UK & ROI, the Samaritans - 116123 USA, National Suic!de Hotline - 1-800-784-2433 USA, The Trevor Project - 1-866-488-7386 USA, Trans Lifeline - 1-877-565-8860 First thing's first, please don't worry: I know this video gets dark and personal but I’m safe, I’m okay; remember this was filmed weeks ago and isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of how I feel this afternoon! Now, anticipating an objection: "Why make this video in this way? Aren't you commodifying your feelings?" Well, there's a reason I put "Blackstar" in the thumbnail and the recommended reading: Bowie wrote that album when he knew he was dying and when it came out I saw someone say he was the only artist in the world who could look at his own death and go, “I can use this.” Making this video has been Hellish but I wanted to take these feelings and put them to work creating something nobody has made before: a TH-cam video about suicide that's educational AND critical AND personal AND artistic. That just seems more worthwhile to me than sitting on these feelings, or making a video about this subject that's any less than the best I can possibly make it. Olly XXx ★
I still haven't been able to sit through Blackstar. I miss Bowie. Too many great creative minds have been sucked through the tear in the Veil these past 3 years :(
I barely know who you are, Ollie, yet I love you. It's not easy to make yourself this vulnerable. With what you've done, you've given someone a tomorrow.
Thank you for making this video. It's not an easy thing to admit in our modern world, but it is greatly appreciated that you said it. I understand how you feel.
The urge for a _mutual_ hug... That is, the need for a hug for mutual _understanding..._ I come back to this one the most often. (That, and "Goodbye Dr. P" - whoooa!)
Right? Shit, that line ripped me to shreds. I won't trauma-dump in reply to your comment because you didn't consent to hearing that, but. Wow. She couldn't have said it better.
@@chumby9920 The visual metaphor of desperately, frantically trying to fix a spacecraft as you blast into space is probably the *single* best visual metaphor I've ever heard for how this feels. She has an amazing way with words!
Yep, like that extreme moment of vulnerability in a video that's 33 minute video of vulnerability is just... As much as I'm sorry he felt so much pain, it's incredibly important for others to see someone else have that moment.
8:00 - (content advisory for sexual assault, suicide, medical abuse) When I was 18, I was raped multiple times in different instances by strangers (I had just moved to a new city, and I guess this stuff just happens sometimes) but after the third time, I decided enough was enough and I went to the hospital to have a rape kit done. I had told the nurse that the whole situation "made me want to die" because I was so hurt and stressed by it all. Next thing I know, I am being involuntarily admitted to a psych ward several miles away without any time to pack or even prepare. I was subjected to nonconsensual electroshock therapy, solitary confinement (for crying??) and put on a slurry of drugs that sent me into anaphylactic shock. I was held down by several people and given an emergency antihistamine administration with (to put it bluntly) a needle in the ass. In the stupor following waking up from that, I was forced to sign paperwork that I wasn't even given a chance to read - liability waivers. That psych wing has since been shut down for malpractice. The world can be cartoonishly cruel, and I firmly believe that every stranger I come across could have plausibly experienced some aspect of it. Be kind, be gentle, and try to see the vulnerability in everyone you interact with - including yourself. It'd be a damn shame if everyone got to experience your kindness except for you. I don't really have a point to any of this. I guess it's just nice to talk about it. Thank you for listening (reading?). Please stay safe.
Anything signed while drugged and unable to make an informed decision, which shouldn't be hard to prove, isn't legally binding. You should sue the shit out of them. Im so sorry you went through that.
Wow, that really is cartoonishly cruel. Fuck me. At age 15, a guy in school decided it'd be funny to "trip" me over from behind, except his version of doing so involved kicking my leg as hard as he possibly could while it was extended, thereby dislocating my patella. Nice. Since then it has dislocated a few more times and now it aches constantly. What a great start to life eh? On top of that I smoked weed to deal with the experience, to which I became addicted. I shouldn't have though, because according to my own mother "you can't get addicted to weed". Tell that to the several months of side effects, including dreadful insomnia, that I experienced once I quit. This addiction damaged my memory and made me mentally unstable. Apparently my family has a long history of psychiatric illness, a fact of which I wasn't aware. Fantastic. I still have PTSD from when that bastard fucked my knee. I'm 30 now.
sorry to hear about what happened to you. it sounds horrific. you are so brave and strong, i hope you are doing well. i have my own share of horror stories from psych wards (from the head doctor bringing underage female patients to his flat to ‘treat’ them with LSD to medical staff drugging patients as a form of ‘punishment’) and one of the most horrific things i’ve witnessed was the whole team of nurses making patients kick, slap and bully a mentally challenged, drugged person and threatening them (the patients) “you’ll be in their place if you displease us” i was fucking horrified. i suppose because i was “a fresh arrival” and nobody knew what was ‘wrong’ with me, they couldn’t threaten me the same way (to clarify: i was only supposed to be there for 3 days only so technically they couldn’t fuck me up or they’d have to face consequences) so when i crouched in front of this poor person, helping them to get up and walked them to their bed, i swear i could *feel* the staff burning holes in my skull. that place still operates. the last time i was in a psych ward, a person i met there had been to jail twice before and she said literal prison was a walk in the park compared to these “mental health facilities”. the abuse of the mentally ill is truly one of the biggest issues that’s swept under the rug.
It was pretty precious haha and I love that it turned such a dark and emotionally heavy object.. in to a spoon lol and suddenly it wasn't heavy anymore
I’d been avoiding “The Cosmonaut video” since I started watching this channel. I’m a cosmonaut too, and I don’t like to focus too much on my frequent flyer status. Tonight an old friend killed himself. After reading the note he left behind, I went home, made leftovers for dinner, did the dishes, put my child to bed, and watched. It helped. Thank you.
Not sure why I’m scrolling through the comments right now, but I hope your feeling better man. Sounds like your going through a lot, have a good life man!
@@qoph1988 When you seek help that means coming face to face with your problems. I am not strong enough for that. I imagine there are many others who lack that fortitude as well. It makes all the difference when you get support from someone who has gone through something similar to yourself. Ollie here doesn't know me and has no reason to, but that doesn't stop this video from helping in a way.
I might just be screaming into the void here, I just want you to know that this video helped keep me alive tonight. So thank you. Thank you for convincing me that my spacecraft will land, and that I’ll see the earth again one day.
Not gonna lie, the vid had me in an emotional mood, but man seeing this comment got me. I havent cried in months, and im not generally an outwardly emotional person but i just cried so damn hard at seeing this. God bless you man, keep on flyin
If you need to talk to someone, i am here. There is without a doubt also other people that would love nothing more than to talk to you. There will always be someone here for you.
when i went to the hospital for suicidal ideation, they just put me in a literal cell, and had me sit there uncomfortable in a hospital gown for three hours and then told me to buy some melatonin for my sleep problems and had me leave. needless to say i'm cured
Don’t forget to add the Wow Thanks! to that curing. Hope you’re managing okay now. I also experienced something similar, except through masking my depression and being made to constantly convince professionals of my mental state. I hope life treats you better these days ❤️
A friend of mine went to the ER once when he was in crisis, and they told him that was what they wanted to do, because it was either do that or discharge him. His coping mechanism is to find ways to distract himself from the noise in his head, and they wanted to put him in a room in a hospital gown with no distractions. He told them "fuck you very much" and left. He's still around, thankfully, but I really wish the medical board's response to suicide attempts would get a complete overhaul.
Honestly, when I think of hurting myself, I think of the weekend I spent in a psych ward a half dozen years ago. Not because I learned anything, but because it was the worst thing I'd been through since the end of my being trapped in an abusive relatuonship with my parents. Life doesn't really get any better, but at least I can have basic rights and not have food that was cooked a week ago. I think what care taught me was that those thoughts were punishable, and that I needed to do whatever I could to make them quieter because nothing good happens when you tell people you want to do that to yourself.
@@RagnarokLoki2012 I feel this exactly right now. I want to go somewhere but I know there's a real possibility of being sent to that hell hole again. It was probably the worst days of my life
I was once told by a mental health professional that I can't be depressed because I was wearing makeup. Little did they know I wore makeup to stop myself from crying constantly.
I'm sorry what's the logic in that? Like... You wear makeup and therefore you're taking care of yourself and can't be depressed? Is that the deduction? Like lmao
I *only* wear makeup when I'm having a really rough time. It's a way to distract others from the obvious signs of pain, a way to not appear vulnerable, a way to look "ok" when I was really far from ok. My psychiatrist (during a long hospital psych admission in my late 30s) would say "Oh you're looking far more well in yourself today" if I was wearing makeup, not realising that was usually a sign of a bad day. It took a while to admit to him and even longer to change his mind; that if I was feeling brave enough to make the *choice* to face the day without makeup I was getting better. I was getting brave enough to not fear my emotions, and not fear others noticing my vulnerability.
@Despize Perform you hear a person describing their personal coping mechanism for their depression and the first thing you do is to call them pathetic Fuck off
I have literally done that. On days when I can't seem to get up off the kitchen floor I just force myself up, go to the bathroom and start doing my makeup. Can't cry if you've got mascara on, as dumb as it fucking sounds. I hope everyone in this comment thread is doing better. And I hope you eventually got the help you needed. Much love ❤️
@@wyattp8479 IME, mental health providers love making judgments on appearance and claiming it’s because of hygiene. The logic tends to be “if someone was suffering severely, they would have the energy to be hygienic or wouldn’t care about hygiene”
I legit gasped when you explained what the “cosmonaut” meant. It’s a perfect visualization of grounding techniques. When the depression and panic sends you into the void, you can reminder yourself you’re a cosmonaut, still tethered to the ship that will be on its way home.
It’s 3:04am for me, and I’m just openly weeping at the last section of this video. This video gave voice to so many of my unspoken thoughts. I think I can also credit it for keeping me here.
@LaLapin Don't ever feel hopeless. Start by volunteering at an organization that already does what you would want to do. They will already exist. Don't ever feel hopeless. There are always comrades like you that want to help. Build your network. Get your kids involved, your friends. Explain why it's important. How they can literally make a difference. Don't ever feel hopeless. Always remember that there is a reason. Usually it's a temporary reason, sometimes it's an imagined reason, sometimes it's a very physical reason. It can always be addressed. Any not naturally occurring affliction can be remedied. Just remember. Don't ever feel hopeless. I've sat in the captain's seat of this rocket. The ride sucks, but if you want it to, you can come home. Whatever you choose; DON'T FEEL HOPELESS. There is always hope. Find it. It hides.
I’ve seen your videos quite often but , honestly that was because my eldest son would watch them on the tv- and I do enjoy them, always thought provoking. He recommended that I watch this one- as he wanted to know my opinion. I worked as a mental health nurse for over 25 years until recently. I’ve also suffered from severe depression too. I’ve read T.Szaz, R.D.Laing (a good read too!!). In my career I’ve looked after many people who’ve attempted suicide and those who were successful in ending their life. We always reflect on occasions when people have attempted suicide all been successful usually termed as a debrief, and I guess we are no different to the families or friends of those as we are always trying to understand why they may have done it there is no doubt that many, dare I say majority of those who have looked after I doing this because they are extremely low in mood and don’t want it to continue. Feeling so desperately low that even getting out of bed requires major planning and effort and energy. With those people we know that placing them with therapy tailored to their needs and wants generally will work very well for them and with a lot of people we don’t ever see them again , In the nicest way possible of course-with regards to they stay well enough never to need our contact or help again. But we also recognise that there are some who situation is just so desperate, that they are homeless , no family or friends, a history of being seriously abused over long periods of time Etc- and you do find yourself asking ‘what do they have to live for?’. Student nurses were often shocked when we would talk to them about these people and ask that very question. They think we can ‘fix’ everyone but we cannot. We can’t change someone’s history , for instance. I remember arguing with senior management about why we would help someone to a good place (mentally) and then send them back to the same shitty deprived area they came from , with class A drugs being dealt from the next door flat!! Sometimes there are those who just want to escape their reality- they see no way out; and if we are truly honest- they are right, there is no escape except by death. It’s awful to have to admit it but it’s true. I am not anti psychiatry because I’ve benefited from it myself when I was suicidal. But we do need to offer more time with patients- it’s not given because the nurses don’t want to but because of severe cuts on the NHS and crazy red tape replication of paperwork that we are required to do ; mostly in case the NHS trust is sued!! When I first started my career- the majority of my time was spent with patients- talking with them, counselling them. Sadly, this isn’t the case and so I’ve seen a direct correlation of reduction in direct nurse to patient time and increase in prescription medication to those patients, who could be better served by one to one or group counselling time. We were taught to treat the patients holistically- including their environment. It of course, made perfect sense but in reality it doesn’t happen. Usually due to lack of funds or inclination by social services to move the individual from those environmental circumstances. Usually the former. So the push towards medicalisation of mental health again is more to do with cuts than us driving an agenda forward. I applaud you Ollie in being so honest in your video about your own struggles with depression, self harming and suicide attempts- I know how difficult this must have been but nevertheless you did it. And, this will reach out to others too. I’m going to share this with my friends who still work in mental health and hopefully it will be shared with others. Because only by challenging our own practice can we hope to improve the care we deliver to others; even if that means acknowledging people’s right to die.
The entire discussion re: depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts with my doctor. Doc: "Do you still have hobbies?" Me: "Well, yeah, I guess, sometimes." Doc: "Do you still go to work?" Me: "Of course." Doc: "You're fine."
Do you have work to go to? Does that work treat you like a functioning part of it, or a wart it can't afford to get rid of? I've never found a place of work I can function as part of it, because I tend not to lie about the reality of the situation I'm in to myself, or to the customers I'm tasked to serve. Guess lying makes you a terrible worker. Guess that's why I can't hold a job ever.
Severely depressed people cannot get out of bed. They cannot maintain employment or relationships. They are evaluating the severity of your illness. It’s not really a physicians job to force you to be happy. Depression can be due to multiple reasons obviously, but the vast majority of people need purpose, better interpersonal relationships, and better diet/exercise.
@@tomwaitsmencse Your arrogance in the face of the vulnerability of the OP and the obvious failure of the phrase "you're fine" to deal with suicidal ideation makes me think that IF you work on a psych unit, you're part of the problem.
The incredible power of the phrase “toxic masculinity is a hell of a ship to pilot when you’re suffering” hits so hard now. As a trans woman who grew up in an incredibly conservative and fundamentalist culture, this breaks my heart because I know what piloting that ship is like when you are hurting and how freeing it is to finally walk away from it.
Toxic masculinity was the thing that prevented me from coming out for so long. Why would I want to be a man when most of the men I knew were so seeped in homophobia and sexism? Maybe it's better to just stay in the closet my whole life. But doing so wasn't helping me. I didn't know how to call other guys out on their sexist shit until after I had come out as non-binary. I didn't know how to correct cis people on pronouns until after I started hormones. Avoiding coming out because you are afraid of what is on the other side isn't rational. And doing so makes you miserable.
@@aaronlevenstein519 Exactly! One of my best friends is transmasc, and he told me he had the exact same experience. Both of us grew up in the same cult, and he had nothing but the worst examples of what masculinity could be. And I can’t imagine how hard that had to have been for him. And I hate that he had to experience that. But I am so glad he could get to where he is now, which is a wonderful delightful man. And I am happy for you as well. And I am so proud of both of you for working past that fear.
Agreed but maybe we can fix things for both of them. Make this world a better place so people want to live. Make life great so they don't want to die so soon.
@@savag3salad813 I definitely do not want to live because I do not have the energy and willpower anymore to be able to live a life that is worth living. I am exhausted and want it to stop. But I (mostly) don't want to die or kill myself because it is not life itself I dislike just my fuel has run out
I want you to know that I pondered the question “do I want to go on living” while watching your video, and for the first time since I realized I’m a trans man, the answer was an immediate yes. I’ll admit I cried pretty hard at that realization, it was such a shock. Thank you Olly, that moment meant the world to me.
Same but opposite. it would have been pretty hard to give a straight answer to that question before, but it's pretty easy to say yes after realizing I'm a trans girl.
Abused for over a decade. Multiple failed suicide attempts. Hospitalized with no real help provided. Treated like a nuisance while hospitalized. Denied care at emergency room after another suicide attempt. Can't get service dog because PTSD didn't stem from military service. New PTSD from doctors and nurses treating me lesser than. Weekly call with therapist where I mostly just listen. Feel like a drag in society so I just stay home. So many more details I can't express again. It's been years of this. Still here. Tired. I understand too.
That sucks :/ are you doing better now? This quarantine time is also being bad for mental health. Do you have any hobbies which give you fullfilment, like music or painting? They can help
You can do this. This mission is worth completing, or at least, living. You will find meaning. You are important, god fucking damnit. Good luck, and remember just how many more cosmonauts are around- you may as well use the radio.
Each day you keep on going is an act of courage and strength. In the face of so much hardship, you persist. As much as it can mean from a stranger on the Internet, I wish you well. I wish that your life gets better and that you make your way to a place of peace and stability. I believe that if your strength has carried you this far, it can carry you there as well.
@@shahsadsaadu5817 no it's not. Here's why: _Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says “it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society”_ Even the poet admits that it is a quote.
My first attempt I was 11 years old. When I’m in that place as dumb as it sounds I have this thing I do I call “counting straws” “straws” are reasons to stay. I visualize all my straws in one of those little straw cups. And I count through them one by one, my friends my family my passions My partners. And a lot of the time I can go through this list and still feel like they would all be OK without me... eventually. So I save the straw that is my cat for last. Because as dumb as it sounds I remind myself that she wouldn’t understand why I never came home. So mentally I put all my straws back in the cup. And I keep going.
