Let me preface this post by saying I’m going to be brutally honest. Not that I hide the truth usually – I have gone quite a bit deeper in the last year or so than I used to in the past – but I’m not going to leave things out that might make other people uncomfortable. Why should I? This blog is for me. I have very few readers anyway.

That said…

I don’t necessarily think I’m depressed at this point. I definitely was in the past. Right now, there are a bunch of things going on with me but I’m not at a place where I feel like sharing all of it. I do think I need therapy though. Perhaps more than just ‘maintenance’. Something more intensive. Of course, I’m not objective. If you are reading this to the end, you will probably want to argue with me that I definitely do sound depressed.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t really want to be alive. Everything seems so pointless. I don’t want to do the things I’m “supposed” to do – those stupid milestone type things. The rat race shit. I don’t really want to go anywhere or do anything. I have few dreams or goals or aspirations. I don’t experience joy from anything. The best I get is a mild, fleeting appreciation. Putting in work to do any of these things seems stupid.

There are two reasons I am still alive and trudging through the monotony of years on end of mediocre existence. One is fear of pain and of the unknown. (What if what comes next is even worse?!) The other is because I don’t want to hurt anyone else by leaving.

This graphic from Hyperbole and a Half exactly sums up how I feel.

You always hear about suicidal people being selfish and the other side of the argument being that they are actually the opposite because they feel like a burden to everyone and are actually doing favours to their loved ones. I can see that thinking, but my point of view is a little different. I don’t think that it’s me that the other person would be devastated to lose but the loss of someone, anyone in a person’s life is devastating in itself. I don’t want to be that stain of ‘someone I knew committed suicide’ on someone else’s life.

There are varying degrees of pain my absence would cause various people. For family members, I would be that lingering shadow of ‘my sister/daughter/aunt/whatever killed herself’. Doubly compounded for my husband. I would be the second “important woman” in his life to leave him. I can’t do that.

So I’m stuck in this limbo of dealing with the daily grind of things I don’t want to deal with interspersed with okay things because of others. I am living for other people.

It would be nice to be able to live for myself. To live because I WANT to. To wake up and be glad to be alive. I have no idea what that might feel like.

Clearly… I need therapy.