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I’m a 47 year old software developer from Chicago. I’ve been dealing with a high conflict divorce and custody case for the past two years and it’s really taken a huge toll on me. I have two kids, a boy 7 and a girl 9. I thought long and hard about suicide and they’re the only things that stopped me. Now that I’ve decided I can’t leave my children, I have to find a way to fix myself so I can be the best dad possible. I also have a semi annoying cat. The divorce went as horribly as it could possibly go. I spent much of my savings fighting for equal time with my kids, and mostly I lost. The court took her side and gave her majority of time with the kids, full alimony and child support. I see my kids a fair bit - I have about 42% custody, but it was a long expensive battle and I still feel I got screwed. I have a lot of anger at the legal system and I’ve become extremely cynical about relationships and the government. We used to be pretty fairly upper middle class and our lifestyles have taken a big hit during the divorce. I used to own an expensive home and now I rent a small apartment so I can be close to my kids. This is due to the financial strain of the divorce - I basically have to support two households on one salary now. It’s been a huge lifestyle change and I’m still sort of in shock about it. I was always introverted, depressed, and had low self esteem prior to my marriage, but during the 10 years we were married I had something to dedicate myself to and marriage gave me a sense of purpose and identity. Since the divorce I’ve been lost, massively depressed, borderline suicidal, I had anxiety attacks for the first time in my life. My self esteem is lower than its ever been. I feel alone, I don’t have many friends and my family is not supportive. I don’t have anyone to talk to most of the time. My life is very sad. When the kids are with me I can keep it together most of the time, but when I’m alone I’m lost. I can’t stand to be alone with myself. I distract myself with working on my side business - which is not going that well, or I play video games. I used to run marathons and play guitar. I’ve lost interest in these things because they don’t distract me from my pain and they remind me too much of my former life. My main personal goal is to fix myself so I can be better for my kids. I want to live a virtuous life, I don’t want to be so alone but I don’t know how to go about making those types of changes. I don’t want to be so debilitated by despair and sadness that I can barely function or take care of myself. I don’t want afraid of the future. I want my kids to see me as a good example. Other than that, my physical health is very bad. I don’t take care of myself. Right now I’m taking Celexa and Wellbutrin - if it’s helping at all it’s only enough to allow me to function. There’s no family history or mental illness that I know of. I’d like to get back in shape again, I know it can’t be good for my self esteem to be ashamed of how my body looks, I guess I don’t value myself enough to take care of myself physically. I have a masters in computer science. I have a good job as a senior developer at a software startup. It actually pays extremely well but most of my pay goes to my ex wife. I like the company, the work and the people I work with. But I also know that my severe personal problems the past couple of years have not helped me in my career as I’m not advancing and I’m seeing my peers get promoted. I spent the last six months preoccupied by the divorce trial and have been neglecting work. I’d like to get a promotion at work someday if I can get myself together. It’s also a personal goal of mine to grow my side business to where it makes up the money lost in the fig ice and maybe down the line allows me to quit my job and work for myself. My side business is writing mobile apps and financial software in addition to trading crypto currencies.l. In 1 year I’d like to know that I’m well on the way towards a better life. In 5 years I’d like to get promoted. In 10 years I’d like to work for myself full time. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the 80s. I have two brothers, I’m the oldest. My parents were immigrant doctors, and they put a lot of pressure on me to succeed academically. I rebelled and fought a lot with my parents growing up. Our family moved a lot and I had to switch schools multiple times. It made it hard for me to make and keep friends. I grew up very sheltered and repressed in a lot of ways. When I became a teenager I went wild and it caused a lot of friction with my parents. There’s a lot of pain there. It’s probably the source of my low self esteem. My parents always made me feel bad that I didn’t want to be a doctor, they compared me to my brothers and at the same time held me to much higher standards. I wish I had more of a happy healthy upbringing. But I grew up to be a damaged person in a lot of ways. I don’t think my ex wife knew how damaged I was when she married to me, and I thought that maybe marriage and fatherhood could fix me somehow. I’d like to talk to someone when I’m struggling to make it through the day. I’m also aware if I’m going to make a change I need someone to remind me to do the work and provide a program I can use to get better. I feel like I have so many problems I don’t know where to start - or it could be as simple as working on one thing like my character or self esteem that will help me make sense of everything else in my life. If I could change anything about myself I’d like to have high self esteem and confidence. When I was a baby my parents left me in the Philippines with my grandparents to go to the states and become doctors. At age 2 I came to join them, but there was a part of me that always felt abandoned by them at an early age. I don’t share this with anyone, but - my low self esteem is due to feeling alienated from the world. I’m alienated from the world because I’m so introverted and wrapped up in myself. I spend a lot of time alone. And this is what I learned as a child as a coping mechanism. I would abandon people first because I was so scared of them abandoning me.