That's actually the sweetest and simplest and most relatable thing ever. I can always justify people doing ok without me eventually if I killed myself, but thinking about my pets... my cats wouldn't understand why I never came home to feed them again, why I would never be there to love them, why I would never be there for them again. And that just wrenches at my heart
In 2001, one of my closest friends committed suicide on her 27th birthday, two days before my 28th. She was saner than I. She lived very relentlessly in the real world. The last time I saw her, she was trying to tell me that it was the last time. I didn’t pick up what she was saying. I was in a hurry. I didn’t listen. 21 years. That year, three close friends followed.
I too, was the last person my friend talked to before she killed herself. I too, was in a hurry... I didn't say bye didn't say I love you like I normally would, and now she's gone, having suffered terribly when she went it kills me to think about it still.
High functioning depression. Yea more community in like Asia .im just a lazy cuz that just wants to chill in the sun on a beach and talk with people i love ..i think the best cure for anything is just having the right people at the right distance to u ...people dont get depressed or suicidal for nothing but if they have the right support of people then they will slowly recover. Its not about them having a problem in their mind but its pretty obvious that the default position is not perpetual sorrow or suicidal thoughts, atleast i hope not. People usally want to be happy, so lets figure it out together
I didn't experience the machine part, but I definitely get it always being there. I knew what he was going to say before he said it - "almost every day".
"The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic." -Alexei Leonov, the world's first spacewalker, who passed away today at 85. Hope he's looking out for you Oliver.
I kinda wish I was more like the idealized toxic masculine man. I'm a weak man myself, and wish I was better at following the expectation that 'men are strong.'
Hogwire that’s not a good way of thinking mate. These structures are just that: structures. They are arbitrary and completely dictated by custom and culture. I would invite you to accept yourself as who you are, a perfectly normal man.
@@EZboyrocks I don't care if they are arbitrary, or who dictates what. What I know is that I do not like being bullied, and I don't like feeling vulnerable or defenselessness because its easy for me to be a pushover. Therefore if I was stronger/was able to not be so emotional all the time I would not be such a pushover. All the philosophy or social theory in the world doesn't change the fact that the world and the people in it can be very cruel.
@EZboyrocks Oh as an addendum I will add though: I would definitely like to leave behind the 'treating women as sex objects' part that comes with toxic masculinity. Much as I would like to be a big strong badass, raping and domestic violence is inexcusable, just so I'm clear.
Being functional can be so difficult when you're suffering that much. I remember sitting in my psychiatrist's office after my second suicide attempt in a month while he was trying to persuade me to go to hospital, and my main objection to this was "I can't, I have shit to do". I was trying so hard to function that I completely ignored the gravity of the situation. Sometimes we care more about functioning than living and that's something I don't think we talk about enough.
(sorry, I got carried on while typing this message and I basically wrote down all my life- I guess I REALLY needed to vent and this video made me feel a lot of things. I didn't mean to make it about myself ;-;) Ironically, one of the things that my psychologist taught me was to not be functional human being. I would force myself to do stuff so bad, and I would sit in front of my homework (or just in front of a book, if I didn't had homework to do that day) and tell myself "I know it has been seven hours already, but when you finish all of this, only then you can eat". And it wasn't that difficult being functional, was it? I didn't had to do much, but then I couldn't see nothing because I was crying after reading the same paragraph for the third time, and I told myself "when I finish this one, I can think about this and decide what to do"... but I knew myself well enough to know that it wasn't true. I focused so much on being functional... Until the moment that I couldn't, and then I was in a different place, without knowing how much time had happened, sometimes injured. "Who did this thing to my arm?", but I knew it was myself, it was the only logical thing to think. I could only remember a few scenes that vanished from my mind as the time passed, and they felt like a movie. The moment when I regained consciousness and discovered the mess I had left on my left arm... that I can't forget. But, another irony, the only moments when I questioned if killing myself would be a good idea was in my rational moments. Of all the messes that I found after dissociating, none of them put my life in danger. My psychologist told me that the way I was thinking when I weighted in both possibilities (dying and living) wasn't at all irrational- but most of the things that I put as a con to living where fixable, and the problem lied on the fact that I didn't knew how. It's horrifying to be completely rational, trying to find a single justifiable reason to why you feel this way, and you can find none. Because depression means that you can't to things normally, right? I didn't felt that I needed to tell anyone, because I kept going to school, I kept helping my parents, I kept getting good grades- did it really matter that I couldn't stop crying while I was doing all of this? When I finally decided to get help, it was because I was about to start university and I felt like I couldn't really be good at it if I couldn't take care of myself and I kept having these horrible breakdowns. I was put on an emergency list, for both psychologist and psychiatrist. The worst thing? I had gotten a lot better by the time I finally asked for help, and even then it was an emergency thing. My justification for not asking for help before? I had a schizophrenic great-uncle which lives in a mental hospital since I can remember, and I couldn't let the same thing happen to me. Because I was a intelligent girl who had to go to college, because I couldn't waste my potential that way, because I had to keep on being rational even if that made me live the most miserable life that I could imagine.
same, the only thing is that i never made actual attempts. When i was getting dangerously close i went to a 1st line psychologist, made lifestyle changes and even did psychedelics. I guess that means I'm high functioning (?), I don't see it. All i see when watching these is how isolated I am. I think i have a serious problem with self doubt, I'm basically my own gaslighter. It's especially destructive for me because i never feel like i can truly understand or be understood, there's never something legitimate i have done to "fit in" and say I understand and feel like i'm not just lying. How can anyone actually understand (really understand) when even I can't even get any kind of solid image of if what i'm going through is real? I want to say I understand, I want to say I've been there. Truth is I haven't and anytime i watch this type of content i just feel like some whiny "non-suicide attempt privileged" wannabe trying to connect with people who've actually been through real shit, who've actually seen the actual void of space and not some safe clips of it from the other side of a window (that might just be a screen). It's sad how much i used to glamorize suicide attempts, I even told my ex once that i tried it, made it extra edgy and dramatic of course. Truth is i just wanted to feel valid. I just wanted to feel like I had some kind of foothold to claim that I am depressed, that I am going through some shit, that I am actually someone that needs a different kind of attention than the rest. I am so self doubting that i don't know what's real anymore. I constantly doubt the legitimacy of my emotions, of my reasoning. I just wish something bad would happen to me, something real. Maybe then i could look back on it an say "see, proof that i was abused, proof that i'm depressed, proof that I'm not just some crybaby whining about completely normal things everyone goes through".
LittleAmeba Feel free to vent hunny, i just did the same throughout the comment section today as well. Thanks for sharing your story. It helps to read other people's thoughts, especially when they're in a similar headspace to me. I never did my arms, I was always too concerned about presentation. Even when i tried to kill myself, i tried to go for the artery in my thigh. Went through skin, fat, nerves, and then eventually partway through the muscle before i gave up. It was a horric scene, and I've seen heart surgery scars smaller and thinner than it. But it's on my thighs, so even if i go to the beach, i can wear a bikini top with some boy's swim shorts to cover up the evidence. But like Olly, i don't feel like it's insanity, but rather nihilistic dread, rational and thought out. I guess there are other factors too, but we'd be here all day if i tried to list them lol Anyway, i hope you feel better. I understand how you feel. You seem like a beautiful person, and so i do hope you find a reason to stay. But i know better than anyone that you can't stop someone if they've made up their minds. Take care of yourself
Suicide is also higher among veterans than the general population. Does that mean being a veteran is a mental illness ? Or does it mean that LGBTQIA and Veterans are both hurting and not receiving help
i'm lgbt and was just talking to one of those free therapist about my issues. when i came to my main issue which was my sexuality, they stopped replying after a few minuets.
@@Sunrise-fr9jb wow. That sounds deeply unethical. If you have the forks to do so, please report them to relevant authorities, or write a complaint, or similar. (And if you don't, well, that's entirely understandable.
Most of Freud's theories have been disproven. They were significantly helpful in establishing early psychology and they were unable to stand the test of time. Some of his theories were even disproven by his own daughter later on when she did studies.
I spoke to a stranger once when I was feeling like I didn't want to be here anymore, I was drunk outside a bar smoking a cigarette and sobbing hysterically, they repeated several times "I know this pain you are feeling.", somehow that was more meaningful than anything else anyone could have possibly said to me. Edit: Okay, I was halfway through this video when I made the above comment..... I go do a little cry now.
When he said “I understand you” I completely broke down. I sobbed for a long time, because this was the first time someone had ever said to me, I understand what you’re going through. I saw in olly the same pain and darkness that lives inside me, and that I carry every day. To be understood is the most powerful thing someone can experience Edit: thank you for all the love, and a sincere thank you to everyone who gave me messages of love and understanding.
Arden Collins isn’t it crazy, how little this is understood: Sometimes there is no answer, yet we listen, and that is an answer by it self. Modern man is quick to reach for answers, forgetting that before there were any answers there was a way forward
For me it was the part where Ollie was talking about how when he feels suicidal he pretends to be a soviet era cosmonaut. It showed that even the most childish ideas can be the most soothing and comforting.
as morbid as it sounds, when i have my own cosmonaut episodes i always come back to this video. i don’t know why, but just knowing i’m not alone up there, sitting in my tin can in space, makes all the difference in the world. i don’t know how long i can go on like this, but thank you for offering this modicum of solace.
Same. The first video I watched was the transition coming out video. And now I’m going through them all. I am falling in love with Abigail in the way someone falls in love with a writer or poet (I hope that makes sense). I am very glad she was able to make this video.
Me too. I’ve watched this many times, and I share it when I can. Because you’re right, empathy is the most important and powerful force we have. “I understand how you feel” can change lives. It can save a life.
I've been suicidal since I was a child. I related strongly, especially about the awful combination of toxic masculinity and English emotional repression. David Foster Wallace wrote my fav description of being suicidal. He killed himself in 2008. "The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." (David Foster Wallace 2008, 696-7)
I'm glad Ollie opened his soul for this amazing piece of art. Mistreatment justified by misunderstandings is all-too-often the cause of the burning building. We cannot hope to understand everything around us, nor can we be expected to. Perhaps the world would be better if we taught our children that they will never understand everything, rather than the education most of us receive where we're looked at negatively for questioning authority or punished for coming up with a different answer. I think we, as a society, encourage a belief that we are the only right and that the wrong must be punished. And I think that line of beliefs is mentally unwell. No one would ever desire to be treated as though they are completely invalid. Thank you, too, for your openness, anarchopac!
His description of depression in The Depressed Person was also incredibly piercing: "If the therapist *really* wanted the truth, the depressed person had finally shared from a hunched and near-fetal position beneath the sunburst clock, sobbing uncontrollably, the depressed person *really* felt that what was *really* unfair was that she was unable, even with the trusted and admittedly compassionate therapist, to communicate her depression's terrible and unceasing agony *itself*, agony which was the overriding and a priori reality of her every waking minute--i.e., not being able to share the way it *felt*, what it actually *felt* like for the depressed person to be literally unable to *share* it, as for example if her very life depended on describing the sun but she were allowed to point only to shadows on the ground."
I'm seventeen. I'm trans. And I think I'm a fellow cosmonaut. I came to this video because I had a pretty bad day. Bombed the fuck out of a very important psychology test despite knowing the content (it was about stress and how we react to it) a little too intimately. And I just kept thinking about life, and how I'll have to keep repeating the what my psychology teacher might call three stages of Selye's GAS, or what I might call "shock, get used to it, collapse, repeat". And I realised it's either keep on doing that or... the other option. And that led me here. But this - helped, somehow. Being a certified zoomer with terrible taste, I tend to associate space and existentialism not with David Bowie's Blackstar and Elton John's Rocketman, but with Coldplay's X&Y. And so here I'll put my only worthwhile contribution to this rather depressing but insightful comment section: the last verse of Square One, first track on X&Y. "Is there anybody out there who, is lost and hurt and lonely too? Are they bleeding all your colours into one? And if you come undone as if you'd been run through Some catapult that fired you You wonder if your chance will ever come Well, if you're stuck in square one." To all my fellow cosmonauts that are stuck in square one: We'll get through this. Because we have to.
How are you doing? Millennial trans cosmonaut checking in. Are you drinking water and eating food and breathing? Hang in there. You are you and that's a good person to be.
Alas, little sibling, I sometimes fear that having to isn't enough. I think we need to want to. Life quite often isn't very good at giving us a reason to want to. Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life?
As a fellow cosmonaut, I was fine for the entirety of this video, until she said “I understand how you feel.” It was said in such an earnest and open way that I began to cry instantly. Thank you for creating this, Abi. It’s beautiful, and I’m glad.
it’s been a few months since you said this, so i hope mr. not good enough is still minding his own business and keeping his unneeded and unwarranted opinions to himself
In one of my shitty college apartment buildings one of the other apartments had a sign that said “we do not support Sigmund Freud in this household” and to this day my only regret is not befriending them
I personally know someone who is still alive, because you published this. I can't put into words what this means to me. I can't say "I understand", I'm just standing down here on earth, knowing what you cosmonauts go through in space. You guys are needed down here and everytime you manage a safe landing, is a good day. Thank you!
When you joked about the fork I straight up started to cry. Becouse telling jokes is what I always do when I get suicidal. Becouse if I can get my self to genuine laughter, no matter how great my selfhatred are for thoose few seconds I laugh my ideal self shuts up and nothing other than joy fills my mind. Even if it's only for a few seconds even if everything comes back the second the laugh is over, it's worth so fucking much.
I hope you are doing well. After reading your comment I realized that I do the same thing at times. It's strange the things our minds use to cope with the stress.
I remember when in middle school, I had a time when I got so depressed that I just stopped functioning. I didn't see the point. why keep on living this pointless life where nothing is fun anymore. I was going through a lot and repressing it all cause I rightly assumed my parents would find it silly, and one day I just, shut down, for weeks. I refused to leave my room and just cried for days. And the thing that sticks with me about that experience was the way I got out of it. I went to a school meeting to try and figure out how I could make up all the missing schoolwork, and my mental health wasn't brought into question at all. all these adults sitting and talking about my schoolwork didn't think to ask me how I was feeling. then, I went home and listened to some random music on the computer cause that was all I could manage, and the song "it's on us" by AJR came on. and I started crying. cause it was exactly what I needed to hear. so I decided I was gonna be ok, and not a single one of the adults responsible for my well-being even influenced that. they were too busy worrying about my grades to realize that I wasn't doing ok for a reason. a fucking song showed me more compassion and respect than every adult in my life at the time. and my parents wonder why I hate school, and why I'm so mad at this fucking world we live in. If you're reading this, and you've been failed by the people in your life because of this shitty system, I see you. I get it. I feel your anger. and your life is worth so much more than your grades.
I am so glad you were able to find that, even if through song and not the support of the adults that should have been responsible. I struggled a lot in middle school also, your message really resonated. Looking back I think most of the adults in my life couldn't even contemplate someone so young being in such a bad shape mentally and emotionally. I am very thankfull to have survived through those times.
@@juliadandy6019 i got my sat exam results today and i failed. And the idea of welp guess im bound to be a failure in life and if im bound to be a failure then what's the point of existence. Hearing you say that grades don't matter actually helps tremendously
i cried while reading this comment. it’s been hard trying to maintain my school-related responsibilities at home (online classes and such aren’t easy), specially during a pandemic in a country that just seems to get worse and worse (brazil). i have anxiety issues and i might be showing signs of depression. my parents also wouldn’t get me. it’s genuinely great knowing that i’m not the only one that has gone/is going through shit like this. thanks a lot
When I was a kid growing up, music was the escape. That's the only thing that had no judgments. You know, you put on a record, and it's not going to yell at you for dressing the way you do. It's going to make you feel better about it. - Marylin Manson
Thank you, that really hit home. It's been a while since I cried for my middle school self but here I am again. Thank you for letting me know I wasn't alone.
TH-cam only just now showed me the notification for these comments somehow, thank you friends. :) I'm doing much better these days, still have struggles, but not as many, and not as severe. ♥️
Yup. He made a living telling aristocrats they had stuff wrong with them that he could help them with. Of course they would never have believed there was anything wrong with themselves otherwise.
😬"Come out and confront your fetishistic neuroses!" "We have you surrounded!!"🤤 "I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS!!!" 🤪
*I've retired from space travel for about a year now.* Therapy was too expensive, so I just recorded myself asking questions, played it back, & talked to myself. It might or might not work for others but I saw a sci show psych episode about it, so I thought I could try. Researching psychological journals gave me the ideas but I did have to make up the question myself. My life isn't perfect, but it's mine, & I deserve the chance to make it better.
You're absolutely right. This is the single most important, useful, and trascendental video posted to YT. While I'm not, and hopefully will never feel suicidal, I do suffer from depression and can perfectly understand how important it can be to receive a sincere and powerful message like this one at the right time.
My dad killed himself earlier this year, and he had been planning to kill himself for a few days before, according to his note. I've found a lot of comfort in knowing that he wanted to leave us because then it wasn't a mistake. If he chose to leave us, then he had decided that the world was too difficult and he couldn't fight anymore. And I prefer it being an active choice he made because then I know it wasn't an accident, and I know my time with him was meant to end. I know it seems backwards, yet it has given me a lot of comfort.
We all have different ways of coping, and yours in no less valid. We are ambivalent, contradictory beings after all. We find comfort in what we know either isn't right, real or true, but we have to because otherwise the absolute pointlessness of it all will overwhelm us and drive us insane.
HRT and transition did more for my mental health than any medication or combination of medications that I have ever been prescribed. Ohmygod girl, the fork and spoon thing is so darkly humorous. I laughed way harder than I should have. Glad you made it, Abigail. Glad you transitioned.
You're not alone, sister. Many of us, especially trans people, pilot the same shitty space craft. I love all my sisters and brothers. Please don't give up, gorge. It always gets better.
I might be both trans and "mentally ill". 😕 Sucks to be such an obvious stereotype of a "burden on society". Maybe it takes more than a couple years on HRT to unravel 30 years of ritual self-abuse...
That phrase, that simple sentence, was the first time I've cried in a couple years, last time being my brother's funeral, but this time it wasn't from pain, grief, regret, but from relief. Thank you for sharing with everyone, Oliver.
hearing "I understand" made me cry for the first time in a long time and I don't even know how to explain how I feel but it's just nice to feel like I'm being talked to and not talked over or talked around.
