Dear Paul:

I would  like to read  and  respond to your thread  when  I am back to the computer,  in  about sixteen hours from now. I hope other members will respond  to you before I am back.

anita

Dear Paul,

I know exactly where you are. I am in an almost identical place, but for different reasons.

I can tell you with no uncertainty the following:

You are still depressed. Ending medication is never a great idea unless told so by your doctor. And counseling is not a one and done thing for those of us suffering from depression. It is work. It is painful. It seems to me that you have sort of switched off your emotions in an effort to assure yourself that you are no longer depressed. This is what I did for a long time. But there are a few problems with that. First of all, the negative emotions you are burying, and that IS all you are doing to them right now, will come back. And they will be POWERFUL because you have allowed them to fester like a wound. I am talking anger, depression, rage, sadness. They’re all still there, you’re just ignoring them. Second, is that you cannot just pick and choose which emotions to “turn off”. You either turn them all off, or none. This is likely why you feel empty. That joy and happiness are fleeting. Because every so often, something will happen and in the immediacy of the action, you feel those emotions, but since you have switched them off, they flutter away just as fast. Same thing with sadness and rage and the like. In the immediate moment of such feelings, it’s there. But it dissipates quickly.

So I would suggest a few things.

1. Get back on some sort of medication. If the medication you were taking had some undesired side effect or didn’t make you feel right, tell your doctor. This is the crappy part about psych meds. They are very hit an miss. Many solutions are “off label”, meaning that you end up taking adderall for something that has nothing to do with ADD because of how it interacts with certain chemicals in the brain. Basically, the medicine meant directly to take care of X might also help with Y, so it takes awhile to find the right ones.

2. Get back to counseling. It doesn’t have to be a daily thing, or even weekly. Maybe go twice a month. Having someone you can talk to with no judgments and who won’t blab to everyone is invaluable. Think of it like a pressure release valve on a water heater. When you use the hot water, steam starts to fill the empty portions of the tank, even with the new water going in. Without that valve, the water heater would explode every time you took a shower.

3. This one is probably going to suck at first, because you remind me of me, but……

Get out there. Go walk around a park. Be out and about in public. Don’t pick some out of the way park where no one goes to. Pick the one that is busy all times of the day. Interact with other human beings. It is fostering even these chance encounters that “kick starts” all those emotions again. And for a few days, you will feel like crap. Because all of those negative emotions you have been ignoring are gonna come soaring back in. But that too shall pass. I wish the same could be said about all of the positive feelings you ignored, but alas, those are gone forever.  Not to fret, you will make new ones.  And that is what makes life worth living, my friend. Stay strong. Chin up. I believe in you, because I believe in me.

That is also pretty important. Believe in yourself.

Dear  Paul:

I want  to repeat your share in my own words as it helps me process information when I do that:

You used to be a bodybuilder and a boxer, a painter decorator and a taxi driver. You are 49, have a 23 year old son and a granddaughter. You have some history of “anxiety and social anxiety”. When you were about 43 you became very depressed, you got on psychiatric medication, gained weight, and your depression lasted  five years until Oct 2017 you attended counselling (third time). You felt better and came off all medication.  “The darkness has lifted”, but you feel empty, unmotivated, “just existing, joy and happiness is fleeting”, “lost and alone, unhappy and guilty.. selfish… lost and  confused…. empty and numb inside and feel like I am just waking up and starting the  cycle over again day after day”. You stay home a lot and work two days a week. You don’t want to be stuck in this emptiness for the rest of your life, that feels like torture.

My input: the hopes and dreams of youth, these keep us motivated, no matter how difficult life is, how anxious and miserable  we may be, we still have hope, we view the future as open for a different kind of life. We see possibility there. You were a body builder, had  dreams related to that, I assume. Then you got older and that dream ended.

You had other dreams, now they don’t look possible to make  happen.

So you are stuck in the emptiness left when the dreams are gone. No  dreams, no hope for a different kind of  life. The solution is not in resurrecting  the same dreams, that is, getting your body back to the shape it was before, and it is not in resurrecting the other dreams. The solution is in restarting your life at 49, a different attitude, different  understanding of what your life is about.

Your life is your restarting  point, your new  beginning. This time there are no dreams of future  greatness to deliver  you from accepting your life as-is. Your life as-is, this is all that is available for you.

First step,  I would say, is to relax into your life as-is. It  is possible for you to feel much better  about your life  as it is now, if you correct your thinking.

Let me know of what you think so  far about what I wrote, and we can continue to communicate, if you’d like.

anita

Dear Paul:

You went into body building so to be able to  protect yourself against the  bullying you suffered from in school, so to get physically strong and capable. Unfortunately, reads like you were  bullied by the mother of your twin daughters, a different kind of bullying. You lost precious bonding time with them and the final blow, the one  you didn’t detail, that brought about the five year depression. You turned to the courts, social services, the police, you did your best but you lost the battle, lost the girls, at   this point.

I think that I have a deeper understanding of your sadness. It  is more difficult to accept such a loss, isn’t it. And it  was traumatic for you to be mistreated that way by the mother of your girls, what a shame. Why was or is she so angry at  you, so hateful?

anita

Dear Paul:

Too bad, what a shame. Reads like she was driven by anger, driven to cause you pain. Having two girls with you gave  her that opportunity. I can see how this led you into deep depression. I am impressed you tried  as hard and as long as you did, with the  courts and otherwise, to improve this situation.

Back to  the  concept  of starting anew,  from the beginning, or  in your words, “a new chapter” in your life, a chapter  that makes sense,  a  meaningful chapter, a meaningful life, can you write the beginning of this chapter, in your next post perhaps, list objectives  for this coming chapter, list a few  things you learned in the  previous chapters so to make this chapter better?

I will soon be away from the computer for about fifteen hours. If you reply further I will be glad to read and reply when I am  back.

anita

Dear  Paul:

You are thinking about becoming  a life coach. I suggest that you can start this job, this occupation right away by having you as  your first  client. The thoughts that are stopping you, that inner critic’s input, every person has that inner critic. Your coaching  of others will have to include  dealing  with that voice.

I would say regarding your idea of  making a plan of  action, start small, make a simple, short plan of  action for today, something doable. This  will not stimulate that inner critic into a frenzy of discouraging messages, so you will have less friction accomplishing the few doable objectives in that daily plan. At the end of the day, having accomplished those few objectives, you will have a little bit  of confidence to repeat the next  day, another simple, doable daily plan. Over time, you will aim at bigger objectives.

anita