I am sure of only one thing, that everyone experiences feelings and in particular pain for different reasons in their own peculiar ways. I won't try to pretend to know what happens inside others bodies or what crosses their minds. I can only explore my own pain and hope that understanding it will shed light to people feeling it themselves or to those closest to them.
I want to start by making it very clear that I love my life, I have been too lucky too often and would not switch with anyone else's and yet I considered only too often to part from it.
In my understanding there are two types of people, those that are consistent that they exist and therefore deserve a shot at being happy and those that are constantly wondering if they deserve all they have been given be that what may. I would never correlate this distinction to their altruistic or good nature nor their common sense.
The first won't often wonder whether they should be alive. They don't understand that need, they are alive and nothing you can say could make such a question less nonsensical. They expect that life is to be cherished and lived to the fullest of their abilities. Their most common question seems to be what can I do to improve life, mine and that of those around me. Their understanding of the question "should I be alive?" is reserved for extreme cases of pain, when life has nothing to offer and nothing to live for.
The latter, as you may well expect by now, will constantly consider "should I be alive?" in other words whether they are consuming resources that would be better spent on someone else. This is a strange concept I know, for the first type of people, but the question sums up to whether another would have taken better choices and be a better son/daughter or husband/wife or father/son. Mostly the question ends up in "would the world be a better place without me in it"?
I started wondering if my family would be better of without me when I was 5, first time I decided to run away from home. I don't remember it well. I do remember very well though by the age of 10 when I decided again to leave home. At that time I didn't have much common sense, if I ever got any, I just ran. I was enraged, I was panting and frustrated and I couldn't even understand what was coming over me. I was violent and afraid, my thoughts were all over the place and I couldn't seem to calm down. The view helped. I had this place close to the drive way, a large open field that I used to use to run with my dog every morning. My dog had died and I hadn't been there for what felt like to long. I guess it made sense that my feet took me there although I couldn't remember deciding it or anything else that leaving for that matter. It was cold, but not too much and it wasn't raining nor was the floor wet, there were no large piles of leaves from the trees that spread erratically through the field, which means that it was probably spring time. I had had a major fight with my mother who I loved, and I felt awful. I found a place close to the moving cars that was shielded by a large enough bush that I could sit behind. The sound of the cars helped. The coverage of the bush too. I couldn't cry, until I could and then I cried like I had just murdered someone. I revisited what happened, which was so meaningful I couldn't tell you today, 20 years later. I know I didn't fell like I had to change, or improve, I felt like it was something about who I was and how I was incapable of hurting someone even as close as my mother or sister, even with as much love as I had for them. I felt selfish so it all probably started with me not willing to borrow something to my sister, my father stepping in to force the good sisterhood in me and me reacting in plain fury. Time passed and I ran through my problem, I broke it down to myself. Then I focused on options, but I could find none. I was not autonomous and had no money, there was no place I could get a job at that age, and I was not prepared to go hungry and die. I considered crossing the street, and getting hit by a car, they were passing so fast, so close, and they wouldn't have time to see me since it was night and I was just jumping from behind a bush that covered me well. I thought that I could kill someone, and that is no way to end my life. I would at least break some innocent person's car and leave them thinking they were responsible for my decease which was unfair. I considered going to my grandparents house, they would love to heroically take me in and save me from my parents, but my parents weren't bad parents and they didn't deserve that sort of pain. The whole idea was to spear them more hurt and they had enough bad blood with my grandparents without me pulling this one on them. So I went back home. My mother pretended not to be too worried or