[Wants2Fly]

<font color="purple">Sleep is my friend.</font> I don’t know how I got to this place. Just a month ago, I felt inspired about getting into real estate investing; now it seems quite impossible. I thought I could get a small communication/business writing career launched, and today the idea of having those business cards seems silly.

I feel like a loser beyond words.

<font color="red">This is not a suicide threat.</font> It’s just me feeling low and hopeless and helpless:
I have started thinking anew about killing myself. About buying a grill and letting the carbon monoxide get me. My new medications doc, Henderson, asked if I wanted Librium, but I said that was a favorite mixer with booze and I’d had some near misses. Could be too tempting, I said. Hah! Just having the word “Librium” put into my consciousness – haven’t thought of this in years! -- has set the cogwheels going. It’s always been so easy to get Librium. I can see now that I can probably just go to some doc, like I used to do: drink coffee for jitters, pull an all-nighter to look haggard, whine about how tough life is. Even a limited 30-pill scrip could do the job. Heck, I just had a guy whose specializes in meds offer me some. Last time I drank tequila, I had an alcoholic seizure, so with the pills, should do the job.

<font color="purple">Here’s all the things I’ve failed at:</font>

1. At my university, out of roughly 60-100 people who go up for tenure every year, 0-2 don’t get it. I was in that teeny, tiny minority of losers who didn’t get it.

2. I’ve written three books; sold none. Last one was rejected by 50 publishers and 30 agents. I’m working on another – paid good money to get hooked up with the kind of agents who don’t need to advertise because they are so good at what they do, they don’t want every wannabe writer who reads Writer’s Digest or a website bothering them.

I have a proposal, and sample chapters – I’m afraid to put them out there.

3. I apply for jobs at newspapers where I would take a 40%-60% pay cut. I don’t have recent clips, which the big guys want. I’ve been teaching journalism – my gosh, doesn’t that count? And no one calls me.

4. I’ve had ONE interview since I started applying for work in February. Another company let me stop in to learn more about what they do – not a real “interview” but I really wanted the job after I fully understood what I’d be doing, asked for it, and they said “Nope.”

4. I don’t try to freelance to get recent clips. My friend tried to hook me up with the editor/owner of the local St. Augustine newspaper so I could get some clips while I was pet-sitting for her – and I did nothing.

5. One small newspaper that is part of a large chain I respect, in a small town in Florida that I like a lot, asked said my resume was impressive – asked for clips – and never answered any emails after that. I was so jazzed I went to the city twice to look at homes. I even created a proposal about what I might be able to do for them. Some of the members of a writing class I was in critiqued it – it was good, sensible, supportive suggestions for improvement – and I just gave up after that. So I have a bunch of research, an 80 percent finished website, a half-finished PowerPoint proposal – and that’s it.

6. I thought I might try to start a freelance business writing consulting here in New Orleans, got jazzed, printed cards, found the available free websites too hard to use with their templates, gave up.

7. Yesterday, I tried to use to the Daily Schedule of Activities suggested in Feeling Good Handbook, that my new T says we’re going to use. (Have missed 2 weeks due to my extra long hurricane evacuation to Texas.) I didn’t do most of them. Evil thoughts negated what I did do.

8. Tried the “talking back” to negative thoughts written exercise. It was momentarily stimulating. Then, whap, back into hopelessness, helplessness, lethargy/fatigue.

9. Oh, yeah, and the man I thought was an angel for 15 years and the best person I ever knew abandoned me after I lost my job and was diagnosed with lupus because he said, “You’re so filled with hate and anger and bitterness that I can’t go out with you in public anymore.” He thinks I am impolite to incompetent salespeople (not all of them – just those that bother me telling me what a great deal something is but know nothing about their products ) and wait staff (whom I have the audacity to ask to bring little things like sugar for tea a second time if they forget it the first time; I do NOT yell at anyone, I say please, but he was extremely passive about such things).

Don’t feel like talking to anyone. I think it’s a nice day outside. Hard to tell in this dark apartment. I’ll go out to get the Sunday paper soon, so I can look at jobs no one will hire me and homes I can’t afford.

I get these little spurts of feeling jazzed about something, or even a tiny bit hopeful – not nearly up enough to be a bipolar “high” – more like climbing back to a hopefully normal hopeful way of thinking – and then, poof, it vanishes. Back down and even lower with each failure. Awk, it seems I can’t even use the cognitive psychology techniques to feel better.

So you can see from this list that I am not just imagining a past of failure – it is there. And life hurts so much I can’t hardly stand it. And I am making it worse by inaction and isolation

[dexter]

>>So you can see from this list that I am not just imagining a past of failure – it is there.

