Posted on 02/16/2011 9:31:50 AM PST by JamesP81
I don't really have anybody I can talk to about this that would understand. I don't expect FR too either, but it's as good a place as any to vent.
You know what I do? I get up every day and go to work. I do my job and get my work done. I come home. I do it again the next day. And then again, and again, and again.
When I am dead, the most anyone will ever say about me is "he went to work ever day". If I were to simply drop dead, everything would pretty much be as if I had never lived. I have accomplished nothing noteworthy and I don't expect to. When my life is over with, the world will not be a better place, no one's lives will have been improved, and the evil that lives in the world will not have been pushed back.
This leaves me feeling....sick inside my soul. As if something is very, very wrong. The only thing I really look forward to is burying myself in the mundane of the normal to the degree that I do not think about these things. By and large this works, but some days I take my head out of the sand, and the result of that is days like today.
I've tried many things. When I was in school, I spent time every week in a nursing home. It did the folks there good to see anybody. But it did not fill the void. I am a blackbelt in karate and used to exercise a lot. It was good for me, but it did not fill the void. I have good friends, but I don't see them as much as I used to. We're all out of college, have jobs, and some have kids now. But even during the heyday of college, I couldn't fill the void with other people. I have hobbies. They're fun, but they leave me empty. I don't want to drop everything and be a drifter, but I don't want to sit still. I am not into carousing and having casual sex with whatever comes along. Never have been, and I'm fairly certain it would make me feel worse. I am a Christian; I do not speak to God as much as I should, but I do at times. He is supposed to have purpose for me, but I don't know what it is. I hope He has something for me other than work 9-5 until I'm dead.
A lot of people will say that your purpose is what you make of it. Every bit of evidence and observation I have tells me that's true. Yet I don't believe it, and never have.
In before "man up you wuss".
I really like your post. But your ambition to retire to the beach is a wonderful ambition - don’t put it down.
When I was 45, I was so burned out from working in gray office buildings in NYC, my husband and I bought a small beach house about 60 miles from the city. For about 4 years I walked the beach and climbed on the rocks and breathed the salt air and waded and swam in the ocean. The ocean is a curative! My depression dwindled and I became a happy person again. Then I got a large rescue dog who spent the last few years of his life running on the sand.
It still ranks as one of my greatest achievements, lol!
I couldn’t respond yesterday, but you have my prayers going out. I’ve been through depression before, when I was very young and in school of all times. It feels like it will never get better. I promise you that it does.I wish I could explain to you and prove that it does, just hang in there. Work on self improvement, maybe it will lead you onto other positive projects. Donate time at a church or something like that. This will work itself out, just have faith!
Wonderful aint it? rolling eyes..... Good luck to you also.
Still feel somewhat numb this morning. Still feel cheated and feel as if things are “unresolved” because I didn’t just fall to pieces last night like I felt that I needed to.
Why don’t you read through all these posts again? Surely, it will tell you that many people care about you - even though they don’t know you personally. You have inspired a lot of people to talk about their own struggles with depression.
You’ve received a lot of great advice on this board and a lot of good ideas. Nutrition, supplements, exercise, books to read, travel, switching jobs, prayer, spiritual help... all of it is good stuff. I would advise you also to avoid SSRI meds if you are not in danger of harming yourself or others. I’ve done the Prozac... you know what the worst side effect is? It makes you not care anymore. It makes things like jobs, people, circumstances, etc. tolerable. Therefore, you may find yourself stuck in an intolerable situation longer than you would have otherwise. But talking to someone can be very helpful. A doctor would certainly be more qualified than me to tell you if that’s what you need.
The other thing I want to say is that what you’re going through is absolutely normal. Something about approaching every “0” year affects everyone psychologically, but 30 is that year where, as someone else here said, everything can change and usually does. I can guarantee you that 80-90% of everyone here had some major change occur in the years around age 30. Job change, move, death in family, relationship loss, marriage, first child born. Those are just the years that this sort of thing happens. You came out of the starting gate after graduating school, stumbled a bit, found your wings, got flight, and now you’re cruising and thinking, “Is this is? Is this what I’m doing for the rest of my life?” It’s absolutely normal. In this day and age, it’s really rare to find someone who went into a job or a career right out of college and stayed there until retirement. So instead of thinking, “What do I want to do with my life?” (a question you will be asking until you are dead), start asking, “What do I want to do next?”
