Pd, I think this is a very good subject. I don't know if everyone gets hit with thoughts about suicide, but I think it may be pretty common. I'd like to do a survey on it and see how people pulled up out of it.

I went through that. I was kicked out of the fumbly in 1990 and felt my life had no meaning anymore. This continued for about 3 months after which I just sank lower, and lower and lower. I reached the point that I seriously believed there was absolutely NO reason for me to go on. "If the *blooper group* doesn't love me, God must not love me." Yeah, sick.

I then started thinking of the best way to do it. I couldn't stand the thought of jumping off a building. I can barely look out a second story window.

I thought of hanging, but I hate not being able to breath. Gas? I might blow up my mom's house. A gun? I didn't own one. No knives, thank you. So I thought of car exhaust. (light bulb went on) Hey, great idea! I wasn't happy about it, but it sounded like the most reasonably and least messy solution. But then I thought of how freaked out my loved ones would be finding the body. So I figured I could pull it off in a police-station parking lot.

You know what stopped me? I thought of how miserably sad everyone who loved me would be.

A few years ago I visited a memorial site of people who'd lost a loved-one to suicide and the quote on the site really struck me. It said something like, "They die once. We die over and over again."

So that's what stopped me pretty much. I also had an enlightening experience, but I won't get into that. However, it would be interesting to hear what others have gone through with thoughts of suicide.

What brought you up out of it, Pd?

> Interesting how you say you couldn't go into
> midlife transition until you had sorted out
> the other changes in your life that came
> about with leaving the cult.

> I like what you say here:
> I've had to learn to be graceful about my
> life... cause I've had to learn the same
> thing. My life hasn't turned out how I
> imagined it when I was a kid, all the dreams
> I had, and I look at my life now, it's very
> different. I went through a terrible
> depression at the end of last year, one of
> the worst I have ever had, to the point
> where I could fully understand why people
> committed suicide, you just have no more
> hope for your life, and the normal things
> that usually pulled me back didn't work this
> time, like especially my children.

> Somehow it passed and I have recovered my
> strength and the ability to bounce
> disappointments off of my spirit and not let
> them get to me. I also was able to bring
> certain things in my life into focus and
> accept the things that I couldn't do
> anything about, at least, accept many of
> them, and try to view my options for things
> I wanted to change.

> I don't know if any of that counts as
> mid-life transition or is still along the
> lines of recovering from a cult, perhaps a
> bit of both.