I just caught myself pretending to be OK so well I had even fooled myself.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Dante

Git
SF Pro
SF Supporter
#1
I have been doing fine, feeling normal enough, slight hints of depressive thoughts, undertones to my feelings which I have to squash, and the occasional shit few days, but otherwise ok, I came off antidepressants 2 years ago (not the first time) and haven't considered going back on them since (that IS a first), and yet, there are times, especially the last few days, where it feels like this whole "mental well-being" thing I have been doing is just a thin crust covering the real me, like ice over a lake that I am somehow willing to be there, and if I just stop kidding myself for a second I will realise I am still in the middle of a massive fucking lake full of misery.

This last time started because I watched a damned TV show. I hate Ricky Gervais, he is a miserable bastard who treats anything that other people care about as frivolous bullshit and enjoys pissing on it in front of them, and that is his humour, but he starred in a TV show called "After Life" where the whole premise is that the guy has lost his wife and finds everything pointless and empty and decides to have fun being as shit as he likes until he eventually gets bored of it at which point he will just kill himself. I figured the "like is pointless and so are you" attitude of the character fitted him so perfectly that his humour wouldn't grate but instead work well in this role, so I gave it a watch.

Mistake.

He portrayed the empty "I'm just living because I haven't killed myself yet" feel a little too well and I immediately felt myself communicating with the character in a deep level. It took me 2 episodes to ask the question "wait, I'm supposed to be better, why do I feel such a CURRENT connection to this character who finds life completely devoid of meaning and who just wants to die?" Just watching this show seems to have stripped away that top layer of ice suspending me above my metaphorical lake of depression and let me know just how thin it really is, when the character eventually saw hope in life again, I completely lost any sense of connection, he was as alien to me as any action movie hero or stupid blond going outside at night during a horror movie because she heard a noise. I only really felt connected to the character when he wanted to die and when his world was empty and pointless.

What the hell?

This isnt just a realisation moment, I can FEEL it all still in there now, all that misery and hopelessness. Its like I just now stopped deluding myself: Im as disconnected as I have always been, i feel no sense of purpose or real enjoyment, I even had a chance for a real relationship at the end of last year, she was actually into me, and the whole thought of a real connection like that scared me so much I immediately found an excuse and put on the brakes so unequivocally that there is no going back. I was just pretending to be happy, and I was pretending so well I actually tricked myself. But I thought i was supposed to BE happy.

I can pretend easily, I can gloss over this and skate on like I never noticed the ice cracking and continue acting like I'm ok, but is this really the best I'm ever going to get? Pretending?

People always say that it will get better eventually, but will it? Or will I just get so good at pretending that as long as I don't stop and take a serious look at myself I can skate on through life without ever realising that its all fake.
 

sinking_ship

woman overboard
Staff Alumni
SF Supporter
#4
I think both versions are true. The 'life is devoid of meaning' and the 'skating on through life'. I find myself teetering between them too. But all that's actually true is the now, however that currently feels.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Please Donate to Help Keep SF Running

Total amount
$70.00
Goal
$255.00
Top