Discussion Is hope worth living for?

[Abyssal]

No, not a vent thread, just something that has been on my mind.

I keep finding moments of hope in my life, in fact I'd go to say that to some extent I am able to bypass my suicidal pain with hope. Without a doubt in my mind, hope is a powerful thing. However, I am still here on days and very much wishing to die given my current circumstances. As I see it, this won't change. You could say I lack hope.

Now, is it hope that drives some of us through recovery? Does simply believing you can get better make you get better? This is what I am unable to answer.

Hope is the driving force in how I've lived to this day, but I always find the hope is taken away and I fall further into despair. I usually stand by trying to live if you have hope but I feel hypocritical saying that, especially when I have only suffered from the very thing I tell others to do.

 

[Ernest1964]

No.

 

[FutureHanger]

I read the first 7 chapters of "psycho cybernetics" a couple months ago so I am convinced that your beliefs can influence your mental state but with that being said, I believe in basing hopes on realistic outcomes, it's always possible I could get better as fortunately I don't have any incurable illnesses or conditions you're born with like BPD but realistically considering how my poor mental health will just compound, I don't see the point in maintaining hope if realistic predictions of my life just consistently seem shit. IMO hopes are only worth living for if you genuinely wholeheartedly believe it's worth it and possible to achieve but to each their own.

 

[violetskies]

i think it's different for everyone - hope could mean everything to one person and nothing for another. i agree with you that hope is a very powerful thing and i find myself contemplating recovery a lot because of it, but it's those long periods of hopelessness that bring it all back.

 

[Sleeper System]

Hope is powered by belief which is powered by putting your trust in something beyond yourself or the world or your circumstances.
Sometimes It can be the inverse and be powered by your belief in yourself despite all the other things against you. It depends.

I don't aknowledge that I have hope to myself directly. Sometimes things just sort of get put infront of you and give you a reason to try to achieve that thing.

 

[Linda]

"Does simply believing you can get better make you get better?" There is absolutely no doubt that in some circumstances it does, and that applies to both mental and physical problems. The mind can be a powerful thing. Whether it would be enough for you, without anything else, I really don't know. Do you know what underlies your present feelings, i.e. where they are coming from, what causes them? Figuring that out might help too.

 

[Rapière]

Hope is the driving force in how I've lived to this day, but I always find the hope is taken away and I fall further into despair

Yep, that's how life works: It always finds a way to twist something good and turn it into a new source of despair.

 

[Illegal Preclear]

I would say so long as you have a form of hope, hold off on CTBing. Even if that hope is just a sliver - if you have the ABILITY to work towards getting that sliver - keep going. I stress the word ability, mental and/or physical because I'm in the same boat as several others on here who are irreversibly disabled mentally. There is no good long term outcome for me. Short term simple pleasures, maybe, but the sooner I CTB the more pain it will save me. If you have the ABILITY to still feel hope though - focus on that. If you can see a future for yourself where you can still hang onto that hope, don't let that go.

 

[Leavesfromthevine]

i think it's different for everyone - hope could mean everything to one person and nothing for another. i agree with you that hope is a very powerful thing and i find myself contemplating recovery a lot because of it, but it's those long periods of hopelessness that bring it all back.

This is how I see it too. Hope used to push me to keep living but eventually it wasn't enough for me. I know some people who have hope as their main source of living and it works for them so I'm glad.

If you can find a reason to stay then why not. Death is always waiting on us regardless. There's nothing wrong with living or dying imo.

 

[Illegal Preclear]

Death is always waiting on us regardless. There's nothing wrong with living or dying imo.

Mmm hmm. That's the beautiful thing about it - the option to CTB isn't going anywhere, and it's where we ALL wind up anyway. If you still have hope, I really do urge you to cling to it. I support anyone's reason to CTB, I'm very pro-choice about it, but logically, I'd say to keep it as a last resort when you're sure, again from a logical standpoint, that there is no hope left in your situation and no foreseeable future where things 'get better.' Because just as an aside, it does NOT 'always get better' and people in a position to say such trite garbage must live very charmed lives...

 

[UKscotty]

Until someone CTBs, there's always hope.

You could frame our SI up as hope. Until the literal point of tying that noose, anything is possible I think.

I have seen many people recover and get better.

For me, the hope is very slim and unlikely, but it must be there in my mind else I'd be dead.

