i'm tired of doctors telling me i just have to try harder. when is my life going to feel okay?

[the owls]

I feel like my entire life I've just been waiting for things to feel okay. They have gotten better... slowly... but it's like, I'm in my late 20s and in a lot of ways I feel just as incapable of doing anything as I did ten years ago. If anything it's gotten worse. I can't do a goddamn thing that I like, can't engage in my hobbies, even playing video games is a struggle. I do work full time and move around all day and once in a while I go out with one of my few friends... but when I have a day off or when I get home I'm just so useless. Like a lump. I watch netflix and read sometimes and mostly sit on the internet. I feel absolutely awful about myself because I don't do... anything. Like I'm an empty shell.

 

I just want to be able to do the things I enjoy. Be creative, mostly. Most of the time I have to have a drink or two to be able to cook for myself or clean, because otherwise this weight pressing down on my body is just too overwhelming (and obviously I don't want to rely on alcohol in that way). I just want to sleep or cry most of the time. And all the shit therapists and doctors I've seen, just tell me I need to push myself harder, and that makes me want to give up because I've BEEN pushing myself, my whole goddamn life, but it's not enough, something is obviously very wrong with me. My life has always been an uphill battle, just trying to survive, but at this point I need to feel like I'm living, not just surviving.

 

I've already kind of agreed that I'm going to kill myself by the end of the year if things haven't drastically improved. I feel too pathetic to keep forcing myself to exist in this way, I am so utterly miserable. I'm doing everything I can to improve my life but it isn't happening fast enough. I hope I just need to find the right medication but I am so afraid that I'm too deeply broken for this to ever get better. And a huge part of the problem is how deeply lonely I am, but I don't see that getting any better either, despite my efforts. I was sort of dating somebody who was really into me, for a long time, but he lost interest really fast after we spent more time together. And I keep thinking it's because I am so fucking boring, and it kills me because I could be so interesting if I could just... do anything. How can I make friends when I don't even feel whole? It really seems hopeless. I don't know what to do anymore.

[Wooster]

I'm sorry to hear that your life feels so empty right now.

 

Are you also trying therapy treatments that have been shown to be effective for some of the conditions you list under your diagnosis? DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) can be very helpful for creating a life worth living when people feel a chronic sense of emptiness.

 

With regard to your "kind of already" decision to end your life by the end of the year, I leave you with two thoughts, the first from Henry David Thoreau, and the second from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

 

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

 

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

That is to say, there is no telling what lies just around the bend for you. When the pit of depression has hold of your mind and heart, it is easy to predict that every day will continue to be as bad as, if not worse than today.

 

However, mood states are so much more mutable.  They are always in constant flux. Even today's despair does not have precisely the exact same quality as yesterday's. It has subtle differences. This means it IS already changing.

 

I cannot promise you that you will feel better. However, I can promise you that you will feel different, even if the differences are subtle.

 

I really sincerely wish you effective treatment.

 

You don't have to choose between a muted life or no life at all. There are many treatment options that you have not tried yet, stones yet to turn over.

[olga]

I think you need to get a new medical team and find people who want to help you to get better.  There are different meds to try, and (as Wooster points out) different therapy systems you could try, and the bottom line is----don't think that it can't get better.  It can. You deserve an interesting, fulfilling life.  Everyone should have a shot at that.  I think that you haven't been receiving effective treatment.

 

Please investigate other avenues.  New pdoc, new therapist--whatever it takes to have someone look at you with a fresh vision.

 

olga

[Catnapper]

I'm sorry you're in a bad spot, but it can and does get better.  As olga said, I think you need a new medical team as it doesn't sound like you're getting the treatment and support you need.  There are lots of meds to try, and once you find the right ones it's amazing how much better you will feel. 

 

Are you seeing a pdoc, and not just a regular GP?  If you have a pdoc and are getting treated badly, then it's time to find another one, if at all possible.  I live in the rural U.S. so make a 100 mile round-trip to see my pdoc, but it's worth it to get the treatment I need.  Good luck to you and please let us know how you're doing.  There are lots of us here who have been in your shoes. 

 

P.S.  Some of the best years of my life happened in my late thirties, early forties, and early fifties, so I think you have a lot to look forward to, although it may not feel that way right now.

[Twenty_Seven]

My experience is to push yourself, but also know your limits. It goes without saying for everything, but some people forget that they aren't perfect. It's taking me a while to realize this myself, and things takea  long time to change. Myself, I want them to change in a day, and I feel I put in the effort to make them change.