I have nothing left, and I’m too damned old to start over. Getting to this point was painful enough, and I’m not going to put myself through it again. My username says it all. Continuing is exhausting and often painful, and I just don’t have the strength any more. I’ve lost all credibility at work, and with some reason. My skills have deteriorated and my memory is so bad that my knowledge is usually inaccessible. At home my wife has stopped all sexual activity, disapproves of nearly everything I do, and it certainly seems to me that I am only an income and an unreliable source of labor to her. My children will not speak to me, I presume because I really screwed up their upbringing and thus their lives. Nietzsche once said, “A man who has a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.'” So there’s the question — why?
I destroyed my early adulthood, and my children’s childhood, with alcohol. I’m sober now, but I only stay sober out of habit. I can’t face ending my marriage, and especially can’t face trying to find another relationship. I don’t have the strength. My life seemed to have some promise ten or fifteen years ago, but that has all evaporated since then. My employer is gradually reducing my responsibilities, moving me into a position where I can do no more harm. I can’t say that I blame him. He has every reason to fire me, and it’s probably only pity that keeps him from it. Most days I’m just to damned tired even to try. Going home is no better. I have no motivation to care for my home or my marriage. My wife complains with full justification that I don’t listen to her, don’t care about what she wants or needs, and do nothing to keep our home in some minimal order. I tried getting deeply involved in something I truly believe in, but wound up being unable to fulfill the obligations I volunteered for. Now I’m considered useless. I can’t do anything with any consistency, and I really don’t even care.
My life now seems to consist of struggling to get through each day so I can go to bed and escape into sleep. I care about nothing. I’m only writing this now because the remaining rational part of my mind knows that this is really a sickness, but the rest of me is just too tired to care. I’ve been chronically depressed for about thirty years, and been medicated with a dozen different drugs for twenty. I have run out of “whys.” There’s just nothing left, and I don’t have the energy or the will to find more. I’m just too tired.
Naturally, most of this is the typical self-pity of the chronically depressed, and a reasonable person could easily show me how none of this is insuperable, and much of it is even repairable. That’s nice; I really couldn’t care less. How many times should I repair my life or overcome my troubles before I can allow myself to say “enough?” I’ve researched dozens of ways to die, and have come up with two or three reasonable plans. The only thing that stops me is the fact that I would cause even more pain to others than I have already. I wonder how much more it will take before I decide that the likelihood of future pain from my living is worse than the certainty of the immediate pain from my death. I’m not likely to do anything about it any time soon, though. I’m just too damned tired.
4 comments
I recently went through some of Nietzsche’s philosophy in a class, so I found your question interesting. Because he was an atheist, he didn’t believe we should look to God for meaning in our lives (God is a crutch), but he said truth is created. He didn’t believe the majority of society was willing to accept the responsibility of creating meaning in their own lives. But I whole-heartedly agree with you as well: when are we allowed to say enough? Apathy is a death in it’s own sphere of influence.
Creating meaning from meaninglessness is the classic existential challenge. But it’s hard work, and I don’t have the energy any more. Everything I instilled with my own meaning has collapsed. The task now is to get back up and start again, but I’m really not sure that I can.
Maybe not all aspects of life are reversible, but surely you can turn your work around, your marriage around, and your relationship with your kids around. Easier said than done, however, and it’ll takeeffort. But maybe it can start with a simple good morning kiss on the cheek. perhaps the key question is do you want your old life back? Do you remember being happy?
Oh, it’s possible to turn these things around, I’m sure. I remember being happy, and I think part of me wants my old life back, or at least to start a new one. But it’s been fifty-one years now, and all I can see is temporary success followed by inevitable collapse. And I really am so very tired. I have trouble seeing why I should squeeze whatever energy I can out of myself just to regain a good life that will certainly end. After fifty years, I think I can pretty much rely on my history to predict my future.
But I’ll stick around for now. I like this blog, and just having a place to vent these things helps a good bit. I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done, and each day, hold on for just one more day. And I’ll let the current therapist try to convince me that I should live, even though he’s the sixth or seventh over the years. And I’ll keep letting the shrink tinker with meds, fiddling with dosage and trying this or that new one. Maybe I can even up my total of meds I’ve tried to twenty. And I’ll let the GP doc investigate whatever dozen or so physical causes of fatigue that he’d like. Who knows, maybe something will help, and maybe I’ll decide that temporary success is okay. I can always leave when it fails, or if I find along the way that I really don’t have the strength to keep it up.