So...

[David of Derby]

Sorry to be reticent. I like lots of things but these days I just don't have the energy or motivation to get on with basically any of them but computer games which give me a quick fix. Then I get bored again.

[Guest October Moon]

Suicide, I believe is something everyone thinks about. To some it flashes in their mind and flashes out again just as quickly. For others it comes and it lingers, lurking in your mind. It shows itself when times are tough and things go bad. After awhile it becomes something you willingly reach for and look at. It becomes appealing. You think about your life, how lonely and hard it is and you look at suiside again. Why not? Who would miss you? Who would really care? No one really understands what you are feeling, you don't even understand it half the time. Your tired and weary and suicide looks more appealing. Thoughts you never thought you would entertain are suddenly being thought about, more and more often with more and more abandon. You think I don't know? Hmm...

What I do know is that satan is very smart. He doesn't come straight at us and say, "Hey you! I think you should steal that car, have that affair or take that man's life". He is tricky, he gets us to take our eyes away from God and puts them on ourselves. He gets us to focus on the things in our lives that are less than perfect and we start to feel overwhelmed with them and start thinking that there is no way to make them better. The more we think about the thing that is bothering us the more overwhelming it becomes. Suddenly our eyes are focused on us and we have lost sight of God. Ex...Your marriage is lacking emotional support. You feel distanced from your spouse, never seeming to connect any more. At work (or even on line) though, you sit next to someone that is always ready to listen, you find it easy to talk with them, to connect with them. Slowly your thoughts are on them and not on your spouse. You stop trying to conncet with your spouse and distance yourself even more. Satan is like that. He gets us thinking about ourselves and takes our eyes off our God, our strength, our love. Inoccently we follow because really what is wrong with talking with someone? With thinking about our lives and what disatisfies us? Well nothing really till we allow it to remove our attention from where it should always be.

I have no solution except to offer what I do when I start to feel overwhelmed, unloved and lost in a sea of people. I put my eyes back on God. I hit my knees and seek God's face, I listen to praise and worship Him on my way to work, I reach out and help other's because I find taking my eyes off me in anyway helps and mostly everytime a thought comes on I quote God's word out loud. This is one of my current favorites: "For I know the plans I have for you,

[stormy612]

Reticent I don't mind. I can respect that. I'm just concerned.

I've felt like that for the last six years. I don't know if you've read any of my posts or not, so I may be repeating myself here, but bear with me. Six years ago, my husband molested my daughter. They suspected me of knowing about it, read me my Miranda rights, and gave me the third degree. I thought I was going to prison for something I didn't do. I was forced to face one of the worst fears I have (going to prison). I was terrified they would twist anything I said and to protect my daughter, they'd throw me in jail just to be on the safe side. I was upfront and honest and open about everything. But, all of it was out of my hands. I had to leave it to God, and I had go with whatever God willed. Even if that meant going to prison innocent. I can't even talk about it without tearing up it hurt so bad. My spirit laid prostrate before God begging Him not to send me to prison, not to let my daughter be without me. I honestly didn't know what He was going to do, but I knew I would follow Him no matter what- "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." I also knew deep, deep, deep in my spirit, that if God sent me to prison, there was a reason. I was humbled completely. I couldn't trust Him not send me to prison even though I was innocent (many Christians have been sent to prison innocent), and I couldn't trust Him to keep me free. I didn't know what He was going to do, all I could do was have faith that He would cover me, that He knew what He was doing even though I didn't. All I had at that time was faith and terror. Faith won out. My love for Him won out. I submitted to Him and said, "Lord, your will be done." I gave myself completely to Him to do with what He will-even if it meant death in prison. I've never been the same since. Something in my flesh died that day.

For the first time in my life I knew what it was to give myself completely over to Him-complete and total humility. I also saw GOD AS GOD for the first time too. Up until then, He'd been my gentle, loving, Father. He revealed His total and complete sovereignty to me: His sovereignty over my life, and His sovereignty over the actions of this world and evil. It was a mixture of fear, awe, and security. It was THE most powerful revelation of GOD I've had to date.

Most Christians might find it strange to think that my joy in life vanished, but it did. Like you, I would have brief moments of 'happiness', then it would disappear. The colors of life became very gray. Nothing held any interest for me anymore, and everything was pointless-every pursuit, every thought, every plan. I was God's, to do with as He willed, not me. I still can't find happiness in things of this world like I use to. For me, it's about the moment of something. In Ecclesiates, God said that it is He that gives us the gift to enjoy our 'things', our work, our life. So now, if I can find enjoyment (happiness) in something, however briefly, I praise Him for that gift of enjoyment. Any joy (peace) I now feel, for any length of time, is in God alone. Who He is. But it is also mixed with fear (deep, deep, deep respect). He didn't send me to prison that day, but I am His. I don't know where He will send me. Who am I to beg Him to spare me the life my Savior walked for me? My joy is in knowing God is here. My joy is in knowing who He is. My joy is in knowing His almighty power. My joy is in knowing His sovereignty. It's not a 'happy, happy, joy, joy' kind. Its...peace. His peace. Having that peace is what I cherish now. Sometimes I forget His peace, and I become terrified or depressed again. Sometimes He lets me stay that way for awhile, waiting for me to remember. But He always comes to me again and puts my heart at ease. My joy is not what it was. It's in Him alone now.