Okay, so, someone(probably) just killed himself /herself and all I see is mocking, memes, jokes and all sort of individuals showing off their "knowledge" and spiritual egos... I find this interesting, yet horrifying. Honestly, I can't see how you can make the decision to kill yourself out of a place of consciousness and enlightment,most of the time it would come from a place of suffering and loneliness. The truth is that no of you personally knew him/her, so you don't know what kind of person he/she was or what kind of problems he/she was facing, so you should shut up. You are just making assumptions about his "conscious death" that came from a "place of free will". Also, please imagine you are one of his/her relatives and you discover this particular post... You'll see people making jokes and memes instead of trying to help or at least get to the reasons behind this action.Isn't it a bit weird why he hasn't fully expressed his reasons for committing suicide? I highly doubt that most of you are enlightened, yet most of you claim to know what happens after death and claim to have knowledge about the mechanics of the existence itself - _-...when in fact they are just beliefs. Spiritual egos are indeed dangerous. I'm pretty sure people will start mocking me subtly. Go ahead, I'm not near the level of personal and spiritual development that you have attended, I surely need your valuable insights. Personally, I no longer see any purpose in continuing this thread, I would advise the mods to close it.

@Truth Addict That's exactly what I thought, because I'm sure I have been repressing all kinds of feelings for a really long time. Yesterday I was focusing on relax and let all the emotions come up without trying to get way from them, Lots of things came to the surface, and I know there's more yet to come @SriBhagwanYogi thanks for sharing the video, all watch it !! I really like Spira, he was the first teacher that I watched and actually understood what he was talking about @Javad The problem is I think, that before going to non duality and spirituality, I tried the main stream self-help to grow my self identity, and most of this traditional self-help doesn't deal with the core issues, they make you forget about your feelings and emotions and give techniques to change yourself, like trying control the thoughts, pretending to be who you want to be, and all sorts of non sense. I've been doing this for some years, and it has probably repressed a lot of feelings, and eventually they had to come, probably the awakening was a trigger to them @WelcometoReality This thread perfectly described what is going on, very helpful , thanks !!! @Gabriel Antonio I am always open to the possibility,I am always trying to look for more options, but I can see much difference between this and depression, I had depression when I was a teen, and I got treatment, I remember the accompanying feelings were, a really strong hate towards myself, and others, a deep sense of sadness, anger, feeling like a victim from the world and life, and of course, thinking that suicide was a way out. Right now this feeling that I was facing doesn't have any of it, it's more like how would you feel if you found out that you actually don't have any control, when all the mind is built upon the assumption that it has control, and all that people search all their lives is to control, because people don't want happiness or freedom, they want control, the mind wants to control, but it can't but anyway, I will book an appointment with a psychiatrist, I wanted to do it for a while now, and I think now is a good time thanks for the reply !! @Nadosa That's true, most people who are suffering don't like to think about this possibility, and going to doctors for me was always the last option, depression is the disease that most affect people in the world (or so the medicine says), I know a bunch of people that the doctors diagnosed having depression and now are having to take pills everyday, just to numb them, I know people who have been taking medicine for depression for more than twenty years, people who have gone to lots of doctors and haven't gotten better, so most of the causes of depression are surely not physical,

We are all suffering and feel pain. We all want relief. Suicide can seem like the least worst option. And we get to seize back control and self esteem by being able to choose when and how we go. But even a life of suffering is really amazing and precious and it's okay just to carry on and grow and mature and learn how to escape the suffering in the end. Maybe you get to live and not suffer?

