the more i try to recover the more impossible it seems.

[Kokonoe]

it truly feels like if you're disabled (and therefore can't work) and were forced to drop out of college you're just fucked forever. at least i am.
i have no life. i have 0 friends. my family doesn't even talk to me or check in anymore. i am completely alone. i have nothing to do with my time at all. i just sit and rot and wait to die and there's no out to my situation anywhere in sight.
i tried looking into ways to fix something. the ideas i ended up with after talking to my therapists and my dad were art classes (it's one of the few things i actually find any amount of fulfillment in) and volunteering.
but like there aren't any sort of realistic options for art classes. it's like one day workshops or 4+ years of college and no in between. and i absolutely cannot handle college again, my dad would never approve of it, and i'm not putting myself into debt over art. plus i would just outright fail, i could never handle it. it seemed more and more impossible the more i looked into it.
volunteering isn't any better. it's basically just employment but you don't get paid. why would i ever do that. especially when i don't care about any of it. i can't find it within myself to even bother. i just don't want to do it.
i feel stuck, hopeless, and trapped. it feels like i am going to be alone with no life forever. it feels like i have no control over my existence and there's no escape outside of maybe ctb-ing, if i can even manage that much. how is someone like me ever supposed to get some form of life at all? i feel destined to die like this.

 

[mutsu]

im sorry you have to go through that

i feel similarly, i recently dropped out of university because theres no way i could handle that. my parents are letting me off saying its just a "gap year" but i dont know if i'll ever be able to ever go back and i definetly cant hold a job or a get a license

i feel like art is the one thing i can do but there's no way i can survive off it and i can't afford college for it ether

it really does feel like its not about whether i want to die or not, i have to die, its just what i was destined to do

 

[Grasp of darkness]

You can regard volunteering as a form of trial and error for finding something that you might like. Good chance you'll hate it all but then you know that you hate it all instead of not being sure.

 

[-Link-]

how is someone like me ever supposed to get some form of life at all?

The key may lie in something like, stop chasing what's presently out of reach and figure out how to embrace what's right in front of you.

If all that's right in front of you is (the feeling of) nothingness, then you want to either relax into it (embrace the ability and capacity to "do nothing"), or find something that can fill the void in the very short-term: engage in something you value (eg. get started on that art project), engage and help other people (eg. reply to people on this forum with words of support or advice), "get curious" (eg. go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and read about topics that the 'non-rotting you' would be interested in), do something that involves fresh air or sunlight -- the idea with any of these being to jolt your brain out of its "nothingness" state.

I'd think about the concept of "some form of life" and how much of the idea comes from within yourself versus how much of it is bred out of what's dictated to us by the outside world -- ie. what you want and value vs. what others tell you that you should want and value.

I'd also look at loosening the meaning of "recovery". For example, just asking this question here at all can be construed as a form of recovery. Give yourself credit for this. Did you get out of bed today? Give yourself credit for that. This, practicing self-compassion.

For bigger goals that feel out of reach, think about smaller goals that could help towards the larger one. Incremental steps, one step at a time.

As to coping with day-to-day life: Find the small enjoyments (eg. savour that piece of chocolate, consciously lose yourself in a TV show), keep aware of negative bias (humans naturally focus on the negative, and it takes practice to control this), be gentle with yourself (illness, disability, and suicidality take enough from us as it is), figure out a few short coping statements you can use to mitigate a spiral in the moment (eg. telling yourself, "calm, be calm"; "it's OK, this is OK, I'm OK"; or "I can do this"; etc.)... And if you've learned any coping techniques in therapy, put those to practice whenever you can, as often as you can -- they can be easy to forget especially in those times of darkness.

 

[Kokonoe]

it really does feel like its not about whether i want to die or not, i have to die, its just what i was destined to do

i relate to this part a lot. i feel like i don't have any choice in it. i was meant to die, and it's not in my control. there is nothing i can ever do to make my life any better. all my efforts are pointless.

You can regard volunteering as a form of trial and error for finding something that you might like. Good chance you'll hate it all but then you know that you hate it all instead of not being sure.

it's hard to feel like any of it is something i might like. a lot of it is just like standard unskilled work but without the pay. like i'm not exactly thrilled to sort inventory or restock shelves at a local art supply store or anything. it's hard to even want to do volunteering when my options are just stuff like that. at that point i should just get a job (but that level of commitment isn't something i can handle with my health).