I have no motivation or reason to do anything anymore.

[chemicalworld]

I am 36, no children. I live in London and I have a 25% share of a property that has a lease on it that needs extending.

I recently split with a man who I thought was going to be my future. I have suffered with depression over the years and have been on a low level of anti depressants for a couple of years now. I have had counselling and found it useful in working out whats happened with me and why.

My ex partner is very active, and I love to hike and get outside too, but since we have split I have no motivation to do anything. I see no point.

I go to work to pay my bills and I am struggling to complete the part time course I am doing. I have weddings and hen do's coming up and I would prefer just to be asleep. When I go home from work I just fill my stomach with something and then go to bed.

I have been drinking and taking cocaine, none of which helps I know but I simply don't care any more. My family live over an hour from me and they have no idea how I am as I hide it well.

I wanted kids, I see no future for me now, I don't know how to get myself out of this funk with no motivation.

Really sorry to read you are having such an awful time. It probably doesn't help - but at 36 I was running away from an abusive relationship, alone in the country as I'm not British, no savings or place to stay.
I met my fiancé a few months later - had a baby 3 years after that (yep, geriatric mother). My point is, you really don't know what's around the corner for you.
I know how hard it is when you stop caring - and the alcohol and coke too. But for me it was a matter of deciding I was going to be ok, even if it didn't make much sense at the time. Decision to survive and make the most of whatever shit was thrown in front of me.
Hope it gets better for you

Please don’t use the cocaine. Apparently it can permanently damage the dopamine receptors in the brain which could result in a similar effect to treatment resistant depression

I've realised i have abandonment issues, I am being put into counselling and am seeing my Dr on Friday. I keep crying a lot, but have been in work which has been better for me as it means I am taking better care of myself.

I am just tired of feeling this way and feel so embittered that my issues miht have ruined my chance at having what i want in life.

Hi, in my past i have also struggled with depression and have also taken cocaine it feels like it helps for that very short time but really it just adds further to deeper depression and lack of motivation. It wont feel like it now but things will get better for you take small steps at first to be kinder to yourself and try to take time finding the real you. Things are never easy at first but as your frame of mind changes you will feel better within yourself and things will start to fall into place. I hope you start to feel better soon.

Hi chemicalworld

I can relate to much of what you are saying - my circumstances are startlingly similar to yours. I do not have any answers or solutions, but you are not alone in how you feel.

Hi, I went through something similar and I sympathise

My suggestions - stay in counselling, even if it means going private & paying for it. And how about just letting this happen for now? Things are shit for you and you're struggling and that's OK. You're keeping your head above water, and thats all you need to do for now. It may be a cliche, but there's truth in the idea that the only way out of depression is to go through it. I know how awful that prospect is, but this won't last for ever. You're wounded and hurting and it's an act of good self-care to retreat from the world for a bit and tend to yourself.

Believe it or not, I am training to become a counsellor - which is quite intense. I think that opening up some of the wounds of the past have led me to this crisis point. Years ago i dealt with some stuff and felt ready to have a relationship but the further we went down the line the more heightened my anxiety became at points.

Cocaine does help at the time, it means that I can emotionally disengage instead of sobbing myself to sleep like I did last night.

Growing up, I had to be strong for everyone after my Dad suddenly left, recently after allowing myself to grieve for his I feel like I am falling apart. I can see the patterns in my behaviour 'I don't matter so I am going to get drunk and fuck myself up because what does it matter anyway?'

I had a big friendship group in younger years, and I was fun and popular - but I am struggling so much recently.

Thank you for the messages of support and understanding. It isn't easy, but important to understand that our feelings are reactions to abnormal care.

It sounds pretty normal to me op, the reaction is to grief. Not everything is an illness though you may benefit from increasing ADs.
Mental health is about much more than tablets, you have to work at it and nobody will hand it to you. It includes eating well, getting up and dressed and going to bed early. No alcohol or drugs-ypu know all this.
You're making yourself feel worse. Its shit to lose a loved one but nobody is that important that we should sabotage our own lives.
That wasnt meant to be cruel btw, but the only person who can truly help you is you.

