Nothingness

Hi. Your post was the first I read here today–actually in a while. I know your life, your journey are wholly yours. But I want you to know that as much as I can, I empathize. I, too, use drugs to “make my life pleasurable.” Drugs and a few other very dangerous activities. You’re right, that they can cripple, but I keep returning to them because everything else is so painful. And the self-help books don’t seem to help me. I don’t know if you’ve tried them, or therapy. At least for me nothing has worked. You’ve heard the term “self medication,” right? When I first heard doctors talking about how people like us use drugs to numb pain, I was like, “duhhh!” If pharmaceuticals and therapy worked, we’d use them. But they just don’t. Not for me. I’ve tried dozens, and the effect is negligible, and there are always negative side effects–too big a cost for the negligible benefits (if they exist at all).

So, I’m there with you. I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t know what to do anymore, other than my nightly ritual of drugs and dangerous behavior. Worst of all, no one really gives a f*ck about what we’re going through. They just tell us to get better. And once they realize we’re not getting better, they become convinced we’re not trying hard enough, that we’ve given up–and that justifies them giving up on us. Because we “just can’t be saved.” So we feel even more worthless and the cycle continues.

I logged in ’cause I wanted to write you and let you know someone else is there with you. I really had to let you know that, ’cause nothing hurts me more than my constant feeling of emotional aloneness–feeling alone in suffering, as if utterly abandoned. So I guess I felt if I tried reaching out to someone else to let them know they’re not alone, maybe I wouldn’t feel alone either. Sorry to ramble. And sorry I don’t have a solution. Maybe you’ll find one and share it with me. In the meantime, every day, every moment of every day, I get closer and closer to the edge. And I’ve lived long enough to know I’m going over eventually. Soon.

Thank the universe for drugs. I think they (and movies I really like) are the only good things (to me) left in my life. You’re not alone. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.

Dethfoto–what you said about there being nothing you wouldn’t give up for a woman who gets you I totally understand. I think a tremendous amount of suffering among humans is due to loneliness, or not finding another we’re compatible with. Don’t you get a kick out of all the pop-psychology “advice” to learn to be happy with ourselves first? Anyhow, I do feel what you’re saying, man. I’m ashamed to admit it (because my culture tells me it’s wrong), but a lasting relationship was what I wanted most out of life. Without one, everything else to me seems useless, utterly unappealing. And like you I’ve turned to drugs and other dangerous behavior to numb the pain of loneliness–and don’t even know why I’d stop, since the alternative, being “sober” through my loneliness, seems to me far worse. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Pain, I just read your latest reply to me, about my “you’re not alone” comment. And you are absolutely right. Even though I was trying to be sincere, I bought into that sickly-sweet positive-talk crap from popular psychology, that we have a community of those who empathize with us and are therefore not alone. I was wrong, though. If you’re starving to death, someone empathizing with you won’t save your life. I couldn’t have put it more poignantly than you did–we’re still living our day-to-day lives alone. We’re still crawling under sheets to fall (fitfully) asleep alone. We still wake up (why-oh-f*cking-god) alone. No one asks us how we’re doing–and in reply to our answer, holds us, and keeps holding us. We ARE alone. You are right. And I’m ashamed I peddled that impotent feel-better BS. What I should have typed is, “I feel the same thing.” My bad, man.