The Daily Struggle

I want to talk a little bit about my life. I complain about it a lot and I know it. But I think this is a more pathological thing with me than just one of being disgruntled with the hand I’ve been dealt. Because I’ve been dealt a lot of hands, not just one, and I’ve landed on my feet, and I’ve grown and learned. I also fully recognize that I have a lot of great things going for me. Yay me. I don’t mean to minimize the positives, but the other side of the coin is not quite that simply summed up.

I have written before that I am not one of those people who wakes up in the morning and is all gung-ho and “yay life!” Every morning, I make a conscious decision to show up for myself and others through my work despite a strong urge to just pull the covers over my head and try to disappear. I am not exaggerating. If I could get up in the morning with a strong verve and some enthusiasm, I’d be thrilled to bits even though feeling those things at that time would be weird and foreign.

Since the age of 11, I have simply not enjoyed life. That was the year of the onset of menarche for me, and it was also, coincidentally but maybe not, the onset of depression symptoms. Two years later and no improvement, plus a new tendency to be slightly obsessed with death, suicide, and other morbid stuff, I was taken to my first shrink, who kind of insinuated there was nothing wrong with me. A year after that, my first hospitalization of many (about 11 in total) due to depression, suicidal threats and constant suicidal ideation.

I would continue to be a suicidal ideator until my 40s. In fact, it’s only recently that I have not had any suicidal ideation at all after decades of carrying that around with me.

Don’t worry – I’ve had therapy and more therapy, and DBT, and CBT, and psychiatric help, and a bunch of other stuff. I’ve spent more time in therapy than almost anyone else I know.

Throughout all this, I’ve lived a life blotched by depression, medication, multiple psychiatric diagnoses, and a bunch of misery. I have never enjoyed life, and never found a lot of joy in my life. I can barely experience joy, in fact, and when I do, it’s always fleeting and never stays long. I can experience pleasure, but much like joy, it’s usually temporary. I have spent a lot of my life, however, feeling numb, hurt, and traumatized. All stemming back to the age of 11.

I’ve never trusted happiness. I don’t even think I knew what it was until I left home and went to university. I didn’t know what it was like to have unbridled fun until then. I didn’t know what freedom was or what healthy relationships or attachments were. All I knew was survival, and in order to survive, I had to repress.

I would not come out of my shell until my mid-30s, post divorce and on the cusp of a career change. Throughout all my years until that point, I was lost and confused, and unsure of how to react, to be, to not wear a mask.

It all came together for me in my 40s, but even though I got a lot sorted out, and saw a new career developing, and therapy helping me process the past, I still carried with me the suicidal ideation. It was passive & fleeting, but it was always there.

At 45, I took a full time job in my new field. And within a couple of years of doing that, even with the pandemic, the thoughts somehow dissipated. Coincidentally, or maybe not, I started perimenopause at about this time. But if the hormones were purely a coincidence, I would say that having a full-time career gave me a purpose in life I never had before, it gave me a sense of acheivement and success, and I credit it with helping those thoughts go away.

As for enjoying life – I still struggle. While I have a sense of purpose, I don’t feel, honestly, that I have a ton of value as a human being. A bunch of other people could do my job. I feel invisible in other areas of my life, and quite frequently think that if I were to just disappear from this world, I might be missed for a bit, but people would move on, as they do, and that would be it. I don’t believe I am special in any way, I don’t believe I am anything other than just another body on this planet going through life and waiting for the inevitable end. I have nothing of use to pass on. I have no children. I have no art, or body of research or anything to mark my place on this planet as anything other than just a schmo trying to survive.

I would love to FEEL. I would love to have joy, and pleasure, and happiness. When I do have those things, I would love for the feeling to stick around so I could really experience it, instead of having it fade so quickly.

So yeah, I am not a lover of life. I would love a life transplant. I would like to feel more enthusiastic about living, but I just don’t, even though I get up and I show up every day. I have great friends, and I have had great life experiences, too. I have many things to be grateful for and I recognize that. I just can’t seem to find what I need to feel good about living. But I do it nonetheless.

And that is all I have to say about that. I’m now pretty exhausted from writing this.