Any of you else feel like... "why bother... really."

I was the same way for a long time. But i got through it, and so can you.

My depression led to self destructive behaviour. I was a drug addict, all i cared about was the next fix. Then one day i sort of had an awakening. I have a family of 5. My wife and I and our 3 kids.
To buy more drugs, we moved out of our beautiful 5 bedroom country home, and moved to the city to a 2 bedroom apartment. Ive always had a great paying job, so money wasnt the issue, it was my addiction that led to that living situation. One day child services came to our house. There was a report of drug use.
That moment i snapped out of my 6 year daze. And said thats enough of this crap. I went to the clinic got onto suboxone to get off the opiates. Been sober 3 years now. Still have a great paying job, and also opened a side business doing what i love to do - Flying my UAVs for cash!

I remember the 3rd night being sober. With drugs out of my system. We brought the kids to the marina. There was a movie playing in the park, drive in style.
I was Sitting in the grass with my wife and kids. I put my hand down and i felt the dewey grass between my fingers. And just stayed in that moment. I felt alive again, everything seemed so beautiful.
It was like I completely forgot how beautiful everything really is. And i actually started cry, right there. tears of happiness. And i just smiled at my kids.

If i can come back from a place as dark and hopeless feeling, as i was in, you can get through anything. You have to push yourself to find your spark.
You have to recapture That lighting in your bottle.

What a coincidence. I'm currently watching American Beauty and that movie is like mid-life crisis central. It could very much be a mid-life crisis, but I'm far away from half of my life and I just feel like why should I bother with anything? So, it could just be a passing moment of apathy for everything or depression, who knows?

a reply to: flice

I like your OP, there's a natural flow to it. It's an easy read. (lol)

And I feel like I could relate to everything you just said at some different points in my life. One thing that stood out for me is that I secretly prayed for and daydreamed about being in a crash whenever I was in a car (in my young teenaged years, I was really depressed)... and I sense the futility of everything, too.

Generally, the futility of life comes from knowing that all of this is going to end one day. And it kind of sets me free and deepens my appreciation of life, actually.

Humanity is like one eye opening and then closing forever... never to open again. We come and go like the blink of an eye. Just one blink. And I don't mean individual human lives... I mean the entire span in which humanity occupies this universe. We don't even make a mark on the grand timeline. We only get this small, microscopic window to see through, this one shot to live. And yeah lots of people are silly and care about some dumb # (however, food is never dumb to care about! imo anyway, lol), but none of us survive so let em be them... and you do you. Do you and be free. They'll judge you but who cares cause remember the futility and as long as the "doing you" doesn't involve hurting me, or hurting them, then I'm ok with it.

a reply to: flice

That is the system working to make you easy to control. Give up and die inside.

Fight back. If not out of spite and fueled by rage.

Be happy.

Wauw.... I know when one opens up a shaken bottle of candor that I had to expect to get some in ny face... And I did. And thats ok.

Id love to sit down and answer every single post for as I read them all of them deserves a response. I genuinely feel helped or feel the empathy or understanding in all of them.

Thanks for keeping it civil.

Yes, I can see how it could be depression... Thats a thought that has popped up now and again and even my gf dropped that line during a heated discussion once.
The last couple of years Ive been philosophising a lot. Im an atheist btw... But I do brush up against eastern philosophy. So a lot of my relation to life is understanding the all connectedness, and like one poster said... That whole we are a blink of an eye.

What Im saying is that in my depression currently Im adjusted to the belief that Im not the one with the symptoms as seen from a universal point of view.... But yes, I totally acknowledge how this point of view takes me somewhat out of the human equation as being part of a fixed social system that has demands.

So Im trapped in this weird limbo where I at the one end feel like Im better off living in a wooden cabin in the forests of canada, and at the other end I need to be there for my kids and this implies having to take my place in the hamster wheel.

From a medical point of view I was through the depression mill 16 years ago.
I enlisted in architectureschool and got in.... But that was a choice I made from what I at the time felt like was expected of a bright kid. Surely enough I crashed 1 year into the studies, ended up working at a factory which with its lack of sunlight exposure made everything worse. Eventually I got out of it. Dont think it was the meds cause he gave me the weakest product.

Anyways.... This now... Here... It feels different. Cant put words to it.

Good points about the kids. I really do love them. I just lack the energy to invest in playing with them a lot of the time. They are more or less though the most important part of my life.

I thought a lot about career change. The last thing I looked up after posting this before going to bed was "education with job security".
Im a commercial photographer by the way.... Which makes all this ironic, because I chase purity but service fakeness and putting consumerish ideas into peoples heads.
But the education as a photograher isnt really useful for that much else... Atleast not that I know off.
That brings me to those who mention the thought of leaving childhood behind and growing up... Facing the world. Did I take too long to do so??
I mean... Im not happy to admit it, but yes.... I might be childish. Economically as well and that has left its mark with poor decisions, sort of like you who offered you honest stort about drugs, but my addiction was gear.
I have taken dramatic steps to fix this though.... Will take some years to recover.
But I feel like this prevents me from jumping to the next boat since that move is financially expensive.

as I am reading your post I just got a call from my best friend her 53y old mum is deep coma heart attack they can't operate so ... jokes aside .. you really only do have one life excuse me everyone gotta go now

originally posted by: realnewsrealfunny
as I am reading your post I just got a call from my best friend her 53y old mum is deep coma heart attack they can't operate

so ... jokes aside .. you really only do have one life excuse me everyone gotta go now

Sorry to hear that... I guess we all look at life and death differently. Hope she pulls through though.

Some things to try:

- Quiet time in nature
- Classic novels
- Spirituality
- Meditation (NOT medication!)
- Creative outlets such as writing

By the way, the more time I spend reading forums like this, the more depressed I become. Seeing threads full of people scolding each other and acting like half of the citizens in the country are trash (the opposite "team" of whatever issue) can really get to you.

I'm pretty much much in the same boat. I feel like I'm impatiently waiting in line for my turn to die. Nothing much interests me anymore. But you know what they say: Being well adjusted to a sick society is, well, sick.

a reply to: notquiteright

What if something fantastic is just right around the corner?

Don't 'wait' on your time to die...it will come soon enough.

Whether you wait in line or not, it's coming! Don't waste time waiting.

Of all the bazillion things in this world, surely, there is something that you can find to give you hope or a reason to just smile?

a reply to: TNMockingbird
I appreciate the words, but the thread isn't mine and would not want to distract from OP.

Some things used to excite me greatly, and sometimes still do. But the frequency that it happens gets less and less every year. I'm trying to be a good robot and just keep it all going as long as I can for the kids.

I was really just trying to relate to op. You're not the only one, op.

a reply to: notquiteright

I getchya!

Just trying to help, genuinely, from the bottom of my old crusty heart!

Hang in there!

It's worth it!

originally posted by: flice

originally posted by: realnewsrealfunny
as I am reading your post I just got a call from my best friend her 53y old mum is deep coma heart attack they can't operate

so ... jokes aside .. you really only do have one life excuse me everyone gotta go now

Sorry to hear that... I guess we all look at life and death differently. Hope she pulls through though.

Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated I was genuinely going to read your post through .. Mom just messaged and called that she was in hospital also for a heart condition crying that she thought she was going to die. I was reading through ATS i wasn't checking my phone so I missed her messages and calls (thanks god she is ok she had some severe chest inflammation) but just the whole thought of it

Not sure why I am offloading sorry again thanks for the concerns much appreciated