Ok...so....I've been trying to figure out for about 9 months what I'm sad about, and I kind of feel like it's been under my nose all the time, because it seems to come up into my thoughts a lot and yet I couldn't understand why I felt this emotion like loss.

The story is that I had what is probably termed a somatoform disorder, or conversion disorder, I dont' know what it's called. It was kind of like CFS, except I always believed it was stress-induced and tried to get psychological help for it (doctors kept trying to find physical causes because they would ask me how I felt emotionally and I would say - fine, but this is how it works with me). I was right, incidentally...

So anyway. I had debilitating fatigue. I mean I couldn't live a normal life at all. I had been a high achiever and was kind of 'on the cusp of great things' when it started and then it took away 6 years of my 20s. I did barely anything in that time, all I wanted to do was sleep. I did work, but I got fired a lot or had to leave to go on the sick. I did occasionally try to have a go at the career I wanted, but I was so tired I couldn't concentrate. I quit a lot of stuff because I just got so tired I couldn't continue. My leisure life was zilch. I didn't have the energy. I never had any fun.

I want to be able to move on from that now that the exhaustion is over and believe that I can just pick up where I left off but I feel like nothing will ever go right. I feel desperate for my career to go well now, especially as I had so much potential before, but I feel so behind and I feel like I will never have the things I dreamed of.

I guess I feel like I've pinpointed why I feel so lost and why I feel so much disappointment and grief in my every day life. I keep working at it and keep trying, and keep waiting for my life to 'start' and for me to feel like the achiever I once was. But I feel like I've lost it all - that it is all ruined - and that I will now have to settle into a more mediocre life. It's almost like I think I had one chance...

I know this is irrational, but it feels true. I'm sorry I'm posting a lot at the moment, I've just been trying to figure everything out.

Has anyone been here before?