[CaptainCrunch]

People here have given some great answers, so I can't add on to it. I've struggled for the last couple of years with a lot of different issues, despondency, real anger issues, self loathing and self blaming.

The important thing is to realize that you're never alone in your fight if you don't want to be alone. There are lots of resources that have been talked about here in terms of finding resources. But don't be afraid to talk to friends or family, just so you have a friend in this battle, and man it is a battle.

It doesn't hurt to go see your doctor if you have one, because honestly it goes towards getting a complete picture mentally and physically, plus your doctor can make references as well.

If you're thinking about harming yourself, dial 911 right now, don't feel shame about asking for help or more importantly assistance. Don't allow things to spiral because you're scared to ask for help because you believe that people will judge you, man they won't judge you, your friends want to help you.

You need to be a little selfish as well, that's my advice, if you're struggling, you have to put you first and prioritize you.

Trust me, people will be grateful to you if they can help you and prevent tragedy. We realized it too late a couple of years back, and lost a really cool family member because its not like we ignored the symptoms, but because he was a great actor and he didn't ask for help, and the sad thing is when he did what he did, his struggle was over, his pain was over and all of ours were just starting and it blew my whole family apart, and every day we wished that he would have just said "Guys, I need to talk" or "I don't feel right and need help" or even "I can't cope and its not getting better"


I want to add on, and it gets personal, but things really spiraled for me, I lost a family member to suicide, I had a close friend and his wife murdered and I lost a job that I had been with for 7 years because the company literally disintegrated over night. I was angry and it kept getting worse. I blamed myself for a lot of things and nobody could convince me that it wasn't my fault. I gave up on a lot of things that I liked doing in life because they became Grey and unimportant. I literally stopped sleeping, I couldn't do it.


I didn't ask for help, I even gave into a delusion I came to this board very much like you and asked for suggestions, but I very much took that really solid advice and buried it because I believed that I would reach out and get laughed at, that's how off I was. I was a great actor, when I got my new job, it didn't break the spell, honestly it added to my problems, because even though I was doing really well, I was waiting for the shoe to drop and I expected to fail, and probably even wanted to fail. I know it sounds weird.

The funny thing is that because I was such a great internalizer, and a good actor that nobody that I knew personally really picked up on it. I withdrew from family and friends for a long time and found reasons to stay away because I didn't want to face them and keep lying to them, because the lie was exhausting.

I didn't actually realize how bad things had gotten until this summer when I went to a company conference and one of the HR people ran a seminar on mental health, and we all partnered up and ran through these exercises, and the partner I was working with saw that there was something really wrong with me for a lack of better words and pulled me aside with the HR person who started talking to me, and then asked me if I needed help, and the whole wall came down.

They did it with some great discretion so my other co-workers would never know and got me help through the benefits company, and while I'm not all the way back, I'm not in a the pit I was.

Anyways I'm rambling on.

Anyone that realizes that they're struggling is taking the right first step, even reaching out here for ideas is a tough first step and saying that you can't live like this anymore is a great first step, a lot of people can't, won't or will never take that step and it always ends badly. We don't want you to be that guy that just vanishes and one day we wonder what happened to you. You've taken the first step, now you have to take the next step and that's to do something with the advice you received and talk to someone and say, I need some help here.

Anyways I'll stop here, suddenly this became really personal, and I'm not vying for sympathy or attention, but more along the lines of you knowing that you're not alone, you have nothing to be ashamed of and you don't need to fear taking steps.

I don't know if I phrased any of this word salad right.

I'm still not feeling normal, but I'm better and I was lucky because I decided that I couldn't fight this thing, this feel, the shadow by myself.

But the biggest hurdle, was getting over my damn stiff necked stupid pride of not asking for help because I would be judged as weak, or needy or whatever.