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Last night I started to cry. There was no reason for this - so far as I can tell. And this is not the first time, in fact, as far back as I can remember, I have been subject to such fits of deep sadness and pain.

It is as though my heart turns to ice, I feel like it is gripped in icy tendrils which spread outward, up toward my throat, making each sobbed breath agonising, and around the back of my head, tensing my neck with the cold, and over my skull, contracting and putting pressure against it -the headache! The worst headache, and then it comes down over my eye, usually just one eye, my right one last night, throbs and aches and is... cold... I am cold through my entire inside, the ice in my heart has been pumped likewise to every extremity, my fingers are clumsy and dulled, my toes curl.

But I am so, so warm, uncomfortably warm... My head feels aflame to the touch, and sweat drips from my forehead, back, and armpits. I hate to be touched for how much the heat overwhelms me immediately.

I wish, so badly, I could talk about the first time I felt this, but there is no first time to remember; I have always fallen into this state at times, without known trigger, since I was a young child.

These are not cries of the sad, or grieving, but the weeping of the desperate and despaired. For hours, I could not stop my crying, the heaving breaths held only shortly and replaced by the sobs of my utterly crushed spirit escaping.

Everything was pain. To think of so much as getting up, of moving, was revolting. There was nothing but pain to come of effort, I knew, knew the best thing in that moment was death but death cruelly would not come.

All the while, my girlfriend, confused, saddened, shocked, afraid, held me, consoled me, worried over me.

And I could feel...

nothing

but the pain, and the terror, and the hell, and the cold, and the unbearable heat.

And I could say the words, "I love you," and "Thank you," and "I'm sorry," but I could not feel them, I could not mean them

And death cruelly taunted me, so easily in my power, but against my false convictions, the lies I tell myself.

And deliriously I cried, and cried and cried unable to stop, but for the staccato breaths I could muster and which only gave me the life I needed to weep more, for eternity, I thought.

I did not go to work today.

Won't it be dull when we rid ourselves of all the demons haunting us

If it helps, you're not alone.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

Sounds very much like what you're describing.

Edit: I see @Bones already mentioned it.

Forgive my brevity, as I type this on mobile, in the dark, after hours.

I am a rather stoic individual. This may be by choice, or by design, or some measure of both, but what matters is that the outward display of what goes on inside of me is usually tempered, quenched until all that shows is an even, metallic grey. It is my armor against tragedy, against rage, and against the endless barrage of synthetic, marketing-driven excitement I cannot escape.

My core, however, flows freely. Below the surface, fury and giddiness swirl and bubble with the understanding that they will all be permitted to run and exhaust themselves...so long as they stay within the borders that clearly define the transition from private to public. I hold no thoughts prisoner, but all actions must be approved prior to implementation. It is an imperfect system, but it (mostly) permits me to be true to myself while simultaneously being true to others, an arrangement which I feel maximizes the benefits to both parties.

But there are times. Times when something unexpected or insignificant can hit me at just the right angle, and suddenly I am quite literally overcome by (an) emotion. And then, depending on the situation, I will either be forced to cut power and allow the control rods to slam home*, or I will give myself over to the release and ride the waves until they pass. I view both reactions as completely healthy and justifiable alternatives. The only difficulty is in deciding which is most appropriate for the ongoing situation. Striking a balance between the two is important. It would be unhealthy to always default to one or the other.

I wish I could give you useful guidance on how to accurately determine the most appropriate choice before those (usually tiny) windows of time expire, but I'm afraid I'm too removed, and likely only qualified to make those judgements for myself anyway. I just want to say (reassuringly, I hope) that it's perfectly okay (necessary, even) to have some sort of emotional volcanic eruptions from time to time, but they should probably be the kinds of eruptions associated with pillow lava, not craters. Letting them build until they become uncontrollable Krakatoa-level events can be detrimental if you care about the nearby population(s), and rebuilding yourself is more difficult, too.

--Patrick
*on mobile, so linking is hard, Google for "scramming a reactor"

I am in weekly therapy; my psychiatrist agrees things aren't 'working' but changes and options don't help or I begin to despair of the point of help. Feel a little better so that I can... die anyway. What possible benefit is there to have 25 years of bleakness and suffering behind me if the future is just 'less bleak.' Oblivion has neither hope nor bleakness, it is not disappointing nor rewarding.

The argument that I could be 'normal' is strange in that... It doesn't change anything; in my mind, 'normal' people are in denial about the futility of their efforts, has no one warned them?

