Be Happy Where You Are

a reply to: Timely

a reply to: thepixelpusher

Thank you, Every since the loss of my kids to their drunk driving father, I have struggled with feeling suicidal. I learned very quickly that reaching out only made things worse. My friends, who needed desperately, would tell me to seek out professionals. the professionals would tell me I need to do a better job at reaching out and work on building a better support system.

It is really a damned if you do damned if you don't, when tragedy strikes. Bad things happen in life, and then people like the OP make posts like this that make you feel worse.

Honestly, for at least the first 6 months, posts like the OP increased my level of grief and suicidal feelings because they made me feel like i wasn't supposed to be having such a hard time even though my babies were gone. My children were the only blood relatives I had. I have to go on with the rest of my life grieving my children and knowing i will never have the connection of blood again.

The funny thing is, people you consider "family" will drop you like a hot potato when tragedy strikes. The saying "You make your own family" is B.S. I learned that the hard way.

Sorry, done rambling now, I just hate OP's like this because the Op's don't realize the damage they can due to someone who is in the wake of tragedy.

a reply to: Another_Nut

Great song, very sad ...

Life eh ?

a reply to: calstorm

Sorry to hear of the tragic loss of your family.
There sometimes are no words.

I do hope you have someone to at least just sit with, when you need to grieve.

a reply to: calstorm

Ramble away

We have to teach the op how wrong and brainwashed he is and all those who agree with the op

They are the problem not us

They use their line of reasoning to marginalize us

As a way to be able to say "well its their fault for not being happy in life"

Its a sick mentality

a reply to: calstorm

My heart goes out to you Honey. Many people simply do not realize that we don't always have control over the situations we are put it. And to simply bounce back and feel happiness and joy after such tragedies and suffering makes no sense to me at all.

Many people have gone through too much for too long and are often in a dark place because of it. I will always support such people with compassion. HUGS!

a reply to: Iamschist

I found joy and laughter feeding birds and watching them. I found escape in library books on travel. Little things are what make us happy, go and find joy in them for yourself.

I can find moments of joy with animals or losing myself in a good book or movie or spending time with a good friend. There are however times when I was inconsolable and nothing could help the pain and sorrow I was going through. All the beauty in nature, its flora and fauna and all the mysteries in the universe didn't matter to me then. There was no joy. There was no happiness. Sometimes for many people, happiness and joy are but a very temporary thing if they can find it at all.

Some people merely feel as though they are existing and some even feel as though they have lost all hope. I have helped more than one person who wanted to commit suicide. They are now alive and thriving. Sadly, we can't save them all.

I don't think it was your intention to make anyone feel bad. I just don't think you realized the enormity and profoundness of the subject.

a reply to: calstorm

As callous as it sounds, what's done is done.

You can't undo it.

You are still alive; give yourself permission to be happy.

Moreover, your children would WANT that, wouldn't they?

originally posted by: Timely
a reply to: Another_Nut

Great song, very sad ...

Life eh ?

Life...indeed.

Now we are starting to get some real replies and not the back slapping of the first page and a half

Night star good job.

Cj keep the tired ol tripe. Yiu think she hasn't heard that before? Yiu can never get over that kind of loss. Will you find joy again? Yes but it will be fleeting . Yiu will always come back to it. Save the greeting card nonsense

We are taking about life here

a reply to: Another_Nut

Bollocks, I wasn't addressing you.

# off.

a reply to: CJCrawley

*yawn

Triggered? Check
Jimmies rustled? Check

Don't want to be criticized?

Try a PM next time . You were addressing the thread.

If yiu want your mom to coddle you try the next room

Or better yet . Read the thread title and "be happy where you are"

I'm just gonna leave this here. Dunno where I would be without johnny.

Failure to move on. Then what. You become defined by your tragedy. Your life stops. I am more than the things I have endured, or the things that have happened to me. Life is more than suffering. Yes there are times when suffering is great. Times when joy is not even looked for. My situation went on for years. I learned to find happiness where I could.

How is my being able to find joy in the midst of sorrow and hardship, a threat to anyone, or indifference to the suffering of others?

There is no bouncing, there is resilience, there is wanting more than being a tragic figure people pity.

I am sorry for the man's family who committed suicide.

I am sorry for the starving and homeless and the children who cannot play.

I am sorry for those who think I am somehow attacking them by suggesting they have the power to choose how they see things.

Last summer I experienced a depression that was totally different to any depression I've had before. I was determined to end it all, I was getting my brother to contact Dignitas in Switzerland and arranging my funeral. I had just suffered a large bleed to the brain and was totally paralysed down my left hand side. I had to be hoisted in and out of my wheel chair which had to pushed by nurses around the hospital. It was a hospital for people who had suffered stokes or other major brain injuries.at the time I was and still am living with a terminal brain Tumor. I just wanted to be back at home wth my family, but stayed to complete 4 months rehabilitation. What got me through the experience was quite a high dosage of anti depressants And some awesome care. I had no choice in finding much happiness, but I do have a sense of humour that keeps me going through the darkest times. Had I lost that, God knows where I would be oh and thank god for anti depressants. I know they get a bad rap on ATS but they got me through a real tough time, no doubt about it.

there will always be two side of the coin. And you cant have just one side landing over and over again when you flip it. And just like that it is with life. Of Course happiness isn't something which everyone can just choose to feel and live it. But whatever anyone say it is our natural state or at least close to our nature.

