I just don’t know what to do. I know that I have to fix my head, but I never seem to be able to do that. It’s because I truly don’t see a future that can be any different from my painful past, and that makes it really hard to figure out why to even go through the motions, if all there’ll be is misery.

My life, since childhood, has been filled with struggle with no rewards, deprivation, abandonment, isolation, persecution and disappointment. I was abandoned by my parents, no man has ever wanted to love me (use me, yes, love me, no). I’ve struggled and worked so hard for success in so many fields, but never really succeeded much in anything I’ve tried.

Since childhood I’ve been bullied by any sick SOB who wanted to pull the wings off flies and couldn’t find any better or any other target. As a child, I told myself that the situation was unbearable, but that it would stop when I grew up. (That’s what kept me going) It hasn’t. It’s like I wear a sign that says “kick me.” And altogether too many people are happy to oblige.

For the last few years I’ve felt numb. There’s been so much abuse for so many years, so much struggle for nothing, so much disappointment and isolation – I just can’t make myself WANT to try for anything new. Why bother, if nothing can ever work out for me? Dr Phil says that it’s insane to assume the future will be like the past. I say, why assume otherwise, when there’ve been consistent patterns your whole life? It should suddenly change? Why?

If I’ve been sabotaging myself, I have no clue how. In all fairness to me, I’ve worked DAMNED hard for no result. And I’ve been tenacious. And good. (I’ve always believed “it is no solution to become the evil we react against”) I’ve wanted desperately to make things better, but I just can’t seem to. If this is my karma, I’m at the end of what I can take. Everyone needs incentive to go on. I have none. Just despair.

I SO MUCH need a reason to rally and try again, and to believe that there can be something other than pain in my life, but I SO MUCH can’t come up with one. Every day is emotional exhaustion, disappointment, anguish, frustration, futility, emptiness, anger and no hope. I wouldn’t know joy if I fell over it.

I’m so tired of living with this mindset, and wondering how or when things will ever get better (and not believing they can or will). Where do you go to find hope when everything seems to be empty and futile?