Wants2fly, you have fallen into a trap that depression sets for us.

We know that depression lies to us and makes us think negatively about ourselves. But you are thinking that the "lies" aren't "lies" because you have "proof" to back them up.

It is not that depression "invents" things, it is that it distorts them... it distorts their place in the grand scheme of things, maximizing the importance and impact of all negative events and minimizing to zero any postive things we have achieved.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
1. At my university, out of roughly 60-100 people who go up for tenure every year, 0-2 don’t get it. I was in that teeny, tiny minority of losers who didn’t get it.

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And how many people don't even make it that far, or don't even qualify for a teaching position anywhere? You are a "winner" to them!

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2. I’ve written three books; sold none. Last one was rejected by 50 publishers and 30 agents.

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I've been trying to write a book for YEARS now. I can't get myself focused. You've written three!!!! That is an incredible acheivement. Plus you have gotten them out there in an attempt to publish them! A lot of people even with a manuscript don't get that far. Getting published is a very difficult thing. Keep trying!

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3. I apply for jobs at newspapers where I would take a 40%-60% pay cut. I don’t have recent clips, which the big guys want. I’ve been teaching journalism – my gosh, doesn’t that count? And no one calls me.

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The job market is very difficult right now. Look at your experience as an asset waiting to find the right position to come along. You are taking an asset and turning it into a negative!!!

Skipping ahead here so as not be just be repetative...

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8. Tried the “talking back” to negative thoughts written exercise. It was momentarily stimulating. Then, whap, back into hopelessness, helplessness, lethargy/fatigue.

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You know you want to feel better and you are trying. This is a very very very difficult thing! Don't punish yourself for not making instant success. Keep trying, and if this doesn't work, keep looking for new things to try.

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Oh, yeah, and the man I thought was an angel for 15 years and the best person I ever knew abandoned me after I lost my job and was diagnosed with lupus... ...He thinks I am impolite to incompetent salespeople (not all of them – just those that bother me telling me what a great deal something is but know nothing about their products ) and wait staff (whom I have the audacity to ask to bring little things like... ...I say please, but he was extremely passive about such things).

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Here you are acknowledging HIS failings, insecurity, and problems, and yet somehow you have his weaknesses entered into the tally of your failures. That's like being on the winning baseball team but believing that you lost because the team you chose to play against didn't get any hits or runs!

<hr>

I think the most important thing is that depression doesn't let us see anything about the positive aspects of our lives.

From what little I know about you I see two things that stand out above everything else.

1) You teach. This might just be me, but teachers get an automatic extra 200 points in my book. I believe teaching is absolutely THE MOST IMPORTANT an honorable profession that there is, and given how underappreciated it is, people who chose to teach are listed very high in my book.

2) The amount of caring, concern, empathy, and support you are providing to your friends is truly amazing. I know that you feel frustrated that there is so little that you can do, but from their point of view, just having someone there may be one of the most important things that they need. Times like this expose your true friends and you are positively glowing in this one. In addition to how wonderful you are to be providing support, you must also have done something right to have become friends with these people in the first place. I think that is one of the highest goals of personal humanity, and it far outshines job, "success", money, celebrity, or any other achievements.

If that were the only aspect of your personality that existed, you would already be exempt for life from the label of "failure".

[Maya]

I agree totally with what Dexter is saying. I ahave been going through a very depressed time myself right now and I have had the same problem with trying to avoid negative thoughts about myself. I made a deal with my T that as long as I was his patient I would not act on my desire for self-euthanasia (as I call it). But, like others, I think of those pills, enough to work but I have enough presence of mind, and enough respect for my T, to keep my promise to him. He trusts me to keep my word and that trust is important to me. Right now I am having a problem with him due to my misinterpretation (probably) to my last session with him and that has me even more depressed than usual - not to mention Hurricane Jeanne bearing down on us. Remember - you are talented, caring and compassionate and have a lot to offer the world. The world just has not realized it yet but it will. Keep on trying - you have helped so many with your posts.

[Wants2Fly]

Thanks for your time-consuming analysis of the distortions in my thinking. I truly wish I could say, Wow that really helped, but I am in one of those places where reality doesn't even seem real anymore. Words can't penetrate my miasma of self-blame and self-pity.

[dexter]

That's what depression does. I don't think anything that anyone is going to say is going to make you feel differently... but if you can get reinforcement and some understanding of the idea that those feelings are the depression, and are not YOU, that maybe can give you a little hook to hang your coat and keep trying, and understand that those feelings will go away once you are feeling better.

You won't feel like those feelings are going to go away, but you can understand that those feelings are untrue, just try to keep that in the back of your mind.