I literally just finished crying in the pantry so my kid didn't hear me which I'm laughing about because I just got caught and yesterday we learned about how cellular breakdown in onions makes you cry when you chop them so I blamed the onions and he said "onions are rude". Life is strange. I hope you're ok now.
Truly phenomenal. As someone who has struggled not only with mental illness but it’s perception in society, THIS is what we need. No bullshit, no inspirational quotes on a photoshopped picture of some trees, but actual, genuine sufferers of mental illness shaping and moulding this area of life as opposed to simply following the same road we have trod for many years. This is how things change, this is how people will begin to understand. Thank you
@@Voe198 Oh yah - those fluffy quotes and memes! - as someone who has struggled finding 'inspiration' to get by one day at a time, I find those so banal and superficial.
I’m a queer autistic cosmonaut. I’m talked over by society on multiple different fronts. I put off my first watch of this for a long time, but thank you Abi for making this video. My days in the trenches are almost gone, as therapy seems to have a positive impact on my life, as well as my situation begins to improve, but I needed to see this. I don’t feel as alone anymore. Thank you.
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” -- Albert Camus
This also came to my mind while watching. The Myth of Sisyphus is worth reading in its entirety, but in short his conclusion is this (paraphrased): Suicide is not an answer to the great questions of the world. Or the meaninglessness, cruelty, and difficulty. It is an escape from those questions. To live, knowing that there is no reason to, and finding meaning in your life regardless, is the best way to confront the absurdity of the universe.
Mr. Thorne, I'm an American. The mental health system here is horribly abusive. They put drugs into me for chemical imbalances I didn't have, they isolated me from other students until I was in my late teens. I've been to therapy once every 6 months or so since, only ever to talk to a therapist for a short amount of time and then go back to high functionality. Like you, I am lucky to be high functioning. And like you, I know that being "high functioning" doesn't get rid of the problem. I also study philosophy and music, go figure. From one cosmonaut to the next, hold on tight and make it back to landing. Thank you for making this video. Here's hoping you keep making it back into the atmosphere.
The moment you said you are American, I started weeping like a child. This horror show we call home is the definition of mental illness. Gaslighting ad nauseum, fear mongering, overworked, stressed , no social bonds, paranoia etc... it is a fucking prison.
Recently diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder months ago but still in disbelief because I figured "other people have it worse", "my problems are not that even heavy to begin with", "maybe i'm just being dramatic", etc. only to realize (upon finishing the video) that I've been in "flyby missions" many times , I practically don't notice anymore that I've been a Cosmonaut for such a long time. Sobbing and shaking as the credits rolled. Turns out I really am tired pretending to be happy. Tonight, I acknowledge this pain, this sadness. The sun will shine in the morning as I sit in the cockpit. I will, sooner or later, return to Earth.
29 years on this earth: I've never been tempted by Death. After the loss of someone I dearly loved one month ago, and the increasing pressure of my career, added with the recent hunt to purchase a home with my husband (one year of marriage next month): I'm showing visible signs of burnout and anxiety mixed with complete and udder nihilism. Death is now a comforting and tempting thought. Then I found this video. Your art is so compassionate. Necessary. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
You are not alone. Almost 28, never had a suicidal thought. But two months ago I broke down under the pressure and anxiety from multiple aspects of my life. I don't want to die, but sometimes I don't how to live. I lost someone too, this week, and weirdly it slowed down the thoughts, because it gave me something else to think about. I understand, too. These words mean so much, and everyone should hear it.
Y N I'm not sure if this is really the time for jokes. Or maybe it's the best time for jokes? Idk. But yeah, i caught that too. Udder = cow Utter = complete/absolute Is your username a reference to fanfiction? But anyway, in order to keep my post from being entirely free of anything pertaining to the topic, i really hope the OP feels better. I really think since this is a sudden thing, you'll overcome it, because you have a normal baseline to return to. Like Olly, I've wanted to die since my teens, virtually every waking second of my life. Not just the waking seconds though, i kill myself in my dreams almost every night. It's been consuming me for more than a decade, but somehow i still can't do it. There were times when i was younger when I OD's and needed machines to breathe for me, or when i tried cutting an artery in my leg and severed the skin and the fat layer under it, and some of the nerves, and then a bit of the muscle. But these days it's harder. Except in my dreams, when i really finally work up the guts, i start puking, ironically. But i guess I'm still here. So maybe I'll figure it out soon, either life or death. But i have to figure out at least one of them eventually
This came at the perfect time for me. I am in studying philosophy at (a well known "good" university) [redacted], and I told a counselor at [redacted] that I had been having suicidal thoughts. The result? Police and EMS showing up at my apartment in Brooklyn that night. Police and EMS tackling me, handcuffing me, pushing my face into the couch and pulling out tasers; all while my boyfriend watched horrified. I was home and I was in no imminent danger. They treated me like I was being arrested. I was strapped me down to a gurney, and they refused even then to loosen the handcuffs or take them off. I still have nerve damage in my left hand. Before driving off I asked if my boyfriend could ride with me, they refused. I asked for my phone, they told me "you won't need that where you're going". The police told me they would tell my boyfriend what hospital to go to and what to bring me (you can bring food, clothes, books, etc), they lied. They actually told him to stay home, that he could visit during visiting hours, and not to bring anything. During the ride to the hospital the EMS driver told me I could have avoided all of this if I had told them why they were at my apartment. Even though he had told me not even 10 minutes ago that they had to taker me either way. They also told me that I "bought a one way ticket to ____" instead of a private hospital. I think they provoke people as an excuse to, basically, brutally arrest them. I was then taken to the worst psych ward in Brooklyn, and held against my will for 3 nights. Not only against my own will, but also against the wishes of my immediate family and my boyfriend (who I live with). In the psych ward I was lied to and treated as less than human. It has to be the most traumatizing thing I have ever experienced in my life. I saw and experienced so many disturbing and completely heart breaking things. The psych ward is NOT the place for a depressed person. Actually, it isn't the place for anyone. They DO NOT help you there. They did not even know why I was there until I had 24 hours had already passed. I asked multiple times and got told several reiterations of: "That isn't how the psych ward works. once you are here you are here; and if you are here, it is for a reason". I was told multiple times I would get to go home soon. First it was in 2-3 hours you can leave. Then the first psychiatrist said, tomorrow late afternoon after you speak with a social worker you can leave. The social worker did try to discharge me. Only to have a new psychiatrist who "spoke" with me for maybe 2 minutes tell me she wanted to put me on extended watch. I say "spoke" because she really just listened to me talk with a social worker. On night two I asked for water- and the nurses argued and yelled at each other in front of me, because they were both too lazy to get up out of their desks. They attempted to give me a MEDICINE CUP size portion of water, because that is what would fit under the glass barrier. You know, so they wouldn't have to stand up and leave their office enclosure to hand me water. That is how everything works. The nurses sit in an office surrounded by glass and you have to ask them for everything. Phone use, water, food, clothing, personal hygiene supplies. They would often be irritated at you for asking. Sometimes I even got no verbal response just a hand. This is bad enough for me to have to experience, but there were people there that were in very delicate mental states. People that really NEEDED help, and proper medication- they were treated as prisoners. I can not stress enough how terrible the treatment is. The meals were prison food, and since I am vegan I basically starved. Even if I were not vegan, everything had weird additives. For example the peanut butter had sugar in it along with fully hydrogenated oils. Under NY state law psych wards are legally supposed to give patients nutritionally balanced meals and comply with dietary restrictions, they don't though. Also in NY all hospitals have a legal department and they denied me my right for legal consult multiple times. The psych ward is basically a prison. The worst part is that you realize quite quickly (if you are smart) that the only way to be released is to play along and fully corporate. That means; when the nurses refuse you your right to the phone, or when your roommate pees on the floor and they won't send for a cleaning person. You smile and nod. Anything else. Any emotion or anything besides complacency and you just bought yourself an extra night. This is only some of what happened. If anyone would like to talk more about the experiences I had in a Brooklyn city hospital psych war, please contact me. I want to share my story. TLDR: The biggest take away from this experience for me is the horrific realization that the US uses involuntary commitment as a way to lock up people with mental illness. It is a way to imprison people who have not committed a crime but are, for whatever reason, a liability or an inconvenience to the state or the people around them. Oh and that someone has to pay for all this. The person being involuntarily committed gets the bill for the hospitalization and the ambulance ride. Interesting isn't it. That I had to pay for the ambulance ride I did not consent to, where I was physically and verbally abused.. For having depression.
That sounds calculated to make someone even more suicidal. Truly disturbing. I really hope you are able to bring wider attention to it. I don't really have a stake in your living/dying as a stranger, but for what's it's worth, I won't judge you for your thoughts, your choices. Thank you.
Ditto on Celina K's editorial/book idea: that scenario sounds like a literal horror movie, and people do respond to abuses by the law and the state. I hope you manage to get things sorted
Jesus. I agree with the others - you are a solid writer and shoukd write a scathing expose! Some leftist / left leaning webiste would likely publish it.
Holy shit, this happened in Brooklyn out of all places?! I live there. You should contact your local representatives and publish an expose. I expected that NY, of all places, would better protect their mentally ill patients. This is truly unacceptable. Thank you for sharing your story and I'm very sorry for what you've gone through.
I haven't finished watching, but I feel this has to be said. I appreciate you being openly emotional as you explain this. Please never stop allowing yourself that.
I agree that people, especially men, should allow themselves to be openly emotional more, but I wouldn't want to put any positive or negative value judgment on showing emotions in a TH-cam video or in other forms of art. I don't think showing such vulnerability online should be encouraged because I know how devastating and triggering it can be to put yourself out there like that. I wouldn't want anyone to feel any pressure to do that.
That is perfectly fair. To pressure was not my intention, but I understand that means nothing if it is taken as such. I'll re-phrase. If you feel the need to be openly emotional - rather for catharsis, to reach out, to educate, etc. - never stifle that need.
I’m so glad you mentioned Austerity. I’m English too and I showed up at A+E threatening to kill myself, but because the unit was so understaffed with ONE locum doctor holding it together, I got sent home after being told to snap an elastic band against my wrist instead. And I literally had cuts all over my arms and wrists. That’s the effect of decimating health cuts and it SUCKS.
"I understand how you feel" Thank you. Thank you! THANK YOU! For saying the ONE thing I've wanted someone, ANYONE, to say about these dark thoughts I've had in my head for years. Anyone can tell me they love me and mean it, can tell me where to go to get help but the one thing I wanted was someone who SINCERELY UNDERSTANDS. Thank you again. From the bottom of my heart.
29:05 Just putting the time stamp of when those beautiful words were said. I've actually come by this video every so often when I feel my lowest. And it has actually helped quite a bit! A daily reminder that I am not as alone as my mind may tell me.
blakgumshoo actually physicians are saying nowadays that you shouldn’t say that you know how someone feels-as it can enrage some people who feel like no one knows how they feel and can heighten tension
i know it's been a second but god i really hope you're doing better. you're not alone and you matter so much and you will continue to matter for every moment of your life and many, many years after.
@@thaliapeters949 i had a pretty serious attempt this year and family got in on it. im getting some medical help (and a permanent ban from shiny sharp things even though half the time i just like them cause theyre pretty) so things are getting better. thank you, i hope you know you matter too
The first time I saw this video. September. I was depressed. I didn't understand why. I would learn in 6 months. At that point, I honestly thought I was insane. That I was doing this to myself. I watched this video with my flatmate. I cried hysterically over a bottle of wine. I couldnt stop. I couldnt tell him. I had tried to kill myself twice at that point in my life. Once when I was 17, the second time when I was 20. Both times were derived from anger and frustration, but also sheer loneliness. I'm 28. I found the world intolerable. I couldn't see the point in living. I logically determined that I didn't choose to be here. I had suffered so much. So much more than anyone understood. I didn't want to die. But I resented being alive. This video reminded me I'm not alone. I'm not saying it saved my life. But it clarified so much to me. It allowed me to believe I was not insane for feeling the way I did. I tried to explain to my loved ones so many times that I hated existing, that I couldnt handle being alive. They told me I was unwell. One of the most prescient memories I have is me crying in front of my mother, saying I couldn't handle being here and her screaming back at me "I thought you were better!" I found out in January of this year I had been stalked for 2 years. I dated him. We worked together. He left the company that July. He found out where I lived. September of last year I wanted to die. I was being harassed online. I didn't know. I was being abused and I didn't understand. I hated being alive. I hated existing. I saw this video. You saying "I understand." I bawled. I know you don't understand entirely. I don't know if you've been stalked by an intimate partner. I hope not. I really do. But just hearing that. Made me feel just that little bit less alone. My ex was arrested in January of this year. He found out where I live. He blackmailed people I worked with (after being fired) for information about me. He made fake profile. He used them to harangue and stalk me wherever I went. I went to Paris in November of last year. I sat and listened to your meditation video alone in a hotel room in the middle of Paris during a riot and I was happy. He saw that. He saw my facebook posts. He was convicted. 10 year restraining order. 2 year suspended sentence. I wanted to die. I really did. But I remembered this video. I watched it again. I don't think I've watched this video without crying. I'm still here. I really don't know why I need to tell you this. Hell I dont know if you'll read it. But I need you to know. I went through hell. The worst experience of my life, even before I tried to kill myself twice. And I didnt try again. I have this video to thank for it. I am.... so fucked up. Someone hurt me so badly. They took my identity. They made me feel like I was nothing because they wanted to possess me. But I didn't try to take my own life. I didn't. I dont want to be here, I really really dont. But this video reminded me why I have value. So thank you. I'm so sorry for unloading. It might be the bottle of wine. It might be that I had a really bad week. I'm getting there though. You helped me. You did. I need you to know that. God if anyone else reads this. Just know. I'm surviving. I'm doing my best. And no offence Olly. I'm doing this on my own. But I can't deny. You helped me. You understand. So thank you.
I know words mean very little coming from a stranger and so late but I just want to say that you've gone through shit. It's so awful and unfair and cruel and I may not truly understand ... but I know that surviving it, being so strong in your weakness and just TRYING...You're doing great, you're doing a great job and you're persevering and for what it's worth I hope you persevere to find something worth holding onto and a happiness, even if fleeting, that brightens your day.
That is a really touching and gutwrenching story. If it helps, youre never alone. Youre not weird or broken or "unnormal". And I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you can live the life you want to live!
I’m a survivor (Dad), sufferer (chronic suicidal ideation) AND I’m a clinician and worked in a state mental hospital in the US. I’ve tried to describe these concepts to family in context of my dad and myself and to colleagues in terms of good treatment and the controversy is what is insane. We shouldn’t be so afraid to discuss these things! I recently heard a theory that depression is a genetic trait to encourage rumination which leads to needed time for problem solving. Likely the human race would be far less communal and far less advanced without those who battle the hardest questions and emotions that come with existence. It’s a complex idea poorly explained, sorry! So… we should revere the people who feel so deeply. I wish I could give you more, I appreciate you!
All the metaphysics, deep issues, and unanswerable questions I've watched you talk about, yet this is by far the heaviest of your videos. I understand how you feel, too.
My boyfriend, who I love so much it physically hurts, has attempted suicide multiple times. I know you’re in a better place now, but I just want to hug you so badly watching this because it’s the only thing I know how to do. This helped me so much to understand where his head is at. Thank you for putting yourself out there like this, Abi.
Could not agree more. Too many people want to tell you how to "fix" it, when most of the time the best thing to do is just shut up, listen, and empathize.
@@legoboy-ox2kx I'm mostly talking about the plethora of people who want to tell you has to fix it, but have now clue what it is you're actually going through. Getting good help, whether professional or not, is way harder than it should be. Sorry that this is just more sympathizing, but I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
@@legoboy-ox2kx just wanted to point out that their is a big difference between sympathy and empathy. If you are getting enough understanding, I'm glad that isn't your problem. If you are getting a lot of people "feeling bad for or with you" than you may not be getting empathy at all.
The spaceship metaphor is actually very brilliant... I always thought of my pain and isolation as a bottomless ocean, or a deep cave with water flowing from my eyes...just cold and dark. And from the bottom of this cave I say, thank you for understanding...
holy shit same with the ocean. that I'm just fighting and fighting to reach the surface but it's no use I just keep getting pulled down even further. Reminds me of that song by blue October "into the ocean"
When I was really depressed, I imagined my life as a white, empty room. Sometimes the tide would come in, and I wold fight so hard for my life, because I wanted to live and I was drowning, and I didn't had any control over it. (But then it would leave, and the room would be so empty and so boring and so void of meaning that I would pray for it to come back).
Yeah, my song is Cat Power's Bathysphere. So that's the analogy I've always used. Instead of the vacuum of space outside your thin walls, there's billions of tons of water that can crush you into a slurry. My favorite lyric When i was 7 My father said to me, that you can't swim. And i never dreamed Of the sea again.
Abigail, I'm only a recent subscriber, having been introduced to you by my son. We watched this together, as we make our way through all your earlier content, and we were both moved and encouraged by your vulnerability and candor. You help us look at things with fresh eyes. Thank you.
This is possibly the darkest video I've ever watched on TH-cam... But without a doubt the most important. Those are five important words. And I too understand.
Hey Oliver! I was referred to this video from a radio show in my region called 1A. They were having a discussion on suicide and mental health and this video was mentioned. Just wanted you to know that your message is out there and helping those who need it!
1A is badass. I tune in when I'm able to. They only air it late at night where I live cause I'm in the US, albeit just across the border. I should probably just stream it after all, but I love the feeling of listening to a live broadcast on an actual radio.
