FAQ

Find answers to some of the more frequently asked questions on the Forums.

Forums guidelines

Our guidelines keep the Forums a safe place for people to share and learn information.

I have no reason to keep on trying

Hollywoo
Community Member

There is nothing in my life but work, sleep, repeat. I'm alive to pay bills.

 

I can't find happiness in anything and I have tried EVERYTHING. Hobbies. Exercise. Volunteering. Gardening. Reading. Sports. Changing jobs. Travel. Nothing gives me joy. I have no passion for anything.

 

I have no family connections. Making friends feels like torture. I feel so disconnected from everyone I know. I genuinely don't enjoy spending time with people. I don't enjoy spending time by myself. Sleep is the best part of my life.

 

I have spent countless thousands of dollars of therapy, hospital stays and medications. Nothing helps. 

 

What am I holding on for? What am I supposed to do? The more I think about how fruitless life is, the more it feels like the walls are closing in and I'm suffocating.

12 Replies 12

therising
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi Hollywoo

 

I imagine you'd agree that a skill or tool is only good if it works or if you can relate to it, otherwise it's simply theory without the ability to practice it.

 

Sometimes I wish my parents had given me a stack of skills and tools. Would have made life so much easier but, of course, our parents can't give us what wasn't given to them. Go back through the generations and we'd probably find a number of the skills or tools we so desperately need were never there. So, it's like you're the first in generations to feel the serious need to access certain tools and develop certain skills. Perhaps the need was there in previous generations but not to the point where you feel you can't live without those things. You really feel the struggle, trying to live without them.

 

It's like how do you manage an entire audience of inner critics or as some people put it 'inner demons', collectively heckling you, telling you what a pathetic job you're doing and telling you what a waste of space you are, among other things? How do you develop a kind of entourage of inner supporters, cheering you on, telling you to ignore the lies and condemnation? Among them perhaps there's the  inner sage, director (that sets solid direction to follow, when self doubt threatens to take over), the clown with the lighthearted take on what can feel so depressing at times and so on. How to develop an inner cheer squad when no one's told you how to do it in a way that's completely relatable?

 

How to act when such a brutal audience has your full attention?

Elwood3184
Community Member

I feel you. I couldn't take it today and found this forum and am crying as I read this. 

 

I've been trying everything I can for so long. I have no meaningful connections in my life and I have tried for 12 years to develop them. I've tried all the activities you have. I don't know why. I've tried therapies, I've been on meds. It's not getting any better. It kind of feels like the harder I try, the worse it gets. 

 

I wish I could say something more supportive but all I can say is I know exactly what you mean. It resonates with me so much. It hurts so much.  

therising
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi Hollywoo

 

I've heard it said before that, at times, hope is simply not enough. So, in a way, we dispense with what is not enough yet the challenge remains for us to replace it with something, otherwise we're left with nothing at all.

 

Wondering if you've ever looked into psycho-spiritual counseling. While from the perspective of psychology and biology/chemistry we can be guided to do everything that could possibly work to make a difference (from better understanding our self, through to volunteering, exercising, eating right, going for walks in nature etc etc etc), none of it may make a difference unless there's some sort of soulful connection to such things. If we've never been led to a soulful sense of life and a sense of connection to it, then it's completely unrelateable, that side of things. Could learning how to relate be something worth considering? Could learning how to deeply feel every experience for the first time on some deeper level, for example, be something that could change things a little?