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A new life

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Feeling sorry for yourself?
If so, then you should watch these videos:







I was feeling miserable one day, feeling sorry for myself.
Boo hoo nobody loves me, blah blah blah....................
On my way home from work I saw a guy sitting at a bus stop in a wheelchair.
He had no legs.
Then I felt ashamed of myself.
In spite of being alone, I still have so so much to be happy about.

I think now and then we need reminders of how lucky we are.
 
Never understood the philospy that suggests that the knowledge that things could be worse, should cause an automatic shift in one's mood and pull them out of their depression. Everyone is depressed for their own unique reasons, whether it is because he got an A instead of an A+ on his chemistry mid-term or because he was involved in a car accident and has become a cripple for life. Chemical imbalance is chemical imbalance...
 
That makes no sense,for example...
Why should seeing pictures of little kids in africa who are crippled,don-t have food and have a shitty life make me feel better about having no close friends?
 
NIKE said:
Never understood the philospy that suggests that the knowledge that things could be worse, should cause an automatic shift in one's mood and pull them out of their depression. Everyone is depressed for their own unique reasons, whether it is because he got an A instead of an A+ on his chemistry mid-term or because he was involved in a car accident and has become a cripple for life. Chemical imbalance is chemical imbalance...

Yes, I can see how getting an A instead of an A+ would be devastating!
 
I suffer from depression because of a chemical imbalance, I have epilepsy, and sometimes I can barely walk because I had a bad back injury and I am in intense pain.

The guy with no arms and no legs does more things than I do! And, that proves to me, that IN MY SITUATION (I am not saying everyone's), I have to push more to make my life a better one. No one is going to do it for me!

Knowing people have no food or are crippled and in a wheelchair WILL NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT I HAVE ILLNESSES LIKE I DO AND AM LONELY AND HAVE NO FRIENDS, but it does make me feel grateful that my issues aren't worse than they are!
 
To be honest, I find that the 'count your blessings, there is always someone worse off' attitude makes me feel even worse, beccause then I have to deal with feeling guilty about the fact I often feel depressed about being lonely.
 
Tiina63 said:
To be honest, I find that the 'count your blessings, there is always someone worse off' attitude makes me feel even worse, beccause then I have to deal with feeling guilty about the fact I often feel depressed about being lonely.

Ditto.

I don't feel sorry for myself, I get down but it's a product of my doing and no one else. Seeing/reading/hearing things about other people who are so called "worse off than you" doesn't do anything to brighten my day. In fact it makes me feel worse because those people have all kinds of people who support them, or make them their inspiration etc. Then I start thinking things like, if I lost a limb or something would it make me an inspiration to others or make more people feel sorry for me. Just a bunch of sick sad pathetic thoughts.
 
Handicapped people are, after the initial trauma period, only slightly less happy than the rest of us. Happier than lonely people. Just sayin'. But God knows, I support an end to self-pitty.
 
I think that awareness is good, and maybe you shouldn't think "there are people worse off than me" but think "Well, at least I have a home, clothes, food, ect.". But that doesn't get rid of depression that involves a lack of social life, because we are gregarious creatures. If that' what works for some people that's great, there's a solution for everyone. But I think that every person is given their own difficulties, no matter what they are, they're hard for the individual to deal with. What's important is that we overcome our problems, and improve our lives no matter what it takes. A person in a wheelchair that is comfortable and happy is much stronger than the miserable ******* in the wheelchair that complains about their disability and uses it to guilt others.
 
About this, I had a sudden epiphany years ago. A man, who was missing his right arm, came to the counter to pay for an ice cream. I saw how he struggled with very mundane and simple tasks such as taking money from his wallet or opening his satchel or his ice cream or whatever.

There was nothing he could do to fix his condition and that was the moment of clarity for me. While loneliness and low self-esteem can be considerable problems, they aren't something that can't be fixed. Friends can still be obtained and most people in the world can dramatically increase their looks if only they would work for it. But a limb - that isn't something you can replace.
 
