To feel like I've "completed" life?

[NameChangeMe2020]

I feel like my life is a computer game that I'm playing, that I've completed all the levels and just going back through it aimlessly. I'm not sure what the point of it is anymore?

I'll preface this by saying I know I'll probably sound ungrateful, but I'm really not. I'm so thankful for my life and my health. I'm not suicidal or anything, just lost I think.

I'm 35 now, met DH when I was 15. We travelled for a couple of years in our late teens/early 20s. Came home, DH set up a business, I tried a few different jobs until I came to work for DH which I do now. We have built it up to a good standard and although we're not rich, we are comfortable. We've paid the mortgage down and been on some lovely holidays. I have various hobbies; swimming, walking the dogs, and I love to bake and craft.

We would have loved to have DC but after 10 years of trying I've given up hope that it will happen for us. Since then, I've just felt so lost and empty. I feel like I've achieved everything I could want to achieve. I'm happy in our house, it could happily be our "forever home" and we renovated it when we bought it. I have crossed all the places off I would love to travel to. I'm not really into material posessions, I started saving for a designer handbag for example but stopped as I realised I wasn't that fussed.

Even the hobbies I loved to do I don't enjoy anymore, I can't get lost in a book or film like I used to, or even instagram or mumsnet in the same way.

Everything just seems so empty and pointless and flat and I just don't know what to do.

AIBU to feel this way?

OP, I’m so sorry to hear what you’ve been through, with the bereavement and infertility. That sounds extremely tough, and it’s completely understandable that you’re feeling the way you are. I have felt like that, owing to a bereavement and illness, and this is what helped:

• Therapy. It’s sounds a very good idea to have booked in for counselling - I hope you find it good. If you don’t particularly click with the first counsellor you see, it’s worth looking around a bit to find one who’s really on your wavelength - that makes such a difference.
• A course of antidepressants. I took fluoxetine for a few months, found it very effective, and had no problems coming off it. Another time that I was going through a difficult time, I took lemon balm capsules, on the recommendation of a herbalist, and actually found them just as effective. I took these: Lemon Balm 450mg 60 Capsules (V) Purest- no additives, Vegan. Melissa for Anxiety, Stress and Sleep. Made by Health4All www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HQNK9NQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DRhwFbT8CZJ5D?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
• A mindfulness course. I cannot believe how much difference this made. You can find one near you at www.bemindful.co.uk.

Three friends of mind love a book called The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, and one of them said it helped her to come out of depression. I am not very keen on it myself, but thought I’d mention it as my friends like it so much!

A change of career to something more fulfilling does sound like a good idea, but imho you might well need to take some time to grieve and process what you’ve been through before you’re ready to really feel excited about something new. There can be a time for “taking one’s mind off things”, but I really think there’s also a time for dealing with just how shit everything has been. Genuinely facing that, which it sounds like you’re planning to do with the counselling, is the most effective way to get free of the grief.

Finally, this is rather random, but when it comes to thinking about new directions one’s life might take, I love the Magic Lessons podcast.

Very best wishes!!! After my bereavement I couldn’t imagine being happy again, but that did happen, and I really hope it will for you too!! x 💐

Sorry, I just checked the beminful.co.uk website and it’s not working. But there’s info here: www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/mindfulness/how-to-learn-mindfulness/#FormalMindfulnessCoursesMBCTAndMBSR

I think the leading reason for your feelings is definitely not being able to conceive. It’s hard to accept I imagine, although I have had no experience of that so can only imagine what it must feel like. I guess it’s like being in limbo a bit? Maybe you just need to find a new path to focus on, and when you’re least expecting it, you may fall pregnant - these things sometimes happen when you aren’t as focused on the issue. Think of where you would like to be 5 years from now if you don’t have DCs, and start planning to make it happen. You have a lot of positives in your life, so build on that.

Yes it is a bit like being in limbo especially when you are on the treatment treadmill. Your life is on hold and you continue to keep a mental space in your life for a possible future child even though you know you are unlikely to have one.

But as for "focus on something else" this is akin to saying "just relax". Yes some people get pregnant naturally unexpectedly after having just fertility treatments but just as many don't. You just don't hear about them.

