@DragonKing
That sounds like phobia for me, but I am not diagnostician. But good things about phobias is that they can be cured, at least most of the times.
Like O_Bruce said, it sounds like phobia and phobia can be curable - my advice is at least give yourself a chance to be cured of it, or learn to deal with it, by seeking professional help (here in the Netherlands, access to mental health care follows the route of first needing to talk to your home physician about it, but where you live, just orientate yourself on how help should be sought to get it covered by insurance and seek help - and don't feel bad about seeking help - having a phobia is a perfectly normal thing, I don't know the number, but it's neither uncommon nor strange nor something to be ashamed of).
"I wish life was over" I often say to myself. The correct phrase would probably be "I wish my life was over", but that sounds so very selfish, as when I am dead, my eyes will be permanently closed to the injustices and suffering in this world, but the suffering and injustices will continue. At the same time saying "I wish all life was over" sounds selfish as well, for who am I to judge that all life should end? Thus I always say "I wish life was over", leaving it unspecified which life should end. But I definitely long to die.
@Son_of_Imoen , I feel exactly the same way. I don't have anything left to live for since my family all died a few years ago. My health is in decline, working is getting harder and harder, even part time, and I don't have enough money to retire.
I'm not going to hurt myself, though, and I hope you won't either. When we share depression this deep with others, it can create a sense in those people that they need to make sure a suicide intervention isn't needed. Although, there's not really much anybody here on the forum can do even if someone did say they were thinking about it.
I don't often tell people about my death wish, because they don't know what to say. The usual response is for people to try to talk me out of it. I told one close friend about it recently. She's my best friend's mother, and she's 72, so she was a little more sympathetic to my feelings than most younger people would be. I wouldn't tell my best friend about it, because he just fought his way back from kidney and brain cancer that was supposed to be fatal, and he has a strong desire to live, so I wouldn't expose him to any negativity from me. (But if what happened to him had happened to me, I would have been glad about it, and I would have refused all but palliative and hospice treatment.)
I'm only 50, and I'm already sick and tired of everything in life, except reading forums and playing games, and I can see a time coming where even that loses its pleasure, especially since my health is in decline, and I can expect to get sicker and sicker and have more and more pain over the next years.
Many people who are more vital than I am get really angry if I tell them how I really feel, so I try to be careful who I talk to about it. I don't think I've expressed it to anyone except that 72 year old friend, actually, and that was after I heard her hint at some similar feelings of her own.
I want to get as much pleasure out of what life I have left as I can before my health collapses completely, or my money runs out. When I say I want to die, I mean I would be all for it if I went to sleep tonight and never woke up. It would be so nice to be able to stop worrying. My dream is to die quietly in my sleep with a minimum of suffering. There's a chance I could get my wish, because my heart is getting weak. But there's also a chance of things worse than death happening, such as debilitating stroke.
So anyway, I know how you feel about death seeming like a release, and something to be actively wished for. Sometimes, it makes me feel better to just admit it in an environment where I hopefully won't be judged harshly for my honesty, and I hope it made you feel better too to just say it. Life is not glorious. Life is suffering. I used to be a Garrick, but life has kind of turned me into a Xan, I'm afraid.
I usually do my best to fake cheerfulness and enthusiasm for the sake of others, though. I don't see any sense in deliberately bringing others down, and I might as well put forth what little energy I can to still do some good in the world with what time I have left.
@Son_of_Imoen: You can do things to fight injustice and to ease others' suffering. You're one of the good ones, and we need you here. If you're not actively doing something to help others right now, please find something. You've made several comments to indicate that you're driven by overwhelming empathy, and I'm sure there are ways to channel that drive that will leave you feeling a bit less helpless.
@BelgarathMTH: You need to talk about this with a mental health professional. Life, including your life, can be better than this, and there are people who specialize in helping you get there. Please reach out to one of them.
If anyone is depressed, there's a video series by LittleKuriboh called "We're Still Here" that might help. It's basically a personal documentation of his experiences with depression and how it's affected his life. He starts a video first by sharing something that makes him happy, and then goes on to talk about one aspect of depression that he struggles with.
It's honest, emotional, and sometimes very hard to watch. But many people have come to him and said that just watching this series has helped them through their day. I hope it helps here too.
To both @Son_of_Imoen and @BelgarathMTH Depression (major depressive disorder) is in fact a mental disorder, so I would strongly advise you to seek professional help by either psychiatrist or psychologist. Maybe both. There is nothing wrong in seeking help when you need it.
I don't know how old @Son_of_Imoen is, but to @BelgarathMTH I might seem like a brat that knows nothing. But I strongly believe that life has no meaning other than you give it yourself. Meaning, it's up[ to you whether your life has a meaning or not. Surely there is possibility of finding something worthy in one's life and I think that the mood disorder is just preventing from it. The answer would be, as earlier stated, seek professional help.
@BelgarathMTH: I never would have guessed. Normally you're a ray of sunshine on these forums, one of the friendliest folks around here, and you've never come off as depressed.
You might try a shrink. I had great success with one, and I'd be in a much worse place without her. But that only applies if you have a chemical imbalance that medicine can fix; meds only help out those people whose depression is caused by a biological problem.
