In response to a concerned commenter, the answer is, “Yes, I’m still here.” Still alive.
Sometimes I get the strong sense that the only thing that has kept me going all these years is inertia. Putting it another way, I’m alive because I haven’t died. Not the tautology it seems if we’re speaking from a causological view.
Sometimes I think that what might be the thing that kills me will be my stepping unwittingly, accidentally, into danger, and then my diminished survival instinct causing me to hesitate before throwing myself out of the path of the oncoming car/train/swat team/tax audit/whatever.
Years ago my family gave me a reason to not die. It’s not enough. It won’t remain enough. I need a reason to live.
Ironically, this has sometimes led me to contemplate going into politics. If I can’t live for myself, perhaps I can live for others. I’m not sure if that should worry you or not. Don’t worry — I doubt I’d be very good at it. :-p
Hi…I would be the “concerned commenter” you speak of.
Seeing as that I do not know you at all, I think my concern for you was really concern for myself. I see myself reflected in things you write.
I am also very smart, talented, INFP, same age as you, etc, and blah blah blah. And, yes, with a nearly lifelong suicidal ideation problem, especially lately. I found this blog by googling, surprise surprise, “genius suicide”. I am not easily impressed, but after hours and hours of reading about depression and the like, this blog stood out, sparse as it is.
Thoughts of my cat and a parent’s grief keep me from doing anything, so I live in a state of isolated inertia. Maybe if I keep eating all this tuna I’ll accidentally get mercury poisoning? Maybe swine flu will make it up to the Pacific Northwest? Shit like that. Not actively looking to have these things happen, but…..diminished survival instinct, as you say.
Death has no guarantees one way or the other, anyway.
Your pendulum analogy describes so aptly the cycles I deal with. Right now my big pendulum is at the very bottom, though the little one is *slightly* arching up from it’s nadir. Or rather, it’s been going up ever so slightly, mostly at the behest of springtime and my will, but can’t yet seem to sustain its own weight for very long and drops back down, Sisyphus-style.
If you are anything like me, I bet you’ve been reading up on David Foster Wallace a bit. From a recent article regarding his commencement speech at Kenyon College:
“When Wallace defines thinking as “learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think,” when he describes his own mental “default setting” as one of selfishness and solipsism and despair and then explains that part of being an adult is developing the discipline “to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over,” and when he suggests that the “capital-T Truth” of life “is about making it to 30, or maybe even 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head,” his intended audience of college graduates floats away, and the haunting, answerless questions crowd suffocatingly in. Whom, you wonder, was he really speaking to?”
I’m not familiar with Wallace actually. I’ll check it out.
R — unlike you, my depression et al is *not* lifelong. It started in college. I actually had about as happy a childhood as anyone could hope for. In college I got involved with a girl who spent about two years breaking me down — in order to control me. In the end she lost me, but left me broken.
One of the remaining joys in my life is spending time with my nephews and nieces. They remind me of what I lost — of what I may still regain if I can ever get me feet back under me (psychologically speaking). That happens less often as time passes.
Wallace commited suicide in September. Hmmmm.
“Years ago my family gave me a reason to not die. It’s not enough. It won’t remain enough. I need a reason to live.”
Why not join a non-profit organization or website for raped males? If one does not exist, you could start it. There are others and they all need it. Might that give you enough of a sense of purpose and vindication to make you feel alive?
It might, but that would involve “coming out” publicly, which I am nowhere near prepared to do. I might also not be very good at actually dealing with people in similar circumstances. Sometimes I’m so analytical I can be a cold SOB without realizing how it looks outwardly.
To my knowledge, no such organization exists. Probably for a good reason — somebody has to start the damned thing!
Starting an organization might compromise your privacy because people will be able to look up the name of the founder, but creating a website would not require you to come out any more than this wordpress blog does as long as you use privacy registration on your domain name. Joining a pre-existing website would not require you to come out, though the moderators may have access to your IP address, but there may be laws protecting that and if not laws, then a non-leaky proxy could protect it.
Perhaps a message board would be a good start? Someone else may come along who can do the touchy-feely emotional support. Or, perhaps, you might realize that none of you wants the touchy feely approach. Perhaps your steely-cold analytical approach would be the most comfortable for them. The only privacy concern I see regarding starting a message board is that some message board scripts display the IP addresses of the poster to the public. This is not a common feature, but it would be something to check for.
You could probably find a free message board script with your web hosting package or download an open source one for free.
“…your steely-cold analytical approach…”
Nice turn of phrase. I like that. I’m generally the type of guy who can out-Spock Spock (when I’m not distracted by emotional concerns).
Actually, a bit further response to your question: I don’t want to get involved in such an organization because I don’t want this whole mess to be **what my life is about**. Address it, manage it, and move on with my life. That’s the theory, anyway.