Ask HN: Why keep living?

Please seek a mental health professional/suicide hotline/tell a family member/tell a friend/move somewhere you feel better/do anything to get out of this state.

That said, there are many good reasons to stay alive: love, pleasure, personal connections, contentment, spirituality. You may not have any of these now, but you must acknowledge the possibility that they will happen for you in the future. Even people in the worst of circumstances are able to sometimes find these things. Hope for a better day must stay alive.

    """
    ... a mental health professional ...
    """

    My comment is obtuse and I apologize for it, all I can say is everyone walks their own path and its not always easy.

I have so many things I haven't done yet. I have so many people I haven't met yet.

Life is a short and most likely one time thing. We might as well see what we can make of it and who we can impact in a positive way.

Please talk to your friends and family if you start having harmful thoughts.

"All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope."

Sorry man, that's all I got.

> when I suddenly started feeling anxious and depressed for no discernible reason

This sounds chemical! Medication helped me, try it!

Call this number right now. Right now. 1 (800) 273-8255

I've been through some of this myself, and have several friends who've gone through it as well.

I cannot recommend finding a good cognitive-behavioural therapist enough. Cognitive behavioural therapy with a good therapist actually helps; I've seen it with other people and myself.

Outside of that, personally I've that while external validation like you're trying can be nice, it doesn't always fight off intrinsic issues. For short term things, I've found going back to things I know I enjoy or used to enjoy helpful--finding friends I haven't hung out with in a while, or a videogame I know I like to play, or a favourite TV show, or a personal project I used to care about. I usually don't want to do these things before I start, but find they're easier to get back into than I expect.

This can be really tough, and I'm sorry you're going through it. But it is something you can get through!

But please find a good therapist (who lists cognitive behavioural therapy as something they specialize in)! And if the first person you find isn't someone you like, try another. I promise there are wonderful ones out there!

I think you should get help. You either have health insurance now, or you qualify for a lot of government help. Almost everywhere in America now has some kind of mental health intervention. Please, go and look. Do not assume that you won't be able to afford it. Most clinics won't turn you away for that reason anyway.

Your depression is like an adversary, trying to kill you, and it is feeding you wrong thoughts. Some of them are obvious, depriving meaning from meaningful things, and some of them are not obvious, like the idea that you cannot get help for one reason or another. But it's just another tactic for your adversary.

I would guess that you need some friends. Having a "support network" is important. If you had one, you wouldn't be reaching out to strangers on HN. But, look at it this way—I haven't logged in to leave a comment in a year and a half, and I did for you. And you have two other people leaving comments, so clearly you are interesting enough to make some friends. So I would recommend you try and do that.

The rest of my advice is probably useless, but I'll say it anyway.

Sometimes when I get depressed I fantasize about going somewhere remote and just living in a cabin or something. I'm sure I'd be awful at it, but you know, if your alternative is killing yourself, you might as well try it. At least that way you can die of something exotic. Would you rather die because you were trying something dangerous in the hopes of enjoying it, or because you decided to call it quits early? Have you tried freighthopping? If you're going to kill yourself, you might as well get a free trip or two out of it. You might as well go down to the dangerous part of town and get into a fight. You might as well, I dunno, get an awful job like helping people move that pays rather well and blow it all on something frivolous.

I dunno. I suffer from depression myself but haven't been suicidal in a long time. The thing is that it's a disease, and treating your mood is treating the symptom. You probably need medication and counseling to treat the disease. But for me, a major turning point was regarding the negative thoughts as something adversarial, a manifestation of the disease, rather than just "truth." Another thing that helped me was that I had the faith that if I did kill myself, I would be depriving someone of their soulmate. Corny. But it's the truth, it helped me a lot. And now I know I was right to have faith in that.

I don't know. This probably isn't constructive. Try lots of things and talk to lots of people about it. Don't give up.

Oh, and get some sunlight (or vitamin D). And avoid street drugs. Ecstasy in particular can cause this.

From what you say, it's totally understandable that you would at times feel anxious and depressed. There's nothing wrong with that. It's normal. However, there's a risk of getting stuck in a downward spiral. At some unpredictable point, you might find yourself in an upward spiral. But that can't happen if you commit suicide.