I'm only 25 myself and know nothing of your situation, but I understand one of the biggest problems with age is not so much the physical problems but the general trend towards isolation. Losing mobility draws you away from your friends and cuts off your access to other people (who are something of a requirement for feeling okay). I'm glad this forum has been a source of happiness for you, but there's no true substitute for direct human contact. Seek it out. I have a big problem with not going out of my way to spend time with people, in person, and I know I feel better when other people are around. A friend of mine is in her 50s and has Crohn's disease among other illnesses, and is beyond dirt poor, but she stays healthy through a strong diet (she's done a lot of research on nutrition) and she stays fairly happy by talking to people in her community.
As long as I'm giving uninformed advice, I'll recommend you try out Undertale, a sweet game that helped me get through some sadness a few weeks back after my dog died in a rather bad way. The Undertale fandom is a little nutty, but the game is very sweet and warm, and radiates love (you could also just watch a pacifist run of the game on Youtube, which has a similar effect). It makes you feel better about the world.
If none of that helps, just be aware that there are people out here who care about you and want you to be as happy as you can be.
You might try a shrink. I had great success with one, and I'd be in a much worse place without her. But that only applies if you have a chemical imbalance that medicine can fix; meds only help out those people whose depression is caused by a biological problem.
The word "shrink" gets used in a couple of different ways. I assume you mean specifically a psychiatrist, because a (good) therapist can address a broader range of problems.
I liked your post @BelgarathMTH, not because I like you being down, but because I'm glad to find someone feeling the same way. It feels good to share such feelings on a forum and knowing you're not the only one.
As for mental health care and psychiatrists: I sought help when I was 25 and was totally desperate. I'm in mental health care ever since. Things would have been worse without, but mental health care is no cure all - end all, like I naively thought when I sought help. Severe mental health disorders don't disappear, you only can learn to live with it. Being on medication helps a bit, as well as the experience knowledge you gather about yourself and by sharing experiences with peers.
As for actively doing something to help others, like @joluv suggested, it's a valid suggestion as well and have been doing so for over 10 years now. I work as a volunteer for an organisation that steps up for the interests of people who are mentally vulnerable, as I like to call it (don't know if the meaning survives translation though, as I am not talking about people with low IQ and learning problems, but about people with disorders like depression, schizophrenia, autism etc.). Working there and knowing I do something good, is one of the things that keeps me alive.
What keeps me alive as well though, is being a coward. I'm afraid to hurt myself physically for fear of being of worse after an attempt, for fear of the physical pain, for fear of surviving an attempt with a disabled body. But even more, I fear to hurt my loved ones, my parents, my friends and colleagues, my sister, brother, brother-in-law, the little nephews and nieces. I lack the courage to kill myself, yet strangely, daily I find courage to get out of bed and after taking an hour or two of getting used to the day, find courage to go wash myself and get dressed, rest from that activity, then find courage to do things like work, groceries etc.
As for things that are good in life, my work is, the judgement I'm unfit for paid work is (I couldn't deal with the stress of being paid for a job with all the obligations it gives, volunteers work is hard enough as it is with continually needing to rein myself in, for if I don't, I work myself into a burnout for not stopping until the whole world is just - but I'd have a mental breakdown long before that ever could happen), the disability benefit is a good thing, the medicines that keep me relatively stable, the household help I have because of my disability (even ordinary things like cleaning the house are a task that make me cry from exhaustion and panic if I wouldn't get help with it, ever since I switched my one-chamber house for a multi-chamber house). Speaking of which, my house is nice: one living room, a large bedroom, a kitchen, garden in the front and in the back, lots of light.
So yes, there's also good things and I feel better now work is done, weekend has started and I can relax. But now and then I need to vent and life was very busy last weekend, on a camping site with the whole family, all descendants from my granddad. I'm lucky enough to have a family, but boy, the hectic of having them all around - and the little children as well - I was exhausted after being there for one day, but lacked enough energy to pack my tent, so I stayed for one more night to pack up my stuff in the morning. And ever since (for four days) I have been recovering. And when I'm tired, well, I feel very down.
Made a bicycle ride this evening, as a physical exercise at the start of the weekend, as going out for some exercise is part of my Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), as well as the crisis prevention plan I wrote as part of my treatment. Feeling a bit better now. Don't panic, I won't leave this forum. Thank you all if you have the patience to have read this far and thank you all for your kind words. I'm 90% Xan, and 10% Branwen.
Hey there, I'm back again. And just so you know, I got quite a lot of things to whine about. So if you'll excuse me... Yeah, I may sound pathetic, but it's not like I can talk about these issues with anyone else, so I figured I'd just write them down. Be forewarned, this post may be very similar to the ones I posted earlier in this topic, which probably adds to me being a whiny little cunt, I guess. Apologies in advance.
Warning: heh, you should know me by now. Huge wall of text coming up! Please don't read it if you don't feel like it, I honestly don't want to bother anyone with it. I just want to vent a little.
