Damned if I know sometimes!! .... I just have to accept all my feelings and thoughts and release the tension - mostly by crying - then I generally come up with one of my many slogans - like - 'pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again' ... this may take some time!

Winston Churchill said 'If you're going through hell, keep going' !

I wrote a letter to my future self--the one further along the journey of healing. I cried, I told her how I felt, I told her my hopes and dreams for what she would turn out like.

It was a good experience, and very powerful when I found the letter again a year later.

reading inspirational quotes..or reading topics online about recovery and survivors like us.. this helps me focus on the positive and also reminds me that im not the only person who sometimes just doesnt feel right or understood.. aslo remebering that sometimes i feel like hell and sometimes sane and back and forth..well if i feel like hell i dont bother too much bcus i know i will feel more sane at some point...even if i feel like hell again (f!ng cycle)..i will be sane again.. i dont pay attention to the fact that it may be shortly..but atleast i know sanity will follow no matter when or for how long.. i try to be hopeful and believe in my self as i try to love my self
hope this helps.
best wishes for u

not a very helpful response here from me cos I wish I knew. whenever things have been really really shit ive ended up detained in hospital and forced to be kept safe and made more stable.

I hope u feel better soon.x

I tell myself that if things are still this bad when I am 64 (I am 49), then I allow myself to kill myself then - but not before.

it is amazing how much strength to survive the present, this permission to end it in the future gives me.

Oh...I'm actually feeling fairly okay, myself, if sad and frustrated...See...

I have a friend on another site, and she seems to be fairly locked into a self-destruct sequence.
I've tried to work against her self-blame, and no dice...I've tried to get her outraged on her own behalf, and again, nothing.

I would like to get her feeling her strength, which I know she's got, because she made it this far. But I don't know how to go about doing that.
For me it was my crazy guy...he needed me alive, so I dug down inside and lived. My friend has a partner who loves her, but that's not enough for her. She's in an enormous amount of pain.
So I'm racking my brains and looking for ideas.

Today I was feeling very violent towards myself. I had two bad interactions with two different people I care about, mostly because I can't tune in socially like normal people. Maybe I have Asperger's or something. I feel terrible shame and self-hatred over it and I don't think it's ever going to change.

I really wanted to hurt myself, but as I cast around for a way to cope with all these terrible feelings i remembered Dragonfly's motto, which I have adopted for my own, as follows: the task is to love ourselves unconditionally, be fiercely loyal to ourselves and forever forgiving of our stumbling. Be fiercely loyal to myself and forever forgiving of my stumbling - what would that entail? With that in mind, I switched from despising myself as an adult to comforting the child within me for her anguish about these faults or qualities she can't change or overcome. And that's what helped: being with the child in me instead of hating the adult in me. Wow, that kid was in so much anguish, and when I tuned in to her in that way it felt very old and familiar. I was able to love her, accept her, comfort her.

Knowing that I've jumped hurdles in the past to deal with the pain gives me hope that if I'm experiencing difficult stuff in this area that anger will burn off and acceptance will come.

I've got a family I can't relate to and with time I accept that's the way it is. If they could do the things they did, or support abusers, and have no apology I will always feel they are a threat. I've worked hard to build self esteem and respect and quit dealing with people who aren't honorable. I heard a comedian say "Just because we fell out of the same vagina........" and that about sums it up

Meditation practice got both my husband and I out of the abyss.(we are both survivors)

But what I call meditation is , whatever spiritual tradition you rely on, to first find an authentic teacher who has some genuine and stable realisation, not a charlatan.And then, just give it a try.

And then practice on a regular basis in a regular, pleasant place.

it costs nothing.One just needs a cushion.

In the beginning, it is like digging in a big mess in the mind .
Then, the mud settles, the traffic calms down and peace slowly works its way all over body and mind.

5 minutes to start with is enough. then, one familiarises oneself with recognizing an aspect of oneself one was not aware of, a state of luminosity and joy which comes from our real self, a state that cuts through all the horrors and trauma we crossed through.
We reach home little by lttle, one minute at a time.

Hylie, I think your concern for this friend is wonderful. Even if you don't think you are helping to pull her up at the moment, maybe it would be even worse if you weren't doing what you are.

You found your reason to live, she has to find hers.