I feel like I have no more life left to bother living for.
I am 40 years and divorced for over a year. Â I have two boys that I had no choice but to let them live with their mother — thanks to the state since fathers have no rights.
Otherwise I have nothing to complain about. Â I have a great job, have enough money even after the ridiculous amount of child support I pay, I live in a nice house way too big for one person, I am educated with a Masters degree, and have some friends. Â I gained a lot of weight due to medical issues and spousal mental abuse but since living alone lost over 40 pounds and will continue to lose another 30 pounds getting me to no longer be over weight. Â I have a life coach I talk to every other week who keeps me doing the next step in things. Â I have started seeing a psychatrist and prescribed Welbutin for over two months now. Â I have been traveling internationally to Europe and Asia on business and even took my boys to Disney World. Â I have been dating and having “fun”.
So after all that, why is it that I find no enjoyment in anything, have no interest in doing anything, just feel like I go through the motions, I hate working and have no motivation to do anything and just want to go home.  But when I am home I don’t want to do anything and just cry all day and I don’t even know for what — just do.  I have been dating but don’t even feel like dealing with a relationship because everyone is such high maintenance and annoying to me.  But at the same time I am very lonely living alone after having a family for ten years.  I have been doing the things I need to but nothing seems to work.  There is nothing I really feel like doing  or looking forward to or enjoy.  The only time I am not sad or bored is if I am sleeping.
I don’t want to die but I am so tired of feeling horrible. Â I don’t feel like there is anything else I could possibly do to make it better — I did it all already! Â Sleeping is the only thing that seems to work.
I haven’t done anything stupid yet, but every day I feel like I am on the edge of doing something that could damage my career, family, friends, or my life. Â I feel like I am just inch from no longer able to appear ok and go through the motions of life anymore.
I don’t know what else to do other than go to sleep now.
12 comments
Hey man, I think there are a lot of people here who have felt the way you’re feeling. No doubt, you’ve been through hell. It really sucks when you lay out plans that you feel are going to work out and you end up shipwrecked.
Not even four weeks ago I was on the Great Wall of China — and almost just start crying there. It wasn’t that I was in awe or amazement, I was completely underwhelmed and lonely. I don’t know what else I could possibly do feel good about anything. The only reason I continue to go through the motions of life is because I can’t imagine how terrible my boys would feel if I were gone. Just makes me cry more.
I know what you have said about a relationship, but if you had a good woman by your side would that make a difference?
Cheers
verysad – I don’t know. I guess I can continue the motions and try that. But dating at 40 is a horrible experience and I feel like I won’t be able to attract a good woman when I don’t even like being alive. I will only find another needy person like me and it probably won’t be very healthy. But I am still trying to date and deal with constantly putting self out there to be rejected. LIfe just gets better.
The reason Im on here is I’m 44 and broke up with my girlfriend 3 months ago and was severely depressed. I thought the same to old to be dating and all that other stuff. I have met a few girls and the one Ive just started chatting with is 33.she likes older men,and that is ok with me. I felt the same way being depressed will not work when meeting knew people. it didn’t work for a few dates but I didn’t like those girls anyway so I didn’t care. But when you meet someone upbeat and happy it helps lifts your spirit and reminds you life can go on and you can be happy
bc2200 – I just came across this site and decided to register after reading your post.
I’m in such a similar boat – 26 years old, educated, in an extremely good career… I have a large house with all of the bachelor amenities one could ask for. I date a lot, but never feeling like I can connect with any of them.
A couple of years ago, my girlfriend and I broke up. I’ve had some since then and before her, but she was ‘the one.’ Ever since the breakup I haven’t been myself, nothing’s been fun except working extremely hard, sleeping, and otherwise escaping form my life (in the form of video games, working out, or promiscuity). People say these things are good, but to me it’s just another form of escapism.
I don’t know what it is, if it’s her fault, mine, or just a culmination of years of depression – which I first realized I was at least slightly depressed in high school, then in the military when I left home and it seemed like noone noticed that I was gone. In college it wasn’t so bad because I had her, but she’s been gone and I’ve been… down. At least you have kids, a reason to keep living, people that will love you basically no matter what and will need you to be there always.
Your way of life, who you have been, is completely spent, no matter how much you wiggle inside the cage it’s not going to make you any happier.
Just think about what you yourself write for a minute:
“Otherwise I have nothing to complain about. I have a great job, have enough money even after the ridiculous amount of child support I pay, I live in a nice house way too big for one person, I am educated with a Masters degree, and have some friends.(…) I have been traveling internationally to Europe and Asia on business and even took my boys to Disney World. I have been dating and having “funâ€.”
You seem to imply all of those are “objective” components of “success” and happiness. Doesn’t look like it from where you stand, does it? Why aren’t you happy if you’ve “got it all”, right?
