I feel absolutely dead inside.

I'm 3 months out from a two year benzo taper.

 

I feel absolutely dead inside. I have wasted my entire 20s doing nothing essentially. I'm only now just getting over it. It seems like I was in a weird haze for 12 years since starting all of these drugs. I'm now 27 and I've never even had a job and I've only just recently started volunteering.

 

Why did I take all those drugs/alcohol?.. I'm trying to volunteer to become a drugs counselor and hopefully this will make me feel better.

 

If you want to know how I feel then listen to this -

 

It's a music piece of about 6 minutes long but it sums up how I feel 24/7..

 

I see other people my age having children / jobs/ friends/ houses/ whatever,, I have none of that.. I can't believe that I wasted my entire late teens and most of my twenties...

 

I would say that if my life was OK (had a job/car/house/friends/girlfriend) i would be ok , just a severe chemical depression , but this is almost unbearable.

I like the idea of you doing some volunteering.  Some structure/purpose could help a lot.

 

fwiw - I felt a bit like you when I was 26-27, then met the girl of my dreams when I was 28 and everything kind of worked out after that. 

Hi cookiemouse,

 

I don't know if I have your level of depression now but I'm sure I've had it since my taper went all wrong last summer and have never stabilized since then. I get the feeling of just not having any love for life and this impending doom that is produced by our downregulated receptors. I don't know when I'll ever stabilize or if I'll ever stabilize, but the more I think about it the worse I get. I don't know if this will help you but what I do then is just focus on my to do list. I think you are awesome for taking up volunteering. However badly you feel, you can help others and you're making a difference in the world, and that is what life is all about, not being a poster person who follows the cliche lives that movies and advertisements tell us we should all have. You are a unique human being and nobody out there can ever be better than you at being you. Your life path is unique. You don't know how you can effect a single human being and make a difference in the world. It's not all about having a job, house, wife, two kids and an SUV. The meaning of life is much deeper than that. Some find their path through all that, and others walk a different path. In any case, your  young and you're a man, so you don't know if you'll form a family in the future. There's no clock ticking for men, lucky you. The depression is horrible. Tell it "it's ok, I hear you", and go about with your tasks in spite of it. The clue to not going crazy is a to do list. At least in my case. I think you've got this.

Cookie mouse:

 

The fact that you can admit your mistakes and recognize that you are heading in the wrong direction tells me that you are ready to change your life.  Don’t fall into the all or nothing trap where your mind tries to tell you that there was only one correct path and that because you didn’t take that path you are now ruined forever.  Nonsense!  I know people twice your age that haven’t owned up to their problems and are too stubborn to take anyone’s advice.  You are miles ahead of them.

 

Your idea of volunteering is a wonderful idea.  Not only will it help lift your depression, but maybe you can be the one that can influence others to take the correct path and to not waste years of their lives.  You will have a lot a credibility as you will be speaking from experience.

 

But do not put conditions on your happiness such as :  “I can only be happy if...I had a job, a car, etc”.  You can be happy now if you want.  This is where I speak from experience as I used to do the same, always comparing myself to others.  Promise me you will try to be happy—just for today.  Stop the negative self talk,you can resume that on Monday if you want.  Instead talk positively to yourself and list all the good things in your life.  I can see two from what you wrote:  you are intelligent, compassionate, and honest.  Ok, that was three, but once you start thinking positively, more positive things come.

 

Good luck to you on your journey and congratulations for being honest with yourself and being willing to change your ways.  You can do it!

You have youth on your side.

I got ME/CFS at 26 in 1996 & then injured my spine in 1998.

I have been ill and pretty much housebound ever since.

I am 52 now.

The Benzos helped my symptoms and now I can’t take anything.

 

You will recover from this and be able to have a life and you will know that life is very short and very precious in a way most ppl do not.

Thanks for the kind messages everyone.

 

My situation is this: my life actually never started. I was bullied in school a lot and because of that I withdrew into loneliness. I was very good academically and I achieved very high exam marks. But I feel out of school before it ended. Then I was shown drugs and I become a heroin addict/cocaine addict at 16.

 

At 16 I was injecting heroin and smoking crack cocaine. I would spend loads of money on it and then I started taking methadone and benzos and slowly drinking..

 

I got off Heroin at 20 years old and methadone when I was 25. I stopped drinking at 24 and I've never had one since+ stopped benzos at 27.. However in all of this time I've never had a job or participated in life. I got a medical condition at 20 (some weird psychological urinating problem, i'm now over it) and that caused me to be depressed and withdraw into my house for around 7 long years...

 

I'm only just starting to do stuff. I'm volunteering in a charity shop and I've contacted other places to volunteer (food banks, drug clinics).. However the drug clinics require what's known as an Enhanced DBS certificate. This is a police check that will list everything they have about you. And although I've never been charged or taken to court for an offense , my brother and I used to have domestic fights were the police were called out...

 

I'm scared that this will show "potentially violent individual" on the enhanced dbs certificate.. But who doesn't have domestics,  anyway?? If this comes through then I wont get a job volunteering with drug addicts/mentally ill/vulnerable people and I'll have to try and find work on a trade site or something.. I don't want to do that type of work as it's full of scumbags... (not all of them but some)... I will be so agonizingly depressed if that happens that I'm thinking about taking up a new heroin habit.. I don't want to but I can't live like this...

 

 

I'm scared and worried for the future and I have a deep mourning for the past that I've never had.. I feel like I'm waking up for the first time since I was 15 years old and I look around and think "why didn't I at least find employment.... A shit job would have at least look OK on a resume..."

