Why am I still here?

I've been asking myself this more and more frequently, many times a day now. Why am I still alive? Why haven't I killed myself?

The anxiety continues to get worse as well as all the other problems I have. More often now, there is anger accompanying the panic attacks, due to my frustration. If I wasn't the passive, easy-going person that I am, I would be throwing things and breaking things and insulting people. I've gone past depression to shear despair. I don't look forward to anything. Not even the thought of being able to go on a great vacation or winning the lottery or finding the perfect woman sounds like fun.

I've also been thinking about the word "recovery". I have often talked about my attempts to recover from all of this.. but recovery implies that at one time I didn't have these problems, and that isn't true. They've always been there, so there is no place to recover to for me. I am now passed the point where even if my faulty sympathetic nervous system was fixed, I would still be unhappy, simply because... oh hell it doesn't matter so I won't even say why.

So why have I not killed myself? Is it because I hope things will get better? No. I know the truth. I can justifiably say "I'm screwed". After years of talking with doctors and therapists of all makes and kinds, and years of studying and researching the underlying causes and what kinds of things can be done, I know that there is nothing I, or anyone, or anything can do that will cause me to be free of my disorder. At best, I can hope for a slight reduction in the symptoms, but that's it, nothing more. I find myself getting angry with people who refuse to accept that and hold on to their ignorant faith and hope that "there has to be something that will work".

So why have I not killed myself? Because of the anxiety. The anxiety is so severe that my body will do anything to escape that fear, even if it means death... but, the anxiety is what is keeping me alive. Ironic? Actually it makes perfect sense to me. My "fear switch" is turned on all the time. I'm not necessarily afraid of dying, but when I think about suicide, the anxiety gets very severe due to realizing all the consequences that would have. How it would cause emotional suffering to my friends and family, the hassle they would have to go through in arranging a funeral. And also the realization that I'm not the only out there suffering like me. I still have one hope - it's a long shot by far - but my hope is that I can convince some researchers to study people like me who have had the disease since birth, and who are treatment resistant. I've searched and searched, my psychiatrist has as well, and we can not come up with any studies that have been done on long-term treatment resistant people such as myself. It's really sad that no such study has been done. All the studies I see of anxiety related disorders only observe the subjects for a time measured in weeks... not years. And that maybe, many many years down the road, such studies could eventually lead to a cure for this. This would mean altering genes. Something that the government is currently against and many people are scared of.

So, I'm pissed off. The anxiety won't let me live, and it won't let me die. And I don't have the funding at my disposal to do the long-term invasive research that so desperately needs to be done.