Realisations

I am a 38 year old girl. For sixteen of those 38 years, I have been clinically depressed. It horrifies me to realise this.

My last sixteen years have been spent feeling sad and numb and bone-crushingly lonely on the good days, to sobbing hysterically on the floor for hours at a time on the bad days, between bouts of sitting on the toilet and Googling suicide. They have been spent at 9:30pm on a Friday night at the grocery store, because I have no friends to go out and socialise with, and at the grocery store, I can at least be in the company and presence of other people, even if it involves zero actual interaction. They have been spent jumping out of my skin with fright whenever my phone rings, because it rings so infrequently, I don't actually even know what my own ring tone sounds like. They have been spent considering marrying someone, only to realise that I would literally have nobody to invite to be a single bridesmaid at my wedding. Not bridesmaids plural, but bridesmaid. They have been spent alone and feeling like an orphan - the result of zero contactfor over a decade with a dad who was abusive, a mum who was an emotional shutdown and a mute, and a sister who fled our dysfunctional, abusive family at age sixteen and never came back.

I'm so lonely, it is crushing me. I am not sure what is wrong with me, but something is very wrong with me. Who gets to bea woman age 38 and has no friends? I feel I have so much to offer as a friend to somebody, but nobody to offer it to. People are busy. Most people my age have achieved a lot more, and are at different points in their lives. They have actual careers, and not just jobs. They have commitments, families, children, and friends of their own. I have no-one. No family, and no friends. There is such a void in front of me when I wake up every day, and I don't know exactly what to do about it anymore.

Most people have *something* wrong with their lives. Hell, they would be robots not to. Their job sucks. Their relationship fell apart. They have no family. They struggle with abusive or controlling partner relationships. They are struggling in the city they are stuck in. They are poor and live paycheque to paycheque. They lack friendships, or any sort of meaningful connections. They are introverted and shy and struggle to make and maintain friendships.

Let me be clear: most people have one or two of these things going on in their lives, because nobody's lives are perfect. But to have ALL of them. To literally have all of them on the list. You have to be a complete and utter fuck-up. Objectively speaking, there's just no way around it. There are so many things wrong with my life at this point (ie all of the above) that I cannot even begin to figure out where to begin to figure it all out. To tackle even one of these things, let alone all of them, feels like a task of Sisysphean proportions.

My life feels like an impossible problem that is better off being tossed in the nearest rubbish bin to save myself, and everybody around me, one hell of a lot of time and effort.

Is there anybody else out there that relates to any of this? If so, hopefully these words will ring true, and comfort you that you are not alone in your thoughts and feelings.

Kat x