 

I have no children or wife or girlfriend.. I have no friends.. I have no car because of the covid thing keeping my damn test delayed...

 

I can't even read long paragraphs of text because of the cognitive impairment...

 

This turned into more of a rant but the point still stands. In this society everyone is "programmed" to expect to be happy only with materialistic things.. I know this is like that documentary "manufacturing consent").. But I still can't help being human and feeling human emotion.. The pain I feel on a daily basis is unbearable.

 

From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall to sleep at night I'm filled with an inner agony and despair.. I don't know how drugged up I used to be to be able to live life like this..

 

I want to go to college at least or something, but I had to postpone another year because of my cognitive impairment.. I'm not getting any younger and I'll be 28 in 6 months time...

 

Where do I go from here? How do I get back into life? There's no one for me to talk to about this and my dad who's 67 doesn't understand why i could possibly be unhappy. I feel alone in the world with no one and nothing. I'm detached from humanity..

I like the idea of you doing some volunteering.  Some structure/purpose could help a lot.

 

fwiw - I felt a bit like you when I was 26-27, then met the girl of my dreams when I was 28 and everything kind of worked out after that.

 

Yeah but I'm guessing you was employed and had a life before 27 though?

Maybe you can go back to school and study to be a coach to help people get off drugs, which you're obviously an expert at. Of course, that's not going to be possible if you're considering taking up heroin again. You're young, smart, no mortgage, no children and no drugs. You have so much freedom you don't even know you have it. Use it for something productive instead of dwelling on what you don't have. Sorry about the bullying. My childhood really sucked, but nobody's coming to save us. You have to save yourself. Maybe you'd like Richard grannon. He's on YouTube and Instagram. He helps with complex trauma.

Maybe you can go back to school and study to be a coach to help people get off drugs, which you're obviously an expert at. Of course, that's not going to be possible if you're considering taking up heroin again. You're young, smart, no mortgage, no children and no drugs. You have so much freedom you don't even know you have it. Use it for something productive instead of dwelling on what you don't have. Sorry about the bullying. My childhood really sucked, but nobody's coming to save us. You have to save yourself. Maybe you'd like Richard grannon. He's on YouTube and Instagram. He helps with complex trauma.

 

I wouldn't go on Heroin, i was just venting I guess..

 

I want to work in the substance misuse field, or the mental health field.. I'm just so nervous that these domestic fights i've had with my brother will appear on my enhanced dbs record and ruin it all for me. I don't want to work around trades people or some other thing..

 

If this cognitive impairment clears up I'm planning on going to college next september and from there going to university to study to be a mental health worker.. I just can't see a way out at the moment. Honestly, i feel like I'm dead and time is going by so slowly.

 

Everyone else in life is having fun but me... I know this isn't exactly true but it's how i feel all the time and it's getting me down..

 

 

Check out the news today on the refugee camp of Moria, Greece. See how much fun they're having.

 

About your domestic fights: what I've learned is that when one has CPTSD in adulthood, which is common after an abusive childhood, you live in fear and you have catastrophic thinking. I know I have this. So you will ALWAYS go to the worst case scenario. You had a few fights with your brother and now you can't have a career. I have bwd so now I wont be able to manage my finances, I'll lose all my money and I'll lose my daughter to foster care. These thoughts are seldom realistic. It could happen but it's the worst possible outcome. There are other possible outcomes. What helps is probably writing down the fear and then investigating on it. See how real this is in the real world. Have you actually tried to find out if this is enough of a reason to ban someone from being in the mental health field? I really doubt it. If only good, nice boys who've never had a problem can help addicts, then I doubt they're going to be able to help anyone, in my opinion.

Everyone else in life is having fun but me... I know this isn't exactly true but it's how i feel all the time and it's getting me down..

 

That’s what you see from the outside..but you do not know their real lives.

 

A friend of mine became an EMT/Paramedic in our town.  He couldn’t believe what he saw on his calls.  The families he thought had it all together, did not at all.  Drug overdoses, fights, etc.  He saw it all.  Don’t just believe what you see through your brain—that wants to show you everything that is wrong with your life, while hiding the reality of what is going on around you.

 

And by the way, I told you not to compare yourself to others, yet I made a comparison and said that other people have it worse than you.  It appears I need to listen to myself.  How does people being worse off than you help your situation?  So you see, nobody is perfect.  Don’t judge yourself too harshly.  Nobody is an angel...certainly not me. 

 

If you think your life is not salvageable, then it is not, but if you think it is, then there is no limit to what you can achieve.  Be kind to yourself,  so you made some mistakes...big whoop...so have I.  Keep trying to be better.  You can. 

 

 

About the figghts with my brother: no they won't stop me. But the police could say that they believe that I'm violent or some bs.. I'm honestly not. Who hasn't had fights with their siblings?

 

you see if someone just came to me with a good job offer, hell even a bottom position in a drugs counsellor/worker type job then I'd be happy. I would spend the years working my way up and trying to find myself again.. I'm just so nervous that I'm not going to be able to do anything and that I'll have to work around trade scum or something for the rest of my life.. I don't want to do that.

 

Everyone i see appear to be having having good life's/families, but i guess it's not all like that. They won't show the bad times they go through and the suffering that they endure.

 

This is one of the reasons i go and watch court trials.. It helps me to know that other people are experiencing suffering.. That sounds a little messed up but it helps.