Right now, I am searching for a reason to live. I am constantly lonely and bored. I constantly struggle with apathy. Occasionally I feel a need to try to improve myself, but am unable to maintain motivation for such goals beyond a few hours. Work feels unrewarding. All of my efforts feel pointless. I feel worthless, ugly, stupid, and unlovable.
What do I want? The reality is that all I really want is to be left alone. I want to go to bed and stay there. I want to dream and never wake up.
The selfish, romantic dreamer in me hopes that, while lying and waiting for death, someone will come and rescue me. Someone who loves me truly, cares for me endlessly, and has boundless patience. Someone who will guide me and hold my hand through every difficulty.
I miss my angel, whether she ever really existed or not. The few times she’s come to me in my dreams and hallucinations were the only times I felt truly cared for and loved.
I want to be happy, but I don’t know what, if anything, could make me happy. Everything I have tried only brought me temporary joy and more struggles. I’d inevitably become overwhelmed with my struggles, and then I’d become even more depressed than when I started. This has been an ongoing pattern since I was a child.
I am now in a place of complete apathy. I have an intense reluctance to do much of anything. Doing things may lead to hope, and hope will only lead to further disappointment. I feel like I can’t handle anymore disappointments.
The only reason I even bother trying to work and maintain my job is to support my two housemates. Not that I contribute much, but at least I can ease the burdens I place on them. Plus I fear that if I allowed myself to die then it would cause them great distress. So I continue getting up in the morning for them. I fear that one day even my concern for them will no longer be enough.
I feel for you and I’m sorry this pattern is a part of your life.
This may be terrible advice, but you have asked the Internet, so… In addition to getting professional help including possibly medication, which I’m sure you have considered, maybe lean into the “dreams”. If they give you pleasure without the angst of hope, let them. Keep them about you as you go through your day and let them give meaning to your actions. When you get your coffee, imagine getting one for your angel, too. When you’re at work, talking with others, imagine you will come home and tell her about it, or imagine she is next to you. You may seen slightly spacier to other people, but otherwise there’s no outward effect. Try it as an experiment and see if it changes how you behave or how you feel about real experiences. If nothing else, I find it helps me stay open to new things and friendlier even when I feel like curling up in a cave. It makes the transition to a happier state faster and more frequent so that the long sadness is broken up and doesn’t seen so permanent or so personal.
I have definitely felt something similar at various times throughout life, and feel really lucky that it hasn’t impacted me more. But when it’s on you sometimes no amount of reasoning can shake it off. You need to experience something different and the easiest way to do that is simply to imagine it. I think we have this power for a reason.
Anyway, your mileage may vary and I am not an expert at anything. But you are not alone.