God took from me the 'worldly joy' and replaced it with true joy-Him. And its taken six years for me to understand it all. I'm still learning too. But I am His now. I will never leave Him or forsake Him now, either. No matter what the cost. It was worth dying to something to have Him as I do now. I love Him.

[BFP]

David do you feel good on sunny days and terrible on cloudy ones? Perhaps you might want to keep track of that. I used to feel alot like you, and i was suicidal as well. I never talked about it with anyone though. But I felt like I was going crazy inside, and I also felt very much unloved. I also felt very guilty...even for things that were beyond my control. (if my neighbor crashed his car on the road because it was icy I would feel like maybe I could have prevented it if I had sanded that spot...) It took many many years but I finally saw a doctor who knew right away what was going on!

Now I am on vitamin D and light therapy and I am doing wonderfully. It's called Seasonal Affective Disorder...and it has to do with the way your eyes bring in light. I need ALOT of light in my life to be able to live a normal life. No meds required.

[David of Derby]

Nah, it's nothing to do with SAD. Thanks anyway.

[Xan]

I wish there was someone in my life that cared for me or liked me as much as I like them... I love but no one loves me back. Well, my sister does, but she's the only one I think. Just seems like my love isn't worth anything, I give it to someone and expect something in return but they never wanted it. It's not some priceless treasure to them, it's just worthless.

I was in a place you just described for years. When I came back to the Lord at a point I felt like killing the person (not me, him), I faithfully followed our Lord which made it so much easier to show love without return. I did this for years until God removed me from the situation and less than a year later introduced me to love I had only dreamed of existing.

[David of Derby]

I don't fully understand what you just said...

[kat8585]

Why doesn't anyone love me back? Am I so wretched that no one could?

How do you know they don't? Everyone has their own way of loving and showing it.

[Xan]

I don't fully understand what you just said...

I was not loved, but God loves me, and His love helped me show love to someone who was incapable of love. It took years, but God removed me from that situation, and now I have the love I have always desired.

I don't know your situation, so I can't speak directly to it. What I gave was a generality pertaining to my situation because there is wisdom in allowing God to love us so we can be full enough to have that spill over to others, even if they do not deserve it since they don't love back. There is also wisdom in waiting on the Lord and trusting that His timing is perfect.

However, you could just have a chemical embalance and need to be seen by an endocrinologist.

[David of Derby]

I have a friend, called Matleena, who lives in Finland. For about two or three months she's been the sweetest, kindest, most supportive person I've known for a long time. I've called her an angel more than once and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she actually was. Problem is, she's also stunningly beautiful and but for a few things, basically everything I'd want in a girlfriend, and I told her so. She was a bit shocked and said she was flattered and that I'm sweet to feel that way, but she's not interested. Everything carried on as normal. Every so often we'd talk about that again, for various reasons, and her answer was always the same, but she wasn't offended or upset that I felt that way. I accepted that she's not interested in me and even if she was I'd have to leave my entire life behind and move to Finland to be with her, and if it didn't work out, what then?

Last night we were exchanging YouTube videos and she sent me a video by some American singer about how amazing his girlfriend is, pretty typical stuff, and she said she wished she was that to someone. I reminded her that I'd fly out there and marry her tomorrow, and suddenly everything changed. We had an argument about it, me basically saying it was nothing she hadn't heard already and no reason to change anything, but she should have hope that someone better would feel the way I do because it's obviously possible, and her saying all my negativity - I do talk to her about my depression quite a bit - was hurting her and maing her remember her ex and so on, and I had no idea of any of that. I asked her if she still wanted to be friends and she said she didn't know. I had to leave to go to bed, it was gone midnight and I was at work from nine this morning.

Now I get home and she's online so I talk to her, and she's about as cold as a Siberian winter. Normally she's so affectionate and happy to see me, and after not seeing me at all all day she'd be so glad to finally see me, but she's going ten, fifteen minutes without a word and then just saying "mm" or something. It's like she just can't be bothered. This is a person who said she'd always want me around, told me I'm "the sweetest thing," and just generally made me feel a little bit special, even if I knew she'd never love me, even as a friend, and all her promises that she's not like the other people I've been close to who just left when it was a little bit difficult knowing me and that she'd stay just seem basically worthless now. She used to tell me those people didn't deserve me as a friend, and now she's exactly the same as them.

Or is it me? Is it me that hurts people and drives them away? Is it me that's impossible to love or care for, impossible to be friends with for more than a couple of months if we speak more often than once a fortnight? That's it, isn't it? It's me. My fault. I lose someone else I love, because I was stupid enough to think someone could actually care about me and let them get close. As soon as I do, they're gone.