that i'm very much alive...

Good for you for deleting the toxic people! That's a very good move.

:hug:

Shoot The Damn Dog A Memoir of Depression by Sally Brampton

"I once read a theory about "positive thinking" that seems to me to be true or, at least, made a sufficient impression on me to remember it. I have always been distrustful of positive thinking, believing it to be as fixed and unyielding as negative thinking. Yet it is the advice most often offered to depressives. That is does not work seems not to occur to those who offer it up like some benevolent panacea. Perhaps it works for them or perhaps they are a product of some positive thinking gene pool. Who knows? Anyways, here is the theory that helped me. I hope that it will help you too.

Imagine that you are driving a car, and that you are heading straight for a brick wall. If you stay in habitual or rigid thinking (the sort of thinking that says, "this is the way I always do things) and do not change the direction in which you are headed, you will drive your car into the brick wall.

Now imagine that you are driving that same car towards that same brick wall. Now use positive thinking to imagine that the way is, in fact, a tunnel. It is not, of course, you simple hope or wish that it is a tunnel but it is the same old, intractable brick. You still drive your car into the wall.

You are in the same car, facing the same wall except that you use creative or constructive thinking. You see the wall as an obstacle set dead ahead and see that it is solid and immovable. You use your thinking to change direction and drive your car around it.

Understanding that our thinking is not always helpful sounds so obvious and simple. So does changing our thinking, yet both are formidable difficult to do, perhaps because, most of the time, we never question it. We just go right ahead and do what we have always don, in the same way we have always done it. We crash into relationships, mess up jobs, ruin friendships and all because we believe that our way is the right way.

There is a saying: "I'd rather be right than happy."
And here is another, "My way or no way."

I see that wall as a symbol for an obstacle (or obstacles, there may be many) in our emotional make-up. If we go on behaving in the same way, we will crash. If we pretend that those obstacles in our character don't exist, or are something else entirely, we will still crash. But if we acknowledge them and behave in a different way, we will come to a better and safer place. Or at least we will, until we meet the next one."

**********************

Her words so reminded me of our Pters words:


As to the thoughts, I will be the first to say they are exhausting and, as I have said previously, they tire us to a point where we honestly believe suicide is the only solution. It is not. BEFRIEND and TALK. These thoughts are a part of you, for better or worse. I believe strongly in a physiological connection with suicidal thoughts. Our fear of the thought stimulates a negative physiological reaction which appears to give the negative thoughts enhanced power over us. Step back for a moment and place yourself in an imaginary situation. You see a child running into a busy roadway...you run quickly to save this child from oncoming cars...feel the reaction rising in your body. The adrenaline pounding throughout your body and brain. Now the rescue is over, your alone, feel the exhaustion of your body and mind.

You are rescuing yourself daily, hourly, every few minutes. Each thought envokes a physiological reaction with the end result being exhaustion. Befriend this thought. Treat it as you would the child who ran into the pathway of cars. Hold it, talk to it, teach it that there is another way to walk the roads of life. Post it here and allow others to comfort it. Do not be ashamed of it. What is it really but a thought that wants attention. Understand now, I did not say a PERSON who wants attention but a THOUGHT that wants attention from that person. It is the fight against the thought that tires us and makes us vulnerable to enactment of the thought.

I cannot give you a reason to live. I can, however, take away your reason for dying. An untrained unaccepted thought is not justification for death.

I am cheating because I can't say any better than what abbie's said...

but I am thinking of you, Manda...

I have my take on religion and such, but that's something that I hesitate to discuss in forums...

what I WILL say is this..

"Religion" is about finding your spiritual self....whether that's through church, philosophy, gurus, doolahs, superman, or a piece of rock...

whatever makes you feel your self-worth....that SPIRITUALITY, is what is important...

I could also go into a whole mess of transcendentalism and/or existentialism and/or empirical-ism....

but as Abbie's said, there has to be THAT comfort zone....and even if you find one that's comfortable, you might still move on and try again...

don't settle, know that you're too special to settle....

sorry if my view would've have offended anyone...that's just my take on things....

