Hopelessness

[erincassells]

I'm not sure where to turn anymore, and for those hanging on by a thread...I'd suggest to not read.

I wake up every day terrified, feeling hopeless and just ready to give up completely. I'm 43 years old and have no children, not married and feel that my life has very little meaning. Desperately depressed and unsatisfied personally and professionally to a degree I've never felt. In years past, I had a sliver of something I could hang on to. My future doesn't give me that now. Terrified every day I won't make it to retirement. Terribly lonely, but no close friends within a thousand miles.

My strange health symptoms have not abated and have continued or worsened despite a very clean diet and vigorous fitness.

I'm gaining weight, my hair is falling out, I'm having severe bowel and digestive issues that don't respond to any changes I make. I have insomnia, heart palpitations, nausea, vertigo, paresthesia, tingling, anemia, and this general overall feeling of doom...with varied other strange symptoms. I don't want to seek anymore blood tests, doc appts, scans. I can barely stomach the idea of my upcoming mammogram that will find something as it does every couple of years.

Several people in my circle of friends and associates have died of cancer over the past three years.

All I want to do is sleep, yet I can't. Lunesta does not, nor other sleep meds work for me and have health consequences on their own. If it wasn't for my mom I am not sure I'd be able to hang on.

CBT isn't working for me because I simply don't believe it. I intrinsically believe deep inside that I am not good, nor meant to live a fulfilling life.

I wake up sick and force myself to come to work and be as positive as I can (responsible for many people), but I'm running out of the ability to continue.

Just can't do this anymore. So incredibly sad, lonely, scared and hopeless feeling that I don't know what to do anymore. Barely hanging on...and what for?

I feel I'm a failure of a human being.

[pb]

I'm not sure where to turn anymore, and for those hanging on by a thread...I'd suggest to not read.

I wake up every day terrified, feeling hopeless and just ready to give up completely. I'm 43 years old and have no children, not married and feel that my life has very little meaning. Desperately depressed and unsatisfied personally and professionally to a degree I've never felt. In years past, I had a sliver of something I could hang on to. My future doesn't give me that now. Terrified every day I won't make it to retirement. Terribly lonely, but no close friends within a thousand miles.

My strange health symptoms have not abated and have continued or worsened despite a very clean diet and vigorous fitness.

I'm gaining weight, my hair is falling out, I'm having severe bowel and digestive issues that don't respond to any changes I make. I have insomnia, heart palpitations, nausea, vertigo, paresthesia, tingling, anemia, and this general overall feeling of doom...with varied other strange symptoms. I don't want to seek anymore blood tests, doc appts, scans. I can barely stomach the idea of my upcoming mammogram that will find something as it does every couple of years.

Several people in my circle of friends and associates have died of cancer over the past three years.

All I want to do is sleep, yet I can't. Lunesta does not, nor other sleep meds work for me and have health consequences on their own. If it wasn't for my mom I am not sure I'd be able to hang on.

CBT isn't working for me because I simply don't believe it. I intrinsically believe deep inside that I am not good, nor meant to live a fulfilling life.

I wake up sick and force myself to come to work and be as positive as I can (responsible for many people), but I'm running out of the ability to continue.

Just can't do this anymore. So incredibly sad, lonely, scared and hopeless feeling that I don't know what to do anymore. Barely hanging on...and what for?

I feel I'm a failure of a human being.

Im so sorry that your feeling so desperate. Please reach out to someone and confide in how bad your feeling.
43 is not old and you have many years of life to live.
Would you be able to let a friend or your doctor know that you are feeling this way.
You are definitely not a failure, we all live our lives in different ways.
Please take care x

[erincassells]

Thank you for your kindness, PB. My challenge is partly in that I don't have a friend that knows what is going on with me that I want to confide in, I am ashamed I guess. In my line of work after 22 years of service, you're almost not entitled to struggle in this way.

I appreciate you responding.

[NoraB]

Sorry you're struggling..

43 you say? It's possible that you are peri-menopausal - which would account for many of your symptoms?

RE the depression, what makes you think you're a bad person?

Re a fulfilling life? Our lives are what we make them. People can have everything they could possibly want but still be unhappy.
My idea of a fulfilling life used to be being a wife and a mother. The mother part was better than I ever imagined it would be. The marriage part gave me memories that I wish I didn't have. How could I possibly be happy with a head full of memories like that?

It took me 46 years to realise that fulfilment is finding joy all circumstances, and I was able to do that even when I was 100% certain I was dying of bowel cancer. Reason being that I chose to accept illness (and death) as part of life. I let go of my fears, and it's a mental shift that we are all capable of making..

Like you, I felt that bad stuff was what I deserved - especially because I seemed to attract so much of it. I allowed people's opinion of me to define who I was and the result was that I hated myself, and as long as you dislike yourself, life will always be shit.

You need to find a way to like, and love, who you are today, not to wait until you're well or thin or whatever. You have to learn to love yourself now - while you feel the way you do. Your body is working so hard for you to protect you. But you don't understand how the stress response works, and so you interpret this as your body working against you. Understanding the stress response was a game changer for me.

I've had a look at some of your other posts and I get that you have this cancer fear, and in your case, it's understandable, but, your relatives stories are not your story.

I have an increased ovarian cancer risk because of my mother and her sister (and reproductive cancers have killed off my maternal great grandmothers albeit in old age) I've done my worrying - decades of it. OC isn't a cert but even if I was to develop it - it didn't kill my mother or my aunty. When I thought I had bowel cancer, the night before my colonoscopy, I just let go of my fears and accepted death. That night I slept really well. Of course, I didn't have cancer. I had severe HA, and as it turned out - Fibromyalgia - but the fear of dying was gone. It's very much a control thing with me, as were my eating disorders because my world was chaotic and unpredictable. Some people don't cope well with unpredictability and I'm one of them, but I've still come to accept that I can't control illness or death. All I have is now, and it's up to me how I live this moment regardless of what's happening in my life. In this, I do have some control and I find that liberating.

