Originally Posted by
no reason
Do you want to have a life different from the one you have? Even if it is just a little more controlled? If you could try something like that rather than thinking of complete recovery.
Not sure if that makes sense.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
***********
If anybody asks me now-a-days why I am alive, on one level the answer really is, "Because I'm rubbish at killing myself."
I had a couple of really bad years in my life and at times I was actively suicidal and came close to suicide. However, somehow I never managed to complete a suicide attempt.
I always knew that the only option I wouldn't be able to bear would be staying that depressed and continuing to live a life I hated that much. I considered suicide an acceptable option for myself. I considered getting better a possibility for myself. I knew that I absolutely could not remain living long-term in that hellish depression. Once I'd got close enough to suicide a couple of times to discover that I was no good at carrying it through fully and actually managing to kill myself, then the only option left was to try to get at least a little bit better.
A few years later, I'm still on the maximum recommended dose of my anti-depressant and I'm still ambivalent about life, whether I want to be alive and whether I want to be 'better'. However, I'm now also studying for a Masters in Social Work (which is equivalent to working a full-time job or more), I have plans for my life (qualify, get a job as a social worker, settle down in own flat/house, etc), I've made new friends and I am much 'better' (though not completely 'better') however you look at it (my depression still exists, but it is very much milder than when I was at my worst and I am now able to do very very much more). It's possible that some time in the future I might deteriorate into a depression much worse even than that I've already experienced. I might still die by suicide .... but probably not this year, or next year, or (I don't think) in the next five years. Given the options as I see them, currently I'd much rather be working to maintain / improve a reasonable level of mental health than be back where I was at my worst. (Who knows, maybe one day I will have improved so much that I will no longer consider myself to have ongoing mental-health problems - I can't imagine it now, but then three years ago I couldn't have imagined being this well again.) Which is all a convoluted way of saying what 'no reason' said much more succintly - maybe it would help not to think in black-and-white terms of "my life as it is now" versus "my life when I'm 100% recovered" - "staying the same" versus "recovery" - maybe it would help to think more along the lines of "What parts of recovery appeal to me? In what ways (can be just small ways) would I like to improve my life and make it a bit better for myself?"