:hug:

i don't mean to sound needy....but please pray for me tonight.....
...i'll explain later

Manda
 

Thank you for trusting us as members of NeuroTalk. You will find tremendous support and genuine understanding here. Your friends who appear to have turned away from your cries for help - and I KNOW that hurts - simply have no inkling what to say or do. They don't want to accidentally make things worse by saying the wrong thing. So they are silent. Please investigate all avenues of therapy: medications, counseling, case management through a Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, exercise if you can manage it, prayer, and calling on us. Someone in an above post noted that you are young. Youth can be a painful time, but :hug:the best time for hope. Finally, I know that you are ready to escape the pain and suffering, but I know that you couldn't want to die, since you have no idea what that is like - except that it's the end of all choices. And right now, there are so many choices. God Bless You, and keep writing. :hug: billie

hi all,
i did something last night that i needed to do for awhile. i went and deleted a bunch of bad memories and got rid of some material things that also held bad memories. it took a lot out of me. more than a few tears, too.

but...something happened. i met a new friend and her and i went out for coffee. it felt nice to know i can still be attractive as a friend.

i'm starting to wonder about the balance in the world....that is, is one always achieved? i wonder.

i'm really trying to be patient and wait for that referral. i've been writing a lot more. i actually even WROTE out some goals for myself. something about writing them out that makes me more likely to stick to them.

thanks for your thoughts...i'm still not sure my view point on religion....but some sort of energy is going through the air right now....it's interesting to be open to it.

thank you all, i know i keep going through such downtimes and it's probably not the greatest thing to read every day. i'm trying.

I believe in the balance of the world. But I don't believe the balance is always achieved (but wish so) in one's life time.

I always refer back to Beethoven...who died of pain and illness and poverty...yet, he lives on forever...

I think of some of the Roman Emperors, who engaged in orgies and lascivious life style (Caligula comes to mind) that killed and murdered and raped at will...
then, he was assissinated and hated til this day...

I think of the babies that never even have a chance to make it out of their mothers' womb but of their contribution to others because it will make the doctors document, ask questions, do more research, and try better...and in a way, that's a kind of balance...

I wonder at the evils in this world, that if we didn't have them, would we know what good means?

If we never have chaos, why have order?

I believe in balance...I believe there are balances that we can try to achieve on our own, but I also believe in balances that are destined for itself...the ones we may never know of, but that will still be there...

"It all ends in sync"
"for every positive, there's a negative and vice versa"

it is from these philosophies that we have science...

it is from this philosophies that we have the "Alpha and the Omega"

Without the Alpha, why have the Omega?

Yes, I believe in balance...

and I believe in you, Manda....:)

:hug:

Dear MandaC
 

It's hard to know why we're here, particularly when there is so much pain within us and we are lonely. I suffer from major depression, obsessive thoughts, anxieties and fears which keep me essentially housebound. But we end all possibilities of hope at death. Until then, we can anticipate that change will be ongoing and that, with effort at concentrating on the positive, that change will be positive. We have no idea what death holds. I don't know this, but my sense is that you are relatively young and do in fact have a good chance of meeting a partner that will accept and support you. No one can understand us entirely and cannot come too close unless they have the same essential conditions. What are the good things in your life? Do you have chronic pain or one of the major medical conditions? Do you suffer body dysmorphic disorder and [falsly] hate going out for fear of how you look. Do you have work, family? If you are in fairly good physical health and social anxiety/self image is fair, Hang on to these good things and grow them by concentrating on them as opposed to the negative. Even as I say this, I am all too well aware of how hard it is to do, and I am barely taking baby steps toward positive changes in myself. But we are here for a reason, and part of that reason is to learn how to live. This life is the chance we have for that, and that ends with death, leaving us unprepared, I believe. Bless You for coming to this forum for help. It is a great thing to do. So many of us share your conditions and feelings. May God Bless You and, through this forum and other events, show you the way out. :hug: billie

hi all,
it's been a very busy time for me. i will write you all back this weekend.
i've been keeping you close all week as i've been trying to keep my head and heart on track.

love you all
manda

praying that i get a call from the doctor i was referred to. i don't know how much longer i can be "patient"

Manda-don't be a "good patient" or even "patient". Call the doctor's office several times a day. Tell them your Grandmas Sue said you need to see the doctor now. Keep posting-we will help you wait.

i hope for forgiveness one day. i'm not so selfish that i don't care about other people's forgiveness. i hope one day this is communicated to everyone in my past.

