posted
[Warning...total sob story ahead. Read at your own risk.]
So my family has been pretty much destroyed. Dad left Mom for a younger woman and has started a new life with new kids. Mom died almost two years ago now. My brother has his own stuff going on. And the rest of the family lives in Chicago (I'm in Detroit).
To top that off I'm working the afternoon shift, 3 to midnight. Didn't used to be a problem...I used to have a very active night life. But nowadays I'm too poor or tired or sick of the old party people I used to hang with. My "urban family" of friends are all on the day shift now.
I'm getting more and more isolated. My Dad says he thinks its a good thing for me living on my own...as in it will teach me how to be by myself and not depend on others. But you know what? I'm really sick and tired of being alone.
So I'm probably co-dependent...I crave my friends to be around me. Eh. Oh well. Its just that I don't really have a family anymore. I'm just borrowing other people's family. I have no one to come home to at night. I can't really have a pet as I'm allergic.
Many of my close friends who I depend on emotionally are leaving state or too busy with their own lives. It feels like all the energy I invested to build my network is in vain... it's all falling apart.
I'm not special anymore. I'm just a 30 yr old looser with a sucky job and a shrinking social life. I do my theater and music stuff on the side, sure, but it's not constant enough to be anything more than a hobby.
I want a husband, but as a gay guy that's a hard thing to achieve without all the other issues involved.
Normally I wouldn't be talking about this stuff here or elsewhere because I am a depressive bastard and it's nothing new, but I'm feeling kinda abandoned right now.
I'm almost 30. With my family heath history there is a good chance I won't live to see 55. I could be middle-aged! Lord knows I'm not a spring chicken anymore, knees and neck hurt all the time.
I've made some progress with my life, I own my own home and whatnot, but it's so pathetically trivial comparied to all the triumphs of others. I want to settle down and enjoy life but everyone is so ambitious that they take off an leave me. I don't have the energy to be as ambitious. So I just get left behind. I don't know why I even try anymore. It's never enough.
I sucks because I've been very chipper the past month...now I'm totally depressed. I've been feeling it coming for a week or two now...I can usually keep it bay by getting my loved ones around me....but the two people I want to see most have been unavailable. I can't really tell them why because that's just begging and who wants to deal with a depressed guy anyway? I know I hate it when certain people are clingy...but that's all I want to do right now, cling. But to show that will only show how pathetic I'm feeling and make people uncomfortable.
I used to think I was a good person. But I've come to realize that I'm actually not. I'm jealous, depressed, clingy, lazy, irritable, shy, and with a nice spoonful of ADD.
I've become bitter. Who would have thought the rising star I was supposed to be would become a bitter middle-aged bachalor. I really need to be on drugs. But that's like telling a guy with no arms he can use these nice artificial ones...all he has to do is pick them up.
I used to fight for others... I use to live for others... give so much emotional energy that their lives seemed more real than my own. I just can't do it anymore... but as a result I've become self focused and resentful... feeling guilty and low for not caring as much for others as I used to. Yeah, I'm not a doormat anymore...but now I'm very lonely. And no one gives as much to me as I used to give to others. Maybe I'm wrong...maybe I'm so selfish I don't see what people are trying to give. *shrug*
Anyway, I throw this out to Hatrack...as I have no one else who I can talk to. Please forgive the emo.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Volunteer. At something other than a real charity. Something educational where you can eventually put your "inner ham" to work: like a museum docent, a botanical gardener, a zoo helper, a library storyteller, etc. Then work at getting true expertise in whatever avocation that you choose, and broaden that expertise to encompass other areas highlighted by the museum/arboretum/aquarium/zoo/library/etc. Who knows, you may end up becoming a paid employee within a field that you really like.
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If you're going to volunteer, do it at the Zoo, please oh please! The helper folk there are painfully annoying. Plus I could finally meet a local Hatracker once in awhile, I'm at the zoo every other week or so (I loves my zoo).
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Have to enjoy the zoo while it lasts. I've had a membership there for half a decade, and now they are talking about closing it again, even after Detroit yanked all their funding.
It's better in the summer, nothing in the world cheers me up like the sight of Red - Pandas. Look at the little guys! Cute little balls of fluff. You and I will have to make a zoo run some day this summer.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Hmm...apparently I'm the black sheep of the family.
Anyway, in addition to all the other stuff, have you had a medical check-up lately? Do you suffer from seasonal depression, perhaps? The whole aching joints thing troubles me. You really should get that looked into.
Oh, and don't ever plan on dying early. It makes you forget to do things like save for retirement in the event that you do live longer than you envision.
As for finding love, I can only submit that by cultivating new interests you will also encounter a new set of people and, at the same time, add more depth to your own knowledge. Sounds like a winning combination.
PS: A five and five singles would be best
Posts: 300 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
I don't think it makes you co-dependent to want to be around people. I think it makes you human.
Part of living by yourself and learning to take care of yourself is to find ways of getting the human contact you need. To be honest, I sucked at this and decided to get married instead. Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I'm married to someone with seasonal depression, and I CANNOT recommend medical help and DRUGS strongly enough. Since I'm married to someone who suffers from depression, I 100% understand how difficult it can be for someone who's depressed to seek medical help...but it really does have the potential to improve your life.
The other thing that helped my husband was getting a job where he was forced to be social during the day with strangers...so all the advice about volunteering seems good to me.
Do you have any friends who would be willing to call a doctor for you or take you to an appointment, or just pester you until you do it?
Christine is right...your desire for human contact isn't clingy or co-dependent; or at least, if it is, then the vast majority of us are clingy and co-dependent right along with you. Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I can be much better black-sheep brother than Bob, I'll show you.
Can I borrow twenty bucks?
