Feeling empty and constantly wanting life to finish

[Spirit]

I am a mother of 3 children. 15 and 16 year old boys and a 11 year old girl. I have depression and anxiety, Last year was a complete write off with two hospital admissions and having full on depression. Now with the help of medication things have become more manageable. However I constantly feel very inadequate. I am doing a job that is very low level than my qualifications and I feel inferior most of the time. My skills have depleted and I feel stupid all the time. I am tired of life. When we had kids we thought they would study hard and further themselves. None of them are interested in studies and I feel that they will all end up having to live at home, being unemployed. My poor husband is shouldering the family burden and I feel very sorry for him as he never wanted to have kids. It was my idea and now we are both very unhappy. I find myself wishing my life to end. I just want the drudgery of life to end. I cannot seem to find happiness. I have no hobbies and almost no friends apart from one lady who is much older than me. I  look at my life and wonder how did it get to this point. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again.

[Sophie_M]

Hello Spirit, 

Thank you so much for reaching out and connecting with our community today.

We can't imagine how difficult this has all been for you. It sounds like you have been working so hard to manage some really challenging emotions, whilst showing up for your family. This in itself is so much harder than it seems. 

Experiencing life in way that doesn't bring you joy right now must also be very overwhelming. Please know that it is human to feel this way at times and you are allowed to feel and express that fully. It seems that connection to other people who understand what you are going through would help so much here. So, reaching out to our forums was a wonderful first step. 

I'd also like to suggest exploring Grow. They are free online and in-person support groups you can access, which might be very helpful for you right now: Peer support groups for mental health - GROW Australia

You can also always contact the Suicide Callback Service (1300 659 467), Lifeline (13 11 14), or us (1300 22 4646) when you are feeling that these thoughts of not wanting to wake up are too much to manage alone. You never have to go through this without support, we are always here.

We hope that you are able to find what feels good for you soon, Spirit. It might take some time and that's okay. Can you start by noting one small thing each day that feels even 1% lighter for you? You can write them here and keep us updated, we would love to be on that journey with you. 

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Please stay safe and let us know if there's anything else you need. 

Warm regards, 
Sophie M. 

[therising]

Hi Spirit

I'd have to say one of the toughest things to manage and gain in life would have to be a greater sense of self understanding. I've found a greater sense or level of self understanding tends to come one revelation at a time and while it can all feel so slow and impossible on occasion, we can suffer deeply in the process. I feel for you while you come to question so much, including how you got to where you are.

Given your name (Spirit), I can't help but wonder whether you're a soulful kind of person in any way. From my own experience, I acknowledge depression can come with mental factors which can include perception, inner dialogue, certain belief systems etc. It can come with physical factors such as low dopamine and serotonin levels amongst other chemical deficiencies, neurological challenges and other physical factors. At times it can also come with soul based kinds of challenges. From a soulful perspective (when facing what feels soul destroying at times), I tend to question 'Why am I suffering so much through this mind that I have and this body that I'm in?'. One revelation that came to mind some time ago was 'You have a tendency to tolerate what you can until you no longer can tolerate it. Then it becomes depressing and/or anxiety inducing (depending on the situation)'. In some cases, I can look back over time and realise I got to where I am through tolerating things. Logic dictates I can only tolerate so much for so long until it becomes completely intolerable. Then can come a breakdown of sorts, where I can feel like I'm falling apart. With the breakdown comes the need to break down everything that's built up over time, everything I've been trying to cope with. With this process comes 'list making'. While constructive in one way, it can also be destructive in another. What I mean by this is it can end up looking like an incredibly stressful and/or depressing list. Another way of looking at the list is 'All the things that have come to add up over time'.

Another revelation that came to mind was 'Everything on the list points to a need'. For example

• 'I am suffering through a lack of adventure' points to a need for adding ventures to life, as opposed to repeating the same old ventures. Repeating the same old ventures can definitely have a 'groundhog day' or 'rinse and repeat' feel to it. Not a good feeling
• 'I am suffering through my relationship with my husband' points to a need for the relationship to change. If it's a relationship where he rarely puts any effort into raising my spirits, raising my consciousness, raising me through my imagination and sense of vision of the future, this is going to end up being a depressing relationship unless something changes
• 'I am suffering through a lack of friendships' points to a need to establish new friendships. As a 54yo gal, I'm currently working on developing friendships with work colleagues, as I don't have many friends outside of family. The people I've come to work with are people who make me laugh while also bringing certain facets in me to life, facets of myself I've come to love and be surprised by. The question came to me one day 'Why would you not want to see more of the people who bring out the best in you?'. A fair question. With a degree of social anxiety, this began as a significant challenge

I think it is fair to say at times 'I have absolutely zero idea when it comes to how to fulfill this or that need, zero idea'. This would point to a need for guidance. I've found the best guides can make the biggest difference. Without great guides, it can be easy to sense or feel what 'Lost and alone in the dark with no sense of direction' feels like. Not a fan of that feeling, that's for sure. Sometimes it can feel incredibly dark.

[Spirit]

Thank you for taking the time to write so eloquently. You have managed to express many of my feelings.

[therising]

Hi Spirit

I'm glad certain things resonated. It can feel incredibly challenging and lonely when people just can't relate to how we feel life and our experiences.

When it comes to emotions, some of my issues initially related to only having those typical ones to refer to (while in a desperate effort to make greater sense of things). While people speak of typical emotions such as sadness, happiness, joy, anger, frustration, disappointment and so on, I found the more I was able to go deeper into feeling emotions, the better defined they became. One emotion or energy in motion that I can sense can feel like 'Twisting in the wind with no sense of direction'. Another would be 'Lost and alone in the dark'. Another would be 'The feeling of no one raising me' and the list goes on. While I used to simply say 'I feel depressed', for lack of better words, now I can say how and why I feel myself remaining within a depressing experience or period of time. For example, I could say 'I can feel no one and nothing raising me'. Logically, I'm going to stay down if no one or nothing raises me or helps me graduate to next level self understanding or if no one offers me solutions or visions of the way forward. Sometimes I can feel 'Stuck in a hole (a depression) with no obvious way up and out'. While people speak of the light at the end of the tunnel, I've come to see depression as a vertical tunnel, like a deep well. That light now becomes the light at the top of the tunnel. How to rise or raise our self up through the tunnel becomes the ultimate challenge. So much easier when we've got people helping us raise our self, on our way towards a more expansive sense of enlightenment.🙂