Um, how do I give a s*** again?

Post date: 2021-04-08 13:28:10

Basically I've gone totally numb due to the usual depression reasons. I'm also exhausted. Need to hear ideas how to reverse course without overwhelming myself. Content warning: lots of anger.

I have a sneaking suspicion that beneath this numbness is an overwhelming amount of feeling. It's just that I have so many overlapping problems I can't even begin to solve them all.

For instance: I have few real friends. I'm barely speaking to my family. I just took a new job but otherwise I'm barely employed or employable. My mother accused me of being a selfish person last year and it still hurts because it's kind of true. I'm so chronically exhausted that I can't handle any type of relationship. I have Problems With Substances.

The last year or so has taken some sort of cognitive ability from me too so I feel like I can barely write this. Oh yeah... I used to be able to write and now I just feel stressed and guilty at the idea. (Oh, and also, and also: I've spent the last five years cocooned in the kind of cancel-happy leftist scene that makes you feel guilty for breathing.)

The real kicker is that some part of me refuses to use any healthy coping mechanisms. And I know them! I've been to therapy, CBT and DBT, I know all about distracting myself, opposite action, mindfulness, etc. All suddenly suspect to me once I realized therapy these days is indistinguishable from a corporate mindfulness webinar.

All this to say: I don't want to get better. I don't want to be a good little mentally ill person and do my therapy and fit better into society. I want to scream and scream and scream and not stop screaming until everyone around me feels the same pain I do. I want to lash out. I want to hurt people. Not badly, just enough to shake them awake.

Trouble with that too is: I know that is the mental illness talking and in fact I would regret if I reached out and severed all my existing relationships.

I'm tired of being told to heal myself, looking within, taking responsibility for anything. I feel like a child at this moment in my life, and I'm acting like one, but please understand I've been the adult in the room for so long, in so many different situations and workplaces and friend groups, and I just want everyone else to clean up their own shit for a change.

Whew. See what I mean? I'm numb most of the time because when I do lift the lid on my emotions, this vile, spiteful garbage is the only thing that comes out. I don't know why I'm so angry... have my suspicions to be sure. But everyone keeps telling me that I'm so lucky in the grand scheme of things and that I should be so grateful. It makes me want to barf on them.

Like I said, I don't even know how to begin solving any of this, especially since I've started to distrust therapists and I can't really afford therapy right now. I went to one session and a therapist said a thoughtless thing and I instantly wanted nothing to do with her. I would think this was BPD, for those of you familiar with that, but I'm in my early thirties and I've been able to integrate conflicting perceptions of people before this.

(I'm also just really not interested in being labelled at this point in my life, I've been in therapy on and off for six years and have collected labels like pokemon cards; clearly all of that has not helped me. I have a deep feeling of shame and innate badness to begin with and I do not need armchair psychiatrists adding to that.)

Please help me break some of this down. I need like, next steps. I need to be explained to like I'm five. What is the most important thing for me to focus on in all this? Like what do I start with? Thank you in advance, and I feel obligated to thank you for making it through all this junkmail of an ask post.

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