A wheelchair is an impediment... Crippled legs replaced by wheels... No arms is an impediment... We use prosthetic claws... No sight is an impediment... To read we use Braille... Deafness is an impediment... To communicate we use sign language and the written word... But when we are crippled inside, wheels, claws, Braille, and sign language are no help at all.

We are all limited in our understanding of the pain of others by that which we - ourselves - have experienced. It is no good to say, "Well, my eyes are gone, but I'm luckier than the guy whose legs are gone..." Pain is pain... That ache in your chest, that hurt you feel inside... It's the same for everyone - no matter their predicament.

I work with children. When a child mourns the loss of love, the agony is profound. A limb is just a limb... Love... Well, love is life...
 
I already feel bad, now I really feel like crap because I've been reminded how much suffering there is in the world. Thanks a bunch!
 
Alaric said:
A wheelchair is an impediment... Crippled legs replaced by wheels... No arms is an impediment... We use prosthetic claws... No sight is an impediment... To read we use Braille... Deafness is an impediment... To communicate we use sign language and the written word... But when we are crippled inside, wheels, claws, Braille, and sign language are no help at all.

We are all limited in our understanding of the pain of others by that which we - ourselves - have experienced. It is no good to say, "Well, my eyes are gone, but I'm luckier than the guy whose legs are gone..." Pain is pain... That ache in your chest, that hurt you feel inside... It's the same for everyone - no matter their predicament.

I work with children. When a child mourns the loss of love, the agony is profound. A limb is just a limb... Love... Well, love is life...

The problem is that a broken heart will heal over time if you give it chance. Your arm or leg or eye - you will never get them back, never.There is absolutely nothing you can do to get that quality of life back. The people who can cope with never being able to walk again, never being able to see the world again etc, never being able to hear music and sounds - they are infinitely more stronger than those who are arrogant enough to believe that a broken heart weighs just as much.

It's absolutely offensive to imply that blindness, deafness, amputations etc are just mere impediments that can be compensated with prosthetics and therapy. The crippled will essentially have to redefine themselves. They have to cope with the pain of no longer being able to enjoy the simple things in life they took for granted, they will have to cope with the huge possibility that their deformity will not allow him to net a romantic partner, they must cope with the fact that their work potential has also considerably decreased compared to the competition. Practically everything about the crippled needs to be re-invented.

The pain that burdens your heart - all it needs is time to heal and also your willingness to let it heal.
 
The problem here is you guys are comparing apples to oranges - psychological pain caused by a physical issue/impediment/tragedy and psychological pain caused by an emotional/mental tragedy. These two pains, are completely separate animals - which thus have two completely different effects on the mind.
Let's start out with psychological pain caused by a physical issue. For this, we shall assume that it was caused by an accident, one which could not have been prevented. This sort of thing is unavoidable (most of the time); and depending on when it happened in the lifetime of any given person, they probably have a reference to 'before' their accident happened. Say this person looses their legs and their sight in an explosion. So now he is unable to walk, and he's blind. He has to deal with the knowledge that he is different from everybody else around him, and since he is blind, he's unable to tell the reactions of others around him - to his physical limitation that is. That's one thing right there, a sort of uncertainty, a fear, an insecurity. Then he has to deal with his associations with his loved ones, where that fear probably isn't present, but there's still a sort of pain caused by the idea that he won't ever see the face of his loving daughter again, he won't be able to watch the stars with his wife gain, and so on. That is a horrific mental pain and suffering in and of itself, no? But he still has memories, and his family to comfort him, he still has solace, he can find peace and cope.