mad, and just tried to calmly say that it was not alright for me to run off like that and I too pretended it was no big deal. That is the first time I remember thinking of shutting my eyes completely for good. Since then, many times over I considered it. Not because my life was unbearable but because my pain was. Over the years I came to recognize this anxiety that takes over you and the despair afterwards, the feeling worthless and a guilt thereafter. I don't control my temper too often and many times my feelings of guilt are related. Sometimes I notice that the immense pain comes first it takes a hold of my heart and doesn't seem to let go. My patience is then reduced and I am bound to pick up a fight and feel worthless again and feel this all too familiar feeling that it could all end, the pain, the strain of trying to be better at every turn, the despair of not being a better person, the guilt of hurting those I love. Last time I felt it I cryied myself to sleep next to my beloved husband and I had no reason what so ever, not a real one. I could feel my brain searching for a reason to make sense of it, something to fill guilty for, something to explain this angst. I had years before noticed that all these episodes do happen within a certain cycle of the month and that I was brought down to this abyss of internal pain by biology. Not the hormones alone. The same way it is not reasonable to question the sanity of a woman that screams for something she asked you thousands of times not to do, just because she has her period. Biology just gets you in a lower starting point, on a higher nerve frenzy and closer to pop. I know the pain can feel so real that even having noticed the biology contribution and rationally sensing my brain fighting to make sense I went through my options. Pills, jumping, scenarios... having many options and none immediate helped. Mostly I felt like anyone else could become a better wife, and that my family would be better of without the disappointment and heart break I bring. I can honestly say I felt this, and I can honestly say that rationally there is no reason for me to be such a logical disappointment to anyone. Some people just have this internal dialog on pause in their head, it is destructive, it is impulsive and it sneaks up on you at any time you go a bit lower. These latter people gain a lot having someone or something depending on them, they want to be part of something bigger that relies on them and justify the oxygen they steal from unborn innocent futures full of potential. I haven't had such a feeling since my son was born, and I am certain it is because he needs me so that it can't cross my mind not being here for him. I wonder what I'll have when he reaches 21 and my husband is naturally exhausted of loving me to his fullest and with all my crazy.
I am sorry if I scared anyone reading, and hope this story helps someone needing answers that the self can't sometimes find. I felt many times that it is usually because it is intrinsic to us, our way of thinking and our biology that we can't make sense of it. It is so incrusted in who we are that we can't probe and have a hard time externalize. I believe also that trying to externalize this phantom pain and hollowness that leads some people to hurt themselves.
I want to start by making it very clear that I love my life, I have been too lucky too often and would not switch with anyone else's and yet I considered only too often to part from it.
In my understanding there are two types of people, those that are consistent that they exist and therefore deserve a shot at being happy and those that are constantly wondering if they deserve all they have been given be that what may. I would never correlate this distinction to their altruistic or good nature nor their common sense.
The first won't often wonder whether they should be alive. They don't understand that need, they are alive and nothing you can say could make such a question less nonsensical. They expect that life is to be cherished and lived to the fullest of their abilities. Their most common question seems to be what can I do to improve life, mine and that of those around me. Their understanding of the question "should I be alive?" is reserved for extreme cases of pain, when life has nothing to offer and nothing to live for.
The latter, as you may well expect by now, will constantly consider "should I be alive?" in other words whether they are consuming resources that would be better spent on someone else. This is a strange concept I know, for the first type of people, but the question sums up to whether another would have taken better choices and be a better son/daughter or husband/wife or father/son. Mostly the question ends up in "would the world be a better place without me in it"?