Abigail... as a minister, as a transman, and as someone who attempted suicide twice in life, I want to say some things to you. First, (even though I know you aren't a believer) may God bless you always. Your life has value, purpose, meaning, and is needed, and you need not believe in God to believe that. Second, thank you. Thank you for being brave enough to be vulnerable, to be honest, and to be creative in how you present that so it might reach someone in a way others did not. Third, I love you. We don't know each other but that doesn't matter. You are a fellow human being with a soul of light, and my love as a person who understands more than most what it is to live as a transgender person with a difficult past is unconditional and offered freely. It sounds stalkerish--so sorry! It isn't meant to. Please keep working toward being your best self. Never give up. I won't if you won't. Sending you peace and healing light as you continue to grow.
inb4 dipshits come here to trash your references to god. this is the type of attitude i wish was more common, and im glad people with it are being open and up front with it. if more christians acted like this, i would be overjoyed.
I also am not a believer and as a gender non comforting trans enby I’ve had some bad experiences with Christians who use their belief as a cudgel but it always warms my heart when people share blessings of love and compassion through their faith. I’m sure that you are a blessing to all the members of your flock and I hope they are able follow your example of acceptance and compassion.
It is the height of arrogance and disrespect to shove your fairytale dogma "down someone's throat" when you think they are vulnerable! Shame on you Eric! Abuse OFTEN comes in the form of fake help.
As someone who has always enjoyed the sea-shanties and folk songs of the high seas, I now realize i used them as an escape. A life in the high seas of escapism away from the pain. But sometimes, like the voyages of a cosmonaut, I find myself alone on an empty galleon full of holes and leaks, while the sea throws its strongest typhoons and lightning blows at me. But if I can just bucket enough water from the deck, if I can manage to fix the sails, if I manage to point the ship in the right direction, I'll live to sail to the sunny beaches of Old Maui once again. Thank you Olly, and safe travels, sailors.
I fell in love with the repertoire of 17th and 18th century sea shanties when I first heard many of them in the video game Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Which ones are your favorites? :)
This video saves lives. I come back to watch it every month. I didn’t know that I could connect to someone to such an extent through a video screen. I feel you, Ollie. It feels like you’re speaking to me in real life, a real person, and I want to thank you for that. You have helped me, and countless others, so much. Thank you.
@@peri5966 not really helpful, mate. That book might give *you* peace of mind, but it may exacerbate the bad feelings for others. For instance people in the LGBTQ+ group. There are parts of the Bible's message which may not exactly be comforting for them. Especially when you've had really bad experiences with less than loving Christians in your surroundings.
@@peri5966 This is really unhelpful. I was going to say something about you as a human being, but then I realized that too would be unhelpful. You know what helps? Love, kindness, compassion. Olly, if you read this, you may want to banish Mr. Quaiattini. P.s., not that it matters, but I am a straight-as-an-arrow raging hetero.
On Good Friday, twelve minutes and twenty four seconds into this video I stopped and made a call. That call pulled someone out of the depths of loneliness. Thank you Abigail.
I don't think I'll ever listen to Rocketman the same way again. I've.....been depressed. I've never been sent to space, to use your metaphor, but I go down a rabbit hole sometimes where it's hard to function. My friends, though. I've seen it happen to my friends. And it's absolutely terrifying to watch them hurtle through the void, not knowing if touch down will ever bring them round again. It's hard. It's really, really hard. But you've made a hell of a case for empathy here, and I just want to say, transmission received. Right back at ya, cosmonaut.
I told my therapist once that I related so closely to Rocketman, a song she knows well and loves... and she had no idea what I was talking about. Somehow, that just made everything so much worse. I floated farther away than before. I thought I was so alone up there... then I saw this video. Anyway, just felt like sharing that to a 6 month old comment. Yeah
Rocketman always makes me extremely emotionally vulnerable for that reason. Everyone loves that song, but as someone in the same boat as most of those in the comments here, it feels so much more significant. Others don't really understand why "I'm not the man they think I am at home" and "burning out his fuse out there alone" make me instantly well up in tears. I highly recommend watching Rocketman the film as well, if you love the song. They set the song to a scene where Elton is at the culmination of his emotional turmoil and it's just perfect and personal and amazing. You're not alone in this
i love you, man. i tried to kill myself at sixteen years old by train. i broke up with a boyfriend and hated my parents. one day, i did not come home from school and walked to the tracks. i would often go there to breathe free. the pressures of school and everything going on at home drove me to a desperate place. i stood on the tracks just as the five o'clock whistle blew, and suddenly i could feel the powerful vibration of the train as it rode like a missle towards me. i could not do it; something drove me off those tracks. i just wanted to share that experience with you and anybody else who understands. i believe that if we had an egalitarian system, whereby we value people over profit, there would be far less suicides. keep your head up. you are a beautiful spirit and natural teacher.
I had a similar experience the first time I tried to kill myself. I was gonna gas myself with kitchen cleaners (combining the wrong ones releases chlorine and fluorine gases), but as soon as I poured the first one in a cup and smelled that ammonia/bleachy smell, I couldn’t do it. Weird how you can want so badly to die but your survival instincts kick in or something and you just can’t. Anyways hope you’re doing well now dude
The View From Half-way Down, one of the most powerful moments in Bojack Horseman, is when a character expresses their regret of their choice of suicide when they jumped off a bridge. It's a poem they wrote that says the half-way point of the jump is when they realized they didn't want to do it anymore, but it was already too late for them. I have thought of suicide before, and was actually considering it once after I left a therapy session (yeah, don't know if that was the point, but let's say, I didn't stick around there much longer after that). I've been trying to combat depression and/or bipolar depression for a few years now, and there's been highs and lows along the way. One thought I keep asking myself is, "why was I born?" What purpose or reason do I exist on this planet? I don't have a definitive answer yet, but I guess there's a lot worth living for, in my case, even through a lot of terrible shit, or at least I try to justify it that way. Maybe the goal is to survive with the least amount of damage done, which I guess is a thing, but how much damage is enough or too much? Maybe instead of ending my own life, I become a martyr for justice, to be the one to put my neck out, and defend the defenseless, which is something I'm more leaning towards in this insane time. The way I see it, some people would see me as a pretty crazy person for some of my internal thoughts, but I think the world is crazy for what it still holds onto as known. The only way I can see positive change at this point is to fight or die trying. That doesn't mean you have to pick up a weapon, but BE the weapon of your life. Be the change you want to see in the world. Understand and love yourself, and you may very well come to understand and love others.
I'm so glad you did not go through with it. We need you in this world. Also, imagine what the train driver would have gone through. Thank you for being here. I know how painful it can be.
I just kept saying “why am I watching this why am I watching this” and it’s because I needed it. Thank you Ollie. We cosmonauts gotta stick together and help eachother come back down to earth.
I'm not a astronaut myself, just experienced some space travel idiations and had some autocanibalistic experiences. I, too saved this video for later, again and again. Never have I ever cry so deeply because of stranger's confessions and this "I understand how you feel" declaration made me cry profusely from the core of my being and made me release this long held back scream, as if my own declaration of pain and struggle. All of those comments, and realisation, that though in different time and space, we all cried together, made this massive emotional release even more powerful. Thank you Abby. Thank all of you, beautiful people in the comments.
QWERTY man It doesn't and it won't work. Maybe it won't be put down, but surely it won't be monetized (but I think it's not that big of a deal, y'know... but then, it also won't be shown by youtube because it's not monetized so yes, it's one big fuck off deal) and that's mainly because of auto captions by TH-cam.
I understand how you feel. I've been there. I've flown that mission many times. Fly safe, cosmonaut. And may you find your way back to earth every time. It reminds me about something I heard once. This is paraphrased since I dont remember the exact story, but bear with me. A soldier is in a hole. A commander walks by and says "what are you doing in that hole", the soldier says "I'm trying to find my way out". The commander throws a shovel to him and says "you can dig your way out if you try" them walks away So the soldier digs, and then another commander comes by and asked what the soldier was doing, the soldier says "digging my way out of a hole", the commander tells him that he should just be able to climb out of the hole himself, then walks away. The soldier then tries to climb the muddy walls of the hole but he cant. finally another soldier, caked in mud, sees the soldier in the hole and asks what hes doing. the soldier says "trying to climb out of a hole", and then the soldier jumps in with him. The first soldier asks him how will they get out and the and soldier responds "dont worry, ive been in this hole before. but we can get out of here, together." And they help each other out of the hole. That was paraphrased but i think it has an important message, sometimes we just need someone who understands to help us through the worst times.
In 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the best friend of Yuri Gagarin, who was the first man in space, was sent on an ambitious mission to go into space and go onto a different ship while in orbit. Gagarin and some technicians inspected the spacecraft and found that it had many structural problems. He tried to get the mission postponed, but was unsuccessful. Komarov did not refuse the mission because he knew the back-up pilot would be sent himself. The back-up was Yuri. He even told his friend beforehand, “I’m not gonna make it back from this flight.” Gagarin demanded to be put on the flight but Komarov took off alone. As his ship began to fail he was called over a video phone by the Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin, who told him through tears that he was a hero. He was able to talk to his wife before his capsule burned up as he was descending into the Earth’s atmosphere. Sometimes people commit to save the life of a friend and comrade, sometimes they do it to end their own pain and suffering. To all the cosmonauts out there, you’re not alone.
The story is even worse than that. He requested an open casket funeral before the flight to show the Soviet leadership what they had done. And despite the fact that nearly the entire capsule had failed he was still able to do a manual insertion and landed roughly where he intended. Sadly, the craft was so faulty that the parachutes did not open and he was killed by the impact, the only fully working modules being manual control and heat shielding. Everything else was a complete failure.
I just had a really weird moment and I want to share it with you. I'm currently on a train to go and play magic the gathering with some friends. I for some reason felt really anxious out of nowhere (I say for some reason, I suffer from anxiety episodes quite often) and couldn't find a way to stop it. Then I remembered this video. And I remembered what you said. I remembered something along the lines of a teary ollie telling me "I know how you feel" and then it stopped. I stopped feeling anxious. I teared up a bit, then I shook my head and snapped out of it. Nothing has been able to help me calm down like that before. I know it's a very small thing, but Oliver. Thank you. I really needed that. Thank you for making this. Thank you for being you. I wish you luck, cosmonaut.
I shed a tear reading this post. I can identify so much with it. Hang on to those moments, remind yourself that you're not the only one. Thank you for sharing this story.
I was 18, in what I now recognize was an emotionally abusive relationship, driving home in the middle of the night at 105mph, daring myself to ram the car into the pylon holding up an overpass. Throughout my childhood I didn't know that I have ADHD (throughout most of my adulthood, too), so I thought it was my fault that I was mocked and bullied and rejected by so many of my peers. There was something wrong with me. I didn't know what it was. I just knew I didn't want it to keep happening, that there wasn't any point if no one liked me anyway. I'm in a happy, safe, healthy marriage with beautiful children, learning to understand and forgive myself for things that I now recognize weren't my fault, to admit that in some ways I really do have a disability. It still hovers there, though, just outside the window, looking in at me sometimes. Not gesturing, just staring. I've been toying with the idea of seeing a counselor to help be progress past the point I've gotten myself to, and I have made progress. Your video has convinced me to take the plunge and get more help. So thank you, you beautiful man.
Older video, but people are still watching, so maybe someone will see this that will need to read this, so I'm writing it while crying, just in case. You are strong enough. I've been there and I know that sometimes every breath feels like fighting against a ton on your chest, and every movement feels like fighting against chains. But, keep fighting. Keep breathing. Even when all you want to do is to finally rest or to just stop existing. There is always tomorrow. You too, Olly. Thank you for all you do. Keep fighting, friend.
I have attempted it three days ago... Again... You have no idea how much I needed this video. Thank you for bringing me knowledge and comfort through your videos
UK & ROI, the Samaritans - 116123
USA, National Suic!de Hotline - 1-800-784-2433
USA, The Trevor Project - 1-866-488-7386
USA, Trans Lifeline - 1-877-565-8860
First thing's first, please don't worry: I know this video gets dark and personal but I’m safe, I’m okay; remember this was filmed weeks ago and isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of how I feel this afternoon! Now, anticipating an objection:
"Why make this video in this way? Aren't you commodifying your feelings?"
Well, there's a reason I put "Blackstar" in the thumbnail and the recommended reading: Bowie wrote that album when he knew he was dying and when it came out I saw someone say he was the only artist in the world who could look at his own death and go, “I can use this.” Making this video has been Hellish but I wanted to take these feelings and put them to work creating something nobody has made before: a TH-cam video about suicide that's educational AND critical AND personal AND artistic. That just seems more worthwhile to me than sitting on these feelings, or making a video about this subject that's any less than the best I can possibly make it.
Olly XXx
★
I still haven't been able to sit through Blackstar. I miss Bowie. Too many great creative minds have been sucked through the tear in the Veil these past 3 years :(
thank you
Mind- 0300 123 3393
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Switchboard LGBT+ 0300 330 0630
C.A.L.L-0800 123 737(If you live in Wales)
MIndLine Trans+ 03003305468.
I barely know who you are, Ollie, yet I love you. It's not easy to make yourself this vulnerable. With what you've done, you've given someone a tomorrow.
Thank you for making this video. It's not an easy thing to admit in our modern world, but it is greatly appreciated that you said it. I understand how you feel.
The urge of reaching across the screen and hug him is too strong
I agree
I need a cuddle.
Soul Cooke ༼ つ˙ ͜ʟ˙ ༽つ
ikr
The urge for a _mutual_ hug... That is, the need for a hug for mutual _understanding..._ I come back to this one the most often.
(That, and "Goodbye Dr. P" - whoooa!)
When she said, “Toxic Masculinity is a hell of a ship to pilot when you’re suffering,” I felt that to my core.
Right? Shit, that line ripped me to shreds. I won't trauma-dump in reply to your comment because you didn't consent to hearing that, but. Wow. She couldn't have said it better.
@@chumby9920 The visual metaphor of desperately, frantically trying to fix a spacecraft as you blast into space is probably the *single* best visual metaphor I've ever heard for how this feels. She has an amazing way with words!
This line has gained extra poignancy given her transition.
Yes !
Yeah me too and I wanted to cry so badly, but I just couldn’t…oh the irony.
Godspeed fellow cosmonauts!
“Or when you love someone and they hurt you” that line hurts like hell to listen to now.
I know, I just noticed that. It hurts so much :(
Roger that .... I rewatched this given Olly's recent "part 2" Oh boy. the feels, and in my case memories.
Yep, like that extreme moment of vulnerability in a video that's 33 minute video of vulnerability is just... As much as I'm sorry he felt so much pain, it's incredibly important for others to see someone else have that moment.
? did i miss something im a pretty new fan im just starting my binge what happened
@@noidea7523 his most recent video from like 5 days ago will fill you in.
8:00 - (content advisory for sexual assault, suicide, medical abuse)
When I was 18, I was raped multiple times in different instances by strangers (I had just moved to a new city, and I guess this stuff just happens sometimes) but after the third time, I decided enough was enough and I went to the hospital to have a rape kit done. I had told the nurse that the whole situation "made me want to die" because I was so hurt and stressed by it all.
Next thing I know, I am being involuntarily admitted to a psych ward several miles away without any time to pack or even prepare. I was subjected to nonconsensual electroshock therapy, solitary confinement (for crying??) and put on a slurry of drugs that sent me into anaphylactic shock. I was held down by several people and given an emergency antihistamine administration with (to put it bluntly) a needle in the ass. In the stupor following waking up from that, I was forced to sign paperwork that I wasn't even given a chance to read - liability waivers.
That psych wing has since been shut down for malpractice.
The world can be cartoonishly cruel, and I firmly believe that every stranger I come across could have plausibly experienced some aspect of it. Be kind, be gentle, and try to see the vulnerability in everyone you interact with - including yourself.
It'd be a damn shame if everyone got to experience your kindness except for you.
I don't really have a point to any of this. I guess it's just nice to talk about it. Thank you for listening (reading?). Please stay safe.
Anything signed while drugged and unable to make an informed decision, which shouldn't be hard to prove, isn't legally binding. You should sue the shit out of them. Im so sorry you went through that.
"It'd be a damn shame if everyone got to experience your kindness except for you."
I hope everythig goes well for you, Fish.
You deserve better
Wow, that really is cartoonishly cruel. Fuck me.
At age 15, a guy in school decided it'd be funny to "trip" me over from behind, except his version of doing so involved kicking my leg as hard as he possibly could while it was extended, thereby dislocating my patella. Nice.
Since then it has dislocated a few more times and now it aches constantly. What a great start to life eh?
On top of that I smoked weed to deal with the experience, to which I became addicted.
I shouldn't have though, because according to my own mother "you can't get addicted to weed". Tell that to the several months of side effects, including dreadful insomnia, that I experienced once I quit.
This addiction damaged my memory and made me mentally unstable.
Apparently my family has a long history of psychiatric illness, a fact of which I wasn't aware. Fantastic.
I still have PTSD from when that bastard fucked my knee. I'm 30 now.
sorry to hear about what happened to you. it sounds horrific. you are so brave and strong, i hope you are doing well.
i have my own share of horror stories from psych wards (from the head doctor bringing underage female patients to his flat to ‘treat’ them with LSD to medical staff drugging patients as a form of ‘punishment’) and one of the most horrific things i’ve witnessed was the whole team of nurses making patients kick, slap and bully a mentally challenged, drugged person and threatening them (the patients) “you’ll be in their place if you displease us”
i was fucking horrified. i suppose because i was “a fresh arrival” and nobody knew what was ‘wrong’ with me, they couldn’t threaten me the same way (to clarify: i was only supposed to be there for 3 days only so technically they couldn’t fuck me up or they’d have to face consequences) so when i crouched in front of this poor person, helping them to get up and walked them to their bed, i swear i could *feel* the staff burning holes in my skull.
that place still operates.
the last time i was in a psych ward, a person i met there had been to jail twice before and she said literal prison was a walk in the park compared to these “mental health facilities”. the abuse of the mentally ill is truly one of the biggest issues that’s swept under the rug.