1) My studies. I'm currently in my last year. Actually about to graduate. 'Hey, that's great!', you may be thinking. Well, it should be. But somehow it doesn't feel that way. First of all because I have the feeling that I didn't learn anything really useful these past four years, or at least anything noteworthy enough to really remember. Secondly because I feel unprepared, that I didn't get taught the skills I will need for my future job well enough. It was all so vague. Many teachers didn't care. Some classes were more about teachers whining about personal issues in their life and telling us big boo-boo scary stories of any issues we might encounter in our future job. Examples: Underpaid work. Tight deadlines. Working through weekends. Nasty customers. Some language combinations being useless because there was no work available for them in my country. And so on. It doesn't make you look forward to life after graduating. And it certainly didn't for me, as I'm a big worry-head. I think that the past couple of months I only had one course which really interested me, just because the teacher was so invested in it and was able to catch our interest. The others were pretty meh. Most of the time I sat home twiddling my thumbs. I know, I could have spent that time way better on something useful such as a student job. But...my drive and passion have been plummeting the past years. People don't seem to care or take anything seriously anymore nowadays. Nobody seems passionate anymore nowadays. I notice it in my personal environment. People constantly complaining. It drags you down. Anyway, last reason for this particular issue: my brother, who finished highschool but doesn't as so much have a diploma of higher studies, recently got a job with a pay which is better than average. It feels unfair because he never was a great student. He partied during most of his studies and hurt my parents a lot with his arrogant attitude. He had lots of arguments with them. My parents even let him live in an appartment they own, but he just doesn't deserve it. He didn't even bother to keep the place clean most of the time. Lots of fuss. I have been studying for years now. I almost got a diploma. But why go through the trouble of getting one when you can get a job without one just as well? I feel like the past years have been a waste of time. They brought me much misery as well. Mainly related to my family, which will be the next issue.
2) My family. Hah, I may have spoken about them before. And I'll be honest: nothing's changed since then. Since they refuse to pay for a separate place for me and I can't move out myself because they would come after me and drag me back home, I'm stuck at home. What's more: I have the role of being the general scapegoat. That includes having to listen to other people's misery and pretending to be sympathetic with them, because otherwise you get yelled and scoffed at. It also includes helping people who said nasty things to you the night before, or who even threw things at you or hit you physically. Oh, and you're even expected to apologize to them and agree with whatever 'solution' they come up with for your problems, or you're in for a world of hurt. Because your own opinions is rarely listened to, or even considered. No, you will follow THEIR opinion, and apply THEIR solution. You think you can start thinking for yourself, kid? Hah, wrong alley. You're reduced to a puppet on strings who's supposed to just work to give them a good impression of who you are. That's basically all we talk about: studies and work. I get home and am expected to work. I get up and am expected to work all day. Games are for kids. My comic collection is childish. And I should really throw out all of my plushies and little random things people I care about gave to me over the years. I should 'grow up', afterall. My interests don't seem to matter. I get to hear my desk is a mess, when it really, objectively isn't. Personal issues never get talked about, because then there's an awkward silence, and we don't want that, right. I have some very painful memories of them lacking empathy. Once I got a cushion thrown at me for passing by the TV screen. I got called an idiot a couple of times too. I got called the core of all problems in the family. I got a mop thrown at my back. I was the reason my father couldn't retire because I was still studying. Every time my mom would offer me a ride to the tram station, she would usually use it against me in the next argument. Whenever I would help either her or my sister with some assignment, it would backfire in a quarrel. I try to be the reasonable one at home. I try to stay patient whenever my parents fight over some stupid little thing. I try. So. Hard. Sometimes I explode. Sometimes I hit back. And every morning I wake up with an immense feeling of guilt and a huge hole in my heart. Because I am stuck with people I cannot associate with anymore. Whom I can't ask for the littlest favour, for they will get annoyed or it will hit me in the back like a dagger. Can't make the smallest noise at night, for it will wake up my precious sister, the little princess of the family. That includes going to the toilet. Little things slowly filling up that patience bar until I finally blow it and am expected to politely say 'sorry' afterwards while never getting a sorry or as much of an understanding nod in return. But hey, just a couple of months and maybe I won't have to see them again. It might sound awful to you, but it would be a huge relief to me.
3) Society. This is a tricky one. When I look around in society, I somehow feel that tensions are rising. People generally ignore each other, and that's fine, but as off recently I can feel some hostility going on as well. People don't seem to care about each other anymore. And when I talk with people I know, 80% of the time I get to hear nothing but complaints. It makes it difficult for me to stay positive and enjoy my day, because unconsciously, I soak in all of those worries and add them to my own. My head's buzzing with worries and negative thoughts. I go to sleep with them. I wake up with them. I never have some peace and quiet in my head. Politicians just seem to quarrel over little stupid things instead of taking decisions the people actually crave. Recently our national and most important airport in Brussels got hit by a terrorist attack. There were the attacks in France too. But nothing is being done about it. I can tell you now: two weeks after the Brussels Airport attack, the newspapers just suddenly stopped reporting about it. It wasn't anywhere in the media anymore. It lost its spicy juice, I guess. But in the meantime there's still lots of families torn apart, mourning. Did we take any significant security measures after that? None that I know of. Oh yes, we added some additional scanners, only leading to a bottleneck queue which is even easier for any potential terrorists to target. We have issues with radical extremists, but oh my, let's not actually bring that specific issue up, because it may hurt their feelings, it's probably the fault of the angry, privileged white people and we're not throwing enough money at it to actually solve anything. And that while such people are living in one of the most free countries in the world and getting way more opportunities than they might ever get in their country of origin. And while we're tossing incredible amounts of money at Merkel's latest fuck-up, we've got incredible savings on homes for the elderly. People who actually worked all their life and added to our society. My own grandmother with dementia is one of the few lucky ones, because my grandfather has the fortune of being in good health and can still afford the outrageous cost of her being taken care of daily. But I imagine that isn't the case for a lot of other people out there. And in the meantime we tolerate cars being burnt down and molotov cocktails being thrown at our police officers by dissatisfied ethnic minority youth who, despite being granted all the opportunities they could wish for, feel discriminated against. I know this particular issue is much larger and much more problematic than I make it seem, I am aware of that, but it certainly doesn't add to a positive view on the world.
