A Formal Introduction on my depression and myself

Hello, so I posted in the introduction forum yesterday, and it took a lot. I'm hoping this community can help - though I'll warn you up front: I have a lot of things I'm dealing with: depression, extreme feelings of isolation, loneliness, anger, and more. Recently, a few things have happened that have started a significant spiral of depression and anxiety for me.

So this might be TL;DR.

So where to begin? I guess I will start with me as an overview.

• I’m not on any medications, and never have been
• I was diagnosed ADHD when I was a child, and again during my first graduate program
• I test highly for mathematical competency, but have a difficult time with English/language
• I’m married, I’m 33, and I have a job (but a chaotic work history)

So I’ve had a few cups of tea just to get through that part.

Now we’re getting into the parts that are kind of painful. I’m not sure I’ll cover everything that needs to be covered, because it is kind of disjointed right now. I have a lot on my mind, and a lot going on. I think I’ll start with some of the more recent stuff going on.

Medical Developments

So about three years ago, I started getting more and more depressed. It turns out I have a blood disorder, and low testosterone (diagnosed in the past six months). The blood disorder has some kind of secondary cause, but my doctor has started to eliminate most of the common causes and we’re now exploring less common causes. This has been extremely difficult for me to deal with because they can’t fix one (the low testosterone), without fixing the other (the blood disorder). I would normally be okay with this.

My Marriage

I’ve been married for seven years. Most of that time has been difficult. My wife can be a very demanding person, and is often very unsympathetic to my needs (she admits to this, calling her behavior self-centered ). However, it has often been difficult to talk about things with her. My feelings are often irrelevant, and problems are always my fault. Complicating this is just the nature of the relationship. I end up doing all the cooking, and about 90% of the cleaning. I also work full time at a very stressful and demanding job – while she works maybe two days a week. I’ll come home after putting in a ten hour day, and she’ll still be on the couch, in her pajamas, and the first question she asks (assuming she is awake) is “What’s for dinner?”

I’m not saying women should stay home and cook for their husbands. I’m not. I’m just angry that I’m doing everything. If I point out that I’m angry about this, she starts screaming about how stressed she is and how she cooks too (maybe three or four times a month) and she can’t deal with this and starts throwing out ultimatums. And I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with the yelling or screaming, so I just do it all just to avoid it. And this has become how we handle things: I bring up a problem, it becomes my fault, I shut up and just fix whatever it is. Examples of things I have been yelled at for:

• The insurance company being closed at 11:45PM because my wife wanted me to deal with an EOB right at the moment in time it was at the top of her mind.
• The sink being full of dishes after four days of her being home and not doing a single dish, but still expecting me to handle a huge number of chores. I essentially get up, do chores, go to work, do chores, and go to sleep. I had no time to do them, and that was my fault.
• My student loan payments going up because my salary has gone up.

All of these things were somehow my fault.

When I point out I feel this way she says it is still my fault (that everything is my fault) because she is stressed over the lack of emotional intimacy and physical intimacy. This was the discussion we had about 12 months ago. I’ve begged for us to go to marriage counseling (twice), but she categorically refuses to go. Now that I’m trying to deal with these physical issues we don’t have the money either.

About eight months ago my wife started to have an affair with a friend she had known for ten years (longer than us). She was totally up front to me about it saying (you’re about to notice a theme) it was my fault for not providing her with the emotional/physical intimacy she wanted.

In fairness, we only have just started to find out about my medical issues – I wasn’t dealing with any of my issues and I can understand why that would be frustrating to her. But I felt like I had no options to deal with everything that was happening. It was overwhelming, I didn’t have enough cash, and between working full time and going to school full time – I was overwhelmed.

I’ve been staring at that last paragraph for over 45 minutes. I feel emotionally drained just thinking about everything that has occurred over the past few months. And that isn’t even the worst part!

So after I found out about the affair, I was in such a bad place that I couldn’t even begin to think. And I started going back into self-destructive behaviors. I beat the crap out of my car to the point that my arm hurt for three weeks (this isn’t uncommon for me, when I’m frustrated and can’t deal with the clashing emotions I punch things that are inanimate – cars, walls, bricks, anything medal, wooden doors. I once punched a car so hard I dented the body pretty severely).

None of that is too bad though. The worst part was that I started going back into behaviors I had thought were long behind me. At my last super low point, which ended in a botched suicide attempt back in college, I was engaging in high risk sexual behaviors. By high risk I mean behaviors of a more extreme nature – though never anything illegal. However, it was part of my self-destructive self. I joined a few online communities, created fake profiles, and started talking to women about all manner of things. I haven’t physically acted on anything, but I still feel sick and disgusting, and some of the behavior was very reckless and could have impacted my career development. I’ve put a stop to it, but since doing so I now feel even worse – a combination of shame, anger, depression, and now even more loneliness as I have – at this point – no one in my life I can even begin to talk too.

My Family

So I just wrote that I had no one to talk too, and I’m sure someone is going to mention family (or friends, more on that in just a minute). I don’t have a good relationship with my family.

