Have you ever got so low that

[Dontknowwhattodo223]

You wished you would get a terminal illness? I would swap with someone who wants to live. I've also wondered if I could hire a hit man but for myself.

OP It would be understandable of you don't wish to share the reasons you feel like this. There is also the fact that often there is no reason as it is just the way a person feels. If you can list the reasons perhaps there are people here who could offer their thoughts. Meanwhile please accept a huge virtual hug. People really do care when they read posts like this

Oh for the love of sanity, no.

Hallelujah

OP you sound exactly like me. Recently started seeing a support worker at mind who has made me realise the extent of trauma I have from childhood. He is adamant it can be healed, my counsellor also told me this too. I was like you and thought oh I've not been sexually abused or severely physically abused so it can't be trauma, but it really can. All my life I've had depression, anxiety, stomach and sleep issues, relationship issues, surrounded by drama and unable to make decisions that lead me to live a safe life. This is because what's familiar to me is the adrenaline of feeling scared constantly. I've just started looking into it but there are various therapies, my counsellor told me to look at psychodynamic therapy, and there are various sound and light therapies I want to try as well. It's actually kind of exciting because now I have a reason for most of my issues and can do something about it. P.s.i looked into loads of methods of suicide, most are likely to give you long term brain damage and not actually kill you.

You are completely entitled to disagree, however, I think reading your responses to this post you are obviously extremely low too. I don’t disagree with legal euthanasia, however I don’t think it should be offered out to everyone because a few months ago I’d of gladly taken it and there’s been periods of life I’ve felt the same but our feelings towards life change constantly and I’m glad I was never given that option. Ultimately (again someone who has been sectioned, had massive mental breakdowns and have been on more medications and therapy I care to remember) we are in control of our own lives/paths and have the choice to decide who we want to be and I think when other people basically tell people who are feeling very low (as others have done with me) it instils the belief that there really is no point when I, and many others like me, are proof that doesn’t have to be the case.

@pookieanna1 I don't think they should. But I don't think that wishing you have a terminal illness is helpful even if you wanted to die today.

I disagree that people's feelings towards life change constantly.

Yours did. Other people's haven't.

I know people who have been depressed their whole lives from severe childhood sexual abuse.

They genuinely don't want to live. One of them is looking into euthanasia abroad. She has told me that she is talking to the clinic

I know that the clinic have sent her a detailed brochure by email of what they do

You don’t know if I have or haven’t had that? I was SAd as a child. And again, have known and been part of chronic depression/anxiety/ disassociation etc. However, if someone ends it that’s it. There’s no coming back from it, it’s over. I don’t think telling people that we should be fighting to end our lives by euthanasia is the way to go because it will then become an option to people who would never attempt suicide. It’s personal opinion, in which we’re both entitled

When they first started to do legal euthanasia in countries, they used to only do it for people who were extremely physically suffering in pain.

Now people have become more aware that mental pain and suffering is just as equal to physical pain.

Now they let people who are suffering mentally, do euthanasia.

"A 29-year-old Dutch woman who has been granted her request for assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering is expected to end her life in the coming weeks, Zoraya ter Beek"

That was this year, 2024. She did go ahead with it

But shouldn't it be the individual's choice?

And Euthanasia is already an option for people in the UK. They just have to go to another country to do it.

Many UK citizens have done it already

I often feel this way OP. I don’t really want to live anymore as I don’t feel like there’s anything here for me, but I’m too cowardly to do anything about it and wish that something would put me out of my misery and take all the control away.

It makes me feel guilty for thinking that way though as I know so many people have terminal illnesses who would give anything to live. I don’t tell anyone I feel that way as I feel like I’d be judged, but yes, I get it. Death itself doesn’t scare me, it’s just the finality of doing it myself that does. I can’t really explain it.

If there was just me in my family, (no siblings) I would go and do euthanasia abroad.

However I have a younger brother. He has been through a lot of the same terrible trauma that I have.

And he is barely hanging on by a thread Himself

I know that if I went and did euthanasia abroad, that it would do him in altogether. That he wouldn't survive.

I don't live for myself. I live as I can't bear the trauma that it would do to him, if I did it

You shouldn't feel guilty.

Mental health issues are just as important as physical health issues.

Yeah, I know that, but I do. I daren’t tell people that I wish I had cancer because I know plenty of people that had it and it feels such an insensitive thing to say if that makes sense.

