Radical Acceptance

[booray]

Anyone familiar with this concept? It's embodied in the following quote by Joseph Campbell:

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you."

This is not something that I'm capable of doing, apparently, because I would rather be dead. You see, I had a relatively good life and then I had to go and fuck it up by becoming a drug addict in my mid-50s. I am now drug-free, which is a good thing, but it happened much too late and far too much damage had been done. I lost the life I once had and I'm never going to be able to get it back. Now, I'm just a shadow of my former self, someone who had once enjoyed life. I mostly spend my days in bed, too depressed to do much of anything. There was a time when I actually thought I might be able to turn my life around, but depression and anxiety have taken their hold on me and they won't let go. I can only imagine what kind of life is waiting for me, and I don't want any of it. I'm tired and I just don't want to be in this world anymore.

I'm guessing that a lot of you feel the same way and radical acceptance is out of the question.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

If the past and future is shit we can focus on the present whilst still trying to have some future improvements in mind. It takes a big amount of mental discipline to not compare your situation to a past one, hypothetical one or another's.

 

[booray]

If the past and future is shit we can focus on the present whilst still trying to have some future improvements in mind. It takes a big amount of mental discipline to not compare your situation to a past one, hypothetical one or another's.

Yeah, that's my problem. I'd rather just ctb.

 

[wordsonscreen]

Tara Brach talks about radical acceptance too. Its lovely. In case you want to explore further.

 

[lugerepair]

Well, I've already given up on the life I had planned. Several times. I've had to make my plans more and more modest, to adapt to what I'm capable of, to what my mentally ill mind can handle.

 

[Shades of Grey]

I had a therapist who really pushed this concept once, and I personally found it to be counterproductive. When the present is excruciating, the idea of "living in the moment" just doesn't resonate in any helpful way on my end.

The more she went there, the more despondent, frustrated, and suicidal I felt.

 

[booray]

I had a therapist who really pushed this concept once, and I personally found it to be counterproductive. When the present is excruciating, the idea of "living in the moment" just doesn't resonate in any helpful way on my end.

The more she went there, the more despondent, frustrated, and suicidal I felt.

This is exactly the issue that I've been having with my therapist. She knows that I'm resistant to accepting the life that I'm facing after tanking my old life, and she even knows that I've been entertaining "passive" suicidal thoughts. Of course, I'm not telling her that I now have a plan to ctb, and therein lies the rub. I'm not exactly going to radically accept a life that, in my mind, I've already opted out of.

 

[Shades of Grey]

I'm sorry.

This is part of my issue with the whole "cult of mindfulness" that has taken over the mental health industry (at least where I live). Every approach is not going to work for every person, yet if this particular approach doesn't work for you, clearly it's because you're just not "trying" or doing it "right". It's bullshit.

When I was in the bin, the nurses relied almost exclusively on mindfulness-based practices with patients in distress. I would be in a relatively good place, talking and laughing with the other "inmates". One of them would grab me to "check in" and the toxic positivity/lack of understanding would cause me to decompensate. They would respond to this by putting ice or frozen oranges on me (though I would ask them to stop) and asking me to "breathe, stay in the moment, and use my mindfulness 'skills'." What part of THE PROBLEM *IS* THE MOMENT and I NEED DISTRACTION do you fail to grasp? They also could not seem to understand that their mildly pain based "grounding skills" were destructive for me because of my self-harm history. The interaction would feel frustrating, invalidating, infantilizing, and completely useless... and would immediately leave me thinking of painful things that I could do that would actually "ground" me and reduce stress. I hadn't cut in months prior to my hospitalization, but was regularly doing it in the hospital, almost always after these interactions.

I've been miswired my entire life. When I am sitting there, cogently explaining to you why the bloody orange you're putting on my neck is doing harm, and why what I really need is for you to leave me alone and let me return to the helpful activity that I was engaged in before your interruption, and your response is "I need you to breathe. Breathe with me. Stay in this moment. Do you want to put your face in an ice bath? Are you sure you don't want an ice bath? Stay in the moment!" I just can't.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you."

You are right - the life that is waiting for us is not always a good one. For some people the only future that awaits them is one with more suffering and pain. You sometimes hear the phrase "When one door closes another one opens", but that is not ideal when there is a hungry beast behind the door; sometimes it is better to slam it shut.

 

[WornOutLife]

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you."

Okay, this is very interesting but at the same time, almost impossible to do if you're so depressed and suicidal like me and many people here.

I think I've given up the life I had planned some years ago. (more money, get married, a family, travel all over the world, etc) and now my only two options are: ctb asap or live on and "enjoy" that life waiting for me.

Maybe I won't love again. Maybe I will have less money than I do now. Maybe I'll become fatter. Maybe I'll get some new mental or physical disease.

But...

I will try to live one more time. I dunno what the future has in store for me but if it's too terrible, I'll just have to ctb. This is my final battle. I win or I lose. No ties.

 

[LittleBabyNothing]

Someone said i was the queen of radical acceptance once. Yep, i've accepted this is how my life looks, grateful for so much, endeavour to improve without pinning my happiness on better... Still fucking hate existing and want out of this life

 

[Symbiote]

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you."

Yeah whoever made that quote can shove it up their ass. We all have or had a dream of how our life would plan out, what it sometimes never worked that way, doesn't mean to stop dreaming or stop envisioning? How do successful people get to have successful lives? They planned it out and kept at it despite all the failures they've had, but finally achieved success in what they want in life. Now you can't let it come to you, you have to go after it yourself which is 100x harder when you have mental issues going on. Life does not wait for you, it will never wait for you. What it does is it leaves you behind, you become stagnant, forgotten, and in your bubble forever until you die. Give up the life I had planned or keep on trying for the life I want? I rather keep on trying and let my pride and ego kill me eventually, but at least I tried.

 

[PrettyMoose]

I accept that the word radical was used by surfing and skateboarding types in the 80's & 90's. "Radical, dude!" was just another way of saying "awesome, bro!"

 

[AE2021]

Everyone's comments are so interesting. I used the radical acceptance and mindfulness at one point and for a limited period it did help me over a particularly bad period so I could manage my work situation. However, as time moved on and I am now at a place where there really isn't anything to progress towards it is not that helpful. Other than radically accepting that death is the next frontier and to work on being at peace with it.

Also, I hear what you are saying about therapists trying to incorporate mindfulness as a therapy. Have known a number of them who did this and they were some of the least mindful people that I had ever met. And I am not saying all of them were clueless, but most were. That sort of approach is not something you can insist people do. Maybe introduce it in case it is helpful, but not insist they do it.