I am a 30 something male. By all metrics things should be going pretty good for me. I have been recently married, I have a good job that i like most of the time. But I still struggle with depression. I have had struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts since I was 13 or so. I’ve sought help but I’ve never really been able to find the way to help the nagging feelings.
A bit more background information. I am also on the Autism Spectrum, diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome.
I’ve just always felt that I don’t belong or fit in anywhere. I change jobs frequently hoping to find something else that makes me feel whole. I move every couple of years hoping that maybe i will find a neighborhood where i feel that i belong. I day dream frequently about what my next change will be and if its the one where i finally find myself where i need to be. I think about taking new jobs hundreds of miles away, moving to foreign countries, even almost took a job in Antarctica back in my 20’s.
Fast forward to now I am a newly wed. I got married about 6 months ago and although we dated for 2 years first and i defiantly love her, I just don’t feel that we are connected like we should be and it feels like since we began living together we are less connected.
It just feels like no matter how many of the “right” things i do, i just cant find where i belong.
As for my depression and suicidal thoughts they tend to come in waves. Thankfully my intellectual brain tends to override my emotions and I am not *that* concerned that I will actually take my life. However it doesn’t change the fact that these emotions are an enormous anchor to me. I’ve lived with these feelings so long that i would be lying if i said I didn’t have a plan. But thankfully I feel I am still in enough of control where I Â will not allow myself to act on these feelings. But what I wouldn’t give for the feelings to be gone.
I’ve tried counseling, however I never really felt that it worked for me. Having Aspergers my brain works differently and I’ve never had any luck finding a therapist who has experience working with Autism. In my searches it seems that all the specialist in the realm only deal with children.
I am not sure why i am posting this. I don’t really have any expectations. In all honestly I stumbled across this site completely by accident. But maybe I will get something out of this i haven’t found anywhere else. If not maybe someone else will see this and see they are not alone. I wish I had answers, but I do not. At least not yet.
7 comments
i grew up with a fairly good childhood but i was severly bulied and people did alot of things for me so i stayed secluded and thats unltimitly coming back to haunt me. But there are some diffrences. Im only sixteen, im a heavy cigarette smoker, I smoke and deal drugs, and iv had more alcohol in my system than someone that drinks 6 pack every day, and ever since my mom divorced my father (love ma dad) her and her new husband beat me. Im so tired and the only things and sliver of hope i have is that some one out there, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, may need me. I was diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder and Sever Depresion, and i also have an incredibly hard time with remembering things. So i know what ur going through, take ur girl and go to a water fall or the beach and have super amounts of fun because your at the prime of ur life and even though u may think ur marrige isnt what it should be she wouldnt have had married u if she didnt love u for being u. ;D
I moved around a lot too for most of my twenties. I had the same feeling of “not belonging” like you mentioned, and I thought that if only I could find the right place for me then things would finally come together, make sense, and I could start feeling like myself.
Never happened, of course, because after traveling around the whole country and trying out over a dozen different cities coast to coast, north and south, and anywhere in between, it actually only ended up making me feel even worse. This is because most of my problems were internal, and therefore could not be cured by external circumstances.
I don’t have Asperger’s, so I can’t relate with you on that one.
And I’ve largely avoided relationships my entire life, because I was convinced that they would never work out and that nobody could ever truly love me. I suppose if I had met someone who I thought was “right” for me I would have been open to that, but it just never happened.
As for your marriage, it’s hard to say. I like to think that after a relationship becomes more serious and committed that the connection would only increase, not decrease. But again, I’m no expert on love so take my opinion for what it’s worth.
Actually depression can make you feel disconnected from people
I feel that way a lot
Strange tho, My disconnected feelings for my so started after we started living together to, but I do realize it is depression that makes me feel that way
And as for your suicidal thoughts, well here’s my story:
The first time suicide came into my mind was when I was in my teenage years. I was raised in a very toxic, abusive household; and I was severely bullied when I was in middle school. So naturally that would lead anyone to contemplate suicide. And though things got better as I got older, the thoughts still remained with me. They would come and go, but when I reached my late twenties they became worse than ever. I spent countless hours researching all of the various methods as well as the risks involved with each one. And though I’ve never attempted before, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t fail if I ever did.
One of the most fail-proof methods is jumping from a very tall height. And I mean really high up there. You don’t want to jump too low and live through it but really fuck yourself up in the process. That would be awful. Problem with that method is that I don’t think I could go through with it. I’m afraid of heights, you see.
Next best method is a shotgun in your mouth angled up slightly so you blow out the lower part of your brain (as well as a lot of other stuff lol). That’s also a pretty fail-proof method, but I saw quite a few pictures and videos of people who failed at that as well, and it sufficiently scared me from choosing that method.
Barbiturates are the way to go. Problem is that they are extremely hard to obtain. But about fifteen or twenty strong pills (Seconal would be great) and a bottle of vodka would be enough to do a horse in.
But back to the point. I think people like us who have harbored thoughts of suicide for a long time, do so to give ourselves a sense of comfort if you will. We leave that as a perpetually open option in our minds, so if things ever get too bad or if living with ourselves becomes too unbearable, there is always an emergency exit from our existence available to us.
Like you said, you have your suicide plan already figured out, as do I. You’ve probably looked at all the various methods and chose the one that is most appealing to you. And it’s always there, in the back of your mind. Your “psychological emergency exit.”
The disconnection from your wife might be yourself trying to protect you in case anything happens (at a subconcious level), or the depression you have playing bad tricks on you, been there… and it all became clear when i lost my loved one and it was already too late for me to do anything (not a wife, but i always believed we were heading towards that), i might be wrong but it just sounded similar, same with the feeling you belong nowhere thing