In order to live, we must accept illness and death as part of life. Some people are lucky and don't get ill until they die. Others are not so lucky. But everything is down to mentality - even cancer. As I mentioned in a previous post - many people say that their cancer diagnoses actually improved their lives. People have packed in a lot of living in a few months as opposed to a lifetime of treading water, as it were. Illness and disease doesn't have to gloom and doom. The fact that it's universally not the case means that we can choose our attitudes even in the most testing of times.

Maybe it's psychiatric help you need at this point, rather than CBT?

You're clearly depressed, but I'm intrigued as to where the sense that you are a bad person has come from?

The fact that you made this post makes me think you want to live, just not like this, right?

I wanted to go once upon a time. For a short while, I wanted out, and that was all I could think of, but I came to my senses (or somebody up there brought me to them) and I went onto have a happier life. But I had to be proactive and make changes in order to achieve this.

Barely hanging on...and what for?

You're hanging on for better days, and they will come with a little professional support and a lot of effort and determination from you.

When you can find joy (no matter how small or seemingly insignificant) in even the darkest day - you've cracked this thing called life. X

[erincassells]

Thank your for offering such a lengthy response, NoraB. Every single thing you and PB offered makes sense.

My depression has increasingly developed over circumstances in the past 10 years. Watching a lifelong best friend of mine die at an early age in her 40's was rough and I miss her still terribly, things became considerably worse for me then.

It's as if I just see the world differently now and the sense of hopelessness is just heavy in a way I don't know how to even express. I don't laugh the same and have a hard time finding joy in anything.

I will try to mull over both your and PBs sound advice. The challenge is convincing myself that I deserve better than what I'm experiencing right now and that feeling better is possible. It's very hard to imagine and see that right now

I appreciate your compassion very much. Best to you both.

[NoraB]

My depression has increasingly developed over circumstances in the past 10 years. Watching a lifelong best friend of mine die at an early age in her 40's was rough and I miss her still terribly, things became considerably worse for me then.

I understand you here too. My friend was 46 when she died..

The challenge is convincing myself that I deserve better than what I'm experiencing right now and that feeling better is possible. It's very hard to imagine and see that right now

Again, I understand you because I've experienced that bleakness and hopelessness that comes when contemplating a future when the present (and the past) is so hard to bear. But I'm happy now because I made changes. Nobody waved a magic wand and made things better, although I often wished they would. I decided one day that I'd had enough of being unhappy. I wanted to be happy andin order to be happy major changes had to be made and I was the only one who could make them.

You have your mum, and that means you have somebody. We're all here to listen too. You're not as alone as you think.

I got there in the end, and I'm sure that, with support, you will get there too. This is your story and you can absolutely change the script.

You deserve to be happy, so make it happen. X

[pulisa]

You are grieving, isolated and very low, erin. You haven't got the energy or motivation to imagine yourself in a "better" place, I should imagine?

I agree with Nora in that you need psychiatric help as opposed to CBT which mentally you can't access.

You have your mom to hang on for though and would this be enough for you to give yourself another chance and believe that you deserve to have a better quality of life? You are still only in your early forties and , although you can't see it because you are clinically depressed, you can't give up on yourself when you could turn your life around and learn to live again with the right help and support.

I can only express my empathy with how you are feeling and my hopes that things will get better very soon. Just words on a screen, I know, but very much meant.

[erincassells]

Thanks, Pulisa. I will continue to seek help, but I live in a very remote part of the country right now until I can retire if I make it there (2 years). Access to quality care is very very limited and difficult.

The symptoms are never ending with my stomach, bowels, sleep, etc. It adds to the hopelessness as it's a never ending cycle of what's next. I feel awful physically, mentally, spiritually...nothing offers comfort in any area of my life. There's simply no reprieve. Sometimes NMP gives me comfort, but then my symptoms just linger or get worse.

I couldn't bear to hurt my mom as I'm all she can count on, especially all she has done for me and her own struggles in life. I refuse to burden her with any of this as she's already lived a lifetime of struggling, despair and her own health issues.

[pulisa]

Thanks, Pulisa. I will continue to seek help, but I live in a very remote part of the country right now until I can retire if I make it there (2 years). Access to quality care is very very limited and difficult.

The symptoms are never ending with my stomach, bowels, sleep, etc. It adds to the hopelessness as it's a never ending cycle of what's next. I feel awful physically, mentally, spiritually...nothing offers comfort in any area of my life. There's simply no reprieve. Sometimes NMP gives me comfort, but then my symptoms just linger or get worse.

I couldn't bear to hurt my mom as I'm all she can count on, especially all she has done for me and her own struggles in life. I refuse to burden her with any of this as she's already lived a lifetime of struggling, despair and her own health issues.

She'll know exactly how you are feeling then and maybe just maybe it will help her to help you in any way she can...? I don't think you would be hurting her anyway. She may feel hurt that you haven't talked to her before because she is your mom and she knows you best of all..She would hate to not be given the chance to help you now..

[erincassells]

She supported me after a painful divorce in 2015 and although career wise I've had as much success as I could hope for...I've relied on her too many times to count for support in life. I just don't want to disappoint her or her to take blame because I'm a dysfunctional mess of a human being.

I've had to shut my office door at work off and on for days due to the tears, etc. I'm a wreck.