Javier, your post moved me. I read your scream for help, and the honest truth is that I dont have any magic solutions. For now I am just a stranger sitting with you in the hardship.  I know how isolating it must feel when you reach out to friends for help and even us strangers on forums- and the only reply you get back is “see a therapist”, as if that will solve all your problems.  Therapy can help us be more aware of our emotions, provide a non-biased perspective on the negative train of thoughts, and sometimes become a catalysator for change, but sometimes it can also feel that you are just paying someone to listen to your hardship and re-traumatized you.

Maybe that is what we all also want from a forum, not solutions but kindness- someone to finally see us and validate us in our struggles and our fight. Someone that says, hey Javier what you are goin through is really hard and I am sorry for your pain. If I was put on your path I would have struggled too. I have no clue when things will get better Javier, when it will get easier. But I am also thinking that maybe you living with your mom is also providing her company and support- that maybe she would have been terribly isolated-lonely during covid. Maybe the two of you give eachother a reason to fight every day.

Yes maybe your life would have looked differently if you had a child with your partner in your 20ies, but who says it would have been better. Maybe despite of your best ability, you would have been stuck in an unhappy marriage, job less and you wouldnt be able to provide for your family. There are so many turns and twists in life. And people are not always honest. For example, one of my friends (45y old) has called me weekly crying because she is in a bad marriage-where her partner is controlling everything-from not allowing her money to travel to see her parents, to her food intake where she is allowed food only 1x per day.  Yet all she posts on social media and tells her family is a picture of a happy marriage to a well earning husband. I am not sure where I am going with this or if it makes you feel better at all. Maybe I am just trying to tell you that everyting is not what it looks like-for those people that you see around you and compare yourself with. A child and marriage doesnt guarantee a happy life despite your best efforts.

You told me that you are a runner. Awesome, me too. Then as a fellow runner, I can tell you that if someone told me to run a marathon few years ago, I would have turned around and left the room. The thought of the distance, the pain, the exhaustion from training, the rainy cold mornings in wet shoes, the time investment…for god sake just a big NO. But one day I did it, one foot in front of the other. In the beggining it was just to walk a 5k, then figure out if I can maybe dare to run it. Then one day, much later I did a full marathon. It was hard, some parts of the distance  I had to tell my mind to just get myself to the next lamp post, only to the next and then I am allowed to quit…well I didnt quit. And maybe this is how life is, one foot in front of the other, just to the next lamp post…maybe you can do something small today – like sign up to be an uber driver or whatever, ask to work in a local shop, with no expectations that they will hire you, but just try this one step…

Sending you love