Lost my job, my wife, my mind, my friends, my passions, my connection to my mind and the ability to feel joy. If has been 18 months. I have tried everything and feels like this new me is here to stay. However, I feel like I have no use for this new person I have become. How easy it would be for it to.just be all over. The idea of living with constant headaches, fatigue, pain, and suffering and staying jobless while looking at the world through this twisted carnival ride of a lens. The only reason I am here is because of how much agony my mom would feel if I decided to off myself tomorrow. Its the only thought rattling in my head these days.

I'm very sorry you're feeling so terrible and overwhelmed by it all.
Please talk to your doctor about your feelings. If you belong to a support group or a church, perhaps you can talk to a counsellor there who can help you through this dark time.

If you need to talk to others who have felt the same way or who have family who felt the same way, then there is always the SOS Forum - Survivors of Suicide where you can freely and there are always members who will listen to you. That's sometimes half the battle - finding someone who will listen.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-c...e/art-20048230
How to stay safe and find treatment , get through a crisis and find treatment.

In reading through some of your past posts, it appears you have always hung onto a need to recover fully. Have you even tried to reinvent your life ?

Losing your spouse is not uncommon. Up to 80% of people with prolonged brain injury struggles do.

I have almost constant tinnitus. I say almost because I have learned to ignore it. I have frequent head aches. My last concussion left me with chronic headaches for about a year. My 1994 concussion caused headaches for about a year. I live needing to moderate anxiety triggers. I am not always able to so I put up with those times and know they will end. I have very little short term memory. I am always aware of my memory issues because they are so pervasive.

I have plenty of brain injured friends who strive on in their lives with symptoms that make our PCS look like a picnic in the park. Headaches that cause vomiting is just one.

Others here on NT did not see improvements until well into their second year.

Have you applied for Social Security Disability Income ? It's not great but I have survived on it for 9 years. I know others who have, too.

Have you found a Brain Injury Support Group ?

They are very helpful.

You still have plenty of reasons to keep moving forward.

btw, My first experience with thinking about ending it was when I was only 11 years old. But, day by day, I went forward. That was 49 years ago.

My best to you.

qtipsq,

I have been on a roller coaster over the last 13 months but the last 2 have gone down a lot. I hear what you are saying. I feel deeply disconnected from everyone, from my life, and from joyful experiences for the most part. I have good therapy but it's going to be a very slow process. Even though I know intellectually it will work, I don't feel it in a moment to moment basis.

You have to make a pact to keep going moment to moment. Get a lifeline like a therapist or a suicide hotline, support group, or the forum Lara suggested. I am not making light of it because I am in these feelings too.

I don't know if our situations will change. But I do know that we can change how we respond to them. It is hard but with help I learned to do it once before, so I know it can be done.

keep talking to us
Julie

It feels.like the 30 years of.my life have all been wasted by this concussion. My education, my passions, my relationship. I was married for two months and than this happened. I became a completely different person, my emotions have gone wild, crying everyday for over a year an a half. I cry at weird things, looking at things that remind.d me of the past. It just doesn't make sense.

Also now the only people I relate to are also brain injured. I am not seeing a point in a life that has forgot the ability to feel joy. I was the type of person that could stare at s tree for an hour and be in a complete sense of awe, now I feel emptiness. also I took joy in my silence, now its a constant buzz that makes me want to be violent towards myself. I know brain injuries can be much more severe and people are dealing with them but I am not one of those people. This injury feels like death has already happened.

I know what you're saying. Just live IN today. Stay IN the present. Projecting about the future does no one any good.

That's all I can offer you.

@qtipsq

You say you've tried everything. Does "everything" include therapy sessions with a psychiatrist who's qualified to help patients with PCS? What about speech or occupational therapy?

I've looked at your posts from the past year, and it seems like you've put so much faith in acupuncture, LED treatments, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy... I'm sorry if this sounds insensitive, but have you tried a simpler recovery route - even if it's only for your depression and anxiety, and not your other PCS symptoms?

I'm sorry to hear of... everything that's happened. I can't relate to your pain (aside from your difficulty with controlling emotions) and whatever I say will probably just sound trite. But please, hang in there. Like Mark says - progress is measured in months and years.

If it's alright with you, qtipsq, I'll keep you in my prayers.
Please keep us posted.

The nature of depression is that we can't gain perspective and see out of it. Meanwhile the present feels intolerable. That is why we need help learning how to tolerate the present while gaining perspective.

Discussions of the future are another matter. When our emotions are this high, while we are this distressed, we can't think clearly. We have to get through surviving the distress. We can't make decisions about whether the future will improve or not because we're not rational. This is not a judgment of you but that's how it works when our emotions are that high.

I KNOW what you are talking about feeling emptiness. I am also very scared about it not improving. I know that it is really not helpful when I start thinking about whether it will or not. When the feeling gets most intense, I try to get into my body more, put ice on my face. list the things I feel without judging them, saying out loud, this is what is happening, it is just so, but that can be hard.

At your calmer moments you need to find a professional. You might think, what's the point. Well, I am telling you, there is a point. You don't know me, but I do care because I am there too and I have been there and recovered. I also have lurked on the SOS board and there are others who have too who care. So you need to force yourself. Or get someone to help make the call. I recommend DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) which is mindfulness based skills therapy and really good for this kind of thing but just find anyone recommended you trust.

Reach out on SOS board. It's not just survivors, it's also people feeling hopeless and everyone is supportive and nonjudgmental.

Stop judging yourself and don't compare yourself to others. You can make your life worth living
Julie

Hbot is the only thing that has restored some functionality.Occupational therapy did nothing, neither did my psychiatrists. Drugs are not for me.

I cant imagine living like this so I tried to get rid of it. But I guess I have been my own worst enemy, I just loved the person I was soo much that losing him makes me want to just stop. I would rather have become paralyzed from the waist down than have lost my mind. But such is not the case. Life will never be what it was supposed to be.

Thanks ever for the replys. I will try to get some help but this is the hardest thing to deal with.