Why does it matter that it's futile?

Well, it doesn't. But since I hurt and life is futile, then, why hurt? Because maybe this change, maybe this year, maybe the next thing will lessen the hurt? I've been told by too many people that it gets better... This has not proven to be true.

Maybe it won't get better... but then again, maybe it will. Nothing truly worth having is bought without price - sometimes that price is pain. But you will never know what life will bring unless you keep on going.

That's what I've had to tell myself, a time or two...

Perhaps I've spent all I've got, and there is no version of the future which can make it worth this price.

I don't see it as "futile" so much as "dynamic". In a way they mean the same thing but then again they don't. A spark is transient but it gives it's energy to the air.

That's the thing - life is hard, and cruel, but it most certainly not futile. Everything we do touches the world and ripples outward, Chad. Be pleasant to a cashier after a witnessing a nasty customer berate them over petty shit, and you brighten their day and they might not stay hurt or miserable for hours. They take that improved mood out and spread it, making others feel better. One simple compliment or sympathetic statement and you've changed the future, if only on a smaller scale. There's undeniable power in even the smallest gestures, and that's futile? No, bud. You're just not seeing the bigger picture.

Chad, you're funny, pleasant, and you've got an amazing way of expressing yourself through your writing and posts. When I was having some of my darkest days, when I genuinely thought my kidney disease was going to just deny me a future, I found comfort here. I found friendship here among a sea of personality - and everyone here made an impact and helped keep me going. Chad' you're one of those major figures here that helped do that. You mentioned that you think I named my pug character after you. Maybe, unconsciously, I did. I never really thought about how I came up with that name. But that's the kind of power and effect you can have. There's nothing futile about that.

I can't tell you it gets better. I can tell you that the life you are living is not futile, and is worth saving, because you have touched the world in so many ways you've never even realized.

And you're not done yet. Not by a long shot.

What people don't understand, I guess, is how far along I carry the the pointlessness... Yes, I may impact someone today or tomorrow... Or 20 years from now. But in 2000? In two billion? When the universe has reached maximum entropy, and everything, all of it is gone, no human life to remember, no atom to excite, then, then why did I suffer? Why did I endure a life of misery if in the end, all the consequences of such a life are obliterated by the inevitable march of time?

I meditate on this poem a lot:

Percy Bysshe Shelley said:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Click to expand...

I sometimes think, I am the traveller. I am trying to explain to anyone who will listen that I have seen the ends of the fruits of all labours, and they are trying to tell me that I could help out with their new statue.

stienman said:

Why do you feel a need to leave an eternally enduring legacy? You obviously make a difference to people around you, who you seem to care about in some minimal way. Is that not enough?

Click to expand...

I don't need to leave an enduring legacy: my point is, when people tell me that I make a difference, I see the difference as ultimately naught but the 'lone and level sands' stretching, far away.

To that story, what it means is that the elderly man is a pragmatist: why waste time on saving a handful of starfish, many of whom will only end up back on the shore at the next tide anyway. The younger man is an idealist: he has changed the course of life for those star fish, whose previous fate was the near and certain death of baking on the beach.

I'm neither of them, I suppose. I think the old man is mean for cynically disparaging the young man's efforts. Though I would be admittedly frustrated that I don't understand why the young man is doing what he is doing, or that his answers are not useful to me, I would not disparage him by telling him he couldn't make a difference.

I think the young man has access to some feeling, some special knowledge that I don't, that making a difference, doing good for its own sake, taking action, enjoying life, helping others... That these are all somehow meritorious in themselves. Perhaps they are, but when asked, "Why? Why do you help that one starfish, why do you take action knowing the difference is so small as to be negligible...?" he would answer, only, "It made a difference for this one, too." Because he is in some way, content with the facts of the situation, or in some other way, capable of knowing but not communicating that there is more to the situation than appears.

But I do not take direction without explanation of the end, and so he can throw his starfish back to sea, and I will leave him alone with the old man's foolish mockery, and I will find a nice place to give up the walk and drown.

As I said in the other thread, I don't think your assumption that your perception of a futile existence is the root of your melancholy but its result. Your depression gives rise to that view, not the other way around.

To me, the most important words you stated in your very first sentence above water "I see". What you see is not absolute. It is possible to believe in an uncaring universe, of which you are not even a mote and not be crushed by the futility of existence.

Go find your narcissist