 

[Banan321]

I think hope and despair are part of the same coin. I feel its the bias we have formed from previous experiences that we place on ourselves and the world. I feel that neither really help since it's all cognitive dissonance. I don't trust my hope or despair enough to make it form my judgement. Not that it's wrong in moderate forms but I specifically don't want to exist in that state. Just my opinion, it's a very complex topic.

 

[Old Friend]

I have a few tiny drops of hope left. Once they're gone, I'm outta here.

 

[Ernest1964]

Hope" is the thing with feathers
BY EMILY DICKINSON

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

 

[casual_existence]

No. There's a reason hope is in Pandora's box.

 

[hellispink]

I think this goes in the recovery section. Not here

 

[divinemistress36]

Hope is all we got without it we want to ctb

 

[lament.]

I guess it depends on whether what you are hoping for is realistic or not. If it's something that will likely never happen I feel like endlessly being in a spiral of hope and despair is torture.

 

[DreamEnd]

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.-Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[MatrixPrisoner]

It is if you have it. Almost noone on this side of SaSu does.

 

[Katdogg]

Just hope? Or like the fulfillment of these hopes?

I have delusional moments where I think I can accomplish something or attain something and it gives me hope... then my rational mind tells me " Who are you kidding?" .

Delusional or not hope (or false hope) can sustain me for months until the bubble bursts. Just have to keep finding things to hope for I guess.

Good question.

 

[PatKat]

No, not a vent thread, just something that has been on my mind.

I keep finding moments of hope in my life, in fact I'd go to say that to some extent I am able to bypass my suicidal pain with hope. Without a doubt in my mind, hope is a powerful thing. However, I am still here on days and very much wishing to die given my current circumstances. As I see it, this won't change. You could say I lack hope.

Now, is it hope that drives some of us through recovery? Does simply believing you can get better make you get better? This is what I am unable to answer.

Hope is the driving force in how I've lived to this day, but I always find the hope is taken away and I fall further into despair. I usually stand by trying to live if you have hope but I feel hypocritical saying that, especially when I have only suffered from the very thing I tell others to do.

I have been trying to get better for over 20 years. I am a disabled veteran on SSDI/VA benefits with a TBI... nothing will change. I just embrace that life is shit and don't leave bed. I rarely eat. I'm slowly rotting away. One day I'll be gone I have to wait.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I don't hope, if you hope that things get better and, if they don't turn out to be better, you'll get hurt way more than if you just never had hope to begin with. Alternatively, if your hopes were to actually be true, then you'll most likely recover and end up being happy. All in all, relying on hope alone is a massive gamble and either outcomes can occur. Sure, if you try hard to make your hopes come true, you got a higher chance of making the hopes be true but, because of how life is, nothing is guaranteed and you can still fail despite trying your absolute best

All in all, it's up to you to decide if this hope is worth living for. However, if possible, don't try to rely on the hope alone otherwise you're basically just asking for a miracle to come your way which is extremely unlikely. You must work hard alongside the hope to try to make it come true but know that, even then, the hope still has a chance of not coming true and that isn't your fault.. that's just simply how life is

 

[rozeske]

Hope is mostly what makes most humans keep moving. I believe with out it we will all just be a shell of moving body. Hope is what got me to this point. But little by little it started to fade away until I could hardly see it any more.
Having hope and believing to change things and get better does play it's psychological role and can be effective, that is where the 'placebo effect' comes to play.

 

[Darkover]

What is the point in hope? Unlike its opposite, fear, which can prevent people from endangering themselves, it doesn't have any practical use. All it does is set you up for disappointment. In the case that something good happens it doesn't really matter whether you were hoping for it or not, you'd appreciate it either way. Hope is pointless.

 

[Captive_Mind515]

Making plans for the future does help some people to avoid sinking into a very dark depression. Which does involve hope.

But then hope can be a very cruel thing as well, and you need to be realistic about what you're hoping for. If you're prone to procrastination, your hopes very often become a source of frustration and unhappiness.

 

[Abyssal]

I think this goes in the recovery section. Not here

It's less about wanting to live and more a post about whether or not I should tell people to live if I feel that hope is an illusion and things won't get better. I can see why you think that would fit recovery but I assure you I am not planning on recovering nor do I want advice on how to. Nothing they can give me will work, only fill me with false hope that'll be taken away from me when I realize I'm not cured.