Too old for a new start. Loneliness is crashing me...

You have no idea how helpful this outpouring of responses has been to me. You, REALLY, have no idea. Up to two days ago, I used to go to bed at night without a single pleasant thought, without ANYTHING to look forward to in the next day. Now, I can't wait to turn on my laptop and look for any new responses. It's not a way out of my depression. But it makes loneliness so much less. I even started giving my own 2 cents in other people's struggles! And I hope that's a beginning.

After posting it, when I did and then reading other posts and what NoFap is all about, I thought to myself "Oops, I screwed up again" (no pun intended). But I was so wrong. SO, SO wrong! I found here people who have taken time out of their time to respond to an old whiner, like me. I found here people who were ready, despite their own problem(s) to offer a kind word, a hug, a word of motivation.

Yes, there IS kindness in people. And that, on its own, gives me hope for the days to come.

A big THANK YOU to all who have responded, trying to help in any way they thought fitful (yes, I'm looking at you L00k ). Even to those who thought I should become a... tortoise...

 

You know the feelings. You describe them perfectly. Maybe you've been in this situation for longer than me and got your feet back on the ground. Maybe you have more emotional resources than I do. Maybe you are simply stronger than me. Hopefully I will reach your success one day soon. (Though, I have to say, that (a) my showers have started getting more and more rare since, when I do take them, I come out with angina and almost breathless and it takes some time to recover and (b) I gave up straightening the room a long time ago - other than filling Lucy's water bowl up and changing the food in her dish).

Thank you for your wish. I wish YOU the blues never to come back...

 

Great! I have read JLS a long time ago and since then I read it over and over and over again recharging my batteries every time I did!

Yes, I still read though I kind of moved away from literature and philosophy to much lighter stuff. I spent my youth devouring Plato, Nietzsche, Kant, Sartre, Marx, Chomsky and so many others. I had my "religion days" too ("The Holy Bible", "The Holy Qur'an", Buddhism, Confucianism, the Mahabharata some of them from start to finish, some of them in less depth) and of course literature (Dostoyevsky, Kazantzakis, Kipling, Steinbeck and others I can't even remember now).

Now I read things to keep my mind occupied or watch movies and of course play video games (I am (used to be) a computer programmer and I spent the largest part of my life in front of the screen)

Note to everybody: If any of you, reading this, have any computer SOFTWARE problems I would be more than glad to help if I can, for free (of course). Just drop me a note and I'll see what I can do and how I may help. The offer includes connecting to your computer and viewing the problem in real time (one needs to trust me to allow this, of course)

 

I was just kidding kid. (it just occurred to me that you may mind me calling you "kid". If you do, I apologize and won't do it again).
I may watch what you suggest (though I have to say that I'm not a friend of animation movies).

 

I don't give a damn about money. Never did (though I always wanted to become rich in order to be able to help others. It never worked out because I would either spend a great deal of my income helping others or not charge at all. You see, my desire to help combined with my communist/Marxist ideals never have allowed me to become rich). BUT money is necessary to pay the bills, to buy food... If there is no money (hence no honey) it is time for one to .... leave...

 

Phew...

I'm sorry, I really have to ask: Are you REALLY 17 years old???????????? Your wisdom places you in early 30s, maybe older.
If you ARE 17, what have you read? Who is your idol? What helped you acquire this much wisdom so early in your life?

 

Ahhhh! The Last Temptation. So down to reality and yet so uplifting at the same time. It's a shame that religion representatives failed to grasp the real meaning of the book.
I haven't read Gogol at all. If you get a chance read The Idiot (F. Dostoyevsky). That book affected, idealized my thinking of what and how true selfless love should be. (Needless to say that I spent a lifetime looking for that soul mate that never came).

I'm sorry about the Communism you have to live in. I don't want to get too deep into politics but the so called "Communism" applied in Eastern Europe is thousands of miles away from what Communism is all about. The greed and power hunger of humans destroyed one of the most noble ideals ever.

My friend, we are all here trying to survive this game called "life". We wouldn't be able to, if we didn't allow ourselves to learn from each other. The best teacher is the one who can be, at the same time, the best student.

 

Wow! That explains a lot!
Are you living in India?

Teach me! ANYTHING you can.

 

OK. I apologize in advance for the long and boring post of mine but I have to explain a few things.

