I think the biggest struggle for me is getting myself to do anything beyond the bare minimum. All the tiny little things that might make my life a bit less shitty. I do so few of them. Because why push myself to improve things a small amount, if they’re still going to suck?
Ever since I broke my sense of meaning by deviating so far from morality, I’ve been in this perpetual state of lethargy. 16 years now. Pretty much my entire adulthood. I wake up, and try to force myself out of bed. Remind myself of all the things I should be doing, why I’m not killing myself, what I need to work towards. And nothing happens. I just lie there, for hours, until hunger or needing the toilet force me up. Then I do the bare minimum I need to to delay things falling apart. Maybe some work, or getting some groceries, or essential chores. And then fatigue overwhelms me, and I return to bed.
I used to want to do things. To actually enjoy reading, or occupying my mind with something. Now I only do things to distract myself from the despair.
I long for intimacy. Intimacy in general, but in particular love and acceptance. To be loved for who I actually am, rather than what I can pretend to be. And I know that isn’t possible. I know I don’t deserve it, and won’t ever be capable of it. But I don’t know how to stop wanting it. I go to sleep longing for it, and wake up just the same. And the impossibility of it fills me with hopelessness. It weighs me down, from the start of each day, rather than feeling refreshed by sleep. It’s the kind of black and white attitude characteristic of depression: if I can’t have the thing I want, then everything else is pointless. So rather than spending my days working towards whatever superficial kinds of intimacy remain open to me, which really might temporarily reduce my misery, I do nothing. It’s stupid, and I can list all the reasons why till I’m blue in the face. I just don’t have it in me to overcome it. I lack the hope, the motivation, the drive, to do anything beyond the basics needed for short-term survival.
Why get up in the morning? Why not sink back/deeper into addiction? Why exercise? Why eat healthier? Why try to socialise? Why force myself to the dentists? Why do my taxes before the deadline? Why look for a better place to rent? Why learn to drive?
I can give myself reasonable answers to all those questions. I just can’t make myself feel like I believe those answers. I don’t know how to feel like anything is worth doing. Because it feels like nothing will be ok, ever again. And it’s felt that way for 16 years. I wake up with that feeling, and go to sleep with that feeling. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not feel like this. And if nothing you do will ever make things “ok”, then why do anything? If you’ve dug yourself a pit far too deep to ever climb out of, then why try? Why not just keep digging? Or sit in the dark and wallow in your misery.
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It makes me think of a game I’ve been playing, the Long Dark. It’s a survival game that takes place in a frigid wildernesss, devoid of people. You will freeze to death, that’s how the game always ends, with “you’ve faded into the long dark”…. and many times getting to that point, I wonder why I bother.
But every time I play, I get a bit better at it. Recently I discovered I could throw rocks at rabbits and have infinite food, a handy trick. That’s the only point there ever is in pushing back against misery, that it gets somewhat less miserable. It will also get worse if you don’t. I’ve learned to stop saying “this is the worst it can get”, because I am unavoidably wrong.
additionally though, I envy my player character his precarious relationship with survival. How lovely it would be to fade into the long dark…. but our modern lifestyle is way too good at keeping us warm and fed.
Yep, all true. The problem is that the drive to keep at it, to keep getting a little better, to keep learning, is often just not there. It’s not that I don’t get some positive benefits when I do manage to do something. I like learning. I like getting better at things. But the drive in my head, to feel like I want to try something, it’s just not there most of the time.
That’s what depression is to me. Rationally, I know I can do things to make life a bit less miserable. I know if I don’t things can and will get worse. I just don’t care enough most of the time to actually follow through. Reason is the slave of the passions. And a lot of the time there’s just nothing left to drive me. The majority of my strong feelings have been thwarted.
I can both relate to this and not relate to this. The attitude of depression you mentioned. But instead of calling it depression, I call it sociopathy. As a child, I longed to send the message, that if you do not aid me in what I want, I will kill myself. Probably not them, but I might want to a little bit. I don’t know how common this thought is, but people don’t say anything like that at least. At least you know what you can do. I’m unimaginative enough that I don’t think I even realize what I can do with my life, or how it can get worse. And as you’ve seen with the trajectory of my post, it tends to. I’ve been doing this for my entire life, probably starting around 11 years old. The difference is, I don’t categorize it as a feeling. “Not caring” most of the time to me just means that death is actually what I want. I don’t actually see this “depression” as a problem. Another difference is that gaining more power in my life, having more than someone else, is enough to motivate me to do something. The only reason I’m not doing something is not because my motivation is sapped, but because my life isn’t perfect, and to me it has gone wrong. I know it can get worse, but the fact that it has gone wrong is enough to make me want to off myself and have everyone notice. At least they’ll be fine. I’m not making the best decision, but I could be making a worse one.
Hmmm, I generally associate “sociopathy” more with active malice than lack of drive. But possibly the outcomes sometimes appear similar.
Can’t say I ever really thought to use suicide as a weapon against others. Possibly because the few people who would really be hurt by it never gave me much cause to want to imagine that.
There is a small part of me that wants to wipe out every other human on earth, just to be free of the shame I feel. And there’s plenty of other violent impulses within me. I don’t think my lack of drive is a part of that though.
Realizing that life can get worse even when you’re hopeless is something I only started to grasp after experiencing many “new lows”. And as mentioned, even now that knowledge isn’t enough to actively motivate me.
Although I’ve felt despair since around 20, I didn’t really think that much about suicide until 27. So it sounds like I had a lot more time than you experiencing wanting things from life, rather than wanting death. I still want things from life, it’s just now they seem impossible.
Depression for me is a problem in that it inhibits me from doing things to make my life less miserable. If I was truly committed to exiting life, I suppose then the only issue would be if it got in the way of that.
Power is a common motivator for many. I certainly crave many of the things power over others can bring you. But in itself, that’s just not what I want from life. I still have the (entirely delusional) desire to view myself as a good person. I want to be loved, and that’s not something you can get by controlling others. So power-seeking doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.
I used to feel a desire for “perfection” more strongly. I suppose I’ve come to realize that my desires are far too fragmented for that to be worth obsessing over. Even achieving the most desirable outcome in one area would necessarily require sacrifices in others that feel unacceptable to me. Whatever you choose, you have to give up something. It’s just a question of what’s most important to you.
Can’t relate to wanting people to notice my suicide. If I could, I’d like people to admire me, remember me fondly. Shock, horror, pity, regret, sadness, anger, contempt… are not really what I’d go for. If I do ever do it, the best I can hope for is the minimum impact possible.
“I lack the hope, the motivation, the drive, to do anything beyond the basics needed for short-term survival.”
>Same. I completely understand the despair and am in it myself.
Hope you find something (or someone) that feels worth getting out of bed for.
Thanks. We’ll see if life delivers anything other than shit sandwiches to me…I’m not hopeful… -_-
You might find this site amusing:
https:// despair. com/