Venting guilt

[sadseraph]

im so lucky to be surrounded by supportive people and the fact that i cant be the best version of myself for them eats away at me all the time. i have to lie to my friends about how my mental health is getting better so that they dont end up interfering with my plans, but its so lonely to be constantly trapped inside a bubble where i can never truly be myself. i want to curl up in my partner's arms and tell him everything about how my brain is slowly killing me, but ive been silent for so long that now when i do speak up, i feel even worse than i did before.

i feel so bad for the people who will miss me. at the same time though, ive dealt with these feelings for so many years that im not even me anymore. im just playing out the motions of who i used to be. what is life if you cant even find a reason to live for yourself?

 

[Forever Sleep]

I do really sympathise. It's exhausting trying to live pretty much purely for others. My 'others' aren't even really around! We chat a couple of times a week. See each other maybe a week or two out of the year. It's a lot of effort really to try and sustain an unwanted life just for that! Sometimes I think- how much is there really to miss in that? But then, I know we're on each other's minds a lot at other times and I suspect some people never get over a suicide.

I respect you that you want to be able to be your former self for them. I'm running out of energy to hide who I really am to be honest. I'm lucky in that I usually only have to sustain some kind of front for a phonecall but, it's becoming so much harder in real life now. I don't know how people do actually manage to hide it if they live with others.

I tend to wonder with more distant friends and relatives also. I literally haven't seen some in 5, 10, 20+ years. Asides from a few texts and a Christmas card, we barely know one another now! Would it really affect them? It's like a curse and a blessing isn't it really? Still having people who care.

I think life's effectively a bunch of neverending chores when there's no more want to live. As to how long we can sustain it for, I guess it depends on how much worse it gets! I'm sorry for your situation. For what it's worth, there are a number of members holding on by their fingertips for their loved one's sakes.