First of all let me start by thanking you for believing in me and my potential success. I understand your "spark of ignition" concept and I appreciate your providing it. The keywords though are your starting sentence:

In 2006 both my parents had a heart attack on the same day without any of them knowing about the other. My two brothers and I spent a hellish fortnight running up and down the hospital to prevent any of them learning about the other since that would be potentially fatal. My mother (74 at the time) had a CABG and my father (70 at the time) had a stenting (since he already had a CABG in 1993).

When they left the hospital and went home I took leave of absence from (my own) company and stayed for 3 months with them to help them recover (Diet, pills, exercise etc). After 3 months (and feeling extremely agitated for their health I returned back home.

In late February 2007 I joined loneliness started knocking on my door and I joined "Second Life" where I met and fell in love with the woman who would become my second wife. (She is from Florida, US and living there. I am from Cyprus, EU and living here).

I don't know if you are aware of life in the virtual world but it is estimated that life in VR moves approximately 10 times as fast as IRL.

At the end of March 2007 all I needed to travel to the States was a ticket. I had a visa from the local embassy and I paid advance for a villa in Florida to spend a month there.

At the beginning of April 2007 my mother fainted, fell and hit her head. She was taken to the ER where they found nothing and she returned home. By the end of the month she started acting weird and we had to visit a neurologist who ordered urgent brain scan that showed an epidural cranial hematoma (ECH) exerting pressure on the brain. The neurologist said that if she didn't have an urgent operation for the removal of the hematoma she could die. I asked the neurologist two questions: (a) who did he suggest to operate on my mother and (b)if I should cancel my plans for travelling to the States (which was to be after a month).

The neurologist gave me two names, the one of them being in the same (private) hospital as he was and the other in another (private) hospital, saying they were both equally good. We also had the option to go to the public sector where my mother would have her operation for free BUT it would take transporting her there and having to do re-admission/re-scanning/re-assessment and then get a wait ticket for when there would be a free neurosurgeon to operate on her.

Regarding my second question he said that I shouldn't change my plans since the whole procedure would be less than a week. The ECH would be drained through a small hole on the cranium and she would go home in 3-4 days.

We visited the neurosurgeon there and then and he said he could have her in the operating room in half an hour. We (I - since I was the oldest and had the leading opinion) decided to go ahead and have the operation.

(Just to mention that what I'm writing here is extremely traumatic to me because I have to re-live everything...)

The operation was a success and by the afternoon of the same day my mother behaved almost normal. The hole on the cranium had a small tube coming out for drainage. I spent the night at the hospital by her side and I kept disturbing the nurse on duty by telling her that the drainage did not drip. She said to me (repeatedly) that I should be glad because that means that there is no more fluid to come out. The neurosurgeon didn't bother to visit my mother again until next morning.

When the neurosurgeon, finally, came back to see her, the morning after, asked me to leave the room and he closed the door. Soon after that he came out of the room yelling that "everything dried up and the draining didn't happen as it should". His decision was that he had to operate on her again (this time a full blown craniotomy) to scrape the dried fluid. We had no option other than letting him do it. When he finished with her she was transferred at the ICU where we had no right to be.

I spent the night sitting outside the ICU hoping for the best. In the morning there was locomotion in the ICU, my mother was transferred to the scanners and in 10 minutes the doctor called me to say that "Unfortunately, the ECH became a subdural cranial hematoma (SCH) right in the middle of the brain which had no treatment whatsoever.

My mother reading and discussing philosophy with the passion of a 20 year-old, my mother who started learning how to read and write Sanskrit at the age of 73, my mother who learnt how to operate and play puzzle games on a computer at the age of 72 survived the SCH with complete loss of short term memory (STM), paralysis of the left side of her body and hemianopsia. She went from genius to the state of a 4 year old practically overnight....

I felt responsible for the failure (a) because it was, mainly, my decision to have her operation there and then and (b) because I asked the stupid question if I should cancel my travelling to the States. I felt that I put myself above my mother's needs. Many have tried to convince me that it wasn't my fault, that I shouldn't feel guilty, that shit happens, that I should move on... I never did.

I shut down my company and went to live with my parents to work on rehabilitating my mother. The neurologist told me that there was a very small chance for her to have a complete recovery in the first six months. After that the chance diminished geometrically...

