Therapy tends to work if you've got a specific problem to solve / develop coping mechanisms for, but it sure isn't everything to everyone. But, "Get your shit together lady and stop making it worse." I have a partner I trust with most everything and close friends and chickens who love me unconditionally (as well as some handsome lab plants I am very proud of). I've got a degree in a technical field and another on the way. I have hobbies and projects and students to mentor. I have a lot of things to live for. And yet. There are days when the list of projects is more of a list of failures, the love and support from people close to me is an obligation for them, the work is an exercise in proving how incompetent and stupid I am. And I wake up with the knowledge that I should not be alive, that I am wasting all the effort and resources spent on me, that I'm a burden that can barely manage to feed herself. I go sit in my lab and try to focus but I can't really and nothing significant gets done, I go home and sit on the couch and stare into space and try to will myself to act a little bit like a human so the people around me don't worry and wait for the time to pass until I can sleep. I look at my week-long pill box and think about how much time is progressing and I am not. I feel like shit for not accomplishing anything and I feel like shit for feeling like shit instead of accomplishing something anyway and I feel like shit for...you get the idea. For me, this article is about stopping that spiral before it gets really deep. About just existing in that state, rather than agonizing over it too.
Thanks for writing. I had a period of self-reflection recently where I realized I was being a huge asshole and one of the things I came back to was this post. It's more of a reflection of my own terror - I've lost several close friends to suicide and a few people from my graduating class. Kb's comment is accurate, they were suddenly gone. So I was upset reading "I don't really want to be alive right now" - because the people I know that have actually crossed that barrier never talked like that. But at the end of the day I have no right to be tearing into her. It's shitty. It's making the world a worse place to live in. And having a thick skin means nothing because even for me there was a time of life where an unkind word might have been the difference between life and death. The passage of time scares the hell out of me too. I had certain life experiences and now I feel perpetually unsatisfied with most things. I feel like I want everything but I know I'll never get it. So I'll always feel inadequate. And it's the little things, like going to public spaces and noticing you're no longer the youngest person in the room... I hope all is well and I'm sorry.
Hey, no need to be so hard on yourself. I see a younger me in the things you wrote, and certainly sometimes we all need to practice getting in front of disasters before they spiral out of control and make things even worse. Things have been looking up over here lately. Hang in there. We're here for you.