Sometimes I feel this, malibumark. But then again, I always had music in my life, and I never quit being a musician, so that helps me stay strong. If you have an sort of vocation like that (working with cars, collecting baseball cards, or even being a card carrying member of the Star Wars Fan Club!), it could help you stay focused, and contribute to your sense of identity. Trust me, losing your sense of WHO YOU ARE is usually a major hurdle, if not a crippling realization. Any sort of passion you've always nursed can help you reestablish your sense of YOU.

This is mere suggestion...but try it, see if it helps, and feel free to message me back. May you know peace again, my friend.

Thank You very much jay. I really appreciate it.

I don't have a specific skill set either and cant think of what I would do if I had to support myself. I know what you mean when you say it takes everything just to stay sane. I finally gave in and allowed myself to be stress free. I am on disability and although it is not much $ I don't care. I don't need anything expensive and I don't have lofty goals. I just take care of myself the best that I can. One minute at a time. When I get overwhelmed my family knows to leave me alone till I ride it out. I keep hoping I have some sort of purpose but I don't know what it is yet. I just am scared to death of losing my mind completely so I am gentle with myself.

thanks braincandy!

Definitely lost a good part of home life..I love music and learning in general but the emotional reward associated with discovery and learning is attacked instantly with voices or some other emotional intrusion which I maintain originates from an external source.
As far as work goes I never cared much what I did for money , I was satisfied with a good home life and hobbies and am quite sensitive therefore had a very rich emotional life when alone..any learning at all and I feel good..voices attack..they're like dirty beggars invading a very sensitive and intimate area.
for sure I feel as though I've lost part of my life but they haven't been able to deter me from pursuing fitness and exercise ..I can use all those negative emotions to push myself in vigorous workouts and feel ok adopting a warlike approach to health as though good health brings victory in a war ...it brings energy and that energy can be used in other pursuits.
As I write this I hear new voices of young males harassing and mocking and threatening if I become emotionally resistant .
I guess if you live in a city you have to make a good deal of money just to get by .

thanks for the reply! I appreciate what you shared!

Wondered if this would help! Is book someone recommended to me a long time ago. .One of my therapists told me it was on the net now The book itself is in 13 pdfs - one for each chapter, down the bottom right of the page. Hope it helps anyway.
http://wishcraft.com/

Thanks Nistegmos!! Thanks Edison!! I'll look at the book!

I was feeling that way today. I've just accepted I was given a bad hand completely. People who don't understand call it negativity, and it probably is but acting like I care just expands the problems. I have been enjoying who I've become calmly to cope these last couple of days. Basically I've totally detached from who I've wanted to be or who I thought I was and have accepted my life with all it includes. It's decreased my anger and has allowed me to be less stressed, I'm like a person who loses a limb or goes blind, thinking it will grow back or sight will return is pointless. It's over, I am who I am even if that is a negative hopeless non-productive ill person with nothing to live for or look forward to. I am who I am, it doesn't fall in line with society, I fail at everything I've ever really wanted or tried to do as an adult, people will not understand and probably will distance themselves from me, and I will wish for the end more times than not as a regularity.

Someone said something about external factors increasing dibility and I couldn't agree more. The key is just taking it so atleast you can sense value. If voices bombard you and tell you your worthless let them, that is what I do. All I really have to do to survive is nothing because I have passed the point of worrying about anything including life, people, or myself. There is no point to my life, that's the whole point of my existence essentially.

Being nothing allows me to not have to be anything or everything anyone or anything feels, thinks, (and the absolute worst one) knows I could, would, or should be. My life is to be a definite nothing surrounded by somebodies, all they can be's, go getters, the sane, the ambitious, the rational, anything who thinks they know something. If I try to fit in or "do as they do in rome" it doesn't look or feel right because I'm no longer nothing then. I don't know anything generally and that creates dispute in an advanced world equally as generally. Naturally that creates the hero and the villian or the conquerer and the victim. Mentally challenged people (notice how society says "ill" and stays content with it) usually are seen as either villians or victims 100% of the time because subconsciously we are already "nothings" to them generally. So instead of aggravating myself to be something a flawed magnet of what importance deems "important" sociolitical, I through both no choice and involuntary choice at the same time volunteer to give up and not care even if systematic or culture driven consesus then punishes me for it.

The best part of it all is then seeing how wrong right things or right people can be and how wrong sometimes can be the only thing right comically.

Guzuntigh,

I am sorry you're struggling so. Life for us can be more of a struggle sometimes than others. I hope you can keep 'the door open' so that
you can live with changes life brings.

Peace,

Mark