I started wondering if my family would be better of without me when I was 5, first time I decided to run away from home. I don't remember it well. I do remember very well though by the age of 10 when I decided again to leave home. At that time I didn't have much common sense, if I ever got any, I just ran. I was enraged, I was panting and frustrated and I couldn't even understand what was coming over me. I was violent and afraid, my thoughts were all over the place and I couldn't seem to calm down. The view helped. I had this place close to the drive way, a large open field that I used to use to run with my dog every morning. My dog had died and I hadn't been there for what felt like to long. I guess it made sense that my feet took me there although I couldn't remember deciding it or anything else that leaving for that matter. It was cold, but not too much and it wasn't raining nor was the floor wet, there were no large piles of leaves from the trees that spread erratically through the field, which means that it was probably spring time. I had had a major fight with my mother who I loved, and I felt awful. I found a place close to the moving cars that was shielded by a large enough bush that I could sit behind. The sound of the cars helped. The coverage of the bush too. I couldn't cry, until I could and then I cried like I had just murdered someone. I revisited what happened, which was so meaningful I couldn't tell you today, 20 years later. I know I didn't fell like I had to change, or improve, I felt like it was something about who I was and how I was incapable of hurting someone even as close as my mother or sister, even with as much love as I had for them. I felt selfish so it all probably started with me not willing to borrow something to my sister, my father stepping in to force the good sisterhood in me and me reacting in plain fury. Time passed and I ran through my problem, I broke it down to myself. Then I focused on options, but I could find none. I was not autonomous and had no money, there was no place I could get a job at that age, and I was not prepared to go hungry and die. I considered crossing the street, and getting hit by a car, they were passing so fast, so close, and they wouldn't have time to see me since it was night and I was just jumping from behind a bush that covered me well. I thought that I could kill someone, and that is no way to end my life. I would at least break some innocent person's car and leave them thinking they were responsible for my decease which was unfair. I considered going to my grandparents house, they would love to heroically take me in and save me from my parents, but my parents weren't bad parents and they didn't deserve that sort of pain. The whole idea was to spear them more hurt and they had enough bad blood with my grandparents without me pulling this one on them. So I went back home. My mother pretended not to be too worried or mad, and just tried to calmly say that it was not alright for me to run off like that and I too pretended it was no big deal. That is the first time I remember thinking of shutting my eyes completely for good. Since then, many times over I considered it. Not because my life was unbearable but because my pain was. Over the years I came to recognize this anxiety that takes over you and the despair afterwards, the feeling worthless and a guilt thereafter. I don't control my temper too often and many times my feelings of guilt are related. Sometimes I notice that the immense pain comes first it takes a hold of my heart and doesn't seem to let go. My patience is then reduced and I am bound to pick up a fight and feel worthless again and feel this all too familiar feeling that it could all end, the pain, the strain of trying to be better at every turn, the despair of not being a better person, the guilt of hurting those I love. Last time I felt it I cryied myself to sleep next to my beloved husband and I had no reason what so ever, not a real one. I could feel my brain searching for a reason to make sense of it, something to fill guilty for, something to explain this angst. I had years before noticed that all these episodes do happen within a certain cycle of the month and that I was brought down to this abyss of internal pain by biology. Not the hormones alone. The same way it is not reasonable to question the sanity of a woman that screams for something she asked you thousands of times not to do, just because she has her period. Biology just gets you in a lower starting point, on a higher nerve frenzy and closer to pop. I know the pain can feel so real that even having noticed the biology contribution and rationally sensing my brain fighting to make sense I went through my options. Pills, jumping, scenarios... having many options and none immediate helped. Mostly I felt like anyone else could become a better wife, and that my family would be better of without the disappointment and heart break I bring. I can honestly say I felt this, and I can honestly say that rationally there is no reason for me to be such a logical disappointment to anyone. Some people just have this internal dialog on pause in their head, it is destructive, it is impulsive and it sneaks up on you at any time you go a bit lower. These latter people gain a lot having someone or something depending on them, they want to be part of something bigger that relies on them and justify the oxygen they steal from unborn innocent futures full of potential. I haven't had such a feeling since my son was born, and I am certain it is because he needs me so that it can't cross my mind not being here for him. I wonder what I'll have when he reaches 21 and my husband is naturally exhausted of loving me to his fullest and with all my crazy.
I am sorry if I scared anyone reading, and hope this story helps someone needing answers that the self can't sometimes find. I felt many times that it is usually because it is intrinsic to us, our way of thinking and our biology that we can't make sense of it. It is so incrusted in who we are that we can't probe and have a hard time externalize. I believe also that trying to externalize this phantom pain and hollowness that leads some people to hurt themselves.
