I am destroying my own life.

LegacyUser

I am a 26 year old educated guy. I have a girlfriend who I love and live with in our own place. I have a job that I don't love, but I don't despise either. It pays the bills, and is vaguely related to my field, but I get no sense of fulfilment from it. I have no hobbies to speak of. Monday to Friday I go to work and come home, watch tv or surf the net and go to bed. On the weekends I do my weekly shopping and watch tv or surf the net waiting for the week to start again.

I have a poor relationship with my family. I get on well with my sister, but I am not on speaking terms with my father or other siblings. My mum, who I love to bits, says that she wants nothing more than the family back together, but refuses to speak to me or visit until I forgive my father. He, who I think more as sperm doner than a dad, is an abusive scumbag and when I got old enough to realise what was happening, I advised my mum to leave him. The abusive stuff (psychological - not sexual or physical that I ever saw) went on from my childhood until I left home at 17 and went to college. They are in couples counselling now, but the man is devious and I would not put it past him to be playing mind games, pretending to try counselling so he can turn it on her when it "fails". He has done similar stuff before, and been caught at it, so I can't forgive him and as a result my only familial contact is one sister.

I am a naturally shy person, and have a lot of trouble dealing with people on any level. Its not that I hate them, its just that we tend not to have much in common. I don't like talking about/playing sports, going out to get drunk, or any of the other stuff that the majority of blokes seem to talk about (from what I have seen in work). Once I get to know somebody, I am able to interact alright, but most people are too busy to take the time, and I can't really blame them. So, the upshot of this is I have no friends to speak of. Every once in a while I text a friend from secondary school (who like me was a social reject) to keep contact, but it has been years since we met in real life (since I left the town where I grew up) and our lives have diverged quite a bit so we don't really have much in common any more. Another person I speak to is a guy from an old job, who I chat to online a few times a month, but that's it. I feel very isolated most of the time.

In my last year of college, I had a nervous breakdown and attended a few sessions of counselling. The woman I spoke to was very nice, and suggested that I had low self confidence, and that the stress of exams added to my own mental problem of "projecting" negative thoughts onto other people (ie, seeing people and instantly thinking they hate me) were a cause of it. I had honestly suicidal thoughts in the past, but always dismissed them and never made any attempts to kill myself. I haven't had thoughts like that in years though - these days its usually "the world would be better if I was never born" rather than "the world would be better if I slit my wrists". Anyway, she gave me some advice on controlling those thoughts, and it worked for a while, but I just can't shake the feeling that there is something very wrong with me.

I get sad a lot for no reason, and its starting to effect my relationship. When things dont go my way I over-react and tend to fly off the handle, shouting at people, hating myself and the world. I intentionally sabotage the few good things in my life and am generally self destructive. When I am acting like this, I am mean to my girlfriend and sister (read: the only two people I am actually close to) and as soon as I say these things I regret them but it keeps happening and it just makes me hate myself even more. Even when nothing bad happens, I routinely go into a funk, although not in the same way. For example just today I was playing XBox perfectly fine but when I put the controller down and went to watch tv on the couch, I suddenly felt like my life was pointless. I didn't want to touch my girlfriend or be touched. I didn't want to talk or watch tv or read or go out. I just sat there feeling dead inside, and after a while I went to bed. I cried into the darkness and I don't even know why. After a few hours, I got up and went to the shop to get some junk food (I am overweight, and on a diet - there's that self destructive thing again). I came back and shortly after my girlfriend went to bed, but I couldn't join her because I knew she would want to cuddle and I really can't stand the thought of that right now.

So yeah, that's pretty much my story. I hate myself, but don't know why. Just writing and having to think about it all again made me realise there might be some hint of a cause for all this but I don't know. I don't want to go to a counsellor because all she will say is the same thing, that I need to take charge of the "monkey on my back" (first counsellor's words). I don't want to go to a doctor and get prescription drugs because I have heard from other people and seen on tv that they can have really bad side effects. Non prescription drugs (St. John's Wort, cannabis) have had no effect on this at all.

I don't know why I am posting this online, to be honest. If anybody bothers answering I'm guessing it will be to advise me to see a doctor our counsellor, or maybe just to quit being a whiney jerk. Maybe. I don't know.

What do you do when you loath yourself this much? Sometimes it feels like I am two people. One is a quiet, sane, rational easy going guy who likes people and takes an interest in his life and the people around him. The other though, is a loud, angry, psychotic bastard who's sole mission in life is to destroy everything I have managed to scrape together. It sometimes feels like its just me against him, and I don't stand a chance.

caridee2

I feel for you, I really do. That emptiness and lack of fulfilment is, I think, more common than you realise, and nothing to be ashamed of. I know you probably don't want to hear it but going to see your doctor might be a good idea; they can be surprisingly compassionate about these things. You sound like such a nice guy and I'm so sorry that things aren't going to great at the moment...but they will get better. Life doesn't have to be this hard and it won't be like this forever; you're just going through a bad patch and will come out at the other end a stronger person for it. Would it be possible to consider a job change, to something you have more of a passion for?

killwill

First of all I think you are being very hard on yourself. Secondly dude, try getting out more, start looking into hobbies. If your not into sports, you would be surprised how a good walk in the countryside would do you wonders.

