​“My Life Had No Meaning!”

I remember lying in bed as a child feeling overwhelmed by my emotions and wanting my life to end. This wasn’t a one-off, though; as this was something I went through on numerous occasions.

I had a father, mother, and a sister, but I felt as though I was all by myself; that’s not to say that we didn’t do anything together, we did. I felt safe around my sister, but I certainly didn’t feel safe around my parents.

I’d Had Enough
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If I didn’t do what these two people wanted, I would often end up being hit or I would be sent to my room. So, after experiencing so much pain, I would often wonder why I had been born.

As a result of this, I thought that the only way that this would change was if my life ended – I couldn’t see another way out. On top of this, I was expected to do all kinds of different jobs at our guest house.

Hell on Earth

I remember being told that I had to go outside to help my father and resisting, this didn’t do much good. I was forced to go out and I ended up crying, I must have been abound nine years old.

Through having these experiences, I disconnected from myself. Physically I was there, but another part of me had lost the will to live and no longer wanted to be alive; incidentally, ‘Finding The Will To Live’ is the name that I used for the title of my story.

One Trauma after Another

If I received the kind of care that I needed as a baby it might have been easier for me to handle this stage of my life, but this was a time when I experienced a lot of neglect. Due to this, part of me had already given up before I could even walk.

Each year that passed after this then added another layer of pain/trauma onto the pain/trauma that I was already carrying. The inner experience that I had of not wanting to be alive didn’t disappear as I got older, either.

Certain Triggers

One of the things that would bring all this pain up to the surface was the end of a relationship. A relationship would come to an end and I had absolutely no idea why I would experience so much pain.

Another thing that would do it was if stage of my life came to an end, such as when I finished school and when a college course came to an end, for instance. On one hand, this meant that I had to find something else to do and, on the other, all the loss that I had experienced throughout my life would come to the surface.

Two Parts

Not wanting to be alive was then partly the result of experiencing so pain and not being able to handle any more, and partly the result of being out of touch with my own needs. To get in touch with my needs I would have to get in touch with my own body, and this was the thing I wanted to do at this stage.

Fortunately, part of me wasn’t willing to give up, and this is probably what kept me going. This part of me was looking for something to live for, and it wasn’t going to give up until it found it.

The First Step
When I started to read about self-development in 2003, I came across something that really interested. Even so, I would still have moments when I would fall into the pain that was in my body.

During these moments, the other part of me had to do what it could to carry this part of me forward. Through experiencing inner conflict, I had to dig deep to keep going, and this meant that I had to develop a lot of willpower.

A Deep Longing

If I came across someone who had a strong sense of purpose, I would usually experience a strong emotional reaction. I saw them as someone who had a reason to get out of bed each morning and I wanted to experience life in the same way.

As the years passed, I continued to read books and I went on different courses, but I hadn’t found anything that really pulled me in. In 2008, I started to write a journal and, a few years later after reading books that Osho had written, I thought about how good it would be to write like him.

The Next Step

One of the things that I admired about Osho was that his writing was very direct and to the point. I read two of his books at the start of 2010, after I had heard about him when I did a Reference Point Therapy course in Belgium.

Towards the end that year, I started to write articles, and it wasn’t long until I started to feel extremely grateful that I had finally found something that was deeply fulfilling. Writing wasn’t a means to an end; it was an end in and off itself.

The Message

The pain that was within my body didn’t just disappear as time went by – I had to work through the layers. Still, the fact that I had finally found something that gave my life meaning made it slightly easier for me to handle this pain.
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What this makes me think about is how important it is to keep going, no matter what is taking place internally or externally. To find that part of ourselves that won’t give up and to do what we can to move forward.