In your position I did move country, and I would do the same if I did not have so many commitments here. You need to feel adventure, passion and energy again. New experiences, to feel alive.

Your life has become so stale and vanilla, and you feel you have reached the end of a chapter - concluded this part. You need a next chapter.

You can do anything, you are in a great position, and the world is your oyster. Don't settle for feeling like you are on a hamster wheel. Plan now to change it wholesale. If you are not depressed now, it will quickly follow as there is no purpose or energy.

I would also pursue the foster option op. Your dh may not be keen but enjoy it hugely and he should be supporting you to be happy and feel completed. Give it a shot, if it doesn't work out it is not permanent - but well worth it, you sound like a great person and can offer children from very sad backgrounds a chance to be settled and happy. I would not give up on this idea, assuming you are not going to follow the adventure idea.

I loved your post @Jessie2345679 Thank you for writing it.

(And I too wasn’t keen on that book, so I will recommend the Peter Jones book called something like How to be happy and have everything ).

Hi, you definitely need some side quests!
I've been in the same position fertility treatment wise and it sounds like you've had some lovely experiences in life but maybe it's the nurturing/loving part of children you could do next just in a different way?
Have you thought of community group work? Scouts etc Or perhaps working with animals? You mentioned walking dogs what about being a dog foster mam?
The flat feeling you describe could be depression especially with everything going on in the world it's tough right now. Reach out to your friends and family and even your gp if you need someone independent to talk to they can sign post you.

Good luck! x

Thank you @Jessie2345679 for such a lovely reply - I've just ordered some of the lemon balm capsules and I've added that book to my to read list, you can actually read the first chapter for free on her website and it seems okay to me so I'll give it a try. I've actually already ordered a couple of other books that other people have suggested too.

I'm so glad you're feeling happy again after your bereavment. I've been thinking about things a lot off the back of this thread and I honestly thought I was over the worst of my grief to do with my Dad, but I unexpectedly lost my much loved dog earlier this year and I think it has brought a lot of it back to me. I keep wishing I could turn back time to when my dog and my Dad were still here, even though we lived in a much smaller house and had very little money or niceties, life just felt so much simpler and happier. I know that's impossible, but I feel like my whole body aches with wishing for it sometimes.

I'm really looking forward to starting counselling actually, I hope it will help me. I've text back and forth with her a few times and she seems lovely, and her office is only a few minutes walk from me which isn't why I chose her but it is a nice coincidence.

I keep wishing I could turn back time to when my dog and my Dad were still here, even though we lived in a much smaller house and had very little money or niceties, life just felt so much simpler and happier. I know that's impossible, but I feel like my whole body aches with wishing for it sometimes.

I wonder if you'd be interested in the book, Plan B? I preferred the first half of the book to the second, but it helped me when I was coping with bereavement and the unexpected end of a relationship and all I wanted was for things to go back to how they were. I guess that denial is a stage in the theories of change and grief? Anyway, the premise of the book is that we are all, to some extent, living our Plan B.

@NameChangeMe2020 Thank you for your lovely post. I’m so sorry to hear that you lost your dog this year, on top of everything else. It’s great that the counsellor seems so nice - I really hope that works out well! xx

@MsStillwell Thank you! x

I haven't read the full thread but I haven't seen anyone mention the 'small circle' you seem to be operating in, ie working with/for your husband and presumably having limited or no independent work colleagues and the diversity of conversation/interest that many couples have to talk about at the end of the day when they've been at/doing their respective work? Is that a factor? And what about friends, do you have any friends that don't have kids or at least have kids that are older and not in the throes of it all? Maybe focus your efforts on them and spending more time with them?

I suffer from secondary infertility and although it is/was heartbreaking to not have the family life I planned, you just have to accept your life changes course and adapt accordingly.

It definitely sounds like you need to carve out something just for you out of your own interests, whether that's a career/job/volunteering/whatever.

OP, if you have the time & financial stability, why don’t you do your nursing training, or even midwifery if you fancy it. Or medicine to become a doctor even. Then you’d easily get a job in the NHS.

Sorry, I know that doesn’t help with the fertility side of things