Everything is too difficult. Why go on?

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I considered posting in this thread: When life doesn't come out like you hoped..., but since the OP was 21, I felt this might warrant a separate thread.


I'm in my early thirties now and things just aren't working out. I'm considering throwing in the towel and I'm looking for rational arguments against that. I'm not expecting too much from this, just trying to make sure I don't miss anything. From my perspective, things look very bleak ? my life consists of way too much suffering and way too little joy and passion. This has been my experience for many years now (arguably all my life), and the hope of things getting better which I clung to in my twenties (before I understood about my Asperger's) is gone now. You can't change the ASD aspect, and the levels of stress I've been living with for all my life have had lasting changes on my brain, which is also unlikely to change unless my life somehow gets less stressful.

I suffer from various debilitating comorbids ? atypical depression, possible bipolar II, social anxiety / avoidant personality disorder. I also have issues with physical health, although a lot of that is probably psychosomatic.
I'm suffering from very high levels of internal stress, and it's starting to become a real possibility that I'll lose my part-time job because of it. Full-time isn't even a consideration for me anymore, I just can't handle it. I also can't handle job interviews, so if I lose that job, I'll probably never work again, at least not in the profession I got a degree for. I doubt I'd ever make it anywhere else if I can't handle the thing that's supposedly my strength.

I suffer from crippling loneliness which means I can't enjoy life ? I love nature and the outdoors, but I hardly ever go out anymore because I feel so lost when I do, which is worse than not going out in the first place. I used to travel with my girlfriend. She abandoned me a while back now, and I haven't recovered from that.
My family doesn't get me. I don't have any friends and I never feel comfortable enough around strangers to actually make friends. The only way this could happen if someone persisted in wanting to get to know me, which is highly unlikely because I'm bad at expressing myself (this doesn't show as much in writing) and thus I'm boring and weird. By extension, I won't find another girlfriend either.

It seems to me that life should be lived with passion and that while pain is a necessary part of life, it should also be fun. Possibly due to my bipolar tendencies, I can't stand the lukewarm life. I want to explore and experience things, read some Foucault, Soseki and Dostoyevsky, live in Japan and Canada for a while, but I'm too overwhelmed and sad to actually do things.

So .. I don't know if it's a comprehensive argument, but this is what I'm thinking. I could go on, but I'm sure it's already too long for many. Taking all that into consideration, I just don't see the point in trying anymore. I'm so exhausted and I just want a break. I feel like the best case scenario is finding the right meds to become somewhat emotionally stable, then relying on escapism in various forms to not think about life too much. But a life that consists of avoidance only and does not correspond to the my values doesn't seem very enticing. I'll practically just be waiting for my body to fall apart eventually, so even if I manage to block out most of the pain, there just isn't enough on the positive side to make it worthwhile.


Note that I'm not interested in any of the following arguments against giving up:
- it's selfish because you'll hurt others (I'm aware of the problem)
- life is a beautiful gift, you just have to open your eyes (my experience is all I have and it while I'm able to see beauty, overall it just doesn't agree with this)
- you don't know what will happen (I'm too old to believe in magical fairy dust just around the corner)

Thanks for any input.

a pithy quote from the inimitable ted turner sticks in my mind- "life is kinda like a b-grade movie, in that while I would not walk out on it before it was over, neither again would I choose to see it again." I will tell you that until recently, the only thing that kept me in the game called life, is my strong belief that if I prematurely ended it, I would only have to do it over at some point, probably with no better circumstances at best. so I had better just get this lifetime done and over with so that I never have to worry about it anymore. in the meantime I had to learn how to love the reflection in the mirror, warts and all, no matter what. that was the single thing I could do that made this life one that I could stick around to see how it unfolded. judging by your writing I must conclude that you have more than enough mental and psychological horsepower to do the same thing. IOW be more stubborn and show more fight than your demons, because if you give up then they win. I know you can do it and furthermore I know that you SHOULD do it. please stick around, because with you in the world the tapestry of life is more complex and interesting, each of us contributes to the hope made out of fellow travelers. so if you should leave ahead of time life for those of us who knew you even fleetingly, will be diminished in color and there will be a little less hope in this world.

if you need to talk you are always free to PM me if you wish.

I gave up on life when I was about 25 and I just buried myself in smoking weed from then until I was about 31. Weed doesn't last forever but it made those years really good for a time. The intensified tastes and sounds made me want to go back over my life and re experience the world while stoned. foods, computer games, music, endless sleeping. It was a hollow existence, where I never really thought about anything, but it was kinda enjoyable at the same time. It gave me lots of time to just think about things.

