I want to die

I typed that into the search box tonight. Google must have someone making this page of results very valuable. It’s the most clear-cut, useful results page I’ve ever seen. 

First of all, there is a phone number to call. I wouldn’t call it. Of course I’m ok: I’m in a good marriage, I live in a great house on a gorgeous farm, I have two bright boys, and very supportive siblings.

I am crying now. I’m too overwhelmed. Before you jump right to the comments section trying to help me, let me tell you that I’m traveling with the kids and I’ve been in Aspen for five days without my anxiety medicine. I will have the medicine again in two days.

I have friends I can always call. Melissa and Cassie will read this post and tell me I could have called them. But I wouldn’t know what to say to them. I guess I could say, “Help. I want to die.” I know I could say that because they have called me to say that. That’s how I know there are others of you, reading this, who have felt like I feel tonight.

When I found something to read online, I was so grateful. Can you want to die and also feel gratitude? I think it might be impossible. So maybe that’s why the way Google organized the search results really works.

I want to be a shining example for you but I can’t cope.

I want you to see that even though I had to live at my grandparents house because my parents hated me so much. Even though I did that, I am still a great parent. I want you to see that I’m not ruined and I’m not ruining another generation.

I want you to see that even though I told you to never have two blogs, I can still do it. But I can’t. I didn’t write for two weeks. But I keep writing both blogs because I need the support system. And now maybe I don’t even have that.

I want to die because I feel like I can’t do anything right.

I am not sure what could possible make me not want to die except that I can help people. I’m not sure what else there is. Which is crazy because I’m doing this course this week about using personality type for making relationships work. Most of these people are complaining about their spouses, (or, worse, they think they have perfect spouses and it’s so easy for me to see what they’ll be complaining about in the future) and I have so little patience. I want everyone to see that their relationship is fine because they are with someone who is just being themselves, trying their best.

Why do I think it’s fine for everyone else to try their best but it’s not enough for me? I read a letter in the Guardian from a guy who is angry at his wife because she won’t work. I understand why the guy is so upset—it’s scary to have to keep earning money.

It’s scary to me how expensive music lessons are. And how much money we spend every week in science and math tutors. I feel like a failure because I am not homeschooling like a free-and-easy, life-is-good parent. I am in overdrive.

I realize now I’m like all the other people in my course whose relationships are in trouble: doing the only thing I know how to do. I’m an ENTJ and I’m driven to meet goals and so I find the goals that drive my kids and then I don’t take my eye off the ball, no matter what.

I’m just being me. But I am failing at it right now.

I read a lot of forums tonight. So many depressed people are depressed because of their job. It’s so common to read studies about how love matters more than work. And how you are not your career. And that money doesn’t make a good life. But there is also research about how we can recover mentally from a lost limb better than we can recover from long-term unemployment.

Not having a job is very very very difficult. So many people on the forums wrote about that.

I have a job. I am so grateful that I have a job. This is my job. To write a blog post. To make a community that matters. So I am doing that tonight. And I have survived, to the end of this post, to tell you that when it comes to feeling like you want to die, life changes so fast.

If you can just get through those worst feelings, you will get to something better. I did. Right here.