Emotional bankruptcy

I have lost all the energy that was left. The courage is gone, the will to keep going is gone. I just want to give up already.

Nobody knows how damaged I am inside. After answering so many questions and telling so many things, there is not enough soul left to feel anything but hopelessness.

I have reached the point when people talk about my life as something good, they say I'm about to enter a phase of happiness. But all that causes in me is to realise how unhappy I really am. Not only can I not share their feeling that my life is supposedly getting better, it even makes it worse because I am not just not happy, I'm unhappy. And to acknowledge that makes it feel so much more destructive.

I get mixed signals, too. I am often told that I am basically fighting for survival. They tell me that I have to see how I can earn a living that's enough to just stay alive, they say I need to look for an apartment, but that it's hard because I don't earn enough to even earn someone's trust to rent the apartment to me. I have a limited contract, so I might even not keep doing what I do. They tell me so many bad things and make me worry.... but it's the happiest time of my life. How does that work?

They make crazy plans and focus on details so tiny that I don't even waste a thought on them. Yet, these details are what other people focus on. Other people who do feel happy. I don't have the energy or optimism to consider these things. It's already amazing how some people seem to live in their own world like that. It makes me feel like someone suffering from serious depression on a sunny day when everyone is enjoying the sun, the flowers, and playing together. They see what I see, but the feelings are so different. I'm so distant from all this.

The stress and exhaustion from the last couple of months have sucked all the life out of me. When I thought I had enough, I still kept pushing myself further.... keep answering questions... keep playing the good person.... keep appeasing, keep saying it's alright, keep saying you're sorry. Then, at some point, I just want to be alone.

I'm starting to regret what I've done. I think I entered a one-way road that might go anywhere. Unhappiness, worries, fear. What I lose is the freedom to let it be my problem, and my problem alone.

It would be good to be able to cry. But crying implies some sort of relief. To be so finished that even crying is already a good thing. But I'm not at this point. I can feel sadness like a faint toothache, but it doesn't break through as tears because I'm too numb, too emotionally dead.

I can't even make them understand what my problem is. Just like back then when I was suffering from depressions. You can't share the feelings that other people have, but you can't make them understand why. Why it's not fun to look at a flower. Why it's not fun to play. They don't know why it doesn't feel good.

Even the supposedly best thing that happens in life is something I can't look forward to any more. Sometimes I wish I could escape. Run away and never come back.

The only thing that keeps me sane is my work, as limited as the contract may be. It's like a video game, I step into the shoes of someone else. I am not me as a private person, I am me as the service person, the data entry person, the teacher, the colleague, the guy who can say funny things because it's only work. I don't have to carry my problems around at work. All I think about at work is why this and that letter was sent to this and that person, or whether I can call this or that person because the appointment that's free would be tomorrow already and I can't send an invitation for something so soon. The problems at work are simple. A door doesn't close, that's annoying, but it doesn't make me worry for the rest of my life. Some beeping sound annoys me, but it's a small concern. The printer is so loud. Who cares. I like my work, and I never thought I would enjoy my work more than my private life. Now I know why workaholics exist. Even I find myself working more than usual.

When I was suffering from depression 10 years ago, I sometimes thought I would rather disappear from this world. There was only one thing I hated about it: Even if I felt very alone in this world, someone would always have to cry because of me leaving. I wished back then that at least nobody would care so I could die in peace and not with a guilty feeling. It's strange, but today I had this feeling again:"I wish nobody would notice that I exist, just so I can free myself of all burdens".

Now I'm wondering what would happen if I decided on different things: To pull through with everything despite the pain. Or throw away all plans just to be left alone for a while. To not give a damn at all and change my life completely. To start over in any thinkable way. To give myself up and not do anything any more except for going to work. Many possibilities. But whatever I do, I can only go one way and I only find out later what it was good for. And every time I go somewhere, I regret something.

It's a very lonely feeling being the only one who can't look forward any more while everyone else is, and at the same time being in the center of attention. It's a bizarre situation, like being the dead person in a funeral, just with opposite feelings. Everyone feels something strong, only you don't feel that way.

I will go to bed early tonight. And to express my state of going nowhere, I will not do anything to fall asleep earlier. I will just lie in bed motionless and not act until my sleep comes. If it doesn't come, I will stay up all night, but what I will not do is try to force myself to sleep by any means. I'm too tired to do anything any more.