I fantasise about dying in my sleep, getting wiped out in a fatal accident or getting some illness that would do it for me where I wouldn’t have to make the choice. It’s kind of cathartic writing it out because I don’t say it out loud.

I think it's good that people like you are writing about it.

A lot of us go through it.

We need to acknowledge that many humans go through extreme mental suffering.

That just being alive is hard. It shouldn't be glossed over.

It is hard. So many things about being human are hard.

It doesn’t really matter if it’s ’helpful’ or not does it? It’s not something we choose to feel. Having depression or any other MH issue isn’t ’helpful’ full stop. I don’t really know what point you are making? We feel how we feel.

@Dontknowwhattodo223 Some counsellors are worse than useless.

One of the very best things said to me was by a Scottish man who had spent years in Barlinnie Jail for heroin {He was working as a drugs worker after getting completely drug and alcohol free}}

He wasn't a counsellor, but he'd had a really tough upbringing.

He said ''Be your own parent''

It made infinitely more sense than all the counselling.

Early years, be you a human or a puppy definitely Impact on the people we become.

I hope you can find a way to carry on.

Some parents are hopeless parents.

But they too were hopelessly parented.

Add in intermittent violence and SA and is it any wonder why some people are a bit unsettled as adults?

@Teanbiscuits33 I wasn't trying to make a point. As a sufferer of severe depressive disorder I was trying to be supportive to OP. And also trying to share my opinion on someone saying they 'wish they had terminal illness'. I wished them well and wanted them to see a doctor or contact an MH charity. Why is what I said so wrong?

It’s just that by saying it’s not helpful to wish you had a terminal illness that implies that people choose to feel that way, that’s all. Yeah it’s not helpful, but people who feel that way can’t help it as you will know. MH charities and doctors are neither use nor ornament in most places as well.

I can completely, 100% relate OP - the terminal illness and researching Dignitas. I take those times as a sign my depression is getting unmanageable and seek help (sertraline takes the edge off for me) but there isn't a day goes by where I don't have thoughts about death. It's horrendous to be living a shadow existence.

I got rejected from dignitas in 2022 - it's quite difficult to get accepted unfortunately.

No thank you.

I understand also. I have had a lot of therapy. It took many years to find the right person to get me on the path of healing my pain. It can be done. I am left now with chronic pain.

I understand. I have PTSD and C-PTSD and have felt this way before. Then after dealing with PND I went back to a very dark place that I thought I had left behind. I'm ok again now. But I definitely had those thoughts, and it was made more stressful because before kids I would use the option as a kind of safety blanket, but after kids I knew I had to keep going for them. And after speaking to another friend she felt the same as me after her baby was born.

Medication helped - I was on two different types. Therapy with the RIGHT therapist who truly understands me helped (had seen 10+ before that who were useless - one literally zoned out until I mentioned the name of a restaurant and then said 'oh I love that place!').

I understand too OP and sorry you are experiencing this.

I have had times when I wished so hard for something to end me so people wouldn't have to deal with it being a suicide. I got breast cancer two years ago and I was kind of relieved - it wasn't a straightforward decision to have treatment but I got swept along with it and I'm still not sure it was the right decision. I do feel terrible saying that when people have illnesses that aren't treatable.

There was some relief in being ill anyway as I felt I could step out of normal life for a while as I had reached a point where I couldn't function anymore (although some people were still quite brutal, judging me for not being productive while too weak to sit up from chemo - that's another story). Maybe the cancer had also been adding to that exhausted feeling for a while before I realised I had it but it is also a life long problem that depletes me more and more.

In a way it was a simple decision to have treatment as I have two cats who I don't want to leave on their own. Maybe the fact that I took in cats in the first place shows there is part of me that wants to keep going. But dealing with life feels too much sometimes.

Nature has always been my main solace but it's being destroyed rapidly around me and has become another source of anxiety.

I never really get those who are cheered up by us not being bombed or starving etc, I am incredibly grateful for those things but the fact that other people in the world are going through that makes me feel worse not better - makes me more sick of the world in general.

I feel less alone and less like a weirdo having read all these posts although I'm also sorry you are all feeling like this.

I don't know what to say @Dontknowwhattodo223 . It feels trite to say I hope you feel better at some point but I do hope that you do. Anyway - solidarity.