Without going into detail, I can definitely relate to how you feel now and in the past.

I really don't think anyone is going to come up with your own personal reason for living. In the simplest biological terms, our purpose is to survive long enough to procreate or pass on our genetic information. Beyond that, it's up to you!

You'd be surprised at what sort of free and low-cost mental health assistance is available in some cities in the USA. Within the last 5 years, there's a lot more awareness and money being spent on mental health care. Google for "low cost mental health care" in your area before you've written off professional health. If you do get a prescription, try to find a professional therapist who's also willing to do non-prescription services (such as CBT/cognitive based therapy).

I personally think diet and exercise (weightlifting, walking, yoga, dancing, swimming, roller-skating, biking, running, etc.) has helped my mental health immensely. There is something about the chemical cocktail from exercise that has been a real life saver for me and for many others (anecdotal and measured scientifically).

On the other side of the scale, I think technology like computers and smartphones haven't helped my mental health in any beneficial way. I remember people being more personally connected before Facebook, Twitter and all of the rest of the "social networks". I doesn't really feel like our brains are optimized for spending 8+ hours a day in front of a computer screen. 20 years ago I remember telling people I was a programmer and spent most of the day in front of a computer screen. Now it seems like most jobs are in front of a computer of some sort. I fear for the future generations who won't have the ability to disconnect from technology in the way I did as a kid and a young man.

Good luck friend.

Hey, I was sad to hear how you feel, but really glad you said something.

I've been feeling pretty down, too. In the past there were times I felt so bad that the main thing stopping me from hurting or killing myself was that I couldn't bear to hurt my parents. They're great people, who already suffered the loss of their other child, through no fault of theirs.

But I know from experience that it can turn around very quickly. There have been times when my life has gone from hopeless to better than I ever imagined it could be, and I was really happy, and every day was an adventure.

It happened before, and I'm trying every day to make it happen again. The pain I've been going through will have been converted to subtley, and depth of character, and strength, and fuel for humor, and the problems I have now will seem small. Just don't give up! We only find the answers when we're still looking for answers.

I think it's very important to understand and accept that what you are feeling is not a normal state. I would say try to think focus your efforts on arriving at the normal state; of being able to feel pleasure and happiness. Depression is well within the range of human emotion, but you must understand the other parts of the range, and work towards them! As it has already been said, it sounds like what you're feeling is chemical, and you should try to address that -- you can't easily rationalize depression away if its in fact chemical.

BTW, I am very happy to hear that you've been helping the needy and being selfless in general :-)!

Huh, I appear to be shadowbanned now? What gives?

been there and heres the shortcut: just work out until you feel better, it will take 1-2 mo but the feeling is really undescribably worth it and amazing

there are still cool things you can do: skydiving, bungee jumping, fly a plane, surfing, buy a motorcycle

This sounds exactly like my situation to a T.

I'll be straightforward: I'd love to chat -- anonymously of course -- in the hope that we both might benefit. I cooked up a GMail account just for that reason, which you can find in my profile.

I'll monitor it for the next day or so if you'd accept the offer.

Dear OP, your second user account (an_tye_h3ro) is getting auto-killed, which you won't notice while logged in, so only people with showdead enabled can see comments from that account. I've sent an email to HN about it but they're probably fast asleep right now. Maybe see if you can post on the original throwaway again?

Additionally, there's a dead comment from streetwiseherc you might want to read which will show up if you enable showdead in your profile

Hope you feel better soon

edit: I see you noticed just before I commented and posted asking why you've been shadowbanned - FYI, it's an automatic thing if HN detects a new account from the Tor network. Mods will normally undo the ban once they notice, if they think it isn't deserved.

TLDR: check out vipassana meditation - it's free and I use it to stay calm.

I'm also from a country without great access to health care(Ukraine) :)

My experience is about remembering the moment in my life where I was lying on the floor, then saying in rattling voice "I've decided to live" and getting on my feet. Not sure what was the reason to live before that :)

Now it's probably more about things to look forward to. Mine thing is hanging out with children(they're so energetic!). If you're on hacker news, you probably know some programming, if so maybe volunteering as a teacher for an orphanage can be a nice thing to do?

