I’m miserable and I think I’ve always been miserable

[Lesmiserablez]

I’m in my 50s and I pretty much regret my whole life. I would be described as successful. But I’ve always been miserable. I feel so trapped by my decisions- husband, kids, the full catastrophe. I’ve no idea what to do. I’ve tried therapy, I’ve tried anti depressants. I just can’t seem to do like the way everyone else does. Everyone else seems to hold things more lightly, and they seem to find life easier. I don’t.

I think you need to work out what is causing your unhappiness. I did, worked out, after 28 years, that it was my ex, so I left.

What did you think of my answer @Eyesopenwideawake ? I’m a little all over the place

I think it’s my work mostly. I love it and hate it. It is tremendously stressful

I could be posting this!

What jumped out is that there's no part of your life that's bringing you joy, but that there are no obvious reasons (having just seen your update re your work) – more a general dissatisfaction with life. But what also jumped out is that you're self aware and you are not trying to lay blame on others. Both really important qualities in someone who's looking to change.

My crew* just reminded me of an analogy about what to do before making any changes in your life. Decisions come in three categories; hats, haircuts and tattoos. If you don't like your hat you can just take it off, easy. Hate your haircut? It'll grow out in time. If you are going to get a tattoo, make sure you can live with it for the rest of your life.

*my subconscious crew – much wiser than me, and much better at pub quizzes 😂

Could you work thru from the inside out? So this time last year I had burnt out and abandoned my job with ‘depression’ - my GP put an AD for 6 weeks even though I was loath to take them as had last taken them 10+ years before and taken forever to get off them. 6 weeks in she did a blood test and my thyroid was fuxked - not on meds for that and my mood lifted. Also HRT has helped as has going teetotal and walking first thing every morning for 30 mins. I also am aware that I am undiagnosed ADHD - so many things that caused the depression that need fixing at source.

I think once you have sorted your baseline health then you can look and have the clarity and motivation to address the other external environmental issues in your life - but I think you need to build your own internal foundational health first so that you have the resilience to make changes.

I’ve tried cbt and tried lots of different types of therapy, ime the best therapy has been with one particular therapist because we connected well. But honestly, most of the therapy I’ve done has been really depressing and disappointing. I had a therapist last year and I just faded out from seeing her. I found it frustrating.
i think cbt is great for a specific problem but my problems aren’t specific and I can’t see how reframing “everyone” to “most people” will do much for me.

Oh bloody hell mate. CBT, the NHS cure for everything! As if I don’t already understand my head? I know? let myself not worry until worry time? Yep, I am now cured!!!!
I really don’t have an answer for you.
It’s shit, and I hear you.
I suppose the only thing I would say is, you’re here, you matter, people actually love you, they really do. They really, really do.
Stay strong lovely, you are doing it. Maybe not the same way as other people do, but in the way many, many of us do. For some of us, it really is just hard.

Your problems aren't specific and they aren't logical either, which means there's the issue is in your subconscious mind, hence why CBT/talking therapies aren't working. You weren't born dissatisfied; those thought patterns developed so they can be changed.

I feel like this alot and for me it definitely goes hand in hand with burnout from work. I have 2 jobs and both take alot out of me (and my colleagues) emotionally and physically with added stress every week due to paperwork and expectations from higher ups.

I say this because it wasn't till I took a leave for a few weeks that I started to see the pattern and recognise I was burnt out. It also exacerbated my anxieties and I would get overwhelmed and rage out ...not healthy or productive but I felt i couldn't stop and I was already over the edge.

Life is hard and sometimes people have it harder. Resilence isn't always a magically fix either, especially if you feel ground down or depressed already. If you feel there's no joy in your life then perhaps you could start doing stuff that does bring you joy ...that sounds terribly wanky sorry lol

Motherhood and marriage isn't all its cracked up to be either ..perhaps there's something there that you could change ...childcare, babysitter type of thing.

I have a friend who has an incredibly stressful job (social work) and an incredibly stressful home life (DH and both DC with complex autism). She never seems stressed, even though every time we catch up she is discussing highly stressful situations at work or home. I asked her about it and she just said: I make time for myself.

And she does. Even though family and work push back hard against it. She goes for walks and coffees with friends several times a week. She does therapeutic drumming, wild swimming and gong sessions and at least once a month goes to see a band or concert or show she enjoys.

OP is there any way you can just start making and taking time for yourself, doing things that destress you physically and mentally and also things that bring you joy and excitement?

What have you enjoyed in the past? What activities hold the best memories?

I don’t know anything about mental illness - others above are more knowledgeable.

However the one question I think you should think about is what, if anything, when you do or don’t do it, makes you happy? What did you love in the past? What have you always fancied trying/ doing? If you can’t think of anything, then look back. What did you love as a kid? What were your dreams?

