I need some help and advise - Depressed, lost, aimless, bored

[mickmook]

Hi,

I'm at a bit of a loss with what to do with myself and my situation. Unfortunately I feel really lost and unfulfilled in my life. I feel like I have made some missteps and have gotten myself stuck in a place I don't enjoy.

Some background; I am a near 40yo male with a wife and a 6 year old daughter. I work in IT as a Business Analyst and have been in this career for about a decade. For the past few years I have felt really lost, I attribute it most to work but I don't know if this is the whole reason. I had a couple of challenges over the past 6 or 7 years wrt work; company lost contract so made redundant, let go after probation because I stood up for myself, burned out from high expectations and being unable to properly stand up for myself because of fear (from previous instance of being let go for it), and now being in a role I am somewhat new to the domain and have little to no support with the prospect of a huge amount of tedious unfulfilling work ahead of me because of the lack of handover/support. I just feel stuck, like I've stumbled down endless dark corridors and ended up at a dead end. And I feel really ashamed of started a new job having felt so bad about the previous couple, and then still feeling like I've made another mistake.

At home I feel like my wife and I have drifted apart. We are rarely intimate and she's become more of a workaholic than before. When I'm home, I'm bored, when I'm at work I'm bored, frustrated and unfulfilled.

In the past few years I think I have blamed myself for a lot of these things. I used to be more confident but also probably pushed blame for my frustrations onto other things or people. But I cant help but think me thinking I am the problem, is actually causing me to be my own worst enemy. At least when I had other things that were a cause of my frustrations I feel I could take steps to change things, or at least didn't feel so awful about being the source of all my perceived problems.

I don't know how to move forward. I don't know if I should try looking for another job even though I've just moved to this one. I have been trying to re ignite my relationship with my wife but I think my constant down mood has made her feel bad too and we both appear to have no energy to engage meaningfully with one another. 

I guess I'm after some thoughts, advice, experiences similar and how you got out of it. Thanks

[james1]

Hey mickmook,

I'm sorry to hear you are finding your situation at work and at home really tough. Normally, we hope that one can prop us up when the other is struggling, so I understand it's especially hard when both are in a bit of a pickle.

I've not been in that situation before but it's one that I've heard a lot about here on the forums as it seems to be a common problem. And I suppose a (gross) simplification would be that it seems you are trapped in a bit of a negative spiral where your mood is low, which makes other parts of your life more challenging, which makes your mood dip further, etc. I think that simplification can help a bit because it shows that this will be a challenging cycle to break on your own, and that it's not your fault at all that you're feeling stuck. Structurally, your life is making it increasingly challenging for you and I hope we can help you find a way to break out of this.

As a thought, I was caught in a similar problem with my life overall when I had a bad break up and was feeling really dissatisfied at work. This was about 8 years ago now and I ended up needing to see a psychologist weekly. The main reason that was helpful for me was that I had a place to myself that was not work and not my relationship, essentially a place where I did not feel like I was failing in some way. From there, I was able to get my footing back and try to reclaim the other parts of my life.

Do you have any similar type supports or have you considered that before?

James