I understand that not everything is an illness. It is grief you are right and I know I have to work at it. I have not drank for the past 2 days or taken anything else. I sobbed myself to sleep last night and continue to be on the verge of crying all the time.

I just feel quite alone, and that no one can cope with the level of grief that I feel over many levels so I am having to do it alone which is really hard.

Hi chemical yes crying to sleep isnt nice but it is releasing your feelings and something ypu must go through. Nothing is too hard to cope with and you will cope. How about some self care and compassion. If you go to bed take a hot water bottle. Give yourself an hour a day to be miserable. Chocolate and a cuppa.
Do get out, take in the green and the air on your face, anything to get through another day.
Have you friends? The odd coffee here and there?
Well done for not drinking x

One thing that helps me, sometimes, is to do things despite there being no point. I am quite consumed with the pointlessness of it all at the moment yet still I am doing things here and there knowing that it feels pointless all the while.

Sorry, cross-posted.

Yes to the feeling that no-one can cope with this level of grief, also you mentioned the dreading hen nights and weddings which resonated strongly with me, I have a few friends' baby showers on the horizon which I am in some sense dreading.

I do have friends, unfortunately the ones local to me have gone away this week. I am spending the weekend with various people and on Saturday am going out walking which always helps.

@erinaceus - I wish I could do things for the sake of doing them. I need to get better at this, as I don't do things for myself. I will go and do things with other people and feel overwhelmed with issues in my home even when they are small things. It's like I need a hand hold with every part of that and I don't understand why.

When I look at my past I can see that I have been crying out in many ways but also pushing people away. I live far enough away from my family that they don't just pop over, I can do what I want, when I want which is sometimes not good for me. My brother tried to kill himself two years ago due to the way our parents split and what we dealt with after. Our needs were never put first. I have been speaking with him today about what I have been doing.

I used to find it was brilliant at the time as you say it makes you feel better and masks your true emotions but the next couple of days on the 'come down' make everything feel a whole lot worse than they felt before getting high. I think its great that youre training to be a councilor, i remember my old councilor telling me some of her traumatic past experiences and them things helping her relate more to her clients and having a real understanding of what they had been through.

Definitely. It is useful at points! However it is also painful having to unravel my own life.

I thought I had got to a point where I was free of much of my past and then seeing my ex with his daughter , who was near to my age when my Dad left, really struck me. Seeing their lovely relationship triggered this grief, which my ex was not able to deal with. Talking about my Dad out loud at the moment is causing me difficulty and I know this is something that I need to work through.

I am sad about my ex, but he can only seem to stomach the good times, and not when I need help. I am very good at being 'strong' - and when I am not - I dissolve. When I am left alone I sort of punish myself with the alcohol and cocaine because it's ;just me'.

Try (i know it may seem impossible) to keep positive, get out each day and smile, be kind to others. London is probably the best city in the world, and when you start noticing you will be radiating. Get out on your shitty coke hang over day and smile at those around you, be a good human, you will notice how great the world can be if you focus on the good stuff and be a positive energy.

I understand how easy it is to stay in bed the next day with the fear, the negativity, the self hatred, you have nothing to be ashamed of, no one is perfect, your going though a stage focus on the end of the tunnel (how you would like to be) get there.

Someone will find you, this someone now is currently irrelevant. Focus on you, the rest will come, if you grab now you'll properly grab a wrongen, that is not how you want to start the foundation of a relationship unhappy and insecure.

This is the perfect time to be selfish and spend time and money just on you!

I get you I've been there, your in a rut do something, just one thing thats out of your comfort zone that you've always wanted to do but have been to lazy and focused on a man, make yourself!!
Your a good person.

(Where do you live in london? would you like to have coffee or go for a walk?)

Thanks for your lovely message.

I have been feeling stronger, still sad but I am doing small things for myself which make a difference. I have talked to people and told them how i have been. I am now pretty broke because I am not exactly rich so have been spending time and the money I have on paint for my home and I have been looking into improving my garden.

I think with my ex, i trusted him because of our history, and my experience of dating in London is a bloody nightmare! I am totally straight down the line, I am what i am and I am honest and truthful about where I am at. I just wish others were!

I am in South East London these days, I spent 10 years in North London - I still go walking wherever, is that something you do for fun?