When I was born I was not expected or planned for. My dad had a vasectomy, and so I was a shocker to my parents who thought they were getting ready to retire. My parents didn’t even have a name for me when I was born. My sister (who was five at the time) named me about three months after I was born. When I was growing up my parents used to point out that I couldn’t necessarily do what other children were doing because I was a mistake and as a result they didn’t really have the money to do things like trips to the museums or sign me up for sports. They felt it was important for them to be honest with me. Of course, that honesty was a one way street – I was also expected not to have feelings on this matter. Further, being ADHD and dyslexic, I had trouble in school despite high aptitude testing. In these matters I was always compared to my sister or brother. My parents and my teachers did this. I was never really smart or good enough compared to how easily everything came to my siblings.

As I grew older, my siblings and parents kept comparing me (almost once a week, sometimes more) to an uncle of mine that I have a superficial physical resemblance too. He is a drug addict, criminal, and womanizer. He’s been married at least ten times. I don’t think I’m like him. I don’t abuse drugs, I’ve never committed a crime, and I have had less than half the sexual partners then he has had marriages (and that is with my less than desirable sexual inclinations).

When I was in college, I had a car, and often wanted to spend time with my family. However, they never really had time for me. The few times I spent at home (a weekend here or there) my parents would ask me if I might not be better off spending the time working. My brother criticized me for going into the social sciences and often asked me how I planned to pay for anything since I’d never get a real job. His daughter, my niece, had also started picking up on this stuff. I was home for Christmas break and my niece was working on a social studies project. My major was in political science, and I offered to help. She responded, and I still remember this clearly, “Oh come on Uncle FF2, everyone knows you don’t know anything.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget that phone call. Or how empty it made me feel. I went home that night back to the dorms and stayed at school during spring break. At that time it was combined with a girl I really liked who dated me a few times to get closer to a friend of mine. She laughed when she told me and said “What, why would someone ever want to date you?” as if it was my fault for thinking that she might like me for me.

Now my family seems to be falling apart too. My mom has been diagnosed with dementia – it is a good day if she only tells the same story five or six times. My sister has cancer. My brother doesn’t even talk to me any longer. I tried calling him every other week for a few months but the conversations were obviously unwelcome. He would give me one word answers on any question I asked, and then tell me to call mom and dad. So I stopped calling. The last I heard from him, my niece was at my old university and taking a very difficult program (which was pointed out to me that it was a hard science and a real vocation, not my major) and she was having problems with the statistical programming language they use, which is “R”. I’m not an expert in it, but I have used that and Python in my day-to-day work as scripting languages for SPSS. He wanted me to help my niece with her homework. However, they were using packages and systems I was unfamiliar with at the time. I said I’d be happy to explain the concepts as that would mean all she’d have to do is look up the functions to make the concepts work (i.e. using COR to run correlation) but he said that understanding statistics wasn’t important and ended the phone call.

Now

Ugh. I feel drained having written all of this out. But I have no place to turn, and needed to get this all off my chest. There is so much more: abusive situations, suicide attempts, failed relationships, failed friendships, etc etc. I often feel like I can’t handle conflict or anger, and desperately never ever want to feel again. I mean that: all I feel is pain, anger, hate, and sadness. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in love with someone, and I don’t even know what love feels like. I feel pathetic, and like a complete and total loser – like everything, from the moment I was conceived, to being born early, to going to grad school to prove I could make something of myself while racking up more student loan debt then I know what to do with, to moving half way across the country for a job which turned out to be a total lie, to getting married to someone who I think hates me, has been a mistake. Every decision, every thought.

I used to love creative writing, drawing, and painting. I’ve done none of those things in years. I used to love video games, and board games, and role playing games, and again – I’ve done none of those things in years.

The most creative and happy I’ve felt was the month long email “romance” (?) I had which I also had to end because it was wrong and yet another destructive decision. However, in the young lady’s defense – I think she did prevent me from having a fourth suicide attempt. I realized what I was missing – some kind of human connection, and that brought me here. I’m hoping to connect with people who can listen, and a place where I don’t have to lie or pretend that I’m always happy and always content (that will be another post). Because I’m not. I’m not happy. I’m not content. My life isn’t some perfect thrice damned picture book pulled out of “Miracle on 34th Street”. And I hate that everyone expects it to be. I hate it. I hate it so much. It makes me so angry, and makes me want to scream. Yet – I have to be 100% perfect, 100% happy – if I’m not, that’s just my fault for not soldiering through!

Sorry, I’m ranting and venting and just trying to work this out. And I’ve missed a lot of stuff here, so I’ll have to post more. Thank you ahead of time to everyone who makes it this far – I’m a mess, and I cannot begin to tell you how much better I feel having a place to put this all down. I want to tell you all why I’m angry, or sad. And from what I’ve seen, this is a place where I can do so without judgment.

At the same time, I hope that I can listen as well. I’ve been down in this pit for a very long time, and I know my way around.