In a week I got my final exam period. I honestly don't know whether I'll make it. I've been feeling depressed and it's getting progressively worse. Some nights I am unable to catch any sleep at all. I don't have anyone to talk to, and I'm not even sure I would find the right words to communicate my problems to them anyway. It's putting a strain on my long distance relationship as well. I'm not sure about anything anymore. It feels like every day just a little more crap is added to the pile of worries I'm carrying on my back. It feels suffocating. Sometimes I wish to just die in my sleep, because I'm too much of a coward to actually harm myself. It seems life is just about hopping from one problem to the other. It's draining me of all my energy.
Thanks for reading this huge rant. I'm sorry it had to come to this huge block of text, but I appreciate your attention nonetheless. Thank you.
@Yulaw9460: Aw man, that's rough. Honestly, though, it sounds like she was put in a difficult position. Short of reciprocating your feelings, how do you think she should have handled the situation?
Edit: In trying hard to be gentle, I think I overshot my target. This is a really awful thing to say: "it's going to be a while before I start to see women as anything else than annoying obstacles in my life." That was the wrong conclusion to draw from your experience.
@Yulaw9460: It has been said that "It's 90% her and 10% you." Whatever the problem was, it's probably not something you could have changed.
We really can't rely on any one person for our happiness. If we base all of our hopes on the decision of a single person, we become their slave. And it was never their decision to make that happen; it was our decision to become dependent. They have no responsibility to catch us when we fall, and even if they did have that responsibility, would it be wise to rely on them?
I think breaking away from this was the right choice for you. Even if you accepted her when she contacted you, and you got together, I get the feeling that the relationship would be unstable, unequal, and toxic beneath the surface. I don't think you would have been happy.
You'll be healthier in the long run with a little time on your own. Just don't let that bitterness stick with you, because people can smell bitterness a mile away. And not just potential mates, but even casual friends and acquaintances, and those relationships are going to be even more important in the coming months. Banish this mess from your memory. Purge it from your life story. It's not a life lesson and it's not a valuable learning experience--it's just an ugly thought that will make you sick.
And bear in mind that that's not going to be your future.
The reality of the matter is that women, like men, really do place a tremendous amount of emphasis on their partners being decent human beings. @Buttercheese has pointed out that the "bad boy" thing is mostly a fantasy; women in real life go after good guys. I've heard much the same from most of the women in my life. After all, would you want to be with a woman who wasn't a decent human being? Isn't that the absolute minimum you would ever accept?
My cousin grew up in a bad household and she spent many years in abusive relationships. Eventually her family convinced her to escape. Later she met this new guy who was really sweet to her. He was her best friend. And for a while, she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be with him, because she wasn't attracted to him (despite the guy being actually pretty darn handsome).
One of us pointed out that the guy she was talking about--who made her laugh, who made her smile, who helped calm her anxieties, who was her best friend--that's the kind of guy you marry.
Which she did. They have three babies now, and they're happy and successful. He's a great father and he fits right in with the family. He's her "rock star," to quote her wedding vows.
What happened to her old boyfriend? He's probably the same loser he always was. Still dirt poor. Still unhappy. Still abusive to anyone in his life who hasn't realized he's just a parasite. Maybe he's in prison. The funny thing about assholes is that they usually make their own lives a lot worse than they make ours.
My cousin is with a far superior man now. He's good to her and he's good to the kids. He makes good money, too, because he chose a more lucrative career to better support his new family. My cousin is happy with the man she chose. She always will be.
Nice guys finish last in the sense that women stick with them. Assholes try harder to meet women, but their relationships are unpleasant and short because people don't want to stay with them. Good guys have better and longer relationships (probably because they don't have to try as hard to avoid dying alone). Some women go after the bad boy type in their youth, but they usually grow out of it when they actually have to deal with bad boys in person, and see that they can have something better.
I can't think of any woman in my life who dated a bad boy and actually stayed with him. Take heart in the fact that your lost love went after assholes and found them insufficient.
With all that said, I would recommend reaching out to her just once more. The best way to resolve these situations--even if you're agreeing to sever contact and never speak again--is to end it on a positive note, or at least as positive as it can be. And it seems like this ended on a very bitter note, which can't be good for either of you. Contact her and say goodbye one more time. It can't very well hurt, and it will probably make it easier to move on.
But more than anything else, refuse to allow this to poison your life. Refuse to let it control you. Hold onto that goodness that people have praised in you, because finding love would be a LOT harder without it.
And remember that getting a "yes" from somebody you're interested in dating is only a tiny part of the equation here, even if it seems like the first, biggest, or only step. The important thing is to form the strongest relationships you can with everyone in your life, your friends and family. They're the ones who will keep you afloat when things are at their worst. And they'll probably be the ones to introduce you to the woman who will say "yes." That's how most people find love; they don't bump into their future spouses in a bar somewhere. Their other relationships link them together.
The goodness in you won't get you laid every night. But if you want to be with someone, and you want them to stay with you--in a word, if you want to be happy in the long run--you absolutely have to have it. Hold onto that love. Don't ever let it go.
