Nico,

I am so very sorry that you are feeling so badly. After reading your post, two things stand out at me that I’m going to offer some advice on, short and sweet (Hope you don’t mind my direct style!).

1. It doesn’t seem healthy for you to be in a place where you are surrounded by abusive people, whether that’s your parents or anyone else. Get out. Move. You need to take care of yourself. Yes, I’m giving you permission to be a little selfish and practice some self-care (this term coined by life coach, Cheryl Richardson). But it just doesn’t seem like it’s healthy for you to be back in Hong Kong living with your parents, who you say are abusive in some way. I don’t know what your financial situation is, of course (I recognize you’ve lost a job…), but, if at all possible, I think you should try and leave there. You need your own space where you can begin to re-create a life for yourself – step by step, day by day…

2. This may be the more serious of the two. If you are truly feeling suicidal, please seek therapy. There is absolutely no shame in getting help by seeking therapy. Therapy is nothing more than two people sitting in a room talking through an issue. It provides a wonderfully objective and confidential place for you to discuss your deepest fears, sorrows, etc. I hope you will get help if you continue to feel suicidal…even if you’re not feeling that way, if you find that you’re in a continuously depressed state, I’d encourage you to get help.

Those are my two cents…It’s easy to feel hopeless, I know, when so many things feel like they’re going awry. But in addition to positive thinking, we must begin “positive doing”…and I offer the two steps above as a start in doing something to alter the course. And maybe it just comes down to changing one thing at a time….until that gets better. And then changing another thing until that gets better…and so on…sometimes we have to take life in baby steps.

And sometimes we have to create hope in baby steps as well..

~ Rachel