I understand people do try to help. I am thankful for this. I KNOW I am being excessively negative lately, I can see that when I take a moment to rethink things.

Right now I am stuck between wanting to make things better but feeling both impatience and discouragement/fear. I know things don't change overnight, I am trying to practice radical acceptance without capitulation/despair, but this has become viciously difficult. I hate what I've let my life become. I can write down everything big and small that makes me happy, and another list of things that make me feel bad, the big and small things there too. If I use it as a checklist, I realize that the positives list is discouragingly small and the negatives list goes on for a page. (having people I deeply care about is a definite positive). This process has been ongoing for some time and getting to the point I am miserable every day now. I need a new LIFE. The thought patterns and behaviors that led me here have been worse and more chronic than I thought (now I see and accept that), and they must be changed. Without changing my habitual daily behaviors, nothing will ever improve. No brainer.

I feel really bad because I literally live life at one quarter the speed I would like to. Just plodding along. An ever decreasing amount of optimism is weighing me down big time. I am nearly 49. My nearest relatives were not long lived people. I wonder how much time I have left to get things right and live a life I can feel proud of and excited to wake up to. Right now I am a frighteningly long way from that, and it's all getting unendurable. Yes, I'm terrified on some level.

People advise "baby steps". I have tried this mentality. Looking back, my progress has been nothing short of glacial. The steps I set for myself when I try to just relax and take an easier pace are in all honesty pathetically small. A crippled sloth can do better than that, and I'm not being overly harsh on myself because it's true! My procrastination, hesitation and limited thinking are severe, when I really drop my denial. I scare myself sometimes.

Please also understand if the subject of meds comes up in conversation and I seem very resistant, I have tried diligently for decades now to find meds that do what I need them to, and I'm just not finding that magic pill. Maybe there isn't one. Too many side effects, too few benefits, the positives (there have been some on a handful of meds, I can't deny that) just wear off very rapidly every time. I have put an absurd amount of real effort into the "medicate or not" question I ask myself, while still trying more med options. Please just let it go for now, ok?

I'm just at the end of my patience with life having a plodding, circular route that in some areas just goes nowhere and in others there are some "wins" but in the end, progress is lost eventually. On some level I am aware that it does not have to be this way. Other people have managed to achieve what I have always wanted, and even gone way beyond the level I would like to see, and much faster than I. I can't help but feel a bit envious at times, it's only human. I'm still trying to figure out precisely what I must be doing wrong. Lack of confidence, lack of self esteem, social anxiety, pessimistic ruminating and passivity are all part of my problems it seems. This creates self fulfilling prophecies. I am trying as best I know how to fix the damage.

I have a LOT of stressors right now, and not many outlets to blow off steam. It's been building in a bad way for a long time, and now I have that steam coming out of my ears. The hardest thing for me right now is the absurd amount of self-doubt I've been having, even to the point of challenging values and viewpoints that have served me well all my adult life and are in fact the "core of who I am". It's hard to feel your sense of personal identity crumbling. Without that, who am I really? I'm just not used to that happening, that's never been an aspect of depression for me before. This is new and worse. I can't handle much more of this without breaking in ways I didn't know you even could. I'd almost try meds again at this point, but they scare me more than being depressed does.