Underneath all the other nonsense, that's what people really want from each other.
On an unrelated note, my dad broke 7 ribs and can't go to work for a month, which he hates. He damaged his kidney, too, and some other stuff as well. But at least he gets to spend some more time with the family that loves him so much.
I'm clicking "insightful" on most of these posts to show support, because "like" and "agree" don't seem right. What, I "like" that you're sad or angry or depressed? No.
"Insightful" seems best. When one vents to friends, one is looking inward before an audience of listeners or readers. So, that's what "insightful" means literally, I guess.
I'm terrible at giving advice, so I usually don't try to do so. I think @semiticgod seems to be doing a pretty good job giving helpful and encouraging feedback, though.
On an unrelated note: I did, however, lash in a job. That ought to serve as a decent plus in the books.
Good for you! I read about your troubles and I am sorry that things happened as they did, but hopefully this will help make a new start.
I am looking for something better now myself on the job front, unfortunately my current employer continually values things over the people who run the things. We had a SAN crash a couple weeks ago that took out most of our core infrastructure systems and several of us worked a 24 hour day to get most systems back up, still trying to recover some systems even now, and I hoped they would learn the proper lesson "Good people will save your ass when systems fail" and hire more people to maintain an infrastructure which has grown from 320 systems to almost 1000 in 5 years, but noooo... We had a hour long meeting with the boss on Friday which basically boiled down to "The CIO is watching so don't do dumb stuff that makes us look bad. Oh we are taking on two more big systems. No more people. And the beatings will continue until morale improves." They didn't even offer a day off, I had to ask for it. They will spend 500K on some hardware or software we don't really need (with 100K ANNUAL support costs) but won't spend 50K to hire someone to operate and maintain it. FML...
Comments
Like O_Bruce said, it sounds like phobia and phobia can be curable - my advice is at least give yourself a chance to be cured of it, or learn to deal with it, by seeking professional help (here in the Netherlands, access to mental health care follows the route of first needing to talk to your home physician about it, but where you live, just orientate yourself on how help should be sought to get it covered by insurance and seek help - and don't feel bad about seeking help - having a phobia is a perfectly normal thing, I don't know the number, but it's neither uncommon nor strange nor something to be ashamed of).
I'm not going to hurt myself, though, and I hope you won't either. When we share depression this deep with others, it can create a sense in those people that they need to make sure a suicide intervention isn't needed. Although, there's not really much anybody here on the forum can do even if someone did say they were thinking about it.
I don't often tell people about my death wish, because they don't know what to say. The usual response is for people to try to talk me out of it. I told one close friend about it recently. She's my best friend's mother, and she's 72, so she was a little more sympathetic to my feelings than most younger people would be. I wouldn't tell my best friend about it, because he just fought his way back from kidney and brain cancer that was supposed to be fatal, and he has a strong desire to live, so I wouldn't expose him to any negativity from me. (But if what happened to him had happened to me, I would have been glad about it, and I would have refused all but palliative and hospice treatment.)
I'm only 50, and I'm already sick and tired of everything in life, except reading forums and playing games, and I can see a time coming where even that loses its pleasure, especially since my health is in decline, and I can expect to get sicker and sicker and have more and more pain over the next years.
Many people who are more vital than I am get really angry if I tell them how I really feel, so I try to be careful who I talk to about it. I don't think I've expressed it to anyone except that 72 year old friend, actually, and that was after I heard her hint at some similar feelings of her own.
I want to get as much pleasure out of what life I have left as I can before my health collapses completely, or my money runs out. When I say I want to die, I mean I would be all for it if I went to sleep tonight and never woke up. It would be so nice to be able to stop worrying. My dream is to die quietly in my sleep with a minimum of suffering. There's a chance I could get my wish, because my heart is getting weak. But there's also a chance of things worse than death happening, such as debilitating stroke.
So anyway, I know how you feel about death seeming like a release, and something to be actively wished for. Sometimes, it makes me feel better to just admit it in an environment where I hopefully won't be judged harshly for my honesty, and I hope it made you feel better too to just say it. Life is not glorious. Life is suffering. I used to be a Garrick, but life has kind of turned me into a Xan, I'm afraid.
I usually do my best to fake cheerfulness and enthusiasm for the sake of others, though. I don't see any sense in deliberately bringing others down, and I might as well put forth what little energy I can to still do some good in the world with what time I have left.
@BelgarathMTH: You need to talk about this with a mental health professional. Life, including your life, can be better than this, and there are people who specialize in helping you get there. Please reach out to one of them.
It's honest, emotional, and sometimes very hard to watch. But many people have come to him and said that just watching this series has helped them through their day. I hope it helps here too.
Depression (major depressive disorder) is in fact a mental disorder, so I would strongly advise you to seek professional help by either psychiatrist or psychologist. Maybe both. There is nothing wrong in seeking help when you need it.
I don't know how old @Son_of_Imoen is, but to @BelgarathMTH I might seem like a brat that knows nothing. But I strongly believe that life has no meaning other than you give it yourself. Meaning, it's up[ to you whether your life has a meaning or not. Surely there is possibility of finding something worthy in one's life and I think that the mood disorder is just preventing from it. The answer would be, as earlier stated, seek professional help.