I was going though a relatively hard time a few years back. I was on my way to a night out I really couldn’t be bothered with with two old friends. I saw a kid on the bus that reminded me of myself as a kid.Transparently happy.

It occurred to me that as an adult I was living my childhood fantasy. 😁 I was grown up, out on my own, tall, wearing heels and off to a fancy restaurant wearing a fur coat with a diamond ring on my finger and able to pay with my own money. It made me laugh internally and look at life in a different way and maybe a bit lighter. I’d been weighed down with the bad, but there was plenty of good there if I looked from a different perspective.

I wonder if your life would look better if you could look at everything through a different lense. From my reading you sound like a successful woman and good mother - it’s just that you’ve lost the joy in life. Can you try to alter your perceptions and at the same time cave out some time every day for your own happiness. You hold up a lot of responsibility - you matter. A lot of people will be affected if you fall down. You’re a priority.

Thank you for your honest posting. I was writing one in my head but afraid of getting roasted and glad to see compassion instead.

I know exactly how you feel but no answer. At 50 assessed as autistic and inattentive ADHD and it explains some of the why but no solution. Tried HRT of all types combinations and doses, tried anti anxiety and anti depression meds but none help. Like you say I don't know how a chemical will "fix" this. I simply appear to be a person who has never and will never thrive in this life.

It comes in waves for me and I was toying with posting as am very down at the moment. Usually love spring with new growth and new start for nature but not this year. I have no connection with anyone, no one contacts, likes or remembers me and I think my sadness is that I've inflicted this on my kids. Sorry I've made this about me and sorry you're the same.

But those are all things you can change, OP. You don't need to stay married. You can change jobs. You can move somewhere different. Your children will grow up and leave very shortly if they're in their late teens. I imagine good friends will be far easier to come by if you're not oozing obvious unhappiness.

But you're going to have to change the things you don't like.

Yes I know you’re right @Milkwomen . The problems is that I don’t feel It’sa good idea to explode my marriage and my kids lives when my ability to be happy seems limited anyway. I run my own company and so closing this down also seems like a huge move. I’m daunted by both of these decisions. Hence coming here

Im reading a book called ‘Why nobody told me that’ and it helps with small gains here and there even though I’m not quite ready to get ‘untrapped’ (feel similar to you). The advice helps me feel less helpless.
May be, give it a go if you haven’t read it.

it may surprise you, but happiness is a choice. I encourage you to consciously make that choice each and every day and just see the impact it has on you.

I totally agree that happiness is a choice. I think I’ve become bitter because I was treated extremely badly (work related but not internally in the company) over the last few years. This experience has changed me. I think I’m seething with bitterness at the unfairness of it. I think maybe this is the heart of my problems. But I’m not sure.

I agree,the key is to cut back slowly over many weeks/ months.

I think I’m seething with bitterness at the unfairness of it. I think maybe this is the heart of my problems. But I’m not sure.

Spot on. And so very easy to let go of.

A little story from my own life. Pre renovation the bathroom in our house was off the living room (very common in Portugal). My partner, who's eyesight isn't the best, would switch the light on, go in, use the loo, wash his hands and exit. Leaving. The. Fucking. Light. On. Every. Single. Time.

This started to make me irrationally angry and feeling stressed every time I saw him heading to the loo. If I reminded him, he'd go back and turn it off but after a while I couldn't bring myself to say it without sounding deranged. I wanted to punch him or the light switch (and almost did a couple of times!).

The solution? I decided to stop. I knew he wasn't doing it to annoy me; his mind was already on the next meeting/piece of work and it simply didn't register. So I let go of all those poisonous emotions which were doing bugger all about the situation. If the light stayed on, so what? The relief was enormous!

Start thinking about how it would be if you let go of that bitterness. What emotion could replace it?

This is not true
If you have suffered trauma at a young age when your brain is effectively being wired, you may have ended up with Structural Dissociation.
As a defense mechanism to the trauma, your brain creates a part which self sabotages your life in an attempt to keep you hidden and therefore safe.
Working through this is a painful process taking years of trauma therapy or psychotherapy.

Well, see a therapist and unpick what’s actually going on? Otherwise, you’re stuck with a lot of unnecessary, unexplored unhappiness.

I’ve seen a therapist @Milkwomen and I’ve unpicked it all. While it’s nice to think that anti depressants , cbt, therapy, etc will fix all problems. Maybe sometimes they don’t?

But therapy won’t ‘fix’ anything, @Lesmiserablez — I suggested it only because you said at first that you were unhappy because you were unhappy in your marriage, with your job and where you lived etc, and then you said you didn’t want to leave your marriage or job in case that wasn’t the issue, and later still you said that your general unhappiness might be related to the unfairness of a work-related situation that had lasted years.

My suggestion was only that you use therapy as a way of exploring whether you’re unhappy because of specific circumstances.

Fair enough, thanks.