Where am I?

(I'm sorry if this post falls out of the guidelines for this subreddit. I'm also sorry it's so long.)

It's five twenty on a Sunday evening. I have to be to work at midnight tonight, and I've done nothing but sleep the day away. My wife came in and checked on me a little while ago. I can hear my five month old daughter making noises outside the room.

Where am I? I'm in my room, watching each singular minute tick by as I remember things that make me sad. I'm laying in bed, wondering if there's any reason I should get out. I'm under the blankets, struggling to understand why I have the emotions I do. But still, where am I?

Where am I in life? One of our fundamental needs as humans is a need to belong isn't it? So if that's the case, where am I in relation to where I belong? Am I there, or am I just a few feet away? A mile or ten? Sometimes I feel like I'm on an airplane destined to land "where I'm supposed to be." But right now it feels like I fell off the ass end of the plane without a parachute. Here I go, plummeting like a rock. I can see the plane going to where I belong, but here I am falling into some unknown abyss where surely I'll never see the light of day again.

Is this depression? Is this real?

I'm no stranger to mental illness. I've been struggling to mentally maintain myself for upwards of six years now. But somehow, the internal turmoil I feel on this cold winters night feels.. deeper. As if the monster that used to linger around me in my younger years has grown up with me these past years. He's become bigger, stronger, and more violent with age. Can he overpower me?

Where did this monster come from? Why does he want to stifle me so? I don't ask for much. All I want is to he happy. Not even happy; I'd just love to be content.

Love. Is that it? Am I depressed because an old flame messaged me one day, and now I'm married and cannot respond? Perhaps. Limerence. Whether that's seen as a made up excuse or a genuine mental disorder, is irrelevant. You form a remarkably strong attachment to someone you hardly know. You long for them, care about them, love them, all.. beyond your control. They message you, you respond. Feelings grow, feelings are hurt. Do they care? I don't know. Does your wife care? Of course she does. She's hurt, crushed even. That someone else would be on your mind. How dare you? How dare you do this to her? But I don't mean to.. Why am I like this?

Guilt. You're guilty. All you do is hurt others. You're selfish and cruel. You try to better yourself while giving everyone else the bare minimum. But that's not how you see it. You do your best to give back, but it never seems like enough. Does anyone appreciate what you do? Does anyone love you? Who knows. You'd better keep trying. Keep giving as much as you can.

Where am I? Or rather, where am I supposed to be? Should I move out, and live on my own with my brand new family? Should I get out and learn to drive? Should I this? Should I that? What should I do? What does everyone want me to be? What do I want to be? I want to be a pilot. I want to fly planes for a living. I've dreamt of that since I was five. Fourteen years later that's still all I want to do with myself. Will that make everyone happy? What does it matter if everyone is happy? Don't I matter above all else?

Too much. Everything is just far too much to deal with. Will it get better in time? I'm only nineteen. I'm still just a kid at this point. A kid with a full time job, a family, responsibility... Whilst simultaneously futilely trying to live out the last years of childhood. It's impossible to do so. There is no childhood anymore. I miss my friends, my videogames, my daydreams, my.. life. I miss my old life. Once school ended it changed so fast. I wasn't ready for all of this.

All of this stays inside. Talk to someone about it? No. Hell no. Your friends will be annoyed by it and your wife.. Poor girl. She's got her own world to deal with. She needs to talk too. Can you listen? Or are you too focused on yourself? Guilty. I feel so guilty. Everyone else has problems, so why do you think you're so special? There are people out there with situations incomprehensibly worse than yours, and yet here you are on Reddit bitching about it because "it hurts inside."

Try and do something about it. Try and change your mindset. Think of certain things when you're sad. Change habits for the better. There's no motivation to do anything of the sort. I can barely get myself out of bed every night to go to work. I was supposed to call and schedule myself to go back to therapy, but that fell through the cracks the day after we decided it should happen. It's so hard to make things happen anymore. It's so much easier to just.. lay in bed and wallow.

Suicide. That's been on my mind more often than not this month. Such a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I don't want to die.. Not at all... I just want to feel better. Anything to make all of the anxiety, depression, fear, and guilt go away. Alcohol helps, but that doesn't do me anymore good than a band aide. Drugs? I haven't fallen that far yet, but I'm getting there fast.

You'll get over it one day, right? Just keep going and eventually, it'll feel normal, right? Maybe you'll even be where you're supposed to be, right?

Six oh five. Time to force ourselves up.