Bad things happen all the time and to all of us. And good to! But it is easier to get out of happiness than get out of sadness. It is always easy to change our natural state. Because natural means without input - you just are happy/content (I do not mean material happiness or such, just pure happiness for instance when you had a good dream and you wake up filling heeel yeeah for the rest of the day ).

Until you feel sad because of some event or chain of events in life. But the hard part is to get out of negative fillings.
A lot of people are stuck in the past with fillings and memories. But they do not understand that it is their thoughts which are causing them grief and sadness. And not life or anyone else. Each one of us humans have a mind which can be our saviour or our villain. What will it be for you? You have the power over your mind, yes? ... no most people don't have that. and me included. We do not know how to let go and just be. And this relates to being happy and being sad. We must all learn to let go. Well most people are pro at letting happiness go and newbie at letting sadness go

But with mind training one can get out of this faster and process fillings faster and more efficiently so we can feel natural happiness and contentment again. Everyone can do that. What I am talking about is meditation, which is overlooked in modern society for mumbojumbo But it can really help with this stuff.

And one more thing. It. Takes. Time. We must just learn to endure and try to search for positives instead of negatives. And it will get better. But please don't use extremes (abused children, etc...) for example that it can't be done. Those persons are in entirely different world of experience and I wish I will never have to experience pain on that level. And most of us are not in that position. But even among those persons there are many who have iron heart and strong will to not give in to sadness and have accepted it and let it go. I admire those people. They are the strongest! Movie 12 years a slave comes to mind where the main character showed immense inner strength...and he get out of it because of that - terrific movie!

a reply to: Iamschist

It is when you set a goal for yourself and achieve it, many are upset because they have not achieved their goals, and many have unrealistic expectations, and yet they still hold on to these instead of being realistic about what they are able to accomplish. I set myself targets and aim to achieve them, and when I do, the sense of "joy" is there and there is a sense of "pride" in what I have done. Pride is very important in small amounts, because if you lose your sense of self-respect and feel that you are a non-achiever, you will start to enter destructive and depressive modes of thinking.

originally posted by: and14263
It's age, experience and circumstances that make you appreciate what you have.

Seems to me like you have experienced enough of the crap to realise what you have is good.

It's taken me a while, until I had a daughter maybe, before I realised that there are so many people in the world starving and unhappy that my position is enviable.

You're right, we may be slaves to the wage, freedom may be an illusion... but most of us are privileged enough to eat everyday and have friends.

The other day I gazed around myself here near the PC and started laughing at all the gadgets at hand. Cell phone, radio, flashlight, tools, cup of coffee, printer, cd's and player, headphones, propane lighter, electric power at large, tap water, coffee maker, deep freezer, camera, car in the driveway, can talk or communicate several ways with people all over the world at the drop of hat, you name it ect. Laughing because there is more life made easy "stuff" in this room than the Pharaoh of Egypt had and I am just a regular joe out here. And just think of the alternative to all of the above 100 years ago. Should say 150 years now days. But its funny! An explosion of life made easy gadgets brought to us by our fellow man!

a reply to: Iamschist

While I admire your attitude, the reality is that not everyone has the high level of emotional resilience needed to strive and persevere when life's challenges come their way.

In addition, many people suffer from mental health issues, which make coping with life challenges much more difficult - as does finding amusement and happiness in the smaller things in life.

Consider yourself fortunate that you are emotionally strong enough to cope with the challenges that have been presented to you in this life.

a reply to: Iamschist


Ummm...well said...I couldn't agree more...
I try to live in the moment...not next week...I try to take a small part of each day and just marvel at the wonder of it all...everything that's taken for granted...

Every moment is so richly imbued with the amazing that it just stuns me...look at a night sky and think about all those lights up there and what that means...Or even just a brook as it spills around the rocks on it's cyclical journey...
Look in the mirror...not at your features but into the eye's and prepare to be floored by the rich tapestry of your thoughts...or even the thought that you can see and imagine and question...

Think about your feelings...that interpersonal emotive melange that your allowing to exist inside...Stop and think about that for a moment...That interpersonal emotive melange that...you...allow...
You and none other...then perhaps you might find that response to stimuli is determined...not by cause but by decision...

What will you decide today...to fall prey to that niggling voice that talks nonsense...or will you instead close your eyes and breathe deep as you strive for that childlike center that knows how to laugh away the tears...?






YouSir

a reply to: Iamschist

Optimism: The wisdom of fools

originally posted by: Jamie1
a reply to: Iamschist

Happiness is always a choice.

Ignorance is bliss, as they say.