@Mikael89 We don’t know for sure what happened to him, yet mocking someone’s suicide is over the line. Please tone it down,

@Fountainbleu I overcame a severe TBI which occurred 3 years ago. It lasted for 2 full years. After losing everything, I'm back to 100% and, now, way beyond. Minor recommendations: Meditate like your life depends on it. In complete blackness. Watch how quickly your suffering (not your pain) goes away. Journal every day. Go full out with self-actualization and use this opportunity to rebuild your entire life. That's how I used my concussion. Major recommendations: Immediately switch to a whole foods plant based diet. Nutritionfacts.org is one solid resource. Consider getting photobiomodulation therapy done: https://bioflexlaser.com/ (this may take anywhere from 10-30-50 sessions). My recommendation would be to go in for an initial diagnostic and then rent a unit and take it/ ship it home. It will be much cheaper that way. There are now a bunch of locations in the US and Canada. Personal Note: A long time ago I planned to write an entire post on here about this. Once I found this, I healed by 90% in 2 weeks. There's no guarantee that it will work for you, but it's worth a shot. It's side-effect free. It uses light to stimulate the dead/non-functional cells, especially the mitochondria. It then produces ATP and increases oxygen absorption. The technology is so ridiculously simple but so ridiculously effective that I convinced my dad who's a Neurologist to put it into his practice. As I was working with him last summer (for about a month) I cured 3 people who had chronic migraines for over 50 years. And I've never heard from them again. DO NOT go back to work, school, or anything. Take time completely off to heal. And then use every second to get better. DO NOT go back on anti-depressants or ANY medication except headache medication. Only if you're about to commit suicide would I recommend anti-depressants. People saying to take medication so that you can start a business and make money is the DUMBEST SHIT I've ever heard in my life. If you listen to your body and take care of it, it will take care of you. Manipulating it for good grades, success, achievement, and money (which I tried to do) will leave you more depressed and more anxious and more sick and more miserable than you could ever imagine. You will literally go in the opposite direction of healing. Please PM me if you'd like to talk. Virtually no one has any idea how to cure concussions or TBI. My dad, who's a neurologist, couldn't even help me. You're especially not going to find the answers on this forum. To even find that one resource I shared with you took years of research and was a divine gift from the universe. The great irony is that the concussion itself was also a divine intervention from the universe. It's how I found Actualized.org! I was fortunate enough to meet the guy who invented it and received treatment from him directly. Hopefully you won't squander what I've said here. This information was unbelievably hard won. PS: @Leo Gura I've frequently heard you talking about your thyroid and other various physical ailments. Hopefully your right knee isn't still giving you trouble from that Reiki post I made a while back Maybe we can ask that girl to send you another long-distance transmission. I've been struggling to think of ways to provide value to you. Hopefully you can check out this resource (https://bioflexlaser.com/ ) if things ever get out of hand.

I had this realization today from Leo's video on Self-Deception. It would seem that life is inherently full of suffering. The only way to raise your levels of consciousness is to suffer for a temporary amount of time. Is life then not worth living. Im not contemplating suicide but I just don't see whats wrong with it. I guess high consciousness must be worth all the suffering. Is my mind self-deceiving me into thinking that the suffering is worse than it really is, if I suffer consciously.

So ..... Sharp is dead now then? Hasn't been online since yesterday, and was quite adamant about suicide, so seems he went thru with it. Born in 1960, so a pretty good run of 59 years. I've seen many people on this forum thru the years say they are going to commit suicide. Wonder how many actually went thru with it. Never any way of knowing. Now 'Sharp' is God realized, so yay.

Tinnitus is a ringing in ears and head, kind of like a buzzing sound which can drive people to commit suicide, it causes stress , anxiety, and there is no cure for it. And now my goal of life is to experience enlightenment and want to achieve real happiness is it still possible for me !

Happy explosion brother. I mean, you don't have to do it, it comes down to stillness, in mind and body, or love, but what ever you do is fine. I would write a carefully written suicide note to your past loved one's, and be as honest as you can, don't leave them in unanswered questions. And don't beat yourself up over it if you don't decide to do it. But the point is, it's accessible here and now!

On a serious note the thought of suicide rises sometimes on downcycles for me. For me it is the great equaliser because you cannot go lower than suicide. I take a minute or an hour to just be, in the suicidal mood, and mind tends to GTFO and the end of the downcycle arrives IN THE MOMENT and changes to an upcycle. Spirituality for me and many I have spoken to is about cycles of up down up down up down it is NOT constant like all these teachers make it out to be. Without going down you cannot go up higher. Thankfully the cycles have slowed down lately but they still happen. It's life!