Seems to me that you, like most people including myself, haven’t truly lived life, you’ve just been going through the scenarios, through chunks of planned time, hoping they would give you happiness as they were “supposed to”. I will study and have a career, that’ll make me happy! I’ll be well-off, that’ll be sure to make me happy now, right?. I’ll have a nice normal family in a big house, happiness guaranteed this time for sure.
Results? Why would you even want to date? So some woman would be your crutch like your family used to be?
Let me put it this way, when you were young and still believed everything could happen, was any of that how you dreamed life would be? Would you have truly chosen the life you got if there had been no limit other than your imagination?
You’re unattached and economically well off. You’re are freer than most of us other poor saps around here. No going through the motions is going to save you now. Time to figure out who you really are and what you really want.
Do you want to set fire to your socks, to buildings? Do you want to go out at nights and tag buildings in a frenzy of urban creativity, or paint murals during the day? Maybe tour the world on nothing more than a bycicle? Or maybe be able to compliment a pretty girl on the street without fear or ulterior motives, strike conversations with strangers on a surge of joyful spontaneity. Dance barefoot with your love on a whim, learn to sing the opera, run away to a hippie comune, become a glass sculptor, a bouncer or a fisherman.
What is your paradise? You really have no excuse for not finding out.
Thanks, Absurdist — Unfortunately, I don’t know what I want to make me happy. I don’t know where to begin. Do I really just quit my job and become a hippie, or fisherman, or whatever? I agree that the things I have done and have aren’t what makes you happy — obviously, I did just state that because it seems everyone has something specific to complain about that is why they are unhappy. I cannot think of a good excuse besides being divorced and not seeing my children very often. Otherewise I feel I have not right to be depressed because I know there are so many others that are “poor saps” as you put it. But why am I still so sad to where I cannot breathe sometimes? I dread doing anything — I almost didn’t even go to the Great Wall while in Beijing because I just wanted to do nothing in the hotel — I made myself go because I thought I would regret it. I really don’t know what I can see or do that I think will make me happy. I wish it were the case. I appreciate your help but none of you examples sound like a good plan to me either. I don’t want to do anything. I just pray I have a heart attack in my sleep so I don’t have to get up again. I don’t have a sanctuary or paradise! How do I find one?
Hey are you still around?
I’m in the same boat. Good job, good education, wealthy, I even look good but it all doesn’t matter. Well enough of my whining, this is about you after all, and I hope this can help in some way or another.
The loneliness is the hardest part. Try to make friends, some that you can trust and rely on. I know I’m just talking out of my ass here making it sound so easy but it’s the only thing that makes my life fun and I truly believe it should be your goal too. Best of luck.
Ok let me make you feel better:
I’m older than you – And have none of the positives you’ve listed about your own life, going for me.
I know this truth doesn’t alter your perception of your own state of depression.
But that’s the depressing thing those other than you must deal with.
Life does change, no state is constant without the will forcefully and artificially perceiving it so, things will improve to a point of liveability.
Forget paradise, some sanctuary is desireable, some experience sanctuary in a relationship with others, maybe the loss of your relationship damaged your sense of security in existence and your re-projecting that as something being wrong with all the possible experiences in the world available, it may well be you will always find your sanctuary in another person, and therefore have to force yourself into another relationship, I would suggest seeking sanctuary in your own state of being independant of another relationship for the moment, as that will bring more fundamental internal security and peace long term, I do not have my health, and understand clearly how in truth as long as you have that, other stuff can be conquered, if you have your health you can find a way through your depression. Forget the Great Wall, it means less than looking after an old friend in need, which could get some relief from excercising your own kindness.
Well here I am just 4 years later. I seemed to snap out of it for a while. I finally met someone completely amazing that zapped some life back into. I made some stupid mistakes early on that I regret. But she was so amazing that she married me anyway. Then quickly things turned for the worse. We discovered she had cancer. My health deteriorated back to where I was in 2011 and my career aspirations dried up. Now she seems to have had enough of me and regrets giving me a chance. We were on vacation in Vienna. When she left to coffee I just stared at the chandeler over the bed then to the power cords attached to the TV and back again. I even pulled on the chandeler to make sure it was sturdy. Then I decided to go out over the balcony and imagine myself on the pavement. Then as I looked down I saw a vender selling flowers. I decided to fight one more day and bought a rose for my beautiful wife and found her in the coffee shop. But I am even more sad because I think it is too late. She has really checked out on my and I am dying inside. I prayed in the most beautiful church in Vienna to give me the strength to fight and become the man she wants again. But I still feel it is too late. Now she is still in Europe and we are apart for another 10 days putting me on edge even more. I pulled up this post to see how I felt four years ago. Circumstances are different now and I did find love and happiness for a short time. I pray we find it again. I hope that flower shop was the sign and strength that my prayers were heard. But that was four days ago and I feel like I am back in the same place just a different location and now she isn’t just at the flower shop she is 8000 miles away in an opposite time zone. I pray for that next sign of strength to find the rose stem that is 8000 miles long.