TLDR: check out vipassana meditation - it's free and I use it to stay calm.

I'm also from a country without great access to health care(Ukraine) :)

My experience is about remembering the moment in my life where I was lying on the floor, then saying in rattling voice "I've decided to live" and getting on my feet. Not sure what was the reason to live before that :)

Now it's probably more about things to look forward to. Mine thing is hanging out with children(they're so energetic!). If you're on hacker news, you probably know some programming, if so maybe volunteering as a teacher for an orphanage can be an inspiring thing to do?

If you are amenable to reading a short non-fiction book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl discusses this topic exactly. He recounts his struggles with the same question while trying to survive the Holocaust. As an added dimension, the author was a highly respected psychologist.

As someone who suffers from mental health disorders, I found it immensely helpful.

Bettering yourself, by constantly learning and experiencing new things, can be a great part of life.

Read some of the great books that exist in the world. They contain amazing thoughts that might change your entire mindset.

Curiosity really. Things will happen in the next 50 years that I'd like to learn/know/see/do, and something (life) is better than nothing (death). Even if I knew in that all the broader goals of my life I would fail and be miserable, I'd still derive some pleasure from reading and learning and just observing humanity as a whole. Allie Brosh wrote two excellent blogs about depression that you may enjoy (or at least relate to, my partner swore this was the best explanation for her depression): http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/adventures-... http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/depression-...

> basically I had all of my dreams in life shattered [...]. The long-term stress robbed me of any self-confidence.

The following might apply to you or not - you have to decide yourself: You might have connected your self-confidence to your goals or dreams or success and are possibly also comparing yourself to others (jealousy). You need to let go of all that, since love for life is at the very bottom of everything, and does not come by struggling for it. There are countless reasons to live, as you have surely experienced before - you just can't see them right now. This will change eventually, and it's worth to stick around to get to see it. So that's one thing. The other thing is the situation you find yourself in, which you still might want to improve. To do that without becoming depressed, try to reserve a fixed amount of time to work toward any goals, without becoming attached to them. Just put in the effort every day for a fixed amount of time. If the things you want to change can't be changed by working towards them, you need to let them go, too.

Does this ring a bell? If not, each depression is different - and I hope some of the other comments help you.

I've struggled with the same question and seemingly just to add to my despair I find I cannot answer the question satisfactorily.

The only reason I do keep living is that I find I can't answer the opposite question either:

Why not keep living?

At least for that variant many reasons do surface, and whilst none seem overwhelmingly strong they do allow the question to evolve into:

Why not keep living a little while longer?

A deferred decision as I've found no strong answers either way.

I suspect that living a long life is to just not have strong answers either way and to discover that time has passed and now you're old.

I don't buy the argument that suicide isn't an option, of course it is. When despair is all you have, and the future is bleak, it sometimes can appear to be the only option. Somehow though, a short time later, decision not made, I've always found myself in some place in which I'm glad I didn't. In which I've found some peace, some bliss, some joy from life... and doing so has driven the despair away.

I have no answer for "Why keep living?", but if you are willing to consider changing things in your life (to get away from the things that bring you despair) then you can find some answers of varying merit to the opposite question.

I won't diminish your feelings by claiming this is a total solution, but getting regular exercise has really helped me come back from the place of despair I was in a few months ago. You don't need to be fit; I definitely wasn't. Something as simple as walking for an hour or two a day is free and has huge benefits; it'll get you up and outside of your normal environment, shake up your routine/rut, improve your sleep and hopefully help get you some of those feel-good chemicals pumping again. Any weight loss or fitness gains are a nice self-esteem boosting cherry on top.

I enjoy listening to audiobooks and podcasts while I'm out doing my daily 6 miles. Is there a book you really like, or one you've been really wanting to read? Get the audiobook and commit to a walking experiment for the 10-20 hours it takes to listen through that one book.

Most of what was worth saying has been said already, so I'll just add a simple stone to the growing pile of rocks/comments that symbolise the fact that we care and want you to get better. This strange state of mind you're in will pass, one way or another. There are people around the world who, without even knowing you personally, empathise deeply and genuinely care about your continued existence.

You're not alone, though it may feel like that some time.

Every day that you continue to exist is a victory for all of us.