Pushing 50 and have discovered (though known all along) that work is all I am. I had two real goals in life: have a job I would do for free and marry my best friend. I got the great job and then really set out in pursuit of that best friend. Along the way, not only did I fail at goal #2, but I found I simply lost interest in life, thus losing my love for my current (or any other) job.
Today, at work, it has really been brought home to me how badly I’ve fallen down on things at work. I’ve had the means for the suicide set up for months (dual shotguns…if that doesn’t do the job, it just wasn’t mean to be), but just not the guts to go through with it.
Just let tonight be the night!
18 comments
What makes tonight so special? Have you finally just had enough?
Well, whether I’ve “had enough” will be largely determined by whether or not I’m here next sunrise. But, yes, that comes as close to it as anything.
Any idea what caused you to lose interest in life?
Is this something you’ve considered for a while now or has it just come up? Reason I ask, I’ve thought about it throughout my life but an indescribable will has always prevented me from following through. I think the idea of a deadline would make it harder. Pretty much relying on an impulsive circumstance to be successful.
“Any idea what caused you to lose interest in life?”
No, there was the usual shit life throws at you, but what caused me to simply lose interest in my previously very interesting job just wasn’t event-driven. My mood just became increasingly erratic, when I was down I couldn’t get interested in anything, even my previously interesting hobbies. It was then that I really accepted what I had heard: depression is a disease. I’m sure it interacts with life events, but it doesn’t really need them to be what it is.
@Randall, its probably the same thing that everybody slips into. When you start peeling the layers away of what compose your life, it doesn’t take much to realize it’s pretty senseless.
“Is this something you’ve considered for a while now or has it just come up?”
I’ve thought about it off and on for almost all my life, but the depression really began 12 years ago. Since then, I’ve been through the psychologists, psychiatrists, books, exercise routines, psychiatric drugs (god, so many of them!), attempts to “change something” in my life, etc., etc., ad naseum. Twelve years of feeling like things would never get better, searching for someone to credibly tell me it would get better, trying to do what they told me to do hoping it would get better, and not getting better. Over time, the thought eventually has to catch up with you: they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Being bipolar it’s quite the mind-bender because during a high point, you feel life is easy, you are blessed and everything makes sense. When you fall to the low side in moods, you realize your mind was playing tricks on you and life isn’t very appealing at all.
“Over time, the thought eventually has to catch up with you: they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Either they don’t know what they’re talking about… or they know how full of shit they are, and that there is no solution other than distraction and belief, to make us think we can achieve the impossible, so that we keep trying, even in the face of sheer futility.
If people could reach what they feel is worth effort, i don’t think anyone would kill themselves. It’s not that nothing is worth doing… but that most of what’s worth doing, is only available to “the lucky few.” And people seem to emphasize delusional distraction over actual solutions to that problem. Being confused or deceived, is not going to facilitate my attainment of what i find worthwhile. I definitely don’t want to work hard for what i don’t want, or to ensure that i will never encounter what i do want. But it seems that’s what’s expected of us… which seems like a wildly miscalculated expectation, to me.
Yeah, more than one of my psychiatrists have tried the theory on me that I’m bipolar II, meaning I get the downs but not the ups, making me look like a standard depressive, even though those drugs don’t work for me. Not that the bipolar drugs worked either.
So, which are you, BA (if I may ask)? Bipolar I (manic and depressive episodes) or bipolar II (just depressive episodes)?
“but that most of what’s worth doing, is only available to “the lucky few.—
And the pisser is, even if you ARE one of the lucky few (as was I) and get to do what you loved, that love can just up and vanish on you one day for no good reason.
Hahaha it depends which shrink you ask. The way I understand the difference between bipolar I and II is the severity of your manic and depressive swings. The bipolar I is more intense and full blown mania and bipolar II is the lesser form, with manageable mania. I’ve been both.
I feel anyone that suffers from depression has the ability or is bipolar. Simply because you have the capacity to come out of the depressive state and feel the unexplained highs of mania. It’s definitely a mind trick and they tend to be very isolated and shortlived. It’s as easy as having hope the depression will lift and jumping to conclusions when it does.
Afterall, the thing that separates a clinically depressed person from a bipolar is the fact the bipolar patient had at least one manic episode.
I guess what I’ve always wanted to ask someone who has had full blown mania is whether they’d prefer:
a) To be very depressed half the time and very manic the other half, or
b) To be very depressed all the time
I guess, without any desire of being insulting to you, I just really would like to know, is being very manic “as bad” as being very depressed, or does it, in some ways at least, act as a compensation?
I’m never manic, just hellishly depressed, and I’ve always wondered if being manic is kind of “fun” or just another type of hell.
Mania is the best feeling in the world, as its happening. The aftermath a.d cleaning up the damage after its over is horrible.
You feel like you can do anything, predict people’s next moves,you have endless confidence, never ending energy, life of the party and everything seems to have an answer. It’s quite euphoric and the only thing I can categorize it as….best feeling in the world.
However, it’s actually an illusion and a series of cruel hallucinations. The whole time you are feeling like you know things, making great decisions and genuinely loving life….in fact you are scaring people, spending money you don’t have on fruitless ideas, destroying relationships and just ruining everything that makes life liveable.
My last episode….lost my job, initiated my divorce, destroyed my credit, house is going to get foreclosed, pushed away nearly all friends and family, spent my retirement plans, arrested several times and gave away plenty of stuff.
What makes that so hard to deal with…..as it’s happening, you have no idea that it’s actually so destructive. You’re living in a dream world and nothing can really stop it.
Like I said, very isolated though, went over a decade without any signs of mania. Mostly depression, but I built up my credit, education, career and family…..just to lose it all in the matter of months. Now the depression is back and with a fairly clear head, I’ve accepted that happiness isn’t an option for me. Well, not a healthy option.
And not even joking, at times you feel like God. You get this sense that you can conquer anything and it’s truely insanity. The ideas you have and the behavior that comes about is like nothing else. You have no regard for other’s feelings and being wrong is not even a thought.
The reality of your problem after the dust settles and the stigma of knowing you have a disease for which there is no known cure, any valid explanation for or something to look forward to is a arrival existence.
So far, no therapy, medication, diet, exercise or research has changed anything for me.
Ye-fucking-ow!!!
So to answer your question, mania is heaven as it’s happening, hell when it’s over.
So is tonight the night?
Chickened out.
God damn it.
I blame you.
How dare you listen to me and make me feel better.
😉