As someone who used to self harm, I have never laughed harder about self harm than when you showed the fork and spoon.
It was pretty precious haha and I love that it turned such a dark and emotionally heavy object.. in to a spoon lol and suddenly it wasn't heavy anymore
Same. It’s incredibly apt.
It really do be tools of oppurtunity or convenience. Legit just whatever is on hand and it's ridiculous.
I felt bad laughing about it, and then he gives permission. Thanks for permission to laugh when I'm already laughiing. 20:55
As someone who currently self-harms, I have never laughed harder then that either.
My healthiest parasocial relationship, I guess.
Relatable, have a nice day.
Same
I’d been avoiding “The Cosmonaut video” since I started watching this channel. I’m a cosmonaut too, and I don’t like to focus too much on my frequent flyer status. Tonight an old friend killed himself. After reading the note he left behind, I went home, made leftovers for dinner, did the dishes, put my child to bed, and watched. It helped. Thank you.
Not sure why I’m scrolling through the comments right now, but I hope your feeling better man. Sounds like your going through a lot, have a good life man!
I'm so sorry for your lose.
I'm glad you're still here
@@qoph1988 When you seek help that means coming face to face with your problems. I am not strong enough for that. I imagine there are many others who lack that fortitude as well. It makes all the difference when you get support from someone who has gone through something similar to yourself. Ollie here doesn't know me and has no reason to, but that doesn't stop this video from helping in a way.
be safe on your flights, it been a while since ive been launched, i hope its the same for you one day
As a fellow trans woman and cosmonaut, thank you, Abigail.
I’m glad the both of us are still here.
I'm glad both of you are here.
I am so happy you are both here as well my sister.
Poyo!
💗💗💗
I’m glad you’re both here too.
I might just be screaming into the void here, I just want you to know that this video helped keep me alive tonight. So thank you. Thank you for convincing me that my spacecraft will land, and that I’ll see the earth again one day.
safe travels my friend. We will be happy to see you when you come back
Not gonna lie, the vid had me in an emotional mood, but man seeing this comment got me. I havent cried in months, and im not generally an outwardly emotional person but i just cried so damn hard at seeing this. God bless you man, keep on flyin
No matter what you're facing, you're going to come back to Earth one day, so please keep being brave! I know what it's like feeling stuck out there.
hope you're doing well friend
If you need to talk to someone, i am here. There is without a doubt also other people that would love nothing more than to talk to you. There will always be someone here for you.
No over exaggeration, this may have been the greatest TH-cam video I’ve ever seen.
It's life saving
That's pretty much how i feel with every passing philosophytube episode. They are like nothing else I've seen
Joe Bubenz hell yeah dude
Even if it is not, it shows clearly what we should aspire to be as a society.
when i went to the hospital for suicidal ideation, they just put me in a literal cell, and had me sit there uncomfortable in a hospital gown for three hours and then told me to buy some melatonin for my sleep problems and had me leave. needless to say i'm cured
Don’t forget to add the Wow Thanks! to that curing. Hope you’re managing okay now. I also experienced something similar, except through masking my depression and being made to constantly convince professionals of my mental state. I hope life treats you better these days ❤️
A friend of mine went to the ER once when he was in crisis, and they told him that was what they wanted to do, because it was either do that or discharge him. His coping mechanism is to find ways to distract himself from the noise in his head, and they wanted to put him in a room in a hospital gown with no distractions. He told them "fuck you very much" and left. He's still around, thankfully, but I really wish the medical board's response to suicide attempts would get a complete overhaul.
Honestly, when I think of hurting myself, I think of the weekend I spent in a psych ward a half dozen years ago. Not because I learned anything, but because it was the worst thing I'd been through since the end of my being trapped in an abusive relatuonship with my parents. Life doesn't really get any better, but at least I can have basic rights and not have food that was cooked a week ago. I think what care taught me was that those thoughts were punishable, and that I needed to do whatever I could to make them quieter because nothing good happens when you tell people you want to do that to yourself.
@@RagnarokLoki2012 I feel this exactly right now. I want to go somewhere but I know there's a real possibility of being sent to that hell hole again. It was probably the worst days of my life
I was once told by a mental health professional that I can't be depressed because I was wearing makeup. Little did they know I wore makeup to stop myself from crying constantly.
I'm sorry what's the logic in that? Like... You wear makeup and therefore you're taking care of yourself and can't be depressed? Is that the deduction? Like lmao
I *only* wear makeup when I'm having a really rough time. It's a way to distract others from the obvious signs of pain, a way to not appear vulnerable, a way to look "ok" when I was really far from ok. My psychiatrist (during a long hospital psych admission in my late 30s) would say "Oh you're looking far more well in yourself today" if I was wearing makeup, not realising that was usually a sign of a bad day.
It took a while to admit to him and even longer to change his mind; that if I was feeling brave enough to make the *choice* to face the day without makeup I was getting better. I was getting brave enough to not fear my emotions, and not fear others noticing my vulnerability.
@Despize Perform you hear a person describing their personal coping mechanism for their depression and the first thing you do is to call them pathetic
Fuck off
I have literally done that. On days when I can't seem to get up off the kitchen floor I just force myself up, go to the bathroom and start doing my makeup. Can't cry if you've got mascara on, as dumb as it fucking sounds. I hope everyone in this comment thread is doing better. And I hope you eventually got the help you needed. Much love ❤️
@@wyattp8479 IME, mental health providers love making judgments on appearance and claiming it’s because of hygiene. The logic tends to be “if someone was suffering severely, they would have the energy to be hygienic or wouldn’t care about hygiene”
I legit gasped when you explained what the “cosmonaut” meant. It’s a perfect visualization of grounding techniques. When the depression and panic sends you into the void, you can reminder yourself you’re a cosmonaut, still tethered to the ship that will be on its way home.
Very clever metaphor
Ahhh don’t spoil it
@@Coffeeisnecessarynowpepper why read the comments before the video, we're here to discuss what we just saw dude. You did this to yourself
But what if the ship doesn't have a return destination, a home to return to, what should a cosmonaut do then?
@@DrDAC-go7hs make one. find one. home is always somewhere
You're a beautiful human being Ollie, and I'm glad you're still here.
ugggh
It’s 3:04am for me, and I’m just openly weeping at the last section of this video. This video gave voice to so many of my unspoken thoughts.
I think I can also credit it for keeping me here.
@LaLapin
Don't ever feel hopeless. Start by volunteering at an organization that already does what you would want to do. They will already exist.
Don't ever feel hopeless. There are always comrades like you that want to help. Build your network. Get your kids involved, your friends. Explain why it's important. How they can literally make a difference.
Don't ever feel hopeless. Always remember that there is a reason. Usually it's a temporary reason, sometimes it's an imagined reason, sometimes it's a very physical reason. It can always be addressed. Any not naturally occurring affliction can be remedied.
Just remember. Don't ever feel hopeless. I've sat in the captain's seat of this rocket. The ride sucks, but if you want it to, you can come home. Whatever you choose; DON'T FEEL HOPELESS.
There is always hope. Find it. It hides.
I’ve seen your videos quite often but , honestly that was because my eldest son would watch them on the tv- and I do enjoy them, always thought provoking. He recommended that I watch this one- as he wanted to know my opinion.
I worked as a mental health nurse for over 25 years until recently. I’ve also suffered from severe depression too. I’ve read T.Szaz, R.D.Laing (a good read too!!). In my career I’ve looked after many people who’ve attempted suicide and those who were successful in ending their life. We always reflect on occasions when people have attempted suicide all been successful usually termed as a debrief, and I guess we are no different to the families or friends of those as we are always trying to understand why they may have done it there is no doubt that many, dare I say majority of those who have looked after I doing this because they are extremely low in mood and don’t want it to continue. Feeling so desperately low that even getting out of bed requires major planning and effort and energy. With those people we know that placing them with therapy tailored to their needs and wants generally will work very well for them and with a lot of people we don’t ever see them again , In the nicest way possible of course-with regards to they stay well enough never to need our contact or help again. But we also recognise that there are some who situation is just so desperate, that they are homeless , no family or friends, a history of being seriously abused over long periods of time Etc- and you do find yourself asking ‘what do they have to live for?’. Student nurses were often shocked when we would talk to them about these people and ask that very question. They think we can ‘fix’ everyone but we cannot. We can’t change someone’s history , for instance. I remember arguing with senior management about why we would help someone to a good place (mentally) and then send them back to the same shitty deprived area they came from , with class A drugs being dealt from the next door flat!! Sometimes there are those who just want to escape their reality- they see no way out; and if we are truly honest- they are right, there is no escape except by death. It’s awful to have to admit it but it’s true.
I am not anti psychiatry because I’ve benefited from it myself when I was suicidal. But we do need to offer more time with patients- it’s not given because the nurses don’t want to but because of severe cuts on the NHS and crazy red tape replication of paperwork that we are required to do ; mostly in case the NHS trust is sued!! When I first started my career- the majority of my time was spent with patients- talking with them, counselling them. Sadly, this isn’t the case and so I’ve seen a direct correlation of reduction in direct nurse to patient time and increase in prescription medication to those patients, who could be better served by one to one or group counselling time.
We were taught to treat the patients holistically- including their environment. It of course, made perfect sense but in reality it doesn’t happen. Usually due to lack of funds or inclination by social services to move the individual from those environmental circumstances. Usually the former. So the push towards medicalisation of mental health again is more to do with cuts than us driving an agenda forward.
I applaud you Ollie in being so honest in your video about your own struggles with depression, self harming and suicide attempts- I know how difficult this must have been but nevertheless you did it. And, this will reach out to others too. I’m going to share this with my friends who still work in mental health and hopefully it will be shared with others. Because only by challenging our own practice can we hope to improve the care we deliver to others; even if that means acknowledging people’s right to die.
Love your channel man. Would you do a collab with Olly?
The entire discussion re: depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts with my doctor.
Doc: "Do you still have hobbies?"
Me: "Well, yeah, I guess, sometimes."
Doc: "Do you still go to work?"
Me: "Of course."
Doc: "You're fine."
Do you have work to go to? Does that work treat you like a functioning part of it, or a wart it can't afford to get rid of? I've never found a place of work I can function as part of it, because I tend not to lie about the reality of the situation I'm in to myself, or to the customers I'm tasked to serve. Guess lying makes you a terrible worker. Guess that's why I can't hold a job ever.
Severely depressed people cannot get out of bed. They cannot maintain employment or relationships. They are evaluating the severity of your illness. It’s not really a physicians job to force you to be happy. Depression can be due to multiple reasons obviously, but the vast majority of people need purpose, better interpersonal relationships, and better diet/exercise.
@@tomwaitsmencse high functional severe depression? Just think a little before you comment man.
Tom Chatwood huh? You mean major depression? Have you ever worked on a psych unit?
@@tomwaitsmencse Your arrogance in the face of the vulnerability of the OP and the obvious failure of the phrase "you're fine" to deal with suicidal ideation makes me think that IF you work on a psych unit, you're part of the problem.
The incredible power of the phrase “toxic masculinity is a hell of a ship to pilot when you’re suffering” hits so hard now. As a trans woman who grew up in an incredibly conservative and fundamentalist culture, this breaks my heart because I know what piloting that ship is like when you are hurting and how freeing it is to finally walk away from it.
Toxic masculinity was the thing that prevented me from coming out for so long. Why would I want to be a man when most of the men I knew were so seeped in homophobia and sexism? Maybe it's better to just stay in the closet my whole life. But doing so wasn't helping me. I didn't know how to call other guys out on their sexist shit until after I had come out as non-binary. I didn't know how to correct cis people on pronouns until after I started hormones. Avoiding coming out because you are afraid of what is on the other side isn't rational. And doing so makes you miserable.
@@aaronlevenstein519 Exactly! One of my best friends is transmasc, and he told me he had the exact same experience. Both of us grew up in the same cult, and he had nothing but the worst examples of what masculinity could be. And I can’t imagine how hard that had to have been for him. And I hate that he had to experience that. But I am so glad he could get to where he is now, which is a wonderful delightful man. And I am happy for you as well. And I am so proud of both of you for working past that fear.
There's a difference between wanting to die and not wanting to live.
Agreed but maybe we can fix things for both of them. Make this world a better place so people want to live. Make life great so they don't want to die so soon.
What's the difference? I feel both
@@savag3salad813 wanting to die = bad current life. Not wanting to live = no hope if one goes on. I think both can overlap.
@@savag3salad813 I definitely do not want to live because I do not have the energy and willpower anymore to be able to live a life that is worth living. I am exhausted and want it to stop.
But I (mostly) don't want to die or kill myself because it is not life itself I dislike just my fuel has run out
mood
‘Can I have my stationary holder back?’
‘No.’
I’m glad that made me laugh so much
So sassy
Cut the tension perfectly, didn't it? Lot of thought put into this.
@@greenhowie Really did. Oliver does these things really well
I want you to know that I pondered the question “do I want to go on living” while watching your video, and for the first time since I realized I’m a trans man, the answer was an immediate yes. I’ll admit I cried pretty hard at that realization, it was such a shock. Thank you Olly, that moment meant the world to me.
Thank you for staying around Olly
Same but opposite. it would have been pretty hard to give a straight answer to that question before, but it's pretty easy to say yes after realizing I'm a trans girl.
That's good to know man, stay safe.
Same but Trans Woman for me.
Stay safe, Randy!
This woman is so unbelievably underrated. As a person, a philosopher, a teacher and a cosmonaut.
Abused for over a decade.
Multiple failed suicide attempts.
Hospitalized with no real help provided.
Treated like a nuisance while hospitalized.
Denied care at emergency room after another suicide attempt.
Can't get service dog because PTSD didn't stem from military service.
New PTSD from doctors and nurses treating me lesser than.
Weekly call with therapist where I mostly just listen.
Feel like a drag in society so I just stay home.
So many more details I can't express again.
It's been years of this.
Still here.
Tired.
I understand too.
That sucks :/ are you doing better now? This quarantine time is also being bad for mental health. Do you have any hobbies which give you fullfilment, like music or painting? They can help
You can do this. This mission is worth completing, or at least, living. You will find meaning. You are important, god fucking damnit. Good luck, and remember just how many more cosmonauts are around- you may as well use the radio.
You will get through this. I feel your pain
Each day you keep on going is an act of courage and strength. In the face of so much hardship, you persist. As much as it can mean from a stranger on the Internet, I wish you well. I wish that your life gets better and that you make your way to a place of peace and stability. I believe that if your strength has carried you this far, it can carry you there as well.
@@loganbohlinger8692 beautiful words
"It's no measure of (mental) health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti
this is so profound
@@keerthilanka9039 search _The Seer Who Walks Alone_ on here! Thank me later!
This particular comment hit me in my heart
Isn't that a quote from the poem "the nutritionist"?
@@shahsadsaadu5817 no it's not. Here's why:
_Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says “it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society”_
Even the poet admits that it is a quote.
My first attempt I was 11 years old. When I’m in that place as dumb as it sounds I have this thing I do I call “counting straws” “straws” are reasons to stay. I visualize all my straws in one of those little straw cups. And I count through them one by one, my friends my family my passions My partners. And a lot of the time I can go through this list and still feel like they would all be OK without me... eventually. So I save the straw that is my cat for last. Because as dumb as it sounds I remind myself that she wouldn’t understand why I never came home. So mentally I put all my straws back in the cup. And I keep going.
That's actually the sweetest and simplest and most relatable thing ever. I can always justify people doing ok without me eventually if I killed myself, but thinking about my pets... my cats wouldn't understand why I never came home to feed them again, why I would never be there to love them, why I would never be there for them again. And that just wrenches at my heart
This is heartbreakingly beautiful. I had to give my pets up in my divorce. It was really traumatic for me, and I think about them all the time.
You're wanted and needed. By everyone and everything. Sending so much love and solidarity.
None of this sounds dumb. Hugs, from one survivor to another. I do a similar thing. I list the people who love and care for me as a person.
I'm tearing up over a TH-cam comment.. 😳
In 2001, one of my closest friends committed suicide on her 27th birthday, two days before my 28th. She was saner than I. She lived very relentlessly in the real world.
The last time I saw her, she was trying to tell me that it was the last time. I didn’t pick up what she was saying.
I was in a hurry.
I didn’t listen.
21 years.
That year, three close friends followed.
I too, was the last person my friend talked to before she killed herself. I too, was in a hurry... I didn't say bye didn't say I love you like I normally would, and now she's gone, having suffered terribly when she went it kills me to think about it still.
"I function. Like a machine."
"It's kind of always there...?"
I understand how you feel.
I had to be told "most people don't think about killing themselves".
I genuinely didn't know...
High functioning depression. Yea more community in like Asia .im just a lazy cuz that just wants to chill in the sun on a beach and talk with people i love ..i think the best cure for anything is just having the right people at the right distance to u ...people dont get depressed or suicidal for nothing but if they have the right support of people then they will slowly recover. Its not about them having a problem in their mind but its pretty obvious that the default position is not perpetual sorrow or suicidal thoughts, atleast i hope not. People usally want to be happy, so lets figure it out together
I didn't experience the machine part, but I definitely get it always being there. I knew what he was going to say before he said it - "almost every day".
"The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic." -Alexei Leonov, the world's first spacewalker, who passed away today at 85. Hope he's looking out for you Oliver.
"toxic masculinity's a hell of a ship to pilot when you're suffering"
I've never been depressed, but I know that this is all too true.
I kinda wish I was more like the idealized toxic masculine man. I'm a weak man myself, and wish I was better at following the expectation that 'men are strong.'
@@ethanzhao6544 Exactly. And I wish I were more like that idealized expectation. I bet it would be much nicer than being a weak pushover.
Hogwire that’s not a good way of thinking mate. These structures are just that: structures. They are arbitrary and completely dictated by custom and culture. I would invite you to accept yourself as who you are, a perfectly normal man.