I think properly falling in love changed that for me, even if things never worked out. It gave me the will to live again. Knowing that it's out there made me want to try, and when it left I felt revitalised with a will to live for myself.

Honestly, until then id only had crushes. But finding the real thing is a game changer. It's made me grow up. Stopped me neglecting myself. Makes me feel happy alone even which is weird. I'm actually interested in having a nice home now. I'm working on personal development so my life isn't so wrecked when the next person turns up.

I think meds could be a good idea if you just use them to get your life into a happy place.

Not sure what I'm trying to say. Maybe it's that life can get better, and that's from someone that's been down lower than you are. Things do have the ability to be refreshed, where you go back to having the ability to look up the way you did when you were younger. Don't give up because 5 years from now you could be living a life indistinguishable from the one you're living now.

<deleting>

Since you are unhappy in your current life, you have to find a way to change it to something you want, but that won't happen immediately, so you will have to work towards some goal, which might help you if you can figure out what that is.

Thanks for the thoughtful posts.

I'm feeling better at the moment and I'm pretty sure I've switched from severed depression to a hypomanic episode on Wednesday (and I think the AD I'm taking has had the positive effect of brightening my mood but at the same time worsening my mood swings). I've got appointments with new psychiatrists, so I'm hopeful I'll eventually find one that will prescribe a mood stabilizer. I'll put it all in writing this time because I can't rely on expressing myself convincingly on the spot.

auntblabby, these are very kind words that in my opinion show a very healthy psychological makeup. I believe the most successful way to change my attitude about life has always been via assimilation and imitation of someone else's behavior and attitude, and I'll try to remind myself of the things you said when necessary. It helps that you're quite active on this forum, so I feel like I have a rough idea of you as a person as opposed to just talking to a wall of text. I hope this is not too weird a thing to say, and if you object to being a person in my head, please say so.

roobot - thanks for your story; I'm one of probably 3 people on earth who have no experience with weed, and sometimes I wonder whether it would have helped me. I just never had the social connections to try it, and wouldn't know where to get it myself.

tarantella64, thank you for telling your story - I thought it was relevant and had a message of hope. I'm not sure why you deleted it - I assume because of privacy concerns?

btbnnyr, unfortunately things tend to be not that simple. If I remember correctly, you have a limited understanding of social anxiety, depression or loneliness, and these things can make working towards goals very, very difficult. As you said, you also need to know what you want - I find that what I want is often a bit nebulous and maybe unrealistic. It's difficult to find a balance between wanting to achieve certain things and trying to be content with where and who you are. It's all so malleable and squishy and at the same time does not simply conform to one's wishes or actions, so often I get very confused and dissatisfied about life in general.

What about a small step towards what you want?
I find that big nebulous goals are hard to think about, but small and concrete is easier and still a goal to work towards.

Hi, LookTwice - thanks for saying that. I deleted partly for privacy, yes, but mostly because I wasn't sure it'd be helpful. Sometimes when you're badly depressed, hearing someone else's success can just feel like another impossible thing that'll never happen for you, so I didn't want to lay that on you -- it just felt like a little much. I'm glad it was helpful, though.

I think there are a lot of people on this forum who know that death is always an option, remember you only get one go at it (and life). I keep a quote from Beethoven above my desk which helps a little at times.

"I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me."

That's a tough one. I've found that creating a fairly strict routine helps stabilize my mood. Once stabilized, I can think of other things to add on. Whatever 'stabilized' may looks for you, once there, perhaps get a book out of the library and decide to read it 20 mins a day, 3 days a week for starters (something manageable and realistic that won't overwhelm you). If you want to read more, great, if that stretches your limits, stick with it or cut back. Maybe later down the road, open a new account called "Japan" to start saving up for a trip, then start looking into books about Japan, maybe take a free course online to learn Japanese. The key is to keep it manageable, and you never know, you might meet someone interesting with a similar goal down the line (I've found that meeting people for the sake of meeting people is a very difficult task for myself. I can only meet someone through shared interests, without trying to force it).

I can't get all preachy, as I've recently lost my equilibrium, but I'm trying to build it back up. I wish you the best. It's tough to get out of the paradox of being too unmotivated (bcoz of anxiety, depression, loneliness) to be motivated, despite being very motivated to be motivated on the inside (the idea itself is a mouthfull!). But you seem fairly perceptive about your situation, and getting to that point is half the battle (though there's a bit of a plateau there).

I thought tarentellas post was really helpful actually. It was the one where she listed the things shed never imagined she'd do when she was 31 right? That actually embarrassed me because of how much more constructive and helpful it was than mine. Pity she deleted it.