No Joy

There is just simply no joy left in my life.

I’ve been in therapy a few times. And I eventually do see improvement, but it takes years of work; painful work. And it’s expensive, it sucks to throw a lot of time and effort and money into this just get up to a baseline where I can function.

I have cycled back to hopelessness, despair and a deep depression again. I think this is the worst yet. Added to my black mood are some financial hardships that are becoming overwhelming. We can’t register the cars, our health insurance has lapsed. My husbands’ income is commission only and it’s hard to budget and save and plan when you don’t know from one month to the next if you will even get paid. I am dead weight, haven’t held a steady job in years. I am literally worth more dead than alive.

Even if we did have some money to throw at my depression, I just don’t think I have it in me to fight anymore.  I’m so tired, it is so much work.  I did have some luck with anti-depressants, but they quit working eventually, and I had to start over and find another one, and tweak the dosage until I could function again. It’s all so subjective, and so time-consuming.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is very effective, but it is constant work. Trying to retrain your brain to think differently with every situation. I have lots of anxiety issues, especially social anxiety. Parties are a nightmare for me. I feel like the dumbest person in the room, I can never think of anything interesting or witty to say, I find small talk incredibly boring and painful and don’t see the point. For as long as I remember, every major party I’ve ever been to has caused a panic attack. So, events like friends weddings…I usually end up leaving the reception hyperventilating, sweating, heart racing, and in a major panic. I hate it, I try to leave quietly, but it always turns into a major thing and I get dragged back by people who don’t understand and I sit there and cry due to humiliation and fear and just plain misery. CBT says to face your fears and to keep going to parties and focus on other things besides yourself and to tough it out as long as you can. Why do I have to work so hard at a freaking party? Everyone else is so relaxed and happy, and I am in hell.  It’s easier to not go, to isolate myself, which of course is the absolute wrong thing to do. You are letting the anxiety win when you do this.

Things I used to enjoy now hold no interest. I force myself to do some of it, go through the motions, just to feel like I’m doing something. About the only thing left for me is band, I’m in several bands. I still kind of enjoy playing, but those rehearsals are getting harder and harder to get to. I find myself missing more and more and I feel that it is only a matter of time before I stop going all together. Then I will have nothing.

I have not lived near family for 20 years. And I like it that way. Family has recently moved to town to be closer to us and it is becoming hell. They are fun, we all get along, but it is too much togetherness.  When my sister in law just moved here, she asked me why I don’t work because it is obvious we are having financial issues. I bravely talked about my depression and anxiety and my inability to leave the house for days on end and I broke down and cried. I got some hugs and sympathy from her and felt kind of good that I admitted to this deep dark secret, and that maybe that was a step in the right direction. But a couple hours later, while drinking wine in my backyard, she mentioned to everyone that she was depressed once. She spent a couple days on the couch watching soap operas and her husband told her she couldn’t do that, that she had to get off the couch and go do something and that was it, she wasn’t depressed again.

I left the gathering and went to my bedroom and cried. How could I be so foolish to open up and be vulnerable to someone like that? And how dare her sit at my house and in front of everyone give me this little lesson in overcoming depression by just getting up off the couch. I’ve been much more distant with her now. Which is really sad, she moved across the country so her child could get to know us, and I push her away.

Today is Thanksgiving, we are going to her house and she will be cheerful and thankful for her life, her family, her friends.  Norman Rockwell moments make me cry.  She will want to hang out and play games all day, and I absolutely hate playing games, they make me cry. This is my husbands’ family, and he loves spending time with them. My complaints to him about spending too much time together fall on deaf ears, he likes them and likes to hang out with them. I will go and try to smile, try not to cry, and just get through it without ruining Thanksgiving for everyone.

And then we start working on Christmas.  Which is even worse for me than Thanksgiving.

So, I think I am done.  I’m tired of fighting this fight only to sink and start over.  I get the “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem” but I don’t feel like my problem is temporary.  I’ve given it a good go, I think.  I’m 50 years old, I’ve had this underlying sadness for as long as I can remember.  Even as a kid, I remember going to parties and standing off to the side watching everyone have fun and feeling overwhelmed with the idea of how to have fun.  High school was a nightmare.  I went to 4 of them in 3 states and I never fit in or found a group of friends that I was comfortable with.   I went to college as an adult, while I worked a full time job.  So college was just papers and studying, no time at all for the fun dorm stuff.

Yes, I think I’ve given it my best shot and it is time to end this.  I am such dead weight now.  I don’t have very many friends.  The few that I’ve made here have slowly eased out of my life.  There is no major drama or anything, I think people get tired of my pessimistic attitude all the time, and inviting me places and me never showing up.   My husband walks on egg shells around me and doesn’t know how to help me, so he chooses to ignore me.  I’ve asked for a divorce a few times, but he refuses to even think about it.  He doesn’t believe in it, so here we are living in a hell that we can’t get out of.  If I take myself out, he will be sad for a bit, but when that life insurance pays he can get ahead of the bills, go back to school, travel and live a life that he was destined to live before fate brought me and my pessimistic, joyless self into his world.

Now, to I wait ’til after the holidays to make it easier for everyone else, or do I do it now to make it easier on me?  And please don’t tell me that suicide is selfish.  I think this is the kindest thing I can to do these unfortunate folks who are my family.  I think of it like a bandaid.  The initial shock of my death might be a little tough at first, but then the pain will go away, life will go on, and they will not have the burden dragging my joyless self around anymore.