The people that live with mental illness often think this about themselves, too. We often simultaneously believe that we're "too far gone" to be saved while also praying that what we believe about ourselves isn't true. Believing that you're too far gone into the darkness created by your mental health condition to ever be saved from it is a scary place to be, and it's made even scarier when we hear people saying our fear out loud, even if it's about somebody else they believe can't be helped.
The whole idea that I was "too far gone" to be saved was one of the reasons I was afraid to go to therapy. I was afraid the therapist would confirm my worst fear and then send me packing to continue a life of misery that I wouldn't be able to fix or escape unless I did the unthinkable. But...then I went to therapy, and neither of my therapists ever thought that I was beyond help. With the help of my therapist, I was actually able to pull myself up out of the mental illness rabbit hole.
I wasn't the only one that was able to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat. I saw other people that I cared about pulling themselves out of the rabbit holes of substance abuse and mental illness, too, after they had been described as "too far gone". That reinforced the idea for me that nobody was ever "too far gone" to be pulled back out of the darkness. Many of them had even spent more years than I had being down in that rabbit hole, and it still wasn't too late for them to be saved even from themselves.
The thing with mental illness is that it lies. I know I say this a lot, but it's true. Your mental illness will make you think terrible things about yourself, including thoughts of how you're too far gone or have been mentally ill for too long to be helped. That's just not true. That's never true.
Let me put it like this: Before you ever think a person, including yourself, is ever too far gone to be saved, ask yourself, "Is that person dead?" If the answer is, "No. That person is not dead." Then they can still be helped. As long as you are alive, you can still be pulled out of the dark rabbit hole of your mental illness. It doesn't matter how long you've been dealing with that mental health condition. It's never too late. You just have to be alive.
I'll end with this: A lot of people think that there is some kind of limit to how far somebody can go out into the land of mental illness and/or substance abuse before they can no longer find their way back. A lot of people living with mental illness and/or substance abuse often think the same thing about themselves. If you're thinking that, your unwell brain is lying to you. It doesn't matter how long or how severely you've been struggling with your condition. You can always be helped. As long as you are alive, you're never "too far gone" for help.