LegacyUser

1. your'e not feeling depressed for no reason. You're feeling depressed with good resaons as you've outlined in your post.
2. All drugs haave side-effects. Doctors try to prescibe the ones that suit you and your condition and have minimal side effects.
3. physical exercise is good for you and will make you feel better.
4. you really need to get some interests! You really need to get to meet more people. Have you looked at MeetUp.com?
hope that helps

tbh

I'm not saying that you need prescription medication, but you might. Mental illness is a funny one, I've yet to meet any diabetic who feels they could treat their disease themselves, without insulin, but mental illness - which is pretty much the same thing - a physical deficincy in certain chemicals or hormones - is viewed as a weakness. Get yourself to a doctor and see what (s)he has to say - you don't have to continue the treatment if you don't want to.

nmk

Hi there,

I wont go into the gory details but my family have undergone a similar enough situation. The person I'm most concerned about is my brother who is quite emotionally stunted as a result. I'm from a big family and feel that as he's the youngest may have slipped under the radar for a while. You sound like you're dealing with things much better than my little bro but I feel you may need to reconsider counselling.

As I've said, I'm from a big family and the girls seem to have dealt with it a bit better than the guys (probably due to girls having more social support from friends in their teens/being more open with people about their feelings). The only one of the boys who has come through relatively well is my brother who underwent counselling.

I'm not saying that the girls are completely unscarred by the experiences or role models of restraint and self-awareness but we've managed to deal with what we went through and get on with our lives a bit better than the boys. On the other hand, the girls probably suffered more (although you can't measure it in units but ykwim) at the time due to our heightened emotional state. That meant that we were dealing with at least some of the stuff as it happened whereas with my brothers it was all ignored/gruffly shrugged off at the time as much as possible.

That's my tuppence worth from my experience, I don't know if you'll find it relates to your situation now but I would urge you to look for a therapist that suits you, it can be hard to do but worth it. You don't mention if you have kids but you're sure to experience some resurgence of memories/feelings suppressed when and if they do arrive due to your experiences with your parent so dealing with some of it now will really help you to cope.

I wouldn't go down the antidepressant route before counselling, I would see that you have a clear issue to deal with and maybe antidepressants will help with that but there's no point taking the chemical route before trying to sort through it with the help of a trained professional.

Have you been looking into your long-term prospects to get a job that you like, maybe doing a night course in a field that you're interested in? It'll get you out of the house, give you more options to change with the security of your own job also. I agree with the others, hobbies are great and physical exercise a must to get those endorphins going!

HTH

NMK

How Strange

OP, consider cognitive behaviour therapy. From your post, you seem to have a pattern of negative thinking and negative behaviour which you can't shake off. I don't think you can overcome this on your own so you shouldn't discount therapy so quickly.

Also, get out and do something in the evenings or at weekends - take up a sport, go for a walk, buy a camera and take pictures - find out what you are interested in and pursue it but don't just sit around eating, putting on weight and feeling depressed. You are caught in a cycle at the moment and all it would take is a small effort on your part to break that cycle. Also, include your gf in some activities - find something to do together so you can start working on improving your relationship.

I would recommend behaviour therapy because without it you could easy slip into a patter of behaviour similar to your fathers. You treat you mum, sister and gf badly, not because you want to but because you can't stop yourself. People who bully others or psychologically manipulate often have very low self esteem - and it's the bullying or whatever you want to call it which gives them a feeling of power for just a brief moment. Then they feel terrible but that's the pattern of behaviour which becomes a cycle. But they don't start out as bullies - I think it is something that happens over time. Their bad behaviour is tolerated so as it gets worse the person on the receiving end continues to put up with it.

I've seen men who were psychologically mistreated by a parent and who grew up in a disfunctional family gradually become like their fathers as they get older. I know one in particular who had nervous problems, alcohol problems, gained alot of weight from over eating in his 20's and at the age of 30 he is just like his father now and treats his gf the way his father treated his mother.

I would urge you to get help because your rock bottom self esteem not improve on its own, you need to work on it but once you start doing it then you will see yourself grow in ways you couldn't imagine now.

I think everyone experiences feelings of worthlessness at one stage or another but these are usually fleeting. What you have described is far more serious.

Also, don't self medicate with cannibas or johns wort. From your post, your problems seem to run far deeper than mild depression so you need to see a professional if you want to take anti-depressants.

LegacyUser

Just living day to day will seem very pointless. Work towards some thing, travel, see the world, it can be an inspiration. I did a bit of backpacking on my own and I was shocked at how easy it was to just pack up and leave. I could do what I liked and depend on myself to do it.

Now I'm looking at volunteering abroad. I don't really know what to do with my life so I figure I might as well make myself useful to people that will really appreciate me until I find something I can settle at.

If you really want to change your life then change it, sitting around complaining about how crap things are won't do you any good think about what your life could be and work towards it.