I haven’t cried in about a year. I just did. Maybe that is what was needed.
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Hang in there bud. Remember that the third alternative is always available. It’s the escape hatch we so desperately need in our lives.
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Hey @Andrew, I had been wondering how things were going with you since you stopped posting. It seems that perhaps you are deep down on a self-destruct mission? And not the ‘self’ destruct mission we are all seeking on here 
With things being so extreme I wonder if you had considered/already attempted therapy? That’s a pretty personal thing to discuss on a public forum but I take from your previous post that you are happy to share personal details.
The third alternative is always available when you are ready but I wonder if a more traditional approach could help you first get a handle on what is going on.
I think I speak for all of us here when I say that we would rather have Andrew around and would like to see you happy and harmless. I think you posting on here means there is still a ‘maybe’, that you can dig yourself out.
I have plenty of spare time lately so if you ever want to chat via DM or video let me know 
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Thanks everyone.
I am not suicidal. It’s not a sadness as such, but a desire for it all to stop.
I haven’t posted because I just didn’t have anything to say. I understand now those who don’t post.
There is something about extreme pain and almost dying which brings me around. I get why people seek out death defying feats.
Over the years, Richard would often write something to the effect of “people reaching for the keyboard before thinking about the issue at all”. Not even a paraphrase there, more of just a vibe.
He spent all of those formative years, from the first PCE to actual freedom, with only a minimum of external input. That minimum was Devika for most of it l, if I understand correctly. A bi-polar person, and a PTSD man (if that was his assessment, I don’t know) navigating in a very “death defying” way.
I didn’t get on that quad bike, or in that last relationship, or anything else because I thought it was going to be anything but enjoyable and fun. So much actually was fun.
It’s that it doesn’t last, and when the pain starts, it lasts much much longer.
I will be sticking around. Given my luck holds out.
I will be moving in with my mother soon. Where everything started, and many things ended.
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What you are describing here is what Richard discussed in this correspondence - Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 39 :
‘I’ can be as much addicted to the suffering, which ensues as the eventual result of the high evaporating, as ‘I’ am addicted to the high in the first place.
Arguably more so, perhaps, despite how perverse the notion may sound at first hearing…
So, essentially ‘I’ am suffering and, as ‘I’ am addicted to being ‘me’ and being ‘me’ is suffering, ‘I’ am addicted to suffering … it is ‘my’ very nature.
Can you see that ‘your’ dramas are there to keep ‘you’ exactly as ‘you’ are, thus guaranteeing continued suffering. Or from the other side that ‘you’ are addicted to suffering because it keeps ‘you’ as ‘you’ are, apparently safe.
Richard wrote :
Okay … is the addiction to being ‘me’ stronger than the addiction to escaping from being ‘me’?
I only ask because if the addiction to being ‘me’ is the more powerful addiction then successful escape is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for (and thus ‘I’ will keep on re-treading the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods).
Whereas if the addiction to escaping is the more powerful addiction then successful escape can (and will) happen.
Is it that successful escape is the last thing ‘you’ are looking for? As it would entail stepping out of ‘your’ apparently safe cage.
It takes daring to proceed down the path which delivers the goods, because each step of the way ‘I’ do not get to remain as ‘I’ am, do you dare to allow enjoyment and appreciation?
I was toying with the idea of getting this as my next tattoo because it’s such a telling image but it is indeed what is going on :
For me the key discovery was seeing that ‘I’ was perversely involved in ensuring that ‘I’ remain in that (apparently safe) cage, whilst the doors are wide open. Yet seeing this was not enough as it took daring over and over to step out, and not the kind of daring where ‘I’ endanger this body merely to play out a drama and remain as ‘I’ am.
It’s funny to consider that Actualism can be (incorrectly) framed as merely a ‘positive thinking philosophy’ when it takes such daring to proceed.
I was talking to @Sonyaxx about this the other day, that in my experience the various challenges and achievements possible within ‘humanity’ do not match up to the daring it takes to proceed down the wide and wondrous path. Do you dare to allow yourself to go this way?
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Do it but have a draft of a before / after, for when you have to ask the artist to remove the bird in due time. There comes a time when one must leave the n̶e̶s̶t̶ cage and fly.
Thanks for linking that section of the AFT website. I had read it before, but it does perfectly describe what I was saying about the high not lasting as long as the pain.
I am the suffering, really does put it in perspective. Especially as I wasn’t thinking about trying to do anything about it but describe it, and ended up being more honest with myself and others here than usual.
It has been the running thought over the last 3 days. Contemplation of what is being described in that passage.
Thanks for taking the time. 
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