Five years ago I was 21 and ready to take life by the horns. I grew up in a town in Alabama and always knew that wasn’t where I belonged, so I took all of the money I had saved and moved myself all the way to Oregon, where I knew no one. I had a dream of exploring the world and creating music along the way. After a year and a half of living in Portland and loving it, I decided once again to move myself, this time to Denver, Co. After being here for a year and feeling like I was finally figuring this life thing out, things took a turn for the worse.
Driving home from my job I felt as if I was dying. Literally convinced myself while I was driving, that this was the end. Little did I know this was a panic attack. That panic attack shook me up a little bit, but after visiting a GP and receiving medication, I felt like things were going well until two weeks later I had another panic attack at work, which led to a er visit, and ultimately led me to where I’m at now. After this I was housebound with my fears for 6 months, but I was able to work through it over the last two years and was back working (in my neighborhood) and was able to even drive about 10 minutes away. That was all going well until about a month ago.
A month ago I had a complete relapse back into anxiety. I moved into a new house, and two days later had another panic attack. This led me right back to the start it feels like. I’m not working again. I can’t go a block to the store. I spend all day alone with my thoughts. This time around I’m dealing with extreme depression as well. So instead of knowing I want to get better, this time around I constantly have the depression saying “What’s the point? If you do these things to get better, are you even going to be happy?” It feels like I can’t even find happiness in day to day life, so how is improving going to help? I constantly think about life as one unit right now basically. As in there are no day to days, there’s just now and death. I’m not interested in self harm, but my brain constantly says whats the point if we’re all going to die anyways? And all this is on top of not being able to go anywhere or do anything due to the anxiety. So I spend all day trying to distract myself from the thoughts, and combating them off when they enter the forefront of my brain, all while only being able to talk to my two roommates who, although they’re my best friends, are alcoholics and have no aspiration to improve their quality of life. I can talk to my mom, which helps, but she lives all the way across the country. The only other person I have is the girl I started seeing a few months ago, who is very understanding and is sticking through me with this, but I’m too afraid to let her come over because I don’t want to freak out and panic while shes here. I just don’t know what to do any more. I know I can’t just distract myself for ever, and I really want to believe that I’m meant for more than this in life, but it feels like its never going to end.
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Much Love To You My Friend!
Hugz!
Life has Brought You Someone Who Will Listen To You and Help Bring Understanding To Your Life.
Treasure That.
Treasure Her.
“What’s the point? If you do these things to get better, are you even going to be happy?”
Yes.
Because You Will Unlock The True Potential Within Yourself.
And When You Do,
You Will Make The World Better Because You Are Better.
You Will Be A Blessing To Everyone You Meet In This Life.
She Sees It.
She Just Wants You To Acknowledge It.
Peace Be With You Always.
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Thank you for responding. Its nice to hear someone other than my inner voice telling me the things I need to hear. I do need to reach out to her, its just seems like such a risk for some reason.
Thank You For Sharing Your Thoughts.
Whatever The Reason May Be…
Ask Yourself My Friend.
Love Or Fear.
One Frees Us.
One Enslaves Us.
Be Free My Friend.
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I don’t fully understand your panic attacks because I’ve never had one. I had a couple friends with huge anxiety problems. One described her panic attacks and they sounded absolutely terrifying. She couldn’t breathe or move and was wreaked for the rest of the day and inhibited for the rest of the week. I hope you continue to seek help for your panic attacks, especially from professionals in therapy and perhaps with medication if that makes sense to you. Sounds painful, and I’m no expert here, but from what I understand about my friends’ situations, professional help would reduce the anxiety tremendously.
“What’s the point if we’re all going to die anyways?” I can totally relate. I’ve been struggling with apathy and a similar sense of hopelessness for ten years now. The only thing that’s usually kept me going is something along the lines of suicide being too painful (not just physically, but especially emotionally, especially the guilt of leaving my loved ones like that), so I more or less feel burdened to continue living until something kills me or life gets bad enough where that’s a feasible option. Shitty, gloomy perspective, but that’s been my life perspective for the last ten years, and it hasn’t been too bad, the darkness has some pros. It’s been good at times, but often painful and more often just “meh”.
I took a sabbatical from work last year and I’ve been spending extensive time in therapy and trying to seek acceptable answers to those very questions you were asking. The societal wisdom of “live in the present” and “do what makes you happy” just hasn’t resonated with me. Works for others, great, but I want something more meaningful. I’ve spent… Probably over a year of my life in the last ten years contemplating these questions. They’re really freaking hard dude. Existential questions are the questions many think are not answerable, objectively, but we must find our own answers. Many, like in AA, say one can only find answers in higher powers, deities or entities greater than oneself. I don’t want to try to answer these questions for you, but I do think I can give you hope. In the last few weeks I feel like I have gotten much closer to an answer that motivates me to suffer through the rest of my life with dignity. Not to find happiness, but to find meaning in my suffering (suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds a purpose - Victor Frankl). There are answers, and you don’t have to sacrifice your intellectual honesty to find them, but they may produce a load more anxiety and depression as you seek to answer them. Jordan Peterson’s talks on responsibility and meaning in life have been very impactful for me.
I empathise and relate a lot. I’m in a better place now and I hope you find some hope in my ounce of success through this struggle. If you ever wanna chat feel free to pm me. Best of wishes on your journey!
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