With a lot of exercise the paralysis was almost gone. She also learnt to adjust her head in an angle to deal with the hemianopsia. The STM loss never left.

I spent a little more than a year with them until I was convinced that there would be no further improvement to my mother's condition. I left for my home.

Depression, anxiety, guilt, stress became part of life. Three years later (at the age of 48) I had an almost fatal heart attack that left me with half a heart dead. They told me that if I exercised enough I could get the dead part of the organ re-activated. For almost a year I was exercising like crazy. Getting up at 4am to walk for 4 miles day after day after day. After a year I had a Doppler test that showed that the dead part of my heart was as dead as a year ago. I never exercised again.

The depression became deeper and deeper. Never did anything about it. I didn't care any more. The guilt was overwhelming. My wife struggled to bring me back to the living. I wasn't listening.

My frequency curve dropped down to a halt a long time ago.
I don't need to hear again that it wasn't my fault, my mistake, my responsibility...
I don't need to hear again that I should move on...
And I certainly don't need to hear again that I'm playing it a victim...

I have apologized in advance for the length of my post and the boredom is going to cause to you or anybody else reading it. I apologize again...

I'm not going to re-read this for spelling/grammatical/syntax errors. I usually do since English is not my mother tongue. Fuck this... I'm too upset to care...

Now I need to find a way to come out of the spiraling...

Usually a couple of benzos and lots of crying and pacing do the trick....

 

I can't remember exactly when I reached this "set of rules" regarding criticism of me and/or my actions but here it is (I hope it makes sense):

1. Self-improvement can come ONLY through criticism. While praise may make one feel good, it offers one no path for improvement/refinement of oneself/one's actions.
2. Any criticism should be dealt with as follows:
   1. If it comes from a known offender of criticizing in bad faith (i.e. criticizing just to cause pain) discard the criticism.
   2. If it comes from a known person of criticizing in good faith (i.e. criticizing because that is their honest belief for one/one's actions) one should consider the criticism as objectively as possible and:
      1. Use it to improve oneself/one's actions if the criticism was correct.
      2. Discard the criticism. Try to explain oneself/one's actions to the critic for a re-assessment, if the criticism was incorrect.
   3. If it comes from an unknown person one should consider the criticism as objectively as possible and:
      1. Act as in (2.1) above if the criticism was correct.
      2. Act as in (2.2) above, if the criticism was incorrect, give the critic a chance to prove whether they have acted in good or bad faith and register the result accordingly.

I violated my own set of rules with my only justification/excuse being the fact that my judgement/actions have gone haywire due to the extremely bad emotional stage.

Your "stop playing the victim" criticism (above) came from an unknown person (so it fell under (2.3) above.

The criticism was considered and was found to be incorrect.

Your second post (above) proved beyond any doubt that your criticism was made in good faith and you explained clearly why you did that. You made me go through my actions/posts (which I found to be fair). I should accept your explanation, discard the criticism and move on. I didn't. Instead I kept taunting you for your criticism (probably because it, your criticism, would lose me votes in NoFap's beauty contest...)

Your third post (above) made me realize that I needed to provide more information to disprove the initial criticism) but I allowed myself to be stuck to it (I was actually playing the victim to your "playing the victim" criticism while what I should do, as I said earlier, was to simply discard the criticism and move on)

Conclusion:
I should be the one apologizing for overreacting to your comment, especially after you elaborated and explained why you made it. What I did, instead, was to keep complaining about it.

I KNOW that your intention was NOT to offend me. My agitation was because of MY mistake not to move on after you explained your initial criticism.

The decision to leave the thread or not is, of course, yours. I really wish you won't because right now, I need all the good people I can find to lean on to, at least, keep my sanity.

Thank you for your wish. I don't expect happiness will visit me but I hope that what has remained of my life to be with as less pain (emotional/physical/mental) as possible.

IF you decide to tolerate my depression and pessimism and continue to respond to my posts I would like to know in what capacity you "worked with people in similar situations".

If not, then you have my gratitude for any and all of your input/responses to my thread. You are a good man Nick and I'm sorry I screwed up to the point of losing you.

(Side note: I liked all the responses to my thread (unless I missed one) except your last post. I do NOT like your decision to leave the thread (though I know you may be bored to death after reading my posts. You might have gotten an insight on why my wife left me)).