You might try a shrink. I had great success with one, and I'd be in a much worse place without her. But that only applies if you have a chemical imbalance that medicine can fix; meds only help out those people whose depression is caused by a biological problem.
I'm only 25 myself and know nothing of your situation, but I understand one of the biggest problems with age is not so much the physical problems but the general trend towards isolation. Losing mobility draws you away from your friends and cuts off your access to other people (who are something of a requirement for feeling okay). I'm glad this forum has been a source of happiness for you, but there's no true substitute for direct human contact. Seek it out. I have a big problem with not going out of my way to spend time with people, in person, and I know I feel better when other people are around. A friend of mine is in her 50s and has Crohn's disease among other illnesses, and is beyond dirt poor, but she stays healthy through a strong diet (she's done a lot of research on nutrition) and she stays fairly happy by talking to people in her community.
As long as I'm giving uninformed advice, I'll recommend you try out Undertale, a sweet game that helped me get through some sadness a few weeks back after my dog died in a rather bad way. The Undertale fandom is a little nutty, but the game is very sweet and warm, and radiates love (you could also just watch a pacifist run of the game on Youtube, which has a similar effect). It makes you feel better about the world.
If none of that helps, just be aware that there are people out here who care about you and want you to be as happy as you can be.
As for actively doing something to help others, like @joluv suggested, it's a valid suggestion as well and have been doing so for over 10 years now. I work as a volunteer for an organisation that steps up for the interests of people who are mentally vulnerable, as I like to call it (don't know if the meaning survives translation though, as I am not talking about people with low IQ and learning problems, but about people with disorders like depression, schizophrenia, autism etc.). Working there and knowing I do something good, is one of the things that keeps me alive.
What keeps me alive as well though, is being a coward. I'm afraid to hurt myself physically for fear of being of worse after an attempt, for fear of the physical pain, for fear of surviving an attempt with a disabled body. But even more, I fear to hurt my loved ones, my parents, my friends and colleagues, my sister, brother, brother-in-law, the little nephews and nieces. I lack the courage to kill myself, yet strangely, daily I find courage to get out of bed and after taking an hour or two of getting used to the day, find courage to go wash myself and get dressed, rest from that activity, then find courage to do things like work, groceries etc.
As for things that are good in life, my work is, the judgement I'm unfit for paid work is (I couldn't deal with the stress of being paid for a job with all the obligations it gives, volunteers work is hard enough as it is with continually needing to rein myself in, for if I don't, I work myself into a burnout for not stopping until the whole world is just - but I'd have a mental breakdown long before that ever could happen), the disability benefit is a good thing, the medicines that keep me relatively stable, the household help I have because of my disability (even ordinary things like cleaning the house are a task that make me cry from exhaustion and panic if I wouldn't get help with it, ever since I switched my one-chamber house for a multi-chamber house). Speaking of which, my house is nice: one living room, a large bedroom, a kitchen, garden in the front and in the back, lots of light.
So yes, there's also good things and I feel better now work is done, weekend has started and I can relax. But now and then I need to vent and life was very busy last weekend, on a camping site with the whole family, all descendants from my granddad. I'm lucky enough to have a family, but boy, the hectic of having them all around - and the little children as well - I was exhausted after being there for one day, but lacked enough energy to pack my tent, so I stayed for one more night to pack up my stuff in the morning. And ever since (for four days) I have been recovering. And when I'm tired, well, I feel very down.
Made a bicycle ride this evening, as a physical exercise at the start of the weekend, as going out for some exercise is part of my Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), as well as the crisis prevention plan I wrote as part of my treatment. Feeling a bit better now. Don't panic, I won't leave this forum. Thank you all if you have the patience to have read this far and thank you all for your kind words. I'm 90% Xan, and 10% Branwen.
Warning: heh, you should know me by now. Huge wall of text coming up! Please don't read it if you don't feel like it, I honestly don't want to bother anyone with it. I just want to vent a little.
1) My studies. I'm currently in my last year. Actually about to graduate. 'Hey, that's great!', you may be thinking. Well, it should be. But somehow it doesn't feel that way. First of all because I have the feeling that I didn't learn anything really useful these past four years, or at least anything noteworthy enough to really remember. Secondly because I feel unprepared, that I didn't get taught the skills I will need for my future job well enough. It was all so vague. Many teachers didn't care. Some classes were more about teachers whining about personal issues in their life and telling us big boo-boo scary stories of any issues we might encounter in our future job. Examples: Underpaid work. Tight deadlines. Working through weekends. Nasty customers. Some language combinations being useless because there was no work available for them in my country. And so on. It doesn't make you look forward to life after graduating. And it certainly didn't for me, as I'm a big worry-head. I think that the past couple of months I only had one course which really interested me, just because the teacher was so invested in it and was able to catch our interest. The others were pretty meh. Most of the time I sat home twiddling my thumbs. I know, I could have spent that time way better on something useful such as a student job. But...my drive and passion have been plummeting the past years. People don't seem to care or take anything seriously anymore nowadays. Nobody seems passionate anymore nowadays. I notice it in my personal environment. People constantly complaining. It drags you down. Anyway, last reason for this particular issue: my brother, who finished highschool but doesn't as so much have a diploma of higher studies, recently got a job with a pay which is better than average. It feels unfair because he never was a great student. He partied during most of his studies and hurt my parents a lot with his arrogant attitude. He had lots of arguments with them. My parents even let him live in an appartment they own, but he just doesn't deserve it. He didn't even bother to keep the place clean most of the time. Lots of fuss. I have been studying for years now. I almost got a diploma. But why go through the trouble of getting one when you can get a job without one just as well? I feel like the past years have been a waste of time. They brought me much misery as well. Mainly related to my family, which will be the next issue.
