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I can't go on

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CaptainBako
Jun 18 2003
11:25 am

For years now, I have felt like I’ve been crawling, inching, shuffling up a muddy slope — often slipping back downward — fighting and fearing and falling to a nearly unshakeable notion that I can’t do it. From there I come to think, “I can’t go on.”

I’m hesitant to give any advice for getting out of such a difficult rut, because I don’t feel I’m out of it. I wonder if I’ll ever be.

I have made some progress. I used to consider dying, and I have had to fight against my aching not to kill myself at times when I have wished I was dead. I still want to curl up and sleep a lot. I still fail college courses and procrastinate in looking for a much-needed job. I still sin. But even when the notion of death still seems to me like a nice relief from the wear of this existence, I no longer want to commit suicide. I’ve been given this mysterious gift of life; I have seen its pain and also its wonders; and even though I still often feel like I can’t do it, I no longer want it to be taken away early—not when I have a say about it. Where does that leave me? With hope and faith and doubt and despair. With a desire to do good and love others, desires that have been influenced by the teachings of the church I no longer attend, with the story of Christ that I sometimes trust, with friends (thank God), with nature, with colors, with teachers, cats, crayons, the potential to have sex, science fiction, the pursuit of virtue, with imagination, with love, with capacities not tested to their limits, with glaring responsibility. The list goes on. It goes on and I go on, though I’m still not sure what to do now while I’m here.

I guess my simplest advice for now would be, if your despair is so crippling that you seriously consider taking your life, yet you have any inkling of a notion that life is worthwhile to continue, hold on to that thread, hold on for dear, excruciating life. Hold on tight, and know that part of what’s holding you on is beyond you and your understanding.