You can ask them and if they understand, they will forgive. If they don't or won't or can't understand, then that is OK-it is not on your shoulders.:hug:

Is there a chance that ppl forgive years from now? Is there a chance that even if they do, I'll never know. I wish they knew how much it would mean to me to actually HEAR it

I agree with Alfie. This guy you were with has some serious honesty and character problems. These are NOT your problems, they're HIS. He doesn't have to realize that you are a good person for you to be one. You are recognized as a good person of strength and character by NT members. You will find someone much more worthy of you, and these memories will fade. I understand your depression and have suffered with it all my life. I also understand the loss of a significant relationship. In your case, however, this had nothing to do with you and everything to do with your ex-bf's problems. I Care about you and am following your postings. billie

I know what you mean
 

I know what it feels like to sense that family is abandoning you. That doesn't always mean that they are, though. I talk to my family only about inconsequential things, because my father's age and my brother's busyness do not allow them to think about my real problems. Due to isolation, I do not have the friends that you seem to have. You have MANY, MANY FRIENDS here at NT. Your future will see improvement in all your circumstances. Caring about you - billie

taken me awhile to write back. thanks for the words billie. i'm trying to remember that it's HIS problem and not mine....it's hard, but i try to remind myself every day :) i appreciate your empathy. it's nice to feel like someone else understands. i don't feel as alone.

i've had a rough week. there's too much to write. there has been a very unexpected death in the family which has crippled everyone it seems. unfortunately i'm not in the same city as the rest of my family, but am driving home tonight at 11pm. when unexpected deaths happen, i can only think about all the people i have unresolved issues. i have apologized to all these people, so i guess i've done my part. i just wish they'd accept the apology and not have things on bad terms....death always makes me think about these things and all the bad terms....and how unnecessary they are. but i guess i can't force someone else to realize that, as long as i realize it for myself, right? i've done my part.

this song is very fitting for the moment: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/benha...easebleed.html

the lyrics are very fitting for what i'm going through and how i feel that everyone around me (NT excluded) seems so hard...like stones. it makes me cry every time i read/hear it. but i can't stop reading/listening to it.

i have a job interview on monday. i'm very nervous. it's in my old city. i can't find work anywhere else and my current job is just a term til the end of Sept. we'll see how it goes. i get scared of change, but i force myself to embrace it as it normally goes well.

love you all. hope everything is going well with all of you.

manda

manda
put all your hope in God,,He will help you

1st peter 5:6-11 proverbs 3:5-6 and psalms 41:1-4 you are in my prayers tonite

Hope
 

Good luck on your interview Manda. I'm pulling for you.

Manda-Alffe mom gave you a special hug on her post in wonder thread today. YOU are the only one who got a special hug. A hug by name. Barbo and I did NOT get a hug by name. But we are NOT jealous. We are mature ladies, right, Barbo?
Manda, I will be thinking of you (by name) today and visualizing how calm and happily expectant you will be getting ready for your interview-just remember how lucky they will be if they are smart enough to hire you.:hug:

Good luck
 

Ditto to everything you said Sue.

How did the interview go Manda? :hug: We are here for you. :grouphug:

didn't get the job. my life is in a period of major change. i'm trying to keep my head above the water. trying hard.

i have a hard time thinking of only myself in decisions. i always take into account a third party. why don't i realize that i should only take myself into account? i always think about "hmmm the reason my last relationship failed is b/c i moved away and the long distance think didn't work...maybe i should move back home?"

ugh. i hate my ways of thinking.

I'm sorry you didn't get the job Manda. Sometimes it's just a struggle to see the forest for the trees. Keep trying dear girl...something will fall into place. :hug:

:hug: Manda-you said you are trying-trying hard-that is the key-keep trying and like Alffe said-things will fall into place.:hug:

Dear MandaC-I feel your pain,but you can not give up! No one knows what tomorrow will bring,every new day is like a blank canvas,a new start,its up to us what we paint on it! I will put you in my prayers.

i don't want to be here anymore. i'm not getting better. it's been a year since jay and i broke up, and i can't stop obsessing about it. it never leaves me. i don't know how to stop these thoughts. i think i'll only find relief if my mind is no longer working.

i just want to end everything. i'm just as torn down and torn up as i was a year ago. i can't accept i won't hear from him again.

i can't accept anything. i wasn't made for this. i wasn't given the skills to survive emotional distress. i was made faulty. maybe i wasn't supposed to even live this long.

i'm paralyzed.

i hope someone is here. i really need someone.

I'm here Manda