Grief, loss and the resulting loneliness can bore into one's soul deeply and painfully. The anguish and despair in its wake be very overwhelming. Anxiety and remorse also works its way often to dread. And as an elderly man in his mid fifties I have lived a life where to admit and acknowledge this sense of vulnerability could be shockingly juvenile for some. There's also the fact that given my seeming background of privilege and scholarship I should have had a life so ordinary if not disastrous.
Indeed so it is - an existence full of falls, knocks, failures and setbacks. Initially as a youth I gave myself fully into whatever I got into. Of course I was not perfect. Anything but perfect. Flawed at several levels but more optimistic, positive about prospects & futures. Then I was not deeply sombre, melancholic, sedate and aware of both my agential self and an understanding of how people and society play out as I'm today though by rights being a student of history and sociology should have given me an advantage. I was not bestowed with the best of cognitive abilities or acute intellect or seductive charisma to shine in relationships, academia or competitive career where I could be very favorably compared with my peers among family and friends. I think I was deeply ADHD as a kid, something I realised only few years back. But I was yet a romanticist even then. So there was this bravado and cockiness infused with hubris. Several of my actions emerging from such a context were naturally not the most edifying and many obnoxious. Bad karmas had to result probably.
When in my early 30s I had my first bout of depression. I cowered, lost hope and that I'm a loser hit me like a sledgehammer. However as the only son I always had my parents support particularly my father who never judged me and never thought less of me because I was not on a jet setting career and success trajectory. He saw to it I was given proper support and treatment. After counseling, medication and even forced internment in an institution I was back again and again pepped myself to work my way through in a domain of my choosing (pedagogy of sociology & history) though this domain was already rigged. Don't know whether things went my way or I just remained persistent, positive but I managed to pull along for another 10-12 years. But misery, failures, sheer bad luck caught up again. I often wonder if someone, indeed many are deeply orchestrating my doom by casting spells, magic or voodoo. Recently nightmares too have become repeated and common. Mornings are scary.
I lost a relationship which I still cherish. Not just that, I lost an entire ecosystem of living built from scratch (which included a pair of adorable dogs). Then I lost my parents. Kins were never too indulgent but even most friends disappeared. I had worked around to a view that life was much more than work, career and family and indeed lived such a life with my partner who too bought into this view. We had no kids either. Won't go into all details for now. But my relationship ended and I was uprooted in several sense of the word. Uprooted physically, socially that has left a deep emotional, painful, shameful scar. And top it all there's guilt. (again too complex to explain the many whys and hows of my guilt and shame was conspired by unforgiving circumstances and embarassing magnitude of misfortune. Have done so in earlier posts. I nevertheless can't and don't want to blame any person for my misery) And so for last 10 years and more I'm living a deeply impaired life stripped of solace, comfort leave alone joy or happiness.
At its extreme these result in acute shame ...you just want to kill yourself. Then less macabre is to shut yourself from the world. Bury yourself in your-self, your room, shutting out the world. You can bury in work or some pursuit too, numb yourself and cope. Not that it makes meaning and often work for someone persistently jinxed can exacerbate anxiety and hurt but that’s the mechanism to deal with your pain, anguish. Interalia you interact with people, indulge in conversations and coerce yourself into some engagement. Medications and counselling kind of helps in keeping you 'operational'. However these don't in any way negate your loss. Your destitution remains but to others you are comfortably 'normal'. You so wish to share your pain, open up about the suffering that you endure constantly but unless you invisibilise your grief and loss, the little socialization that you engineer too would end. As someone battling depression and grief over many years I continue to experience this. The loneliness of my suffering remains and indeed I feel so cheated and further humiliated that my victimhood is rendered so false and invalidated. As indicated in one of my previous posts, there's no power behind my claims of loss, shame and grief. The discourse on grief is barely mainstreamed to bestow legitimacy, validity to those proclaiming it. It is too dominated by homily serving 'getting over' 'moving on' 'remaining positive' 'others have it worse' 'self pity' 'contrived victimhood' and such insights and advice indicating complete ignorance of grief pedagogy.
My losses, setbacks, failures have been severe, debilitating, hollowing and constantly hovering above my head as Damocles sword striking me at periodic and regular intervals and each so severe, dismantling all my self respect and dignity. For last few years it’s just me and my tyke stewing in isolation bereft of any presence & support save some sporadic checking in by select friends. My kins are no worth and contempt is mutual. It’s a deeply miserable life where i’m left scrounging for indulgence. The kind of intimacy, reassuredness, comfort that I did once enjoy briefly has all but vaporised. For a romanticist such a loss is cataclysmic.
At many levels my issue - and those like me battling loss, loneliness and failure is also located in a world brutally impersonal and rendered so mechanistic. Mere survival is made to appear an achievement and seeking meaning, empathy and joy pointless. A contrived existential attribute is imputed and presence of anxiety and vulnerability is reduced to a delusion and incompetence. Modernity is by itself not a pathological state but all its possibilities are hollowed out by wanton callousness and misconstrued fabrication of meaninglessness. Don't know sometimes if being a Neitschzean superman braving it all and willing to live too is delusional. It hasn't been worth it. 😢
#ChronicDepression #Dysthymia #Grief #prolongedgrief #anguish #SuicidalIdeation #Loneliness #Anxiety #Loss #Depression
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