That Useless Feeling...

I made this post a while ago and I got a lot of comments of concern. I was in a very dark place at the time. I had a lot of love and support from my wife and my family, and even from redditors who reached out to me to see if I was okay (which I am very thankful for, and I appreciate every one of them).

I wasn't without love or appreciation. I was without utility. I had nothing of value to contribute. The hard part about feeling useless is that no amount of love and support can get you out of it. I knew I was loved, but I needed something to do. I needed to serve a purpose. I don't need to be important, I need to be useful.

And it's not about money. I don't care about money and never have. I don't buy extravagant things. I don't care much for luxury. I'm writing this on a phone that's about 10 years old, not because I can't afford to upgrade, but because I don't care to have a new one; this one works fine. Most of my unused money goes into savings just in case I need it later (which is why my expenses didn't feel it while I was out of work). I live a very simple life, and my worth is based on my utility. How useful am I? If I am useless, then I have no reason to stay. Wisdom teeth should be pulled.

All of that, like I said earlier, got me to a very dark place, and the dark place is terrible. But what's worse than the dark place is the light place. That goes like this: All of sudden, for no reason at all, you're fine. Hell, you're better than fine. You feel good.​ It's a place where everything in the world looks so wonderful. You appreciate the smell of book paper. You've seen the sky a million times but you've never actually looked at it, have you? It's pretty majestic. And your wife. Isn't she beautiful? She's so brilliant. What man wouldn't love her? And as you notice all this, you slowly come to the understanding that the world will be fine without you. I was at peace with leaving.

I started to audit my relationships and think on the people I know. How would they be affected by this? My dad is dead. My mom lives in another country with my younger sister and her family. My brother and older sister, I don't really see them anyway. My friends will carry on. None of it would really be affected. The sun would still rise.

But I couldn't get past the thought my wife. It would hurt her. She has been nothing but good to me our entire relationship. She doesn't deserve to be hurt like that, and I don't think she'd be okay. I think she would see it as a betrayal. Not of her, but of the marriage. We work really hard to maintain a good marriage, and this would be me saying our 13-year relationship wasn't worth the effort. That's just mean. It felt mean spirited, and didn't want to be mean to her. That wasn't my intent.

I finally confessed all this to my wife. She had no idea what I was going through or how bad off I was. She just thought I was a little down. It's not that I didn't want to tell her, it's that I didn't want her to bear it. How would you feel to know that you're the only reason someone isn't dead? Moreover, that your mutual love is the only thing that ties them to this earth, and if that went away, they would have no reason to stay. What an insane responsibility to lay on someone. It just feels wrong to do it. But it felt more wrong to keep her in the dark about it. Imagine her thinking that everything is fine, just another day, and then she comes home and finds me. She would have no clue why it happened or what she could have done differently. It would be a complete shock and a slap in this face.

Eventually, I found a job (after nearly 600 resume submissions). My wife helped me through all this daily and I got a little better. I'm not out of the woods yet though, I want to make that clear. I still have constant thoughts of it and still feel mostly useless, but the action of it feels less necessary. Now, it feels more like an alternate path. I could still go down it if I want to, but right now, I don't want to. Either way, I'm still here.