2) My family. Hah, I may have spoken about them before. And I'll be honest: nothing's changed since then. Since they refuse to pay for a separate place for me and I can't move out myself because they would come after me and drag me back home, I'm stuck at home. What's more: I have the role of being the general scapegoat. That includes having to listen to other people's misery and pretending to be sympathetic with them, because otherwise you get yelled and scoffed at. It also includes helping people who said nasty things to you the night before, or who even threw things at you or hit you physically. Oh, and you're even expected to apologize to them and agree with whatever 'solution' they come up with for your problems, or you're in for a world of hurt. Because your own opinions is rarely listened to, or even considered. No, you will follow THEIR opinion, and apply THEIR solution. You think you can start thinking for yourself, kid? Hah, wrong alley. You're reduced to a puppet on strings who's supposed to just work to give them a good impression of who you are. That's basically all we talk about: studies and work. I get home and am expected to work. I get up and am expected to work all day. Games are for kids. My comic collection is childish. And I should really throw out all of my plushies and little random things people I care about gave to me over the years. I should 'grow up', afterall. My interests don't seem to matter. I get to hear my desk is a mess, when it really, objectively isn't. Personal issues never get talked about, because then there's an awkward silence, and we don't want that, right. I have some very painful memories of them lacking empathy. Once I got a cushion thrown at me for passing by the TV screen. I got called an idiot a couple of times too. I got called the core of all problems in the family. I got a mop thrown at my back. I was the reason my father couldn't retire because I was still studying. Every time my mom would offer me a ride to the tram station, she would usually use it against me in the next argument. Whenever I would help either her or my sister with some assignment, it would backfire in a quarrel. I try to be the reasonable one at home. I try to stay patient whenever my parents fight over some stupid little thing. I try. So. Hard. Sometimes I explode. Sometimes I hit back. And every morning I wake up with an immense feeling of guilt and a huge hole in my heart. Because I am stuck with people I cannot associate with anymore. Whom I can't ask for the littlest favour, for they will get annoyed or it will hit me in the back like a dagger. Can't make the smallest noise at night, for it will wake up my precious sister, the little princess of the family. That includes going to the toilet. Little things slowly filling up that patience bar until I finally blow it and am expected to politely say 'sorry' afterwards while never getting a sorry or as much of an understanding nod in return. But hey, just a couple of months and maybe I won't have to see them again. It might sound awful to you, but it would be a huge relief to me.
3) Society. This is a tricky one. When I look around in society, I somehow feel that tensions are rising. People generally ignore each other, and that's fine, but as off recently I can feel some hostility going on as well. People don't seem to care about each other anymore. And when I talk with people I know, 80% of the time I get to hear nothing but complaints. It makes it difficult for me to stay positive and enjoy my day, because unconsciously, I soak in all of those worries and add them to my own. My head's buzzing with worries and negative thoughts. I go to sleep with them. I wake up with them. I never have some peace and quiet in my head. Politicians just seem to quarrel over little stupid things instead of taking decisions the people actually crave. Recently our national and most important airport in Brussels got hit by a terrorist attack. There were the attacks in France too. But nothing is being done about it. I can tell you now: two weeks after the Brussels Airport attack, the newspapers just suddenly stopped reporting about it. It wasn't anywhere in the media anymore. It lost its spicy juice, I guess. But in the meantime there's still lots of families torn apart, mourning. Did we take any significant security measures after that? None that I know of. Oh yes, we added some additional scanners, only leading to a bottleneck queue which is even easier for any potential terrorists to target. We have issues with radical extremists, but oh my, let's not actually bring that specific issue up, because it may hurt their feelings, it's probably the fault of the angry, privileged white people and we're not throwing enough money at it to actually solve anything. And that while such people are living in one of the most free countries in the world and getting way more opportunities than they might ever get in their country of origin. And while we're tossing incredible amounts of money at Merkel's latest fuck-up, we've got incredible savings on homes for the elderly. People who actually worked all their life and added to our society. My own grandmother with dementia is one of the few lucky ones, because my grandfather has the fortune of being in good health and can still afford the outrageous cost of her being taken care of daily. But I imagine that isn't the case for a lot of other people out there. And in the meantime we tolerate cars being burnt down and molotov cocktails being thrown at our police officers by dissatisfied ethnic minority youth who, despite being granted all the opportunities they could wish for, feel discriminated against. I know this particular issue is much larger and much more problematic than I make it seem, I am aware of that, but it certainly doesn't add to a positive view on the world.
In a week I got my final exam period. I honestly don't know whether I'll make it. I've been feeling depressed and it's getting progressively worse. Some nights I am unable to catch any sleep at all. I don't have anyone to talk to, and I'm not even sure I would find the right words to communicate my problems to them anyway. It's putting a strain on my long distance relationship as well. I'm not sure about anything anymore. It feels like every day just a little more crap is added to the pile of worries I'm carrying on my back. It feels suffocating. Sometimes I wish to just die in my sleep, because I'm too much of a coward to actually harm myself. It seems life is just about hopping from one problem to the other. It's draining me of all my energy.
