I can't get off this merry-go-round
It’s a mighty good merry-go-round, though.
I thought I had it all – a good, save job, stable income, a good marriage based on true love and understanding, two lovely dogs.
My oldest dog died in January, right next to me on the couch. I miss him every day and still haven’t cleared his favourite toys and so on away. I simply can’t, the idea alone seems absurd.
Four days ago I finished what might be my last work project, because Artificial Intelligence took over my job, it is gone, did I see this coming, yes I did. Unfortunately, working alone in my home office is probably the only work I can actually do without going insane, that’s my habitat, I can’t survive any other way and surviving is what I’ve been doing the last 40 years.
My job wasn’t my dream job, to be completely honest, I only really loved the perks it offered (homeoffice! No meetings! Two dogs!), the projects I’ve been doing have been in some decline of quality and one project in particular gave me a migraine/ meltdown every time it arrived. But I got paid, and now all my money is gone and I had to do a whole song and dance to get my last invoice paid, so it will take some time to get paid for the last project.
I’m sort of stuck between grief and self-pity, and I can’t get out.
If anything, my marriage of 25 years is even worse. I thought my husband was caring, loving, understanding and all around wonderful. He’s not. He thinks I’m lazy and I should overcome my depression by „simply getting over it“. He called me stupid, brain washed, woke, he gaslights me every chance he gets („You must remember it wrong, I didn’t say that!“ – which is great fun, because I can hear him saying it on auto-repeat in my head). He abandoned me every chance he got – when I had a breakdown and had to go to therapy, because how could it be his job to listen to me? That’s trauma dumping! When I told him I was raped when I was 15 he said „What am I being punished for?“, which he denies, of course, when I told him I was groomed at 13 he said „I don’t give a damn“, all he ever hears is „pathological hatred of men“. Instead of listening to me, all he ever hears is whatever right wing manosphere influencers tell him about the evil, man hating feminists.
I grieve the relationship I thought I had and I’m so incredibly sad to lose him to such bullshit. I once told him how sad his decline into rightwing propaganda made me, and all I got was I should „go check my wokemeter“, whatever that is.
I’m sure he’s sad, too, I no longer am the Manic Pixie Dream Girl with the golden energy, mostly, because I’m an old biddy and I’ve been depressed for about 40 years and lately I can’t see my future any more.
The thought of me having a future makes no sense to me. Every day I work to find a reason to continue living (My dog! New album of my favourite band! New episode in a drama! Enter a writing contest! Find a new job!) I have no money to move out, I have no one to go to, I have no friends, and that’s basically the reason why I’m still here, because I can’t get out.
TL:DR version: I’m grieving the loss of my dog, my job, my marriage, my home. Is there hope? How do I get out?
(and yes, the title is a BTS quote.)