OK. I'm Done.

Everyone makes mistakes. Are you OK?

News Flash: We're all clinging to our sanity. Getting sick of it is like getting sick of waiting for cars to be out of the way or the light to turn green before crossing the street. Anyway, why not embrace the 'ziggeds' of your life?

I think, or at least hope, that you will find your way no matter which way you decide. You are right ... clinging to sanity by a thread is not an option. Do something that keeps you whole and sane. Good luck in the New Year.

It may not sink in right now but there is ALWAYS more hope and more rope than we think there is.

Today is a new start. There is nothing that can be done about yesterday. But we can change today and in the process change the future.

Let go of the guilt, the wrong turns, the mistakes, and the hurts from the past. But don't let go of your future.

Mark

What's the problem here ?

You need to tell us now, that you are OK.

I've been through a lot of “challenges” in my lifetime and I've felt completely hopeless before. (Been suicidal several times.)

Something that I hope will be comforting is knowing that in time everything will get better.

When you're in the thick of it, it seems like your situation will never improve. In my experience it always does. My favourite quotation that I've mentioned before is from “Think And Grow Rich” (Napoleon Hill).“Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

That's one of the real “secrets” of life. You may not be able to see an equal or greater benefit at the moment (like I couldn't) however there definitely will be one.


Good luck. I hope 2014 brings your more success and happiness. Remember, things will get better.
: )

I wish you every good thing that you have ever desired, from this point forward, Larry!

Oh, and letting go can be a good thing, because holding on too tightly can be hazardous to health sometimes.

I learned that a long time ago when I was a little girl catching all of the baby frogs migrating through our yard. I held on to them tightly so they wouldn't get away. Then I put them down on the sidewalk in order to see them jump better, except, well, they never jumped again because I had held on to them too tightly.

Did my attempt to make you laugh or at least smile, work?

Oh, true story by the way, lol!


Terra

Seek Jesus and HE will solve all of your problems, nothing else will. God Bless.

I know the feeling.

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside -- remembering all the times you've felt that way."

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."

― Charles Bukowski

I'm praying you're just having the new-years blues caused by drinking an excessive amount of beverages. - And you'll wake up later with a head-ache and a renewed since of worth and ambition.

Side note - this thread is one of the main reasons I love the Warrior Forum. We may have fun and heated disagreements, but we all seem to come together to lift any fellow warrior we think might need it. You warriors are good people.

lcombs, I'm sure anyone on this thread and many others on the forum will take the time to talk with you if you need it. Nothing embarassing about it at all. Just send a PM over.

Lcombs,

I hope you mean something akin to "let go and let God"
(or the universe or nature's way...)

My high school best friend married a much older guy soon
after I realized I really wanted to cross that friendship line.

Years later we got back in touch and sadly it turned out that she knew
she made a mistake right after they married. Turns out his appearance of
success was a sham and he was never a success.

He was always caught up in trying to prove what he never had to prove
to anyone. He thought that 'making it big' in insurance and consulting
would prove 'em all wrong.

Nothing wrong with those fields, just he should have been doing
something else with his life.

I imagine and hope you are more on the track of finding what you should
be doing with your life.

Takes time to turn a boat around.

Feel free to PM/call.

Dan

I am worried about you, lcombs. I hope you were just conveying that you're letting go of a lot of unnecessary baggage. Your message is concerning. Say something!

I don't believe in gods or prayer or any of that.
And I don't know exactly what you're going through.
But your words resonated with me, because that
was exactly how I felt when my wife passed away.

Having had plenty of those terrible, dark moments
myself since then, I have two thoughts that I
want to share with you:

The first is to focus on something outside of yourself.
Something good. Get out and help build a home
with Habitats for Humanity, or Homes for Our Troops.
Seriously, get out and do something physical, something
that's not about you.

The second thing is that life is in the future, not the past.
Even as you dwell on the present moment, it becomes the past.
But whatever is going on, it is not your sole permanent reality.
That may be difficult to believe right now, but the truth is the truth.
Whatever is happening now, life will make up for it will more
truly precious moments, if only you'll watch out for them.

This is the first day of a new year of opportunities.



It's the Wizard's 7th Rule:

"Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices."

--Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation

As you can see people really do care. You are a valuable human being that deserves happiness and peace. But you need to meet us in the middle and let us know what is happening.

Mark

If you have no more rope, then you need to let one of us give you a bit more. Get back on the forum or pm one of us so that we can help.

Jan

I don't know anything about you or your situation, except you obviously have a passion for music, even if it isn't really my bag.

I'm no psychologist by a long way and I'm not going to jump to conclusions, but for anybody out there that may have problems and can't see a way out, whatever the problem might be, talk to somebody.

If you're embarrassed, ashamed, scared or whatever it's no good bottling things up because gradually it'll get too much until your mind screws you over. The point is that most people do actually give a sh!t about others as you might tell from the replies above, and even strangers will go a long way to help.

I LOVE the People Are Awesome videos!

Yes, do watch some, especially this one. Time well spent!

Happiness is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you feeling blue. - Bobby Boucher

Seriously, hope OPs ok.