Seriously, though, I'm sorry you're havin' troubles right now:( I suggest that aspectre, Lyrhawn's, and Bob's advice is good stuff and I think you'd find it easier to do than you think, more enjoyable and pleasant than you imagine, and more mentally healthy than you might think is possible right now in the funk you're in.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Seriously, I googled "self-pity" today, for my *own* reasons. (Feeling blue myself.) Sometimes I found rude shaming things, but I also found concrete suggestions about being happier. It might help.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Have to enjoy the zoo while it lasts. I've had a membership there for half a decade, and now they are talking about closing it again, even after Detroit yanked all their funding.
It's better in the summer, nothing in the world cheers me up like the sight of Red - Pandas. Look at the little guys! Cute little balls of fluff. You and I will have to make a zoo run some day this summer.
Are you and Telperion both in and/or around Detroit?
I haven't been to the zoo in years. I hope they keep it going.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
How tied are you to your current job and hours? Over the summer, I changed jobs and hours from day shift to night shift. It's like I'm a whole different person! Someone who gets never gets sufficient sleep but who does get a lot of colds to make up for that.
And I understand about wanting a husband. Kind of. I have a husband, but what I really want is a wife. And not one of these modern, working-outside-the-home type wives, either. I want the kind who will keep the house clean, drive the kid wherever he needs to be driven to, take care of the shopping, errands, laundry, and cooking.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Have to enjoy the zoo while it lasts. I've had a membership there for half a decade, and now they are talking about closing it again, even after Detroit yanked all their funding.
It's better in the summer, nothing in the world cheers me up like the sight of Red - Pandas. Look at the little guys! Cute little balls of fluff. You and I will have to make a zoo run some day this summer.
Are you and Telperion both in and/or around Detroit?
I haven't been to the zoo in years. I hope they keep it going.
I live in Royal Oak, where the Detroit Zoo is actually located. I think Telp lives on the southside of Detroit, I'm not entirely sure, but he's in the Metro area I believe.
We need funding from the state to keep it going, or people need to go more often. Detroit almost killed us.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I love zoos too, but aquariums even more. I love those walk-through exhibits where you're surrounded on all sides by (several inches of plexi-)glass and water.
Sorry to hear you're going through a rough patch Telp. I hope things improve; and FWIW I think aspectre's advice isn't a bad idea. There's a difference between clinging and maintaining friendships too; we are social animals.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Telperion, not sure what to contribute in the way of advice, but I'll just say that it's normal to want to be around people. I want to be around people -- preferably people who care about me -- I think we all do. Or at least most of us do. I'm in a similar situation now, and in the past I've been in pretty much the exact same situation. It sucks. It is really terribly hard to be alone. Good luck finding a husband, finding friends, and being happy. Things will happen for you. Might take some time, though. You just have to go along every day, doing the best you can. And doing the best you can not to let these feelings drag you down. And I know you know that. I just sympathize, and I don't know exactly what to say, that's all. Thanks for sharing. Good luck.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I actually only recently figured out that codependency is a problem when relationships make you do stupid things. Codependents can't have total abstinence from relationships. They just lack the wisdom to know when they are doing something stupid until after it has already happened.
I don't believe people should get on meds without a therapist, but that's an old saw.
Writing is good therapy, if you can't afford a therapist right now. Writing about your feelings, like you've done today, encourages reflection and honesty that can nurture your capacity for wisdom. I would also gently suggest that while families are good, they are not a solution to feeling lonely.
In an ideal world, only people who first feel comfortable being themselves would undertake partnership and parenting. Of course, the world is not ideal.
I would say that due to the trauma of your father leaving, you probably are co-dependent. I've struggled a lot with how to talk to people about co-dependency, how to describe it in a way that doesn't offend them or presuppose things about them that might not be true. I've recently come to believe that just as overeaters have false hungers, I as a co-dependent have had false emotional needs. Where a compulsive eater craves sugar instead of potassium and salt instead of protein; I crave control instead of love and neglect instead of kindness.
P.S. I suppose I should add that because The Man isn't controlling and neglectful, I sometimes feel "unfulfilled" but those parts of me that feel unfulfilled are the damaged patterns from my past. It's like wanting twinkies and potato chips instead of a turkey dinner. Turkey dinners aren't perfectly healthy either.
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I'm so sorry you're feeling down, Telperion. I sincerely hope things turn for the better for you soon.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Aw Telp, I wish you lived near here. My boyfriend is on almost the same work schedule as you are, and I always feel so bad for him because he rarely gets to socialize. *lots of hugs* Let me know if you want to talk.
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Become a counselor at a sleepaway summer camp (an old fashioned sort of one). Don't know that it works for everyone but I found my real family at camp (albeit as a camper, not a counselor)
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I think I've been where you are. Sorry you're having a rough time.
I think the advice to get involved with something is good advice. At the time I was where you are now, I was still religious, so it was with my church. If you're not religious, I expect it should be possible to fill that void in a similar way through involvement in something.
I also have a tendency to inadvertently adopt people. People older than I am tend to want to adopt me as a younger sibling or as a child. And hey, who am I to complain? Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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You just said you can't have pets because of your allergies so I recommend a hermit crab. These guys offer great company, are very cheap, don't require much maintenance, are nocturnal, don't transmit diseases, offer lots of enjoyment and best of all, only cause an allergic reaction if you eat them and you are allergic to shellfish.
If you ever pop by San Diego, make sure you let me know so we may have some fun time in Hillcrest. I'll be part of your family.
quote:But I've come to realize that I'm actually not. I'm jealous, depressed, clingy, lazy, irritable, shy, and with a nice spoonful of ADD.
Just face the fact that you're human.
Also, it seems that you should get away from that environment you're in. I recommend moving away and starting a new life elsewhere.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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