Thank you, PAYNE, for expressing so well what I, too, am going through. Indeed, grief is none too strong a word for the horrendous sense of loss that comes with this.

I'm sorry for the loss you feel after what I totally understand as much hard work to educate yourself and to advance in a career. Teaching is a special calling that you, no doubt, selected because you had great zeal to reach students. Hard to give up on something that speaks of having a sense of being called to do that.

It is just about 6 months since I started collecting SSDI. At first, I was relieved to get it. Now that sense of relief has collapsed under grief. I ask myself why I went as far as I did and, like you, worked hard at my education and in jobs only to end up with a string of failures in jobs. I had been successful for about 20 years, too. Then I seemed to lack the ability to continue adapting.

I've lost my career and I am having on-going emotional instability. So I can relate to the sense of having lost sanity. When I compare what I am like now to what I was once like, it seems impossible that I can be the same person. It seems unbelievable that this could have happened.

Your post, above, seems to be the first instance of me seeing a clear acknowledgement of what a profound loss this is. Doctors don't seem to get it. When I told my PCP at a follow-up appointment that I had been approved for SSDI, he made that gesture where he put out his clenched fist with knuckles forward to bump my knuckles in a kind of salute for the "good news." Like, "Hey, that's great." I picked my hand up, knuckles forward, to return the greeting, while feeling so awkward about it.

After leaving, I understood better how I really did feel. I wanted to go back to my doctor and say, "This is not a happy milestone for me." This feels tragic.

Doctors have told me that I am probably on the bipolar spectrum. Whatever. I was reacting to stress on the job with extreme emotionality that made me feel like I must have appeared a fool to others. There'ld be anger . . . then tears of sorrow over felt rejection. I was losing my dignity in public. It was awful. This present existance (this nothingness) seems no better.

I'm glad you are finding some ways toward a sense of satisfaction. That's hard to find. Without that, life feels unendurable.