@Preetom :) great wisdom on suicide

All the meme and jokes aside, I think it would be great if death and suicide could be culturally re-contextualized. Actually there is nothing wrong in the the drive for death or to commit suicide. It is one of the natural(probably the most intense) urges of the mind. Why? Well because death is the ultimate release. It is the innate intelligence in us that does everything for seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, it knows that dying will be the ultimate happiness/release. Osho used to say that it is probably impossible to find a person who has never contemplated suicide. If a person never glimpsed the urge for his own annihilation or meaninglessness of life, he is either an animal or just plain stupid. In any endeavor to fulfill any of our desire, we actually don't crave the object of desire. We merely crave for the release after that desire is subsided, that even, clam, self-happiness or relief. Looking in this way, it is obvious that an urge for suicide is actually a wake up call; not something that is to be treated as taboo. It's a wake up call to wake up from the dream and be what one really is. But there are countless stupid ways to treat this intelligent message. Killing the physical body is probably the most stupid way out of them. The urge for suicide is not the urge for annihilation of the physical body. This flesh doll is already dead. It is the urge to get relief from the hideous cancer which is the sense of being a separate self, the ultimate tyrant there is

* Initiate quantum suicide *

distract them for few minutes from suicidal thoughts. That should do the work. probably 99% suicidal thoughts/attempts are not clearly and consciously chosen decision made over a long period of time. Mostly it is just a fickle mind virus that takes one over for a short time. If that short time can be countered by shifting the attention to something else, usually that suicide impulse die out as well.

Suicide or mahasamadhi? if you do decide to go, don't go into the white light. It's false. Stay in the void, don't go down the tunnel... https://www.trickedbythelight.com/tbtl/light.shtml

@FoxFoxFox i say suicide is the easy way out rather than actually dying Bored consciousness? I like that

@Sharp Fun fact: when you die, you will just come back. I suggest you try and get a direct experience of death while keeping your body alive. You'll see how consciousness literally gets bored and recreates the world to reincarnate directly. It makes suicide kinda pointless.

@ASJ hey. welcome to the forum i am no expert in this field and i hope someone else also shares their POV/answer with you. but i will tell you this. people have many perspectives and all differ. if you show a random object to a room of 50 people, there will be 50 different ways it is being viewed/thought about. what helps me in situation such as yours in truly viewing the situation from the other person's Point of view (pov) keep in mind, there are only relative POVs. yours vs others. you have to understand that nobody just does anything or believe in something for the sake of it... if you do not believe in ghosts and someone else does, then you have to truly understand this . understand that to the one believing in ghost or demons, it is as real a fact as earth being round for example. to someone who has had a paranormal experience, it is a very true thing... a doctor or scientist may give him/her explanation which stems from their own understanding and pov... but it doesn't change the fact that the person directly experienced it for themselves. each party always only (naturally) protects its own interest. when you happen to be on the opposing side, there naturally will be conflict it is like watching a game of football and either supporting team A or team B. there is no "right" team who should win or deserves to win. it is just a game and there are 2 teams and supporters for each side. so before cutting off ties. just UNDERSTAND that the other party do not view their actions/beliefs are wrong and they are 100% correct for them as anything you might believe is 100% for you. a suicide bomber 100% believes that he will be going to heaven after doing his deed. to him, it is such a strong deep belief that he willingly blows himself up for it IT IS ALL RELATIVE