@@EZboyrocks I don't care if they are arbitrary, or who dictates what. What I know is that I do not like being bullied, and I don't like feeling vulnerable or defenselessness because its easy for me to be a pushover. Therefore if I was stronger/was able to not be so emotional all the time I would not be such a pushover.
All the philosophy or social theory in the world doesn't change the fact that the world and the people in it can be very cruel.
@EZboyrocks Oh as an addendum I will add though: I would definitely like to leave behind the 'treating women as sex objects' part that comes with toxic masculinity. Much as I would like to be a big strong badass, raping and domestic violence is inexcusable, just so I'm clear.
I didn’t cry throughout this entire video, but I sobbed when you said “I understand”. Real, visceral sobs that I haven’t experienced in a long time.
Being functional can be so difficult when you're suffering that much. I remember sitting in my psychiatrist's office after my second suicide attempt in a month while he was trying to persuade me to go to hospital, and my main objection to this was "I can't, I have shit to do". I was trying so hard to function that I completely ignored the gravity of the situation. Sometimes we care more about functioning than living and that's something I don't think we talk about enough.
All I've ever wanted to do is function properly
(sorry, I got carried on while typing this message and I basically wrote down all my life- I guess I REALLY needed to vent and this video made me feel a lot of things. I didn't mean to make it about myself ;-;)
Ironically, one of the things that my psychologist taught me was to not be functional human being. I would force myself to do stuff so bad, and I would sit in front of my homework (or just in front of a book, if I didn't had homework to do that day) and tell myself "I know it has been seven hours already, but when you finish all of this, only then you can eat". And it wasn't that difficult being functional, was it? I didn't had to do much, but then I couldn't see nothing because I was crying after reading the same paragraph for the third time, and I told myself "when I finish this one, I can think about this and decide what to do"... but I knew myself well enough to know that it wasn't true.
I focused so much on being functional... Until the moment that I couldn't, and then I was in a different place, without knowing how much time had happened, sometimes injured. "Who did this thing to my arm?", but I knew it was myself, it was the only logical thing to think. I could only remember a few scenes that vanished from my mind as the time passed, and they felt like a movie. The moment when I regained consciousness and discovered the mess I had left on my left arm... that I can't forget.
But, another irony, the only moments when I questioned if killing myself would be a good idea was in my rational moments. Of all the messes that I found after dissociating, none of them put my life in danger.
My psychologist told me that the way I was thinking when I weighted in both possibilities (dying and living) wasn't at all irrational- but most of the things that I put as a con to living where fixable, and the problem lied on the fact that I didn't knew how.
It's horrifying to be completely rational, trying to find a single justifiable reason to why you feel this way, and you can find none. Because depression means that you can't to things normally, right? I didn't felt that I needed to tell anyone, because I kept going to school, I kept helping my parents, I kept getting good grades- did it really matter that I couldn't stop crying while I was doing all of this?
When I finally decided to get help, it was because I was about to start university and I felt like I couldn't really be good at it if I couldn't take care of myself and I kept having these horrible breakdowns. I was put on an emergency list, for both psychologist and psychiatrist. The worst thing? I had gotten a lot better by the time I finally asked for help, and even then it was an emergency thing.
My justification for not asking for help before? I had a schizophrenic great-uncle which lives in a mental hospital since I can remember, and I couldn't let the same thing happen to me. Because I was a intelligent girl who had to go to college, because I couldn't waste my potential that way, because I had to keep on being rational even if that made me live the most miserable life that I could imagine.
same, the only thing is that i never made actual attempts. When i was getting dangerously close i went to a 1st line psychologist, made lifestyle changes and even did psychedelics. I guess that means I'm high functioning (?), I don't see it. All i see when watching these is how isolated I am.
I think i have a serious problem with self doubt, I'm basically my own gaslighter. It's especially destructive for me because i never feel like i can truly understand or be understood, there's never something legitimate i have done to "fit in" and say I understand and feel like i'm not just lying. How can anyone actually understand (really understand) when even I can't even get any kind of solid image of if what i'm going through is real?
I want to say I understand, I want to say I've been there. Truth is I haven't and anytime i watch this type of content i just feel like some whiny "non-suicide attempt privileged" wannabe trying to connect with people who've actually been through real shit, who've actually seen the actual void of space and not some safe clips of it from the other side of a window (that might just be a screen). It's sad how much i used to glamorize suicide attempts, I even told my ex once that i tried it, made it extra edgy and dramatic of course.
Truth is i just wanted to feel valid. I just wanted to feel like I had some kind of foothold to claim that I am depressed, that I am going through some shit, that I am actually someone that needs a different kind of attention than the rest. I am so self doubting that i don't know what's real anymore. I constantly doubt the legitimacy of my emotions, of my reasoning. I just wish something bad would happen to me, something real. Maybe then i could look back on it an say "see, proof that i was abused, proof that i'm depressed, proof that I'm not just some crybaby whining about completely normal things everyone goes through".
Yeah, they don't let me use that excuse cuse they already know "shit to do" means try again
LittleAmeba
Feel free to vent hunny, i just did the same throughout the comment section today as well. Thanks for sharing your story. It helps to read other people's thoughts, especially when they're in a similar headspace to me. I never did my arms, I was always too concerned about presentation. Even when i tried to kill myself, i tried to go for the artery in my thigh. Went through skin, fat, nerves, and then eventually partway through the muscle before i gave up. It was a horric scene, and I've seen heart surgery scars smaller and thinner than it. But it's on my thighs, so even if i go to the beach, i can wear a bikini top with some boy's swim shorts to cover up the evidence. But like Olly, i don't feel like it's insanity, but rather nihilistic dread, rational and thought out. I guess there are other factors too, but we'd be here all day if i tried to list them lol
Anyway, i hope you feel better. I understand how you feel. You seem like a beautiful person, and so i do hope you find a reason to stay. But i know better than anyone that you can't stop someone if they've made up their minds. Take care of yourself
Suicide is also higher among veterans than the general population. Does that mean being a veteran is a mental illness ?
Or does it mean that LGBTQIA and Veterans are both hurting and not receiving help
i'm lgbt and was just talking to one of those free therapist about my issues. when i came to my main issue which was my sexuality, they stopped replying after a few minuets.
@@Sunrise-fr9jb I'm deeply sorry you were treated so cruelly.
Yes
@@Sunrise-fr9jb I’m so sorry
@@Sunrise-fr9jb wow. That sounds deeply unethical. If you have the forks to do so, please report them to relevant authorities, or write a complaint, or similar. (And if you don't, well, that's entirely understandable.
_"Sigmund Freud thought, wrongly"_
Oh, so the usual then.
lol,
I love how most of his theories are like half-write
i scrolled down to put the same comment
Like lost psychotherapy then
@@user-gl6tn9ho9w Lmfao yep
Most of Freud's theories have been disproven. They were significantly helpful in establishing early psychology and they were unable to stand the test of time. Some of his theories were even disproven by his own daughter later on when she did studies.
I spoke to a stranger once when I was feeling like I didn't want to be here anymore, I was drunk outside a bar smoking a cigarette and sobbing hysterically, they repeated several times "I know this pain you are feeling.", somehow that was more meaningful than anything else anyone could have possibly said to me.
Edit: Okay, I was halfway through this video when I made the above comment..... I go do a little cry now.
I've never wanted to hug a stranger more than I do now
Agreed. All the hugs to Ollie.
I can barely hug my family, but I feel the same way.
I was thinking the same!
From one teary-eyed cosmonaut to another: Thank you.
How're you holding up, rocket man? I hope you managed to land.
*Is this a freemartin joke?*
When he said “I understand you” I completely broke down. I sobbed for a long time, because this was the first time someone had ever said to me, I understand what you’re going through. I saw in olly the same pain and darkness that lives inside me, and that I carry every day. To be understood is the most powerful thing someone can experience
Edit: thank you for all the love, and a sincere thank you to everyone who gave me messages of love and understanding.
Arden Collins isn’t it crazy, how little this is understood:
Sometimes there is no answer, yet we listen, and that is an answer by it self.
Modern man is quick to reach for answers, forgetting that before there were any answers there was a way forward
For me it was the part where Ollie was talking about how when he feels suicidal he pretends to be a soviet era cosmonaut. It showed that even the most childish ideas can be the most soothing and comforting.
Had the exact same reaction
Come on!
Same, but since end of Act 1. Just in tears with how I felt it too, even when surrounded by loved ones.
as morbid as it sounds, when i have my own cosmonaut episodes i always come back to this video. i don’t know why, but just knowing i’m not alone up there, sitting in my tin can in space, makes all the difference in the world. i don’t know how long i can go on like this, but thank you for offering this modicum of solace.
Watching this after your transition and after a really rough period in my own life. Thank you Abigail.
Me too ❤️
RIP DOOM
Same. The first video I watched was the transition coming out video. And now I’m going through them all. I am falling in love with Abigail in the way someone falls in love with a writer or poet (I hope that makes sense). I am very glad she was able to make this video.
I am glad I didn’t kill myself until after I saw Abigail transition ❤️❤️❤️
Me too. I’ve watched this many times, and I share it when I can. Because you’re right, empathy is the most important and powerful force we have. “I understand how you feel” can change lives. It can save a life.
The cosmonaut in his spacecraft is the best metaphor for depression in general that I have ever heard.
I've been suicidal since I was a child. I related strongly, especially about the awful combination of toxic masculinity and English emotional repression.
David Foster Wallace wrote my fav description of being suicidal. He killed himself in 2008.
"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." (David Foster Wallace 2008, 696-7)
Yes....
I'm glad Ollie opened his soul for this amazing piece of art. Mistreatment justified by misunderstandings is all-too-often the cause of the burning building. We cannot hope to understand everything around us, nor can we be expected to. Perhaps the world would be better if we taught our children that they will never understand everything, rather than the education most of us receive where we're looked at negatively for questioning authority or punished for coming up with a different answer. I think we, as a society, encourage a belief that we are the only right and that the wrong must be punished. And I think that line of beliefs is mentally unwell. No one would ever desire to be treated as though they are completely invalid. Thank you, too, for your openness, anarchopac!
This makes it so crystal clear.
His description of depression in The Depressed Person was also incredibly piercing:
"If the therapist *really* wanted the truth, the depressed person had finally shared from a hunched and near-fetal position beneath the sunburst clock, sobbing uncontrollably, the depressed person *really* felt that what was *really* unfair was that she was unable, even with the trusted and admittedly compassionate therapist, to communicate her depression's terrible and unceasing agony *itself*, agony which was the overriding and a priori reality of her every waking minute--i.e., not being able to share the way it *felt*, what it actually *felt* like for the depressed person to be literally unable to *share* it, as for example if her very life depended on describing the sun but she were allowed to point only to shadows on the ground."
I'm seventeen. I'm trans. And I think I'm a fellow cosmonaut.
I came to this video because I had a pretty bad day. Bombed the fuck out of a very important psychology test despite knowing the content (it was about stress and how we react to it) a little too intimately. And I just kept thinking about life, and how I'll have to keep repeating the what my psychology teacher might call three stages of Selye's GAS, or what I might call "shock, get used to it, collapse, repeat".
And I realised it's either keep on doing that or... the other option. And that led me here. But this - helped, somehow.
Being a certified zoomer with terrible taste, I tend to associate space and existentialism not with David Bowie's Blackstar and Elton John's Rocketman, but with Coldplay's X&Y. And so here I'll put my only worthwhile contribution to this rather depressing but insightful comment section: the last verse of Square One, first track on X&Y.
"Is there anybody out there who, is lost and hurt and lonely too?
Are they bleeding all your colours into one?
And if you come undone as if you'd been run through
Some catapult that fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
Well, if you're stuck in square one."
To all my fellow cosmonauts that are stuck in square one: We'll get through this. Because we have to.
How are you doing? Millennial trans cosmonaut checking in. Are you drinking water and eating food and breathing? Hang in there. You are you and that's a good person to be.
@@sycastells1212 I am not doing that well but thanks for asking me anyway :)
@@thylacina5989 I hope things start to get better for you soon. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of you.
Alas, little sibling, I sometimes fear that having to isn't enough.
I think we need to want to.
Life quite often isn't very good at giving us a reason to want to. Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life?
As a fellow cosmonaut, I was fine for the entirety of this video, until she said “I understand how you feel.” It was said in such an earnest and open way that I began to cry instantly. Thank you for creating this, Abi. It’s beautiful, and I’m glad.
Very much the same here
yep... me too.
Same
im taikunaut.. but deep in space i would be a haikunaut
but truthfully if you live in space your a space iniut, or space eskimoo
Mr. Not Good Enough always tells me all the reasons I shouldn't comment on things. I don't feel like listening to them today, thanks for making this.
This was so retable. Thank you so much for being brave enough, this literally helped me so much just by seeing that you still did it.
it’s been a few months since you said this, so i hope mr. not good enough is still minding his own business and keeping his unneeded and unwarranted opinions to himself
“Sigmund Freud thought, wrongly” business as normal then
Sigmund thought wrong?
Every 60 Seconds in africa a minute passes?
euha??
He changed his stance on homosexuality, as mentioned in the video.
In one of my shitty college apartment buildings one of the other apartments had a sign that said “we do not support Sigmund Freud in this household” and to this day my only regret is not befriending them
If that guy went to a freudian psychoanalyst he wouldn't have tried to kill himself.
I personally know someone who is still alive, because you published this. I can't put into words what this means to me. I can't say "I understand", I'm just standing down here on earth, knowing what you cosmonauts go through in space. You guys are needed down here and everytime you manage a safe landing, is a good day. Thank you!
When you joked about the fork I straight up started to cry. Becouse telling jokes is what I always do when I get suicidal. Becouse if I can get my self to genuine laughter, no matter how great my selfhatred are for thoose few seconds I laugh my ideal self shuts up and nothing other than joy fills my mind. Even if it's only for a few seconds even if everything comes back the second the laugh is over, it's worth so fucking much.
I hope you are doing well. After reading your comment I realized that I do the same thing at times. It's strange the things our minds use to cope with the stress.
Same.
❤️❤️
I remember when in middle school, I had a time when I got so depressed that I just stopped functioning. I didn't see the point. why keep on living this pointless life where nothing is fun anymore. I was going through a lot and repressing it all cause I rightly assumed my parents would find it silly, and one day I just, shut down, for weeks. I refused to leave my room and just cried for days. And the thing that sticks with me about that experience was the way I got out of it. I went to a school meeting to try and figure out how I could make up all the missing schoolwork, and my mental health wasn't brought into question at all. all these adults sitting and talking about my schoolwork didn't think to ask me how I was feeling. then, I went home and listened to some random music on the computer cause that was all I could manage, and the song "it's on us" by AJR came on. and I started crying. cause it was exactly what I needed to hear. so I decided I was gonna be ok, and not a single one of the adults responsible for my well-being even influenced that. they were too busy worrying about my grades to realize that I wasn't doing ok for a reason. a fucking song showed me more compassion and respect than every adult in my life at the time. and my parents wonder why I hate school, and why I'm so mad at this fucking world we live in.
If you're reading this, and you've been failed by the people in your life because of this shitty system, I see you. I get it. I feel your anger. and your life is worth so much more than your grades.
I am so glad you were able to find that, even if through song and not the support of the adults that should have been responsible.
I struggled a lot in middle school also, your message really resonated.
Looking back I think most of the adults in my life couldn't even contemplate someone so young being in such a bad shape mentally and emotionally.
I am very thankfull to have survived through those times.
@@juliadandy6019 i got my sat exam results today and i failed. And the idea of welp guess im bound to be a failure in life and if im bound to be a failure then what's the point of existence. Hearing you say that grades don't matter actually helps tremendously
i cried while reading this comment. it’s been hard trying to maintain my school-related responsibilities at home (online classes and such aren’t easy), specially during a pandemic in a country that just seems to get worse and worse (brazil). i have anxiety issues and i might be showing signs of depression. my parents also wouldn’t get me. it’s genuinely great knowing that i’m not the only one that has gone/is going through shit like this. thanks a lot
When I was a kid growing up, music was the escape. That's the only thing that had no judgments. You know, you put on a record, and it's not going to yell at you for dressing the way you do. It's going to make you feel better about it. - Marylin Manson
Thank you, that really hit home. It's been a while since I cried for my middle school self but here I am again. Thank you for letting me know I wasn't alone.
This video has saved my life twice, now.
Thank you, Abi. Truly.
Troggie42 I’m glad you’re still here ❤️
I'm glad you're with us comrade. Hang in there.
God bless
TH-cam only just now showed me the notification for these comments somehow, thank you friends. :)
I'm doing much better these days, still have struggles, but not as many, and not as severe. ♥️
Im glad that you are still here with us. Hope you continue doing better
"Sigmund Freud thought, wrongly" is a good summary of all of his work tbh
@abc d at the very least a good chunk of it
Still he is an important figure for everyone interested in psychology and psychiatry to study
That's tough man
Yup. He made a living telling aristocrats they had stuff wrong with them that he could help them with. Of course they would never have believed there was anything wrong with themselves otherwise.
😬"Come out and confront your fetishistic neuroses!" "We have you surrounded!!"🤤
"I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS I HATE THE UNCONSCIOUS!!!" 🤪
*I've retired from space travel for about a year now.* Therapy was too expensive, so I just recorded myself asking questions, played it back, & talked to myself. It might or might not work for others but I saw a sci show psych episode about it, so I thought I could try. Researching psychological journals gave me the ideas but I did have to make up the question myself. My life isn't perfect, but it's mine, & I deserve the chance to make it better.
It really makes me happy to see somebody be able to come back down to Earth for good. You're an inspiration.
As a 'cosmonaut' I consider myself permanently retired as of about two months back. I did get some NHS help that was really useful.
Brill.
This is the most powerful, most moving, most important thing I've seen on TH-cam.
