From the darkest of nights

[Terra]

Hey all, still feel down as I posted in PMS zone, but I thought I might ask a question of you all.

What keeps you going? When the world is its darkest for you, how do you retain your sanity and hope?

I can't be the first to feel like i've gone loco, and probably won't be the last. So if anyone has some advice for others, bring it here. Maybe we could do a wiki off of it. Maybe it will be what helps someone else.

[Cire]

What keeps me going (kept me from killing myself plenty of times) is philosophy. A knowledge that what I believe in is right, the ability to prove what I know is right (no faith), and that the world is something to live in, not something that is positive or negitive any more than I make my life to be.

My email quote:

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. - Ayn Rand

If you want to make your life wonderful, make it wonderful. If you think you don't control your life, you won't. If you believe there are powers greater than you, you'll be powerless.

[Hypatia]

What kept me going in my darkest nights was something I found deep down at the very rock-bottom core of my existence-- a source of positive energy that just won't quit no matter what. I found it when I'd abandoned all hope that I would ever be able to exist. When all my own strength and attempts were completely exhausted and discarded, what remained in the deepest depths was this quiet, firm sense that my existence would go on anyway. I learned to count on that.

As a result of this experience, I've come to think that this is what faith is. It isn't necessarily any of the religion I was taught, it's just this irreducible core of positive energy that sustains my existence, which I didn't know I had until I really needed it. From this as a foundation I was able to build my life back up and get to the success as a trans woman I'm now enjoying.

[Pica Pica]

I do something very similar, I take it all back to its basics. Remind myself that I am alive, and there is enough possibility in that to be getting on with.

[Lori]

I reach out and help others.

[Kate]

What keeps you going? When the world is its darkest for you, how do you retain your sanity and hope?

By unconditionally loving and trusting my Muse.

Yes, I'm nuts. But it works for me.

~Kate~

[TheBattler]

The knowledge that I had a good friend who could come arround to my place and talk to me in my time of need. If I needed someone he would be there for me.


Alice

[Wing Walker]

Hey all, still feel down as I posted in PMS zone, but I thought I might ask a question of you all.

What keeps you going? When the world is its darkest for you, how do you retain your sanity and hope?

I can't be the first to feel like i've gone loco, and probably won't be the last. So if anyone has some advice for others, bring it here. Maybe we could do a wiki off of it. Maybe it will be what helps someone else.

I keep going because that is what I desire most.  I fired the "committee of they" from my life.  What "they" say has no influence on me because it is I who must live with me, not "they."  Anyone who accepts me, that's fine.  Those who don't accept me can lurk in the darkness and watch as my life passes them by.

I am grateful to the Creator for gifting me with living two lives in the same lifetime.  Pretty good, I'd say, and I have lived the first life to the best of my ability and now I am living this one with joy and pride and humility and it's great.  I have days and wonderful days but no bad days because I am too hardheaded to permit them to occur.

And my Soulmate and Lifepartner is all that I need to save my day.  She brings out the best in me and apparently I do something that she finds fulfilling.

May you find the same joy I did, wherever it may be for you.

Wing Walker
In the Friendly Skies

[funnygrl]

For me: starting THERAPY. It's true. I got so lucky finding the therapist I'm seeing right now. I'd be a bloody basket case if I hadn't, and I work all night long with enough basket cases

as it is without me joining them...with all do respect. I've had a lot of same issues as so many of you: transitioning and age (should've / wanted / wished I had started earlier-blah-blah-blah).

My therapist has been able to help me keep all of these intense feelings / depression, saddness- whatever, in perspective.

Of course being here @ Susan's and being able to post and read posts with all of you has kept me going when I was seriously eye balling the gun on the desk.

Also, music and the friends I have right now. No of them know about my TG / TS situation as it were.

[Sheila]

I know that in my darkest hours I was contemplating suicide. This has been years ago now. I use to say to myself that the way I want to go is permanent. Why not try an alternative as I can always check out at anytime. That is what kept me alive and in somewhat a positive mind. My therapist taught me that one before she sent me to a regular doctor for meds for depression and I didn't want them. He told me that he would sign a contract with me to not commit suicide. I looked at him and told him, what would you do if I killed myself, sue me? That is when I told him to stick his prozac up his bottom side (I used the other term). I did get on some anti depressants then onto hormones. Now I only get a little depressed which is normal I guess.
Sheila

[cindybc]

What did it for me was my still very much alive fear of Hell, even if I've not set foot in a church in forty years. Finding myself and knowing who the inner self is. Going back to my roots and learning the spiritual way of my ancestors.

Cindy