Now, onto the psychological pain caused by an emotional blow. This is a completely separate entity to the pain caused by a physical issue. For our example, let's use somebody who hasn't ever had a girlfriend, who's only ever been constantly rejected, who's been abandoned by his friends and cast out from his family. He has a sort of mental isolation, a pain that's caused by knowledge of the unknown, that he hasn't and might not ever know the loving touch of another, that his family and friends whom used to care for him, now won't even talk to him. He has nobody to turn to, and he's been let down time and time again. He no longer wants to find hope, to find peace, because he's petrified that he'll be left alone again, that he'll be rejected once more, and that all he had known has been ripped away once more. He ceases to find meaning in life, and slips into the nihil of hopelessness, and he doesn't see any point to it. He doesn't have a meaning, a purpose, any livelihood. Once that happens he's a husk of his former self, and that cannot be fixed either. For him, it isn't just a mere broken heart, it's the realization that all he's hoped for, all that he wanted, his meaning - purpose - his very existence! Has been denied to him; and thus ripped away. This, much like the pain caused by loss of ability to walk and see, cannot be fixed.
 
Destructotron said:
Alaric said:
A wheelchair is an impediment... Crippled legs replaced by wheels... No arms is an impediment... We use prosthetic claws... No sight is an impediment... To read we use Braille... Deafness is an impediment... To communicate we use sign language and the written word... But when we are crippled inside, wheels, claws, Braille, and sign language are no help at all.

We are all limited in our understanding of the pain of others by that which we - ourselves - have experienced. It is no good to say, "Well, my eyes are gone, but I'm luckier than the guy whose legs are gone..." Pain is pain... That ache in your chest, that hurt you feel inside... It's the same for everyone - no matter their predicament.

I work with children. When a child mourns the loss of love, the agony is profound. A limb is just a limb... Love... Well, love is life...

The problem is that a broken heart will heal over time if you give it chance. Your arm or leg or eye - you will never get them back, never.There is absolutely nothing you can do to get that quality of life back. The people who can cope with never being able to walk again, never being able to see the world again etc, never being able to hear music and sounds - they are infinitely more stronger than those who are arrogant enough to believe that a broken heart weighs just as much.

It's absolutely offensive to imply that blindness, deafness, amputations etc are just mere impediments that can be compensated with prosthetics and therapy. The crippled will essentially have to redefine themselves. They have to cope with the pain of no longer being able to enjoy the simple things in life they took for granted, they will have to cope with the huge possibility that their deformity will not allow him to net a romantic partner, they must cope with the fact that their work potential has also considerably decreased compared to the competition. Practically everything about the crippled needs to be re-invented.

The pain that burdens your heart - all it needs is time to heal and also your willingness to let it heal.

I am sorry you saw what I said as offensive. I have worked with people who have suffered much in their lives. Limbs gone, blindness, deafness, burns, and all manner of other terrible scarring things. What I found in all those years is that people can remain sad, depressed, sometimes even suicidal over the things that happen to them, but not so much when they stop becoming "they" and become "us." Friends of mine with all kinds of issues related to the aftermath of accidents or diseases have come to me to be there as friends when times have gotten tough. They do it because they care about me, because I care about them. Every one of us suffers pain. We are limited by our experiences in how well we can equate with the pain of others. What I have found to be universal is the kind of pain that transcends the physical. I am speaking of that terrible emotional pain that comes from within. When someone is damaged physically, there are ways to compensate to greater or lesser degrees. When someone is damaged emotionally, there is rarely a way to overcome it. Having suffered a TBI as a teenager, I know the feeling of physical pain, and the pain of rejection. I know, because my speech sometimes slurs, that if I get stopped at a DWI checkpoint, there is a high likelihood I will be breath tested, field sobriety tested, and often have had to endure blood tests. But I am okay. What has hurt me more than any of that have been when I lost a friend, or been rejected by someone I loved. After a year in hospital, numerous surgeries, and the knowledge that my own life is more finite than that of many others, it has never been the beating and subsequent injuries that hurt me, but the loss of love.
 
yes, there are always people who are less fortunately than ourselves. It does sometimes put things in perspective that perhaps I should not be as down as I am.
 
Is it we that are lucky? Or those people that are in devastating circumstances extremely unlucky and we're just relatively lucky to them, but in the grand scheme of things still average bordering on unlucky?
 

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