This is a service to humanity. Thank you
You're absolutely right. This is the single most important, useful, and trascendental video posted to YT. While I'm not, and hopefully will never feel suicidal, I do suffer from depression and can perfectly understand how important it can be to receive a sincere and powerful message like this one at the right time.
My dad killed himself earlier this year, and he had been planning to kill himself for a few days before, according to his note. I've found a lot of comfort in knowing that he wanted to leave us because then it wasn't a mistake. If he chose to leave us, then he had decided that the world was too difficult and he couldn't fight anymore. And I prefer it being an active choice he made because then I know it wasn't an accident, and I know my time with him was meant to end. I know it seems backwards, yet it has given me a lot of comfort.
I’m so sorry
Mine too.
We all have different ways of coping, and yours in no less valid. We are ambivalent, contradictory beings after all. We find comfort in what we know either isn't right, real or true, but we have to because otherwise the absolute pointlessness of it all will overwhelm us and drive us insane.
I’m so sorry for your loss
Thank you for sharing this, Hannah. And for being understanding. Sincere condolences for your loss.
HRT and transition did more for my mental health than any medication or combination of medications that I have ever been prescribed.
Ohmygod girl, the fork and spoon thing is so darkly humorous. I laughed way harder than I should have.
Glad you made it, Abigail. Glad you transitioned.
You're not alone, sister. Many of us, especially trans people, pilot the same shitty space craft.
I love all my sisters and brothers. Please don't give up, gorge. It always gets better.
I might be both trans and "mentally ill". 😕 Sucks to be such an obvious stereotype of a "burden on society". Maybe it takes more than a couple years on HRT to unravel 30 years of ritual self-abuse...
That phrase, that simple sentence, was the first time I've cried in a couple years, last time being my brother's funeral, but this time it wasn't from pain, grief, regret, but from relief.
Thank you for sharing with everyone, Oliver.
hearing "I understand" made me cry for the first time in a long time and I don't even know how to explain how I feel but it's just nice to feel like I'm being talked to and not talked over or talked around.
I literally just finished crying in the pantry so my kid didn't hear me which I'm laughing about because I just got caught and yesterday we learned about how cellular breakdown in onions makes you cry when you chop them so I blamed the onions and he said "onions are rude". Life is strange. I hope you're ok now.
Truly phenomenal. As someone who has struggled not only with mental illness but it’s perception in society, THIS is what we need. No bullshit, no inspirational quotes on a photoshopped picture of some trees, but actual, genuine sufferers of mental illness shaping and moulding this area of life as opposed to simply following the same road we have trod for many years. This is how things change, this is how people will begin to understand. Thank you
This video is a milestone in humanity.
@@Voe198 Oh yah - those fluffy quotes and memes! - as someone who has struggled finding 'inspiration' to get by one day at a time, I find those so banal and superficial.
I’m a queer autistic cosmonaut. I’m talked over by society on multiple different fronts. I put off my first watch of this for a long time, but thank you Abi for making this video. My days in the trenches are almost gone, as therapy seems to have a positive impact on my life, as well as my situation begins to improve, but I needed to see this. I don’t feel as alone anymore. Thank you.
hi from another queer autistic cosmonaut :)
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” -- Albert Camus
Important to note: he concludes that life *is* worth living.
@@emersonpage5384
Thanks.
I'll take a coffee instead thanks
This also came to my mind while watching. The Myth of Sisyphus is worth reading in its entirety, but in short his conclusion is this (paraphrased):
Suicide is not an answer to the great questions of the world. Or the meaninglessness, cruelty, and difficulty. It is an escape from those questions. To live, knowing that there is no reason to, and finding meaning in your life regardless, is the best way to confront the absurdity of the universe.
I'm not cosmonaut, but I have many friends up there in space, and I would just like to thank you for helping me discover ways to send a transmission
Same.. i hope both will reach the next year
They are 13 goddammit
Dammit they are too joung
Everyone is too joung for this
Mr. Thorne,
I'm an American. The mental health system here is horribly abusive. They put drugs into me for chemical imbalances I didn't have, they isolated me from other students until I was in my late teens. I've been to therapy once every 6 months or so since, only ever to talk to a therapist for a short amount of time and then go back to high functionality. Like you, I am lucky to be high functioning. And like you, I know that being "high functioning" doesn't get rid of the problem. I also study philosophy and music, go figure.
From one cosmonaut to the next, hold on tight and make it back to landing. Thank you for making this video. Here's hoping you keep making it back into the atmosphere.
The moment you said you are American, I started weeping like a child. This horror show we call home is the definition of mental illness. Gaslighting ad nauseum, fear mongering, overworked, stressed , no social bonds, paranoia etc... it is a fucking prison.
Same... Well, similar. Thanks for sharing a glimpse into your experience with the system. I can't. At least right now.
Recently diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder months ago but still in disbelief because I figured "other people have it worse", "my problems are not that even heavy to begin with", "maybe i'm just being dramatic", etc. only to realize (upon finishing the video) that I've been in "flyby missions" many times , I practically don't notice anymore that I've been a Cosmonaut for such a long time. Sobbing and shaking as the credits rolled. Turns out I really am tired pretending to be happy. Tonight, I acknowledge this pain, this sadness. The sun will shine in the morning as I sit in the cockpit. I will, sooner or later, return to Earth.
29 years on this earth: I've never been tempted by Death. After the loss of someone I dearly loved one month ago, and the increasing pressure of my career, added with the recent hunt to purchase a home with my husband (one year of marriage next month): I'm showing visible signs of burnout and anxiety mixed with complete and udder nihilism. Death is now a comforting and tempting thought.
Then I found this video.
Your art is so compassionate. Necessary.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
You are not alone. Almost 28, never had a suicidal thought. But two months ago I broke down under the pressure and anxiety from multiple aspects of my life. I don't want to die, but sometimes I don't how to live. I lost someone too, this week, and weirdly it slowed down the thoughts, because it gave me something else to think about.
I understand, too. These words mean so much, and everyone should hear it.
Y N
I'm not sure if this is really the time for jokes. Or maybe it's the best time for jokes? Idk. But yeah, i caught that too. Udder = cow
Utter = complete/absolute
Is your username a reference to fanfiction?
But anyway, in order to keep my post from being entirely free of anything pertaining to the topic, i really hope the OP feels better. I really think since this is a sudden thing, you'll overcome it, because you have a normal baseline to return to. Like Olly, I've wanted to die since my teens, virtually every waking second of my life. Not just the waking seconds though, i kill myself in my dreams almost every night. It's been consuming me for more than a decade, but somehow i still can't do it. There were times when i was younger when I OD's and needed machines to breathe for me, or when i tried cutting an artery in my leg and severed the skin and the fat layer under it, and some of the nerves, and then a bit of the muscle. But these days it's harder. Except in my dreams, when i really finally work up the guts, i start puking, ironically.
But i guess I'm still here. So maybe I'll figure it out soon, either life or death. But i have to figure out at least one of them eventually
This came at the perfect time for me. I am in studying philosophy at (a well known "good" university) [redacted], and I told a counselor at [redacted] that I had been having suicidal thoughts. The result? Police and EMS showing up at my apartment in Brooklyn that night. Police and EMS tackling me, handcuffing me, pushing my face into the couch and pulling out tasers; all while my boyfriend watched horrified. I was home and I was in no imminent danger. They treated me like I was being arrested. I was strapped me down to a gurney, and they refused even then to loosen the handcuffs or take them off. I still have nerve damage in my left hand.
Before driving off I asked if my boyfriend could ride with me, they refused. I asked for my phone, they told me "you won't need that where you're going". The police told me they would tell my boyfriend what hospital to go to and what to bring me (you can bring food, clothes, books, etc), they lied. They actually told him to stay home, that he could visit during visiting hours, and not to bring anything.
During the ride to the hospital the EMS driver told me I could have avoided all of this if I had told them why they were at my apartment. Even though he had told me not even 10 minutes ago that they had to taker me either way. They also told me that I "bought a one way ticket to ____" instead of a private hospital. I think they provoke people as an excuse to, basically, brutally arrest them.
I was then taken to the worst psych ward in Brooklyn, and held against my will for 3 nights. Not only against my own will, but also against the wishes of my immediate family and my boyfriend (who I live with).
In the psych ward I was lied to and treated as less than human. It has to be the most traumatizing thing I have ever experienced in my life.
I saw and experienced so many disturbing and completely heart breaking things. The psych ward is NOT the place for a depressed person. Actually, it isn't the place for anyone. They DO NOT help you there.
They did not even know why I was there until I had 24 hours had already passed. I asked multiple times and got told several reiterations of: "That isn't how the psych ward works. once you are here you are here; and if you are here, it is for a reason".
I was told multiple times I would get to go home soon. First it was in 2-3 hours you can leave. Then the first psychiatrist said, tomorrow late afternoon after you speak with a social worker you can leave. The social worker did try to discharge me. Only to have a new psychiatrist who "spoke" with me for maybe 2 minutes tell me she wanted to put me on extended watch. I say "spoke" because she really just listened to me talk with a social worker.
On night two I asked for water- and the nurses argued and yelled at each other in front of me, because they were both too lazy to get up out of their desks. They attempted to give me a MEDICINE CUP size portion of water, because that is what would fit under the glass barrier. You know, so they wouldn't have to stand up and leave their office enclosure to hand me water.
That is how everything works. The nurses sit in an office surrounded by glass and you have to ask them for everything. Phone use, water, food, clothing, personal hygiene supplies. They would often be irritated at you for asking. Sometimes I even got no verbal response just a hand. This is bad enough for me to have to experience, but there were people there that were in very delicate mental states. People that really NEEDED help, and proper medication- they were treated as prisoners. I can not stress enough how terrible the treatment is.
The meals were prison food, and since I am vegan I basically starved. Even if I were not vegan, everything had weird additives. For example the peanut butter had sugar in it along with fully hydrogenated oils. Under NY state law psych wards are legally supposed to give patients nutritionally balanced meals and comply with dietary restrictions, they don't though. Also in NY all hospitals have a legal department and they denied me my right for legal consult multiple times.
The psych ward is basically a prison. The worst part is that you realize quite quickly (if you are smart) that the only way to be released is to play along and fully corporate. That means; when the nurses refuse you your right to the phone, or when your roommate pees on the floor and they won't send for a cleaning person. You smile and nod. Anything else. Any emotion or anything besides complacency and you just bought yourself an extra night.
This is only some of what happened.
If anyone would like to talk more about the experiences I had in a Brooklyn city hospital psych war, please contact me. I want to share my story.
TLDR: The biggest take away from this experience for me is the horrific realization that the US uses involuntary commitment as a way to lock up people with mental illness. It is a way to imprison people who have not committed a crime but are, for whatever reason, a liability or an inconvenience to the state or the people around them.
Oh and that someone has to pay for all this. The person being involuntarily committed gets the bill for the hospitalization and the ambulance ride. Interesting isn't it. That I had to pay for the ambulance ride I did not consent to, where I was physically and verbally abused.. For having depression.
That sounds calculated to make someone even more suicidal. Truly disturbing. I really hope you are able to bring wider attention to it. I don't really have a stake in your living/dying as a stranger, but for what's it's worth, I won't judge you for your thoughts, your choices. Thank you.
Write an editorial or a book, something so there might be a possibility of public outcry. The media at least can be useful in this way.
Ditto on Celina K's editorial/book idea: that scenario sounds like a literal horror movie, and people do respond to abuses by the law and the state. I hope you manage to get things sorted
Jesus. I agree with the others - you are a solid writer and shoukd write a scathing expose! Some leftist / left leaning webiste would likely publish it.
Holy shit, this happened in Brooklyn out of all places?! I live there. You should contact your local representatives and publish an expose. I expected that NY, of all places, would better protect their mentally ill patients. This is truly unacceptable. Thank you for sharing your story and I'm very sorry for what you've gone through.
I haven't finished watching, but I feel this has to be said.
I appreciate you being openly emotional as you explain this. Please never stop allowing yourself that.
+
Very much so.
A little bit of positive feedback goes a long way
I agree that people, especially men, should allow themselves to be openly emotional more, but I wouldn't want to put any positive or negative value judgment on showing emotions in a TH-cam video or in other forms of art. I don't think showing such vulnerability online should be encouraged because I know how devastating and triggering it can be to put yourself out there like that. I wouldn't want anyone to feel any pressure to do that.
That is perfectly fair. To pressure was not my intention, but I understand that means nothing if it is taken as such.
I'll re-phrase.
If you feel the need to be openly emotional - rather for catharsis, to reach out, to educate, etc. - never stifle that need.
I’m so glad you mentioned Austerity. I’m English too and I showed up at A+E threatening to kill myself, but because the unit was so understaffed with ONE locum doctor holding it together, I got sent home after being told to snap an elastic band against my wrist instead. And I literally had cuts all over my arms and wrists. That’s the effect of decimating health cuts and it SUCKS.
"I understand how you feel"
Thank you.
Thank you!
THANK YOU!
For saying the ONE thing I've wanted someone, ANYONE, to say about these dark thoughts I've had in my head for years. Anyone can tell me they love me and mean it, can tell me where to go to get help but the one thing I wanted was someone who SINCERELY UNDERSTANDS.
Thank you again. From the bottom of my heart.
I understand you!
❤️❤️❤️⚡️
29:05 Just putting the time stamp of when those beautiful words were said. I've actually come by this video every so often when I feel my lowest. And it has actually helped quite a bit! A daily reminder that I am not as alone as my mind may tell me.
"You aren't broken . . . just because you're up there."
Good God. That. I needed that. More than anything.
blakgumshoo actually physicians are saying nowadays that you shouldn’t say that you know how someone feels-as it can enrage some people who feel like no one knows how they feel and can heighten tension
7 suicide attempts at 16, hopeless already and so so alone up there in the big black. so scared. when he said i understand i just burst out into tears
@@eljestLiv even that comment was enough bro
i know it's been a second but god i really hope you're doing better. you're not alone and you matter so much and you will continue to matter for every moment of your life and many, many years after.
@@thaliapeters949 i had a pretty serious attempt this year and family got in on it. im getting some medical help (and a permanent ban from shiny sharp things even though half the time i just like them cause theyre pretty) so things are getting better. thank you, i hope you know you matter too
@@jeliii7900 Wish I knew what to say but I couldn't leave this comment hanging. Just know I hope you're okay and getting the help you need.
@@alexfurey4371 ah, im making do but thank you very much, hope your life is good
The first time I saw this video. September. I was depressed. I didn't understand why. I would learn in 6 months. At that point, I honestly thought I was insane. That I was doing this to myself. I watched this video with my flatmate. I cried hysterically over a bottle of wine. I couldnt stop. I couldnt tell him. I had tried to kill myself twice at that point in my life. Once when I was 17, the second time when I was 20. Both times were derived from anger and frustration, but also sheer loneliness.
I'm 28. I found the world intolerable. I couldn't see the point in living. I logically determined that I didn't choose to be here. I had suffered so much. So much more than anyone understood. I didn't want to die. But I resented being alive. This video reminded me I'm not alone. I'm not saying it saved my life. But it clarified so much to me. It allowed me to believe I was not insane for feeling the way I did. I tried to explain to my loved ones so many times that I hated existing, that I couldnt handle being alive. They told me I was unwell. One of the most prescient memories I have is me crying in front of my mother, saying I couldn't handle being here and her screaming back at me "I thought you were better!"
I found out in January of this year I had been stalked for 2 years. I dated him. We worked together. He left the company that July. He found out where I lived. September of last year I wanted to die. I was being harassed online. I didn't know. I was being abused and I didn't understand. I hated being alive. I hated existing. I saw this video. You saying "I understand." I bawled. I know you don't understand entirely. I don't know if you've been stalked by an intimate partner. I hope not. I really do. But just hearing that. Made me feel just that little bit less alone.
My ex was arrested in January of this year. He found out where I live. He blackmailed people I worked with (after being fired) for information about me. He made fake profile. He used them to harangue and stalk me wherever I went. I went to Paris in November of last year. I sat and listened to your meditation video alone in a hotel room in the middle of Paris during a riot and I was happy. He saw that. He saw my facebook posts. He was convicted. 10 year restraining order. 2 year suspended sentence.
I wanted to die. I really did. But I remembered this video. I watched it again. I don't think I've watched this video without crying.
I'm still here. I really don't know why I need to tell you this. Hell I dont know if you'll read it. But I need you to know. I went through hell. The worst experience of my life, even before I tried to kill myself twice. And I didnt try again. I have this video to thank for it. I am.... so fucked up. Someone hurt me so badly. They took my identity. They made me feel like I was nothing because they wanted to possess me. But I didn't try to take my own life. I didn't. I dont want to be here, I really really dont. But this video reminded me why I have value.
So thank you. I'm so sorry for unloading. It might be the bottle of wine. It might be that I had a really bad week. I'm getting there though. You helped me. You did. I need you to know that. God if anyone else reads this. Just know. I'm surviving. I'm doing my best. And no offence Olly. I'm doing this on my own. But I can't deny. You helped me. You understand. So thank you.
I know words mean very little coming from a stranger and so late but I just want to say that you've gone through shit. It's so awful and unfair and cruel and I may not truly understand ... but I know that surviving it, being so strong in your weakness and just TRYING...You're doing great, you're doing a great job and you're persevering and for what it's worth I hope you persevere to find something worth holding onto and a happiness, even if fleeting, that brightens your day.
That is a really touching and gutwrenching story. If it helps, youre never alone. Youre not weird or broken or "unnormal". And I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you can live the life you want to live!
I’m a survivor (Dad), sufferer (chronic suicidal ideation) AND I’m a clinician and worked in a state mental hospital in the US. I’ve tried to describe these concepts to family in context of my dad and myself and to colleagues in terms of good treatment and the controversy is what is insane. We shouldn’t be so afraid to discuss these things! I recently heard a theory that depression is a genetic trait to encourage rumination which leads to needed time for problem solving. Likely the human race would be far less communal and far less advanced without those who battle the hardest questions and emotions that come with existence. It’s a complex idea poorly explained, sorry! So… we should revere the people who feel so deeply. I wish I could give you more, I appreciate you!
