It’s so draining, vacillating between barely functional and feeling like I’m recovering only to get knocked on my ass again by another stressful work day or sudden onslaught of negative thoughts and feelings on my day off or week after week of total anhedonia. It doesn’t help that my circumstances are such shit. I have a 17 mile commute to work that used to take me 20 minutes but lately is taking me upwards of an hour due to traffic getting worse. The dealership I work at has these nasty LED indoor lights everywhere that are damn near painful to be subjected to for eight hours or more a day, and even with my ADA accommodations finally getting me a chair that doesn’t hurt my back and paying for some decent earplugs to cut down on the noise, it’s still a sensory nightmare in there. Today there was this beeping fire alarm panel that was going off every second and a half all fucking day. It drove me nuts and I was losing my shit a little bit and it bled out a little bit while I was dealing with a situation relating to a customer and I feel embarrassed about that but

Mostly it’s the constant intrusive thoughts of violence against myself and repeated litanies of what a worthless piece of garbage I am, how I’m going to die alone, how I’m a manchild who deserves to suffer and I’m pathetic and useless for not being able to get my shit together, how I don’t qualify as an adult or even a real person, how I’m an embarrassment and a burden and I really should just stop off at that gun store I see on the way to work and purchase one of those Harrier Du Bois-approved Eject Buttons they got there because it’s not going to get any better

I hate not being able to see my therapist as often as I’d like to because I can’t afford it and she’s a specialist not covered by insurance. I hate having to drag myself into work even when I’m feeling so shitty I cry on my entire commute there, again on my lunch hour, and again on the commute home. I hate feeling like I have to suppress and silence and push down everything about myself to placate everyone else, as any expression of emotion that doesn’t feel completely strangled is deemed to be too much by everyone around me. I hate feeling like a freak because I can’t relate to co-workers talking about significant others or spouses or their kids, feeling like I’ll never have any of that in my life. I hate having almost no friends at all, having an empty life and bleak prospects and no hope for the future. It feels like I’m missing out on entire dimensions of the human experience, because I’m not good enough to be allowed to feel them. Pain and misery and sorrow and the fleeting pleasures of distraction is all I get.

But now I’m getting into a place where even weed and beer and junk food don’t soothe the pain and I sometimes have to force myself to sit in my room doing nothing for fear I’ll start going for hard liquor or try to do something to cause myself pain on purpose. I have a vacation planned in a week and some part of me is afraid it’s a waste of time, that I’ll go up there and find nothing but the same misery I have at home, and the tiny glimmer of hope I have right now will be snuffed out again and I’ll have to keep going anyway because I’ve made the agreement with myself that I’m not going to press that eject button, it’s not allowed, it’s off the table, it’s a terrible way to end my story and it will hurt the people who love me (for some reason). I envision the horror I will leave in my wake, what sort of mess my body would make, how much therapy the train conductor or truck driver or whatever would need, to say nothing of my family’s pain and sorrow.

So I’m stuck here, like a prisoner, and trying to make the best of things but feeling like I just fuck up everything and it’s better to not even try because why ruin perfectly good things by touching them or getting anywhere near another person? I’ll just end up humiliating myself or trampling on someone’s feelings without even realizing it.

All of this fucking garbage on a constant current through my head. Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes it’s so quiet I can ignore it easily. But it’s always there. And I can never predict how bad it’s going to be or which coping mechanisms from my big bag of therapy tricks will work on a given day, so I just have to find out as I wake up, go trial and error day by day, and keep putting one foot in front of the other in spite of feeling like I’ve had no reason to be alive the entire time I’ve drawn breath. I’ll find one, maybe. I don’t know. Have to keep going either way.