Thanks for reading this huge rant. I'm sorry it had to come to this huge block of text, but I appreciate your attention nonetheless. Thank you.
Edit: In trying hard to be gentle, I think I overshot my target. This is a really awful thing to say: "it's going to be a while before I start to see women as anything else than annoying obstacles in my life." That was the wrong conclusion to draw from your experience.
We really can't rely on any one person for our happiness. If we base all of our hopes on the decision of a single person, we become their slave. And it was never their decision to make that happen; it was our decision to become dependent. They have no responsibility to catch us when we fall, and even if they did have that responsibility, would it be wise to rely on them?
I think breaking away from this was the right choice for you. Even if you accepted her when she contacted you, and you got together, I get the feeling that the relationship would be unstable, unequal, and toxic beneath the surface. I don't think you would have been happy.
You'll be healthier in the long run with a little time on your own. Just don't let that bitterness stick with you, because people can smell bitterness a mile away. And not just potential mates, but even casual friends and acquaintances, and those relationships are going to be even more important in the coming months. Banish this mess from your memory. Purge it from your life story. It's not a life lesson and it's not a valuable learning experience--it's just an ugly thought that will make you sick.
And bear in mind that that's not going to be your future.
The reality of the matter is that women, like men, really do place a tremendous amount of emphasis on their partners being decent human beings. @Buttercheese has pointed out that the "bad boy" thing is mostly a fantasy; women in real life go after good guys. I've heard much the same from most of the women in my life. After all, would you want to be with a woman who wasn't a decent human being? Isn't that the absolute minimum you would ever accept?
My cousin grew up in a bad household and she spent many years in abusive relationships. Eventually her family convinced her to escape. Later she met this new guy who was really sweet to her. He was her best friend. And for a while, she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be with him, because she wasn't attracted to him (despite the guy being actually pretty darn handsome).
One of us pointed out that the guy she was talking about--who made her laugh, who made her smile, who helped calm her anxieties, who was her best friend--that's the kind of guy you marry.
Which she did. They have three babies now, and they're happy and successful. He's a great father and he fits right in with the family. He's her "rock star," to quote her wedding vows.
What happened to her old boyfriend? He's probably the same loser he always was. Still dirt poor. Still unhappy. Still abusive to anyone in his life who hasn't realized he's just a parasite. Maybe he's in prison. The funny thing about assholes is that they usually make their own lives a lot worse than they make ours.
My cousin is with a far superior man now. He's good to her and he's good to the kids. He makes good money, too, because he chose a more lucrative career to better support his new family. My cousin is happy with the man she chose. She always will be.
Nice guys finish last in the sense that women stick with them. Assholes try harder to meet women, but their relationships are unpleasant and short because people don't want to stay with them. Good guys have better and longer relationships (probably because they don't have to try as hard to avoid dying alone). Some women go after the bad boy type in their youth, but they usually grow out of it when they actually have to deal with bad boys in person, and see that they can have something better.
I can't think of any woman in my life who dated a bad boy and actually stayed with him. Take heart in the fact that your lost love went after assholes and found them insufficient.
With all that said, I would recommend reaching out to her just once more. The best way to resolve these situations--even if you're agreeing to sever contact and never speak again--is to end it on a positive note, or at least as positive as it can be. And it seems like this ended on a very bitter note, which can't be good for either of you. Contact her and say goodbye one more time. It can't very well hurt, and it will probably make it easier to move on.
But more than anything else, refuse to allow this to poison your life. Refuse to let it control you. Hold onto that goodness that people have praised in you, because finding love would be a LOT harder without it.
And remember that getting a "yes" from somebody you're interested in dating is only a tiny part of the equation here, even if it seems like the first, biggest, or only step. The important thing is to form the strongest relationships you can with everyone in your life, your friends and family. They're the ones who will keep you afloat when things are at their worst. And they'll probably be the ones to introduce you to the woman who will say "yes." That's how most people find love; they don't bump into their future spouses in a bar somewhere. Their other relationships link them together.
The goodness in you won't get you laid every night. But if you want to be with someone, and you want them to stay with you--in a word, if you want to be happy in the long run--you absolutely have to have it. Hold onto that love. Don't ever let it go.
Underneath all the other nonsense, that's what people really want from each other.
"Insightful" seems best. When one vents to friends, one is looking inward before an audience of listeners or readers. So, that's what "insightful" means literally, I guess.
I'm terrible at giving advice, so I usually don't try to do so. I think @semiticgod seems to be doing a pretty good job giving helpful and encouraging feedback, though.
I am looking for something better now myself on the job front, unfortunately my current employer continually values things over the people who run the things. We had a SAN crash a couple weeks ago that took out most of our core infrastructure systems and several of us worked a 24 hour day to get most systems back up, still trying to recover some systems even now, and I hoped they would learn the proper lesson "Good people will save your ass when systems fail" and hire more people to maintain an infrastructure which has grown from 320 systems to almost 1000 in 5 years, but noooo...
We had a hour long meeting with the boss on Friday which basically boiled down to "The CIO is watching so don't do dumb stuff that makes us look bad. Oh we are taking on two more big systems. No more people. And the beatings will continue until morale improves." They didn't even offer a day off, I had to ask for it.
They will spend 500K on some hardware or software we don't really need (with 100K ANNUAL support costs) but won't spend 50K to hire someone to operate and maintain it. FML...