The recession destroyed life as I new it. Having been laid off 3 times in 2 years, I left my home and started over in a new town. The first 10 months were a struggle to survive, and then it finally paid off. I landed my dream job. Still alone in this new place 800 miles from friends and family, I made the mistake of befriending a female co-worker. She approached me a couple of weeks after we both started working at the same company. She had moved to the same town with a boyfriend of 7 years and they had broken up. She was all alone and had no friends. We decided to start hanging out in the evenings and it grew into an amazing friendship. I started branching out and making new friends. Suddenly it was like a dream come true. I had a new life, a great future, and a new best friend who I cared about and cared about me.
Over the next few months we grew closer and closer. Her supervisor, who was lonely and going through a divorce got jealous. She started telling her lies that the executives were concerned we were dating. She convinced her our friendship was holding her back, and put all sorts of ideas in her head. She did this the week of her birthday. My friend would come crying to me that she loved hanging out with me and lets put this behind us and move forward, and it had actually brought us closer. Then this woman took it to another level, the details of what she did to scare her are insane. The result was, on my best friends birthday, she came into work, they both deleted me on facebook, she told my VP she couldn’t work with me anymore, and the 2 left early. I had to fight to save my job. I hadn’t done anything wrong except to be her friend.
They told me I was fine and to take the high road. I did, for 2 weeks, and for 2 weeks the situation got worse and worse as the two of them did everything they could to taunt me. I heard stories that this woman had done this before and had gotten people fired. I started having panick attacks and couldn’t sleep at night. I finally broke down and asked her if we could talk to try to bring peace to the situation. She got me fired for it. This same girl had told me for months how much she cared about me and how thankful she was to have me in her life. I fell in love with her but never tried to be more than a friend cause we worked together.
I am a professional in a specific field. There were no other jobs there. Having just gotten back on my feet, I didn’t have much in savings.
I had to move again to take a job in a more expensive place making less money. I have nothing saved for an appartment. I am stuck with my dogs in an efficient hotel. I lost all my new friends. I lost the job of my dreams in a place i fell in love with and had a great future. I am back to ground zero. I had to leave my things in storage 16 hours away. I am so torn apart by what I lost its all I think about all day. I’m not myself. I am distraught. I have talked to friends and family to the point they dont want to hear it anymore. I am 37. My dreams of still getting married and having children are crushed. Right now I can barely survive. There just aren’t many good opportunities out there doing what I do in a place I want to build a future. I see no way out of this other than to now live in misery and burn the rest of my 30’s and watched everything I ever worked for burn with them.
I dont want to get out of bed. Better yet, I dont want to be awake. Most people I know have families. Even in hard times they dont have to do it alone.
I was so lucky to have found an opportunity for a great future and the person I trusted most took it from me and its my fault.
The only way to escape the constant torment I go thru would be to leave this world. I simply do not have the resources to recover. I will most likely never get an opportunity like I had again, and what was a great life is now trapped in a hotel room for 9 weeks with 2 dogs and no life.
I’m scared I may take my own life at any moment. I dont want to do that to my mom, and I dont want to miss out on my own future, but the overwhelming feeling of loss, and that my life is ruined it too much to bear. My mind wont let me move on.
3 comments
Suicidal thoughts are often the result of a feeling of being trapped by events in your life.
A terrible thing happened to you and your pain is obvious in your story.
But you can survive, and then thrive.
Surviving means coping, day by day, moment by moment, with the pain caused by this.
You don’t have to deal with your whole life all at once.
Just each moment.
Good luck.
I too, am 37. I once told a friend that if I could have any super-power, it would be to know who to trust and to what extent I could trust them. Having too much faith in society, humanity, friends and allies, seems to be my biggest downfall. If I may ask, what do you specialize in? Just curious. I think that if you hang in there, your life will get better. You said you had a dream job, in a dream environment. At least you know what your dream is. I am still searching. You also said that you barely had time to save any money. At least you attempt to save money. There are many who live beyond their means and fail to save any of it. When the shit hits the fan, they have nothing to show for it. I’m not trying to belittle your troubles, I’m just saying that you seem to have an excellent head on your shoulders. You specialize in a field of work, that means you’re probably decently intelligent and you try and save money for a rainy day, which means you’re capable of being well adjusted financially. I’m sure you’ll be fine, just don’t do anything drastic that will complicate your life…or end it. I met a guy from Atlanta, Ga. He was homeless for six years of his life. He is an artist and an author. He now lives in a nice home with a beautiful loving wife and a brand new baby boy. You never know how the next hand is going to play out. I wish you the best of luck, but honestly, I don’t think you’ll need it.
Thank you both for your replies. What I deal with every moment is anger with myself for getting close to a coworker in the first place and for not handling it better when things went so awry. My head is still at the job and still in that town. I miss the life and future I had there so much it physically hurts. Talking about it makes me feel better for the moment, but otherwise I feel like i lost something I will never recover. I blame myself and I dont know how to live with this. I am moment to moment. I know suicide is never the answer, and that I will only hurt my family tremendously if I take that path to escape from this pain. The best way to describe this is like being in solitary confinement with my own thoughts of loss, like a prison I cant escape from.
Death is an escape, and yet I know I wont feel the relief. I will just be gone. There has to be a better way but I dont want to live a lously life always looking back at what was and might have been. This too I know is a choice, but its much easier said than done.