@Zigzag Idiot @tsuki I really appreciate your input and intend to respond later. First, some observations this morning. Now that I've been on dates with 4 girls, I get nervous about how and when to propose a next date. And what if they say no? I know the answer to that: I get over it and meet new people. This is the flow of life. So even though I feel more at ease now that I can meet and connect with girls when I want to, I'm still clinging to these particular ones. Not as tightly as if it would be a single person, but still. The feeling of abundance is increased, but not the deep abundance. But I can't help to draw a parallel: I meet a few girls, now I'm scared to lose them. Rich people don't have peace, they worry about their money. I have had an underlying assumption, pretty much all my life, that getting enough money and sex is working towards inner peace. It made sense: my path isn't blocked by lack of anything, I don't have to work so I'm free. I don't have to worry about money because there is enough. I don't have to be harsh with myself to go meet girls because that part is so integrated that it happens by itself. But what if that's wrong? Businesses take work to maintain, you can worry about those. Even plainly having a ton of cash is a huge responsibility: you have to worry about how your investments are doing, you have to make sure that you give enough to charity and that people are seeing that, because more eyes are on you. Most of your friends will be fake friends who hope to get stuff from you. This alone can drive people to suicide. It's still worth doing, but it's not a way to end all worries. You're just worrying about different things. Like RSDTyler likes to say: "Increase the QUALITY of your problems." I'm seeing a couple different girls now. I mean, I don't know whether I'll see them again, and I worry about that I noticed this morning that I want to text them all and set a next date, so that I can feel safe. But I noticed that would be coming from the wrong place, so I didn't. On top of that, I have more Tinder matches than I have attention or energy for. So I kind of gave up, and am seeing all these potential connections being ignored by me, and dying. This also bugs me. Also in the words of RSDTyler: "Stop trying for completion. There is no completion. It will never come." I'm paraphrasing. But, it pans out so far. A few months ago I set out to change my habits and activities so that I would get closer to my goals. Work out, eat better, meditate regularly, get laid, make LP plans. I worked on all of those. What did it bring me? Greater life satisfaction. I don't feel like I'm "wasting" my life anymore Better sense of self-worth. I like explaining my life to people, and don't feel inferior and envious opposite almost everyone, like before. And this is profound. For me. When getting to know people, but also with good friends, I remember always feeling like they have their shit together sooo much more than I do, I'm a mess. That's gone! I know what I'm doing and not doing, and it needs work but I feel valuable and together already. Decreased neurosis. The constant "I should eat better, dammit, I should get laid, damn it, I should ..." chatter is diminished. Greater confidence in my ability to achieve and push through. Because I fell out of the diet and got back up. Now, I fell out of meditation habit, and that makes me feel guilty still, but I'm certain that I'll pick it back up. I feel more comfortable in public places. I used to feel very self-conscious and projecting how people (strangers) see me. When I would overhear conversation, I would project whether I would be friends or foes with these people. There's a lot less of that. Sometimes I just automatically talk to a stranger. And after that it's easy to let go of that connection as well. What did it not bring me? Inner peace. Nothing to worry about. The ability to have an empty mind most of the day. I'm writing this because I'm feeling stressed about a lot of things, and I was hoping to get rid of that. I have to check my phone, answer my email, take care of my relationships, keep a calendar, et cetera et cetera. Also, if I understand David Deida correctly, merging with the feminine is a temporary moment of bliss and emptiness, which the masculine is always seeking, after which he has his purpose to get back to. Giving his deepest gift. Always willing to fight for peace, emptiness, that he never gets to keep. So if there's no end to the rat race, the stress, it becomes more important to be relaxed in it. Since the only way out is death or enlightenment, and both of those are probably far away, I might as well value inner calm over everything. Get some mindfulness into my day. Since that's all the peace I'm going to get. The peace in my daily life. It's not going to happen when I reach the next level: when I get more money or sex. I will have to strive to live peacefully despite there always being things to worry about. At every level. Got up at : 9:30 Days in a row with morning routine : 0 Number of women approached : 19 Total infield time : 12h10 Total meditation time : 13h45 Speeches given : 2 Books read : 0 Currently reading : Stealing Fire - Steven Kotler et. al. Days without smoking : 69 alcohol : 4 caffeine except tea : 6 TV : 0 grains : 17 sugar : 7 dairy : 23 peak orgasm : 5 porn : 26

That doesn't address the problem of the solipsistic madness Leo keeps pedalling in his most recent videos. The belief that I am god and all of you people on this forum are just fake cardboard cutouts is pure madness and it goes against the view that all of us are appearances within consciousness and we all exist together as that. As such I can no longer consider Actualized.org as a platform for personal or spiritual development. The stuff he comes out with is dangerous and a catalyst for psychosis and suicide. If you are all that exists and everything is just fake and empty then you may as well be dead. That is not the fullness of life nor is it awakening. I will be going to a mental health specialist to try and repair the damage Actualized. org has done to me before it is too late.