It sounds like the job is where your hangup is, so look at that. What I would not advise you to do is just up and quit your job and “follow your heart.” That is not in your rational self-interest, particularly in this economy and with the train wreck that is likely coming. (All of us here may be out of a job soon, whether we choose to be or not.) But you should look at your options. Someone here recommended firefighting and that seemed to catch your attention. Good idea. You’ve probably spent the past few years sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer. Something that would be physically exhausting - like firefighting - can be spiritually uplifting. And now is the age for you to do it. It will be much harder to make such a leap when you are 40 and competing against guys who are 29. So look into it, see if you need to take some fire science classes, get back into shape (the physical tests for that job are extremely challenging), start saving your money and stocking up some canned food and see if a few months down the road you can do it. Cut off your landline phone and stop your cable if you need to... those are expenses that are unnecessary and set that money aside. But set a goal and keep your eyes on it.
I did the same thing you’re doing. I went into computer work right after school and found myself crying on my drive in to work every morning. I didn’t want to still be sitting there at 50, wondering what I had missed out on. I made a complete 180 and became a flight attendant, a job that was extremely physical (bending, lifting, fighting gravity, twisting, reaching... much more physical than I ever had anticipated) and I got to travel. After a few years, I found it no longer fulfilling, so I moved on. Now I’m back in an office, but I no longer feel like I’ve been chained to a desk. Another friend of mine left his desk job that he hated (precisely at age 30) and he became a cop. He is happier than I had ever seen him before. He’s doing something both physically and mentally challenging, and as he said to me, “After just one year, I’ve already got stories that I’ll be telling until I die.” Who knows, five years from now, he may no longer feel like it’s fulfilling and will be ready to move on. Or maybe not.
The thing is, your sadness is telling you something. Listen to it, make a workable plan, set some goal and start attacking it. Now is the time to do it. Good luck!
JamesP81,
I followed this thread yesterday, and again this morning, because there is just so much good in it that goes beyond simple advice. These are the voices of people who care. They all have either been where you are, or have known/loved someone who has, and have lived to tell the tale. They make this world a special place, and they are reaching out to you, assuring you that this too shall pass.
Listen to them, and start talking to God again too...it might seem difficult at first, but by all accounts, He seems to be an extraordinarily patient guy ; } And strangely enough, even though so many people talk to Him, somehow, when I talk to Him, I always get the feeling that He is really happy to hear from me...
May God bless you.
Tatt
Self edit : / need more coffee - very small smile. A lesson here too James - learn to forgive yourself. Very difficult for a lot of us, but so important.
“These are the voices of people who - like you - care. They all have either been where you are, or have known/loved someone who has, and have lived to tell the tale. They, like you, make this world a special place, and they are reaching out to you, assuring you that this too shall pass.”
And hang in there. :)
Have you been hanging out with the Dalai Lama?
Try two things. They include getting out of your comfort zone. One is easy- take a different way home. - you’ll see a what other people see in the world. The other is difficult - offer to be a Sunday School assistant. Let the Holy Spirit work through you and improve the spiritual lives of the young’uns in your church.
Hey James — just checking in on you again. Let us know how you are doing. Hope you get a good night’s sleep tonight.
I understand the VOID part. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need meds or are depressed.
The only thing I can say to help you and I don’t mean for this to sound harsh but there are people right now that WISH they had a job to go to 9-5. Yet I understand the go to work and hate it non fulfilling thing.
I have been reading what you’ve written and want you to know that I believe in you.
You are alive and have expertise at this moment that is needed. Just by posting and connecting with FReepers, you are part of a network of people who need rugged and technical skills as things deteriorate economically. Your objective experience as a computer scientist will come in handy, so I hope you have processes and methods stored away somewhere to pitch in when you are called on to do so. While it may seem slow-moving and same stuff, different day right now, your skills may become unique in your physical location, like knowing DOS or COBOL or how to assemble a PC or cobble networks together.
Please squirrel that away. You’re at an age when you still have enough energy to be considering these things and should write them down/assemble them, for reference.
Life sucks. In America.
So take some time off from work. Do some traveling for a couple of weeks. I'll suggest Brazil for you. Especially Ipanamea Beach in Rio de Janerio. Now that's how you'll want to live. Once you're back from traveling, you'll be in a much better mood, guaranteed.
My suggestion? Tell God 50 things you are grateful to Him for.
Do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Oh no, I quite pleased that I have finally won the battle over the marketers and the promoters, and all those who try to put their own definition of success or ambition on to me.
The key is that it is my ambition- my goal. I have no desire to please anyone else, or use any one elses measurements of what might make my life a success. Of course, I'm also not interested in trying to steer anyone else towards my beliefs. And that's why as much advice as was posted, and it is all well-meaning of course, I believe that we all have to find our own way. Many of us find great comfort in joining others, some of us just go it alone.
But the real value of this thread is that we can let others know that our uncertainty need not be permanent, nor is it unique. many of us have felt it, and many of us have overcome it.
Why don’t you tell us more about yourself? What happened recently to make you feel like this? Did a girl dump you?
Well, you’ll still have total consciousness after you die, right?
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