It is so late after your query, Jeavean.
I wonder what choices you have made in the interim.

If not too late, this is my one main reason for sticking around: Because I can contribute

Even when my experience is at its most painful or despairing, I try to remember that it is in my most painful, negative experiences that I learn lessons that, alone, can help someone else in a similar pain. Only people who know what it is to go through a particular kind of experience can help someone else who is alone with that same kind of experience.

And they are out there,Jeavean! There is not one feeling that you have felt, not one thought or one fear that you have ever known that isn't being experienced by someone somewhere else. You just don't know who they are.
Be open to sharing and you will find them.
Take care, Epifani

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To Jevean

One reason to stay is not to let them win, and know it will get better as you do your work. It gets much worse before it gets better, but the despair will pass and it will come back. I hope for the day i have completed my work I am thinking of you sherry

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Why Stick Around?

To fight the pain ongoing although inconsistent feelings of wanting this life to be over, is (to be redundant) ongoing...

How I screamed and cried for months that I want G-d to take me and then, my cat would jump up on my stomach and I would laugh and scream, G-d, please disregard, I don't mean it...please...

There is no set answer to this....The feeling is strong and it is a struggle - I am a grateful mother and grandmother who at the age of 52, separated after 30 years of marriage, then finding out that I have a disorder like "Three Faces of Eve" .....you have got to be kidding, live? I know I have to want to live for ME not any other reason....

Why? Here's a little story... I picked up a book at a local thrift store...It was a soft cover book, about 400 pages, and with very little information on the back of the book where I always check to see if I would enjoy reading something.....But, somehow there was enough to get my interest to my .50 cent investment. At times I found the book a little slow but it always kept my curiosity.

Would I throw out the book? Heck no, I am going to eventually read it to the end and see what happens....La'Chaim my friends, to Life............. m. ************************************************************************************************ Want to respond to the inquiry about needing reasons to stick around...what a tough one that is. After being in therapy some 8 years with MPD/DID by "george" I think I have it.

Sure, I fight the desire to be gone. How often during my first few years dealing with the PTSD (my title is mini-breakdowns) did I pray for my Higher Power to "please take me" and then I would cry "No,no I don't mean it". At that time I had three cats and knew if I died that they would be in trouble and that was enough of a reason for me to want to live.

In my case, the reality is that my struggle to not want to live is from my past...disappearing over and over again was exhausting and going to sleep or dying seems to be a realief, but the reality is NO, I want to live. (Still not 100% sure why). That is why I am in therapy, though, and doing everything I can and not just surviving.

Besides, I am a great believer in reincarnation and I really need to clear this lifetime up as best I can so that is my wonderful goal. I am so proud of myself as I do know what this struggle has been like, and that I can write to MV to say I AM ALIVE and it is great. Maybe tough,lonely, and shocking seeing what happened to me, especially the reality of who the abusers were, but I made it this far and I want to keep going. And I just turned 61 this year.

My suggestion is learn how to meditate. Breathe in love, health,. joy, anything positive and breathe out anything from life, love, anger, and just do it for 20 minutes every A.M. before breakfast, sitting upright on a chair. All I do now is take the breaths and meditate, and I am so content and grateful and peaceful... M.D.

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Hello Jeavean,

I too have had to seek reasons to live. There are a few things I've found helpful for me.

I made a list of all the things I'd like to do "one more time". That got me thinking of the positives of life, and how I wanted to do each thing at least one more time. Well, then I wanted to do it one more, etc.

At one point I was on the edge of suicide and I wrote a note to my family. When I began writing to my brother, I remembered how incredibly sad and devastated he'd been when I almost killed myself before. I began to cry, and ended up committing to living for his sake.

Now, several years later, I live for all parts of myself as well. Another thing I struggle to remember when I'm feeling suicidal is: Much of the urge for me to die is "recycling memory". That is it is sort of a flashback of what I felt at the time of trauma. That helps me realize that the feelings reflected life many years ago, not now. I don't want the perpetrators that hurt me to "win" through my giving up. My goal is to win, by surviving and thriving despite their efforts to crush me. My competitive edge helps at times here.

And the last thing I'll say is what I've said to myself many thousands of times... THIS TOO SHALL PASS! Because it always has. When in that state, I tend to only remember other depressed states, but the truth is that a happier state always came about at some point in the cycle. Good luck and good work, Jeavean!

Bob

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