@Nahm I might just be ignorant about the topic, but I don't think Adolf Hitler actually killed anyone by his own hands (he might have during the war when he served in the Austrian military, and ofc there are the allegations that he forced his wife into suicide). Anyhow, There is no doubt that his ideology brought about the death and suffering of millions of people, and that is the issue. Like Winterknight said in another thread. The problem is in the psyche. So no. I wouldn't kill Adolf Hitler. I would try to help him get over his demons, if I could. So the answer to all of those questions is no. I wouldn't kill him even if i had the chance during the height of his power and destruction. I don't think death is a suitable penalty even for a murderer who kills personally.

I get that this may be funny for you and I can understand that but please see that I am going through a very difficult existential crisis with all of this and I am seeking help as it has caused me to suffer from depression which may go on to psychosis if left unchecked. Please understand how destructive the idea that the computer in front of me right now as well as the rest of my family actually have no form of existence whatsoever. That shit can really mess people up and I hope that nobody has committed suicide after watching some of the deeper stuff Leo creates.

In general, please avoid clickbait titles and twisted themes of death, torture, suicide etc.

Well first of all I think it's awesome that you are so open about your dissatisfaction with life. I worry a lot of people are afraid of being judged, or afraid that maybe it means they aren't as spiritually advanced as they'd like to think they are if they admit they are suffering. So yeah, being honest I think will really pay off for you. I suffered through a period of extreme numbness. It's a long story but some shit friends thought I had basically died from an overdose of synthetic weed and were about to leave me, that whole experience left my dreams feeling more real than reality, and that wasn't a good thing because my dreams were basically me getting my throat slit or shot and killed, the whole circus. The numbness was protecting me from extreme trauma, but I still fucking hated it. I will take my emotional tenderness, or my tears, or my anxiety over that shit any fucking day. My worry and I think you're aware of this is that the numbness as terrible as it is, is trying to help you avoid the trauma of all the anxiety and depression that you are feeling all coming out at once. LSD really lights up my nervous system, and I'm worried for you that two tabs (which is quite a lot) would be very intense for a first time user. I remember my one tab experience was plenty intense on my first try. It's definitely awesome that you're looking for direction, but I see it being hard to find direction in a numbed up state. How do you expect to get a feel for what you want, if you don't feel. As someone who climbed out of numbness, emotional meditation really did a lot for me. I just focused basically on the most emotionally intense sensation in my body and worked on relaxing into it, and developing tenderness towards it. My personal recommendation would be to practice a more emotionally based meditation leading up to this trip, to help take some of the repressed emotions off your plate so you aren't too overwhelmed by a tsunami. It also sounds like you have some issues with your work especially. I would probably get out on paper a lot of the self hate and anger (if there is any) that is centered around your job and kind of pre-process those emotions so you aren't blasted with self-hate when you trip. Now during the trip, you just gotta relax, the trip is going to be a trip. You can't really know what you're going to get. I've been tucked in by an ethereal motherly entity. I've had trips where my awareness was so centered on people eyes and mouths and how they looked at each other searching for social queues ( I was tripping in a NY subway). I've had trips where I saw visuals of huge pillars full of these laughing emoticons, laughing at me for thinking I existed in a way that I didn't. The trips have all had their own taste, so it can be hard to prepare a bit or tell you what you're going to get. I've never regretted taking a tab, and then a half tab or another tab afterwards when I wanted a bit more. Like you're welcome to take two, but why not 1 the first hour and see how it goes, and then the other. They will overlap and you'll still get the strength of two if you want it, but you'll be a lot safer which is important. There isn't too much you need to know during the trip, just surrender to it as best you can, and try to take any lessons your direct experience is offering you. It will give you lessons trust me haha, you don't gotta do anything special when you're on acid other than be present and surrender imo. One of my best friends when he was younger had a bad shroom trip and nearly killed himself, so if you have any firearms at your house or things that you can cause self-harm with. Put them somewhere where you can't get to them during the trip please, your car keys too (he tried suicide by car basically). I don't want to scare you, but safety first, cause why not. I also hope you've tried smoking weed, or have some experience in altered states of consciousness. If you haven't I would smoke a joint first, I'll literally mail you one haha