Still looking down at the Daisies.

lcombs, you've posted a lot of positive stuff to me and I want you to know that I appreciate it and value your friendship.

I know from painful personal experience that the dark place is no fun. People would say to me "take it a day at a time" and that was WAAAAYYY too long. So I had to resort to 10 minutes at a time. If I could just make it through the next 10 minutes there just might be hope.

What I found is that at the end of the 10 minutes I was still alive - it was NOT the end of the world. My problems were still there of course but I had won for another 10 minutes. Then I started to string those together - one after another.

As I started to feel better (simply because I made it through X 10 minutes) I began to deal with the root issues. I knew I couldn't change yesterday but I could change tomorrow - and I did.

Hang in there. Don't give up. There is always hope.

Mark

Hurray! That's wonderful news!

A daisy patch is an awesome place to land! Now, if you need a friend to sit and make daisy chains with you, you know where to find me.

Terra

A daisy patch is a good place to wait for answers.

Sorry to create such a disturbance.
I'm not suicidal, just crazy.
New meds.
Soon I shall be....

Jeez o petez, Larry. What the hell has sanity got to do with anything? Total waste of time and effort. I let that go lots of years ago.....um...........it was about the time that I went broke but life in general got pretty freakin' awesome.

You're right - take every bit of stuff you've got and get rid of everything you don't need. Start doing what you really want to do instead of what you are "supposed" to do and quit the "stuff rules my life" routine. It will drop you.

Got grown kids? Tell em they're taking care of themselves, then just take off (with wife if that applies) and town hop for awhile. Just go where your fancy takes you, drop down and grab whatever jobs the local economy has to offer, explore, and then move on when you've seen enough.

It will get tough sometimes, but as far as I can see it gets tough no matter what -- and those people tied to a lot of stuff are going to get smacked the hardest in the longrun. If you find that it's not the right life for ya, by then you'll know for sure and will never have the "woulda/shoulda" gunking up your head.

I'll be on FB later if ya wanna chat for a tad.

Mornin' Larry,

I rarely join this type of discussion as I generally learn more about myself, the world around me and the plight of others by just reading. However, as someone who has been in therapy almost continually for over 40 years, I can only offer you a few bits of what I have deduced over the decades. I hope you'll allow me to share them with you and that you will accept them in the spirit which was intended.

1. Never look backwards. The good times were not as good as you think they were. They're only as good as you remember them when compared to the bad times, which were also not as bad as you remember them.

2. Time, alone, does not heal all wounds. It's the insight that you gain over time that allows you to heal.

3. All you have is the moment you are in and a few hours down the road. Deal with the immediate issues at hand and the path forward in your life will be less rocky and troubling. Yesterday is a cancelled check and tomorrow is nothing more than a promissory note. Today is "cash in hand."

4. There is no shame in asking for help, but when you do, ask someone qualified to help you. Family and friends regardless of their best intentions and efforts are rarely equipped to do so in any meaningful fashion. It's not just about therapists being qualified professionals, but you'll discover that family and friends try to help by doing most of the talking and a good therapist usually helps more by simply listening. It's an art and a science.

5. Recognize that in the end you are the only person on the planet that can help you. You must call on all your internal resources to come to the forefront to assist you in the battles that you face on a daily basis. You are the center of your universe. If you believe in a higher power then you must believe that it resides within you. Don't look for answers outside of yourself. All true power comes from within. While others can offer valuable information in an effort to help us, we must absorb it, process it, evaluate it and then determine if it actually has any benefit to us. If so then we must look for a way to effectively integrate it into our thought process thereby maximizing its effectiveness in helping shape our attitude about life as we march forward.

No real secrets, here. Just some points that you may have lost sight of along the way. In closing, the most important thing I have leaned in life is that the secret to survival, for someone like myself who is profoundly mentally ill, is to learn to cope. My mental illness is never going to go away and after decades of trying various meds I have discovered that they only mask the symptoms and do nothing to treat the genesis of my problems. My greatest singular achievement in life is having learned how to live with my problems and the immense challenges they create on a daily basis rather than allowing my life to be totally shaped and directed by them. Once I arrived at that juncture I found the freedom to allow myself to use my condition to my advantage. Honestly, I've learned to revel in it. In a way, it gives me an edge that few totally "sane" people will ever possess. There are positive things to be found even in the most negative situations. Start digging through the muck in your brain. There's gold in them thar' hills.

Keep your chin up, hold your head high and never, ever quit the good fight.

Onward and upward, my friend. You can do it. Good luck on your journey.

Cheers. - Frank

P.S. See my signature. It's not just a cute slogan. It's what I truly believe I'm capable of.

Great reply from Big Frank above. I can't really add to that other than to say this. If you want to chat anytime pm or Skype me. Sometimes just chatting can lift that mood.

Hi there Icombs,
While searching through the forum I noticed your post, I have read through all the comments, and it is very encouraging to see in this day and age how many people care. I know that you are a complete stranger to me and most of the people on this forum, but reading the responses to your post shows that we are all friends.
Just remember “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby

Get yourself to a good naturopath. There are natural remedies for what ails you that don't take the terrible toll that anti-depressants do. And watch lots of TV shows and movies that make you laugh. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

"Reality! What a concept!"