All the metaphysics, deep issues, and unanswerable questions I've watched you talk about, yet this is by far the heaviest of your videos.
I understand how you feel, too.
"you're not necessarily bad, or broken inside, just because they're sending you up." Thank you Ollie ❤️
it feels like, i didn't get to choose to opt in and now i don't get to choose to opt out.
thanks for crying with me, olly.
My boyfriend, who I love so much it physically hurts, has attempted suicide multiple times. I know you’re in a better place now, but I just want to hug you so badly watching this because it’s the only thing I know how to do. This helped me so much to understand where his head is at. Thank you for putting yourself out there like this, Abi.
I hope he and you are okay. It can be exhausting to care about a suîcidal person. Hope you can find time to appreciate yourself
You really made the grade
By the way, whose shirt is that you're wearing? Asking for a journalist.
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
Hey, your circuits dead. Is there something wrong can you hear me Major?
People really need to understand just how important the phrase "I understand" is
Could not agree more. Too many people want to tell you how to "fix" it, when most of the time the best thing to do is just shut up, listen, and empathize.
@@ergohack But not everyone just wants sympathy. I still want to fix it, make it go away, but all I get is useless sympathy/empathy.
@@legoboy-ox2kx I'm mostly talking about the plethora of people who want to tell you has to fix it, but have now clue what it is you're actually going through.
Getting good help, whether professional or not, is way harder than it should be. Sorry that this is just more sympathizing, but I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
Only if the phrase comes from someone who really does understand
@@legoboy-ox2kx just wanted to point out that their is a big difference between sympathy and empathy. If you are getting enough understanding, I'm glad that isn't your problem. If you are getting a lot of people "feeling bad for or with you" than you may not be getting empathy at all.
The spaceship metaphor is actually very brilliant...
I always thought of my pain and isolation as a bottomless ocean, or a deep cave with water flowing from my eyes...just cold and dark.
And from the bottom of this cave I say, thank you for understanding...
holy shit same with the ocean. that I'm just fighting and fighting to reach the surface but it's no use I just keep getting pulled down even further. Reminds me of that song by blue October "into the ocean"
When I was really depressed, I imagined my life as a white, empty room. Sometimes the tide would come in, and I wold fight so hard for my life, because I wanted to live and I was drowning, and I didn't had any control over it. (But then it would leave, and the room would be so empty and so boring and so void of meaning that I would pray for it to come back).
Could we hold hands from across this cold and dark cave?
Yeah, my song is Cat Power's Bathysphere. So that's the analogy I've always used. Instead of the vacuum of space outside your thin walls, there's billions of tons of water that can crush you into a slurry.
My favorite lyric
When i was 7
My father said to me, that you can't swim.
And i never dreamed
Of the sea again.
egg appreciator that's a good one too, into the ocean
Abigail, I'm only a recent subscriber, having been introduced to you by my son.
We watched this together, as we make our way through all your earlier content, and we were both moved and encouraged by your vulnerability and candor. You help us look at things with fresh eyes. Thank you.
This is possibly the darkest video I've ever watched on TH-cam... But without a doubt the most important.
Those are five important words. And I too understand.
Hey Oliver!
I was referred to this video from a radio show in my region called 1A. They were having a discussion on suicide and mental health and this video was mentioned. Just wanted you to know that your message is out there and helping those who need it!
This was suggested by a friend of mine
1A is badass. I tune in when I'm able to. They only air it late at night where I live cause I'm in the US, albeit just across the border. I should probably just stream it after all, but I love the feeling of listening to a live broadcast on an actual radio.
Are you in Boise?
@@sageagainstthemachine656 no, Seattle
@@rzznakhvonvoraath4566 there's a radio show in Boise called 1A too (Boise is in Ada county, and all of our license plates start with 1A)
Abigail... as a minister, as a transman, and as someone who attempted suicide twice in life, I want to say some things to you. First, (even though I know you aren't a believer) may God bless you always. Your life has value, purpose, meaning, and is needed, and you need not believe in God to believe that. Second, thank you. Thank you for being brave enough to be vulnerable, to be honest, and to be creative in how you present that so it might reach someone in a way others did not. Third, I love you. We don't know each other but that doesn't matter. You are a fellow human being with a soul of light, and my love as a person who understands more than most what it is to live as a transgender person with a difficult past is unconditional and offered freely. It sounds stalkerish--so sorry! It isn't meant to. Please keep working toward being your best self. Never give up. I won't if you won't. Sending you peace and healing light as you continue to grow.
aw this is so sweet and wholesome. You are an amazing human being.
inb4 dipshits come here to trash your references to god.
this is the type of attitude i wish was more common, and im glad people with it are being open and up front with it. if more christians acted like this, i would be overjoyed.
I also am not a believer and as a gender non comforting trans enby I’ve had some bad experiences with Christians who use their belief as a cudgel but it always warms my heart when people share blessings of love and compassion through their faith. I’m sure that you are a blessing to all the members of your flock and I hope they are able follow your example of acceptance and compassion.
It is the height of arrogance and disrespect to shove your fairytale dogma "down someone's throat" when you think they are vulnerable!
Shame on you Eric! Abuse OFTEN comes in the form of fake help.
Bless your heart
As someone who has always enjoyed the sea-shanties and folk songs of the high seas, I now realize i used them as an escape. A life in the high seas of escapism away from the pain. But sometimes, like the voyages of a cosmonaut, I find myself alone on an empty galleon full of holes and leaks, while the sea throws its strongest typhoons and lightning blows at me. But if I can just bucket enough water from the deck, if I can manage to fix the sails, if I manage to point the ship in the right direction, I'll live to sail to the sunny beaches of Old Maui once again. Thank you Olly, and safe travels, sailors.
Can I...can I talk to you?
Its a damn tough life full of toil and strife we whalermen undergo
I fell in love with the repertoire of 17th and 18th century sea shanties when I first heard many of them in the video game Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Which ones are your favorites? :)
ROLL BOYS ROLL
This video saves lives. I come back to watch it every month. I didn’t know that I could connect to someone to such an extent through a video screen. I feel you, Ollie. It feels like you’re speaking to me in real life, a real person, and I want to thank you for that. You have helped me, and countless others, so much. Thank you.
*Have you tried reading the Bible?*
@@peri5966 not really helpful, mate.
That book might give *you* peace of mind, but it may exacerbate the bad feelings for others.
For instance people in the LGBTQ+ group. There are parts of the Bible's message which may not exactly be comforting for them. Especially when you've had really bad experiences with less than loving Christians in your surroundings.
@@peri5966 This is really unhelpful. I was going to say something about you as a human being, but then I realized that too would be unhelpful. You know what helps? Love, kindness, compassion. Olly, if you read this, you may want to banish Mr. Quaiattini. P.s., not that it matters, but I am a straight-as-an-arrow raging hetero.
@@jooheunglee8197 *How is spreading aids and castrating children helpful? Also, where's your Adam's apple, "mister"?*
@@jooheunglee8197 *"He mentioned the Bible!? Quick, call the thoughtpolice!"*
Hold my hand fellow cosmonauts. Please.
Hey there. You alright?
I got you.
bye capitalist
are you still there man?
i hope you are
On Good Friday, twelve minutes and twenty four seconds into this video I stopped and made a call. That call pulled someone out of the depths of loneliness. Thank you Abigail.
I don't think I'll ever listen to Rocketman the same way again.
I've.....been depressed. I've never been sent to space, to use your metaphor, but I go down a rabbit hole sometimes where it's hard to function. My friends, though. I've seen it happen to my friends. And it's absolutely terrifying to watch them hurtle through the void, not knowing if touch down will ever bring them round again. It's hard. It's really, really hard. But you've made a hell of a case for empathy here, and I just want to say, transmission received. Right back at ya, cosmonaut.
I told my therapist once that I related so closely to Rocketman, a song she knows well and loves... and she had no idea what I was talking about. Somehow, that just made everything so much worse. I floated farther away than before. I thought I was so alone up there... then I saw this video. Anyway, just felt like sharing that to a 6 month old comment. Yeah
Rocketman always makes me extremely emotionally vulnerable for that reason. Everyone loves that song, but as someone in the same boat as most of those in the comments here, it feels so much more significant. Others don't really understand why "I'm not the man they think I am at home" and "burning out his fuse out there alone" make me instantly well up in tears. I highly recommend watching Rocketman the film as well, if you love the song. They set the song to a scene where Elton is at the culmination of his emotional turmoil and it's just perfect and personal and amazing. You're not alone in this
i love you, man. i tried to kill myself at sixteen years old by train. i broke up with a boyfriend and hated my parents. one day, i did not come home from school and walked to the tracks. i would often go there to breathe free. the pressures of school and everything going on at home drove me to a desperate place. i stood on the tracks just as the five o'clock whistle blew, and suddenly i could feel the powerful vibration of the train as it rode like a missle towards me. i could not do it; something drove me off those tracks. i just wanted to share that experience with you and anybody else who understands. i believe that if we had an egalitarian system, whereby we value people over profit, there would be far less suicides. keep your head up. you are a beautiful spirit and natural teacher.
I hope you're doing well now.
Good luck as you move forwards. I see you.
I had a similar experience the first time I tried to kill myself. I was gonna gas myself with kitchen cleaners (combining the wrong ones releases chlorine and fluorine gases), but as soon as I poured the first one in a cup and smelled that ammonia/bleachy smell, I couldn’t do it. Weird how you can want so badly to die but your survival instincts kick in or something and you just can’t. Anyways hope you’re doing well now dude
Yeah, being a teen is a very though time
The View From Half-way Down, one of the most powerful moments in Bojack Horseman, is when a character expresses their regret of their choice of suicide when they jumped off a bridge. It's a poem they wrote that says the half-way point of the jump is when they realized they didn't want to do it anymore, but it was already too late for them.
I have thought of suicide before, and was actually considering it once after I left a therapy session (yeah, don't know if that was the point, but let's say, I didn't stick around there much longer after that).
I've been trying to combat depression and/or bipolar depression for a few years now, and there's been highs and lows along the way. One thought I keep asking myself is, "why was I born?" What purpose or reason do I exist on this planet?
I don't have a definitive answer yet, but I guess there's a lot worth living for, in my case, even through a lot of terrible shit, or at least I try to justify it that way. Maybe the goal is to survive with the least amount of damage done, which I guess is a thing, but how much damage is enough or too much? Maybe instead of ending my own life, I become a martyr for justice, to be the one to put my neck out, and defend the defenseless, which is something I'm more leaning towards in this insane time.
The way I see it, some people would see me as a pretty crazy person for some of my internal thoughts, but I think the world is crazy for what it still holds onto as known. The only way I can see positive change at this point is to fight or die trying. That doesn't mean you have to pick up a weapon, but BE the weapon of your life. Be the change you want to see in the world. Understand and love yourself, and you may very well come to understand and love others.
I'm so glad you did not go through with it. We need you in this world. Also, imagine what the train driver would have gone through. Thank you for being here. I know how painful it can be.
I just kept saying “why am I watching this why am I watching this” and it’s because I needed it. Thank you Ollie. We cosmonauts gotta stick together and help eachother come back down to earth.
I'm not a astronaut myself, just experienced some space travel idiations and had some autocanibalistic experiences. I, too saved this video for later, again and again. Never have I ever cry so deeply because of stranger's confessions and this "I understand how you feel" declaration made me cry profusely from the core of my being and made me release this long held back scream, as if my own declaration of pain and struggle. All of those comments, and realisation, that though in different time and space, we all cried together, made this massive emotional release even more powerful. Thank you Abby. Thank all of you, beautiful people in the comments.
I'm speechless...
Hey, Numberer1! I love your YTPs!
@@PhilosophyTube what a bizarre clash of worlds
Philosophy Tube Greatest crossover of all time!
+
Instantly clicked on your channel and rewatched all of your Schlock masterpieces. Exactly what I needed after this. Thanks =)
That algorithm dodge tho
But did it work?
lol I was wondering why he spell them like that. So the youtube algorithm actively discourages video about suicide and mental health?
CHC Such things are certainly not advertiser friendly, so they would say.
Letter swapping is a standard trick programmer anticipate, so i wonder, did it work?
QWERTY man It doesn't and it won't work. Maybe it won't be put down, but surely it won't be monetized (but I think it's not that big of a deal, y'know... but then, it also won't be shown by youtube because it's not monetized so yes, it's one big fuck off deal) and that's mainly because of auto captions by TH-cam.
Thank you sincerely for staying alive, Abi
I understand how you feel. I've been there. I've flown that mission many times. Fly safe, cosmonaut. And may you find your way back to earth every time.
It reminds me about something I heard once. This is paraphrased since I dont remember the exact story, but bear with me.
A soldier is in a hole. A commander walks by and says "what are you doing in that hole", the soldier says "I'm trying to find my way out". The commander throws a shovel to him and says "you can dig your way out if you try" them walks away
So the soldier digs, and then another commander comes by and asked what the soldier was doing, the soldier says "digging my way out of a hole", the commander tells him that he should just be able to climb out of the hole himself, then walks away.
The soldier then tries to climb the muddy walls of the hole but he cant. finally another soldier, caked in mud, sees the soldier in the hole and asks what hes doing. the soldier says "trying to climb out of a hole", and then the soldier jumps in with him. The first soldier asks him how will they get out and the and soldier responds "dont worry, ive been in this hole before. but we can get out of here, together." And they help each other out of the hole.
That was paraphrased but i think it has an important message, sometimes we just need someone who understands to help us through the worst times.
That's a nice story. Thank you for sharing it.
thank you for sharing this long forgotten story. I hope we can learn to help each other out again.
In 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the best friend of Yuri Gagarin, who was the first man in space, was sent on an ambitious mission to go into space and go onto a different ship while in orbit. Gagarin and some technicians inspected the spacecraft and found that it had many structural problems. He tried to get the mission postponed, but was unsuccessful. Komarov did not refuse the mission because he knew the back-up pilot would be sent himself. The back-up was Yuri. He even told his friend beforehand, “I’m not gonna make it back from this flight.” Gagarin demanded to be put on the flight but Komarov took off alone. As his ship began to fail he was called over a video phone by the Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin, who told him through tears that he was a hero. He was able to talk to his wife before his capsule burned up as he was descending into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Sometimes people commit to save the life of a friend and comrade, sometimes they do it to end their own pain and suffering. To all the cosmonauts out there, you’re not alone.
The story is even worse than that. He requested an open casket funeral before the flight to show the Soviet leadership what they had done. And despite the fact that nearly the entire capsule had failed he was still able to do a manual insertion and landed roughly where he intended. Sadly, the craft was so faulty that the parachutes did not open and he was killed by the impact, the only fully working modules being manual control and heat shielding. Everything else was a complete failure.
just after I finish crying from the video and this makes me start again
I just had a really weird moment and I want to share it with you.
I'm currently on a train to go and play magic the gathering with some friends. I for some reason felt really anxious out of nowhere (I say for some reason, I suffer from anxiety episodes quite often) and couldn't find a way to stop it. Then I remembered this video. And I remembered what you said. I remembered something along the lines of a teary ollie telling me "I know how you feel" and then it stopped. I stopped feeling anxious. I teared up a bit, then I shook my head and snapped out of it. Nothing has been able to help me calm down like that before. I know it's a very small thing, but Oliver. Thank you. I really needed that. Thank you for making this. Thank you for being you. I wish you luck, cosmonaut.
frostflame hell thanks for sharing your story
I shed a tear reading this post. I can identify so much with it. Hang on to those moments, remind yourself that you're not the only one. Thank you for sharing this story.
"What happens if you try end survive" that haunts me as a survivor.
Thank you
I was 18, in what I now recognize was an emotionally abusive relationship, driving home in the middle of the night at 105mph, daring myself to ram the car into the pylon holding up an overpass. Throughout my childhood I didn't know that I have ADHD (throughout most of my adulthood, too), so I thought it was my fault that I was mocked and bullied and rejected by so many of my peers. There was something wrong with me. I didn't know what it was. I just knew I didn't want it to keep happening, that there wasn't any point if no one liked me anyway.
I'm in a happy, safe, healthy marriage with beautiful children, learning to understand and forgive myself for things that I now recognize weren't my fault, to admit that in some ways I really do have a disability. It still hovers there, though, just outside the window, looking in at me sometimes. Not gesturing, just staring. I've been toying with the idea of seeing a counselor to help be progress past the point I've gotten myself to, and I have made progress. Your video has convinced me to take the plunge and get more help. So thank you, you beautiful man.
Older video, but people are still watching, so maybe someone will see this that will need to read this, so I'm writing it while crying, just in case.
You are strong enough. I've been there and I know that sometimes every breath feels like fighting against a ton on your chest, and every movement feels like fighting against chains. But, keep fighting. Keep breathing. Even when all you want to do is to finally rest or to just stop existing. There is always tomorrow.
You too, Olly. Thank you for all you do. Keep fighting, friend.
Don't stop fighting, rangers.
I don't know if I can even explain just how sincere I am rn, but thank you for writing this, I'm so glad you did.
Why?
I have attempted it three days ago... Again... You have no idea how much I needed this video.
Thank you for bringing me knowledge and comfort through your videos
For what it's worth, solidarity from a random internet person who wishes you the best.
Love you buddy I don't know you but I feel u
thanks for sticking around, friend. stay safe.
❤ I hope you're doing much better now.
Your analogy just saved my life 3 minutes ago. I can’t thank you enough, Abigail. I get to live and go perform and celebrate the world! ❤
I hope you’re doing better now
@@isabelkloberdanz6329 still here and doing much better. Thanks for checking in. ^_^
@@rifrafe1 Yay I’m happy for you 😁
I'm just some guy on the internet, but I think I understand. I cried with you during the video. Thank you for this video.