I can't cope. I feel desperate. Most days I wish I wasn't alive so that I wouldn't have to feel so constantly sick with worry and regret. I don't plan to end my life — I just wish I'd never existed in the first place, because I am absolutely paralysed with anxiety most of the time, and it's utterly exhausting and miserable.
I am in my early 30s now, and have always struggled with being unable to cope with imperfection, but I feel like it has just got worse and worse as I've got older. That might be because there are many more things to make decisions about as an adult, and so many more opportunities for things not to go as planned (and so many more things for me to regret and dwell on and obsess about, until the next "mistake" I make that I can regret and obsess about). Anything that doesn't go as I want it is my fault. It's my fault for choosing the tradesperson who didn't do a good enough job, my fault for trusting someone to do something that they then botched up, rather than doing it myself. So I don't trust anyone else to do anything correctly. And when I mess up myself, I hate myself for it. I also hate spending money on anything, which means I can't find joy in anything that requires it. We didn't have much growing up, which did impact my childhood, and though I have more than enough now (as of the last couple of years), I feel deeply uncomfortable whenever I spend more than the absolute minimum required. So I never order takeaway, because I can buy a meal from the supermarket for a fifth of the price and can't rationalise it to myself. And I rarely buy anything other than the bare essentials. I will spend days researching any purchase I do have to make, and then still often not make it in the end, because I can't cope with the decision and the choice, and the potential regret of making the wrong choice. I find it crippling beyond belief. My poor DP, who should be able to spend money pretty much as he wishes, and not worry in the least (he is a very high earner), has to put up with me making every spending decision into a huge deal, and has had to put up with significantly more inconvenience as a result of me prioritising money over time. Rationally I can see that that is silly if you don't have to, but I simply can't internalise it. I will always try to optimise every situation, and get the "best value", and feel cross when I think I could've squeezed more out of a situation. This means I can never be happy, because it's rarely possible to optimise, or even to know if you've successfully optimised. To do that, I would have to push and push people to their limits, and I imagine massively piss them off (I definitely do this sometimes, but I reign it in somewhat around non-family members who I have to interact with regularly, and then just go and feel angry with myself in private).
Right now I'm in the process of moving into my first house that I bought with DP, and it has pretty much broken me. I realise buying a house is one of the most stressful things anyone can do, but this feels next level. I'm a complete wreck. The number of decisions, the sub-optimality of every step of the process, all the things that have gone wrong that I wish I'd done differently. And now I have the final move tomorrow, and I'm beside myself with worry about furniture getting even the tiniest mark or scratch. I hate owning things, and I especially hate owning new things, because I have a complete melt-down every time anything gets even the smallest bit of "damage". I feel (irrationally) cross with DP for having taken our current rental flat unfurnished (before I came on the scene), because owning furniture items gives me so many more things to obsess and worry about. I wish we had almost nothing to move, so I wouldn't have to worry so much.
I just feel so miserable, and anxious, and sick, and I CANNOT go on existing like this. It is a complete waste of a life, and I am just a burden on everyone close enough to know what I'm really like. But I have no idea what to do. I need a complete rewiring. I've tried antidepressants in the past, and I never want to do that again. They made me an emotionless, reckless zombie. I also don't want to be tied to mind medication for life. I've tried CBT, and found it useless. I know all the tricks, and I know what they're getting at, but it simply doesn't work. There has to be another way. I don't want to live like this. It's pointless. I can't enjoy anything, and I annoy everyone close to me. Please, does anyone have the answer? I am fed up of my family saying "just get help". I tried that. It didn't work. I don't know where to find help that will actually help. I want to be able to enjoy a takeaway. I want to not care when that takeaway turns out to be a bit crap, and a complete waste of money. I want to not care if my possessions get a bit of cosmetic damage. I am scared that this is really it, and as long as I live I am going to be sick with anxiety.