[PaigeTurner]

I grew sad reading your post. Very sad.

I have no inclination to talk you OUT of your "frame" of reference. (I think that'd be more than a tad arrogant of me... a stranger... offering "cheer up" advice. I don't even invite that from friends.)

You've experienced a lot of difficult downturns... it's understandable you'd feel so badly. You have legitimate, heavy losses that... if you didn't feel really awful... I'd question your gut.

I'm sorry that things are rough. That's about all I can offer, I'm afraid.

[wisewoman]

Wants to fly, I have many failures as well. It can rip me apart. Somehow to stay here, in the moment helps. doing loving things for yourself even if it's making oatmeal and tea in the morning. I am sorry you feel so terribly down. My inclination is to use humor. usually something dumb I have done. Nothing new in that department today. I snd you peace and all kinds of warmth.

[(JD)]

Well I was going to write a detailed list of comments, but felt too out of it to do so, then when I saw Dex's nice listing, I knew I wouldn't have to! LOL you fed right into Dex's need to answer: numbered comments!

It IS the depression talking. The exercises you do, whether in a book or not, are good for you. We have years and years of negative thinking. This is often aided by others in our lives (as you mentioned one spouse...) and we accept it. To counter the years of emotional/mental abuse, it takes time!

Continue the exercises. That you received even a smidgeon of relief, however brief, is excellent! Repetition is what works. Don't talk yourself out of it. Try not to counter it with, "This will never work." thinking TOO quickly. Reprogramming is what you are trying to do... hang in there (and hang out here!)

[Wants2Fly]

I read Taonuviel's post about being lonely -- I feel so lonely, too. Lonely, scared, without support. I look at apartments, but can't seem to come to any decision about where to live next. I want to buy another house before my nest egg is eaten up by unemployment, but it is scary. Not having an income is scary. Especially when I'm so down and feel, who would hire me anyway? and it hurts a lot to feel that I've worked so hard, educated myself, made sacrifices to get where I was, and now I am going back to the kind of jobs I did without having any college degree.

I haven't done anymore self-help exercises. I wish that death would come --that I'd fall asleep and never wake up and never have to deal with all this again.

I just watched a TV movie with Christine Lahti about a woman who gets dumped by her husband after 25 years, for a younger woman -- her assistant who she's been mentoring -- and loses her job that same week.

Predictably, in the end, her husband wants her back. And a writer who was her first passion, and is famous with a country house in Europe, wants her back, too -- after 25 years apart. And the boss that fires her wants her back. So she gets to tell the hub too bad that the GF wants kids and is pregnant & you don't -- you made your life, now live with it. And she gets to tell the ex-boss to screw himself. And she goes off to Europe to have a happy time with the old BF.

I wanted my life to be happy like that. To get another job fairly quickly. To reunite with my x-husband, whom I hadn't seen during my 15 years with P, & who is the love of my life, an early early passionate relationship that I was too young to appreciate and care for. And none of it happened, of course, my life is not a movie. It is an ********* shipwreck. Send in the national guard. Somebody try to salvage this woman. Peel her off the ground. Glue the pieces back together. I can hardly believe how low I've sunk.

[Wants2Fly]

Wisewoman -- I think your words ARE very wise, indeed. I know intellectually that living in the moment -- taking pleasure in oatmeal and sunny days and the texture and quality of our days -- is the only way that I can have a quality life in the time that remains to me on earth. Yet I am raging like a spoiled child, unwilling to accept that everything went to ******. I am having such trouble with acceptance. It's easy to accept what is when one is young and strong, and there is still time to build the life, the reality, that one wants. But when one's powers become limited, when the weight of past failures that can never be redeemed piles up on one in middle age, and one realizes that one is the last trimester or life, I can no longer read the positive thinking stuff and believe that I can build that better future that I want.

And every therapist and shrink I see agrees -- I have to accept a diminished role for myself.

And I am not being mature or noble or admirable in the way I am dealing with this. You are right, you are right, and I wish this would sink into my soul and I would know that I am blessed just as I am. I pray for this, and I am tired of praying for relief I so rarely feel and moments of grace that are so rare.

[darkeyes]

Hi,
I apologize due to my busy schedule, but I glanced over this, may have missed details, but this may sound hokey, but try to see the accomplishments, look at the stuff you have done, you made a lot of efforts, I do not get the impression you are lazy,in fact I am impressed at what you have done
Okay, on the other hand, I understand the grip depression can take on you ( I've been there and still have to occasionally fight it, very hard too, zapping me od my mental and physical energy
I have to run, but wanted to tell you this. Please hang in there, and feel free to come and talk with us.

Take care now,

DE