u/BlueBumbleb33

I had a decently long list of go-to things that would make me feel better (not necessarily good, but at least less crappy). I could go for a walk in the woods, drink a cup of tea or coffee, take a hot bath, watch a movie, masturbate, paint/draw, write, listen to music, exercise, and so on.

Slowly, these things have helped less and less. Now I barely get any boost from doing these things. Sometimes they even make me feel worse. I don’t know how to fix it. It’s devastating to not have some source of temporary respite. Do I try to find something new? I can’t even imagine what that would be. Is there a way to “refresh” my old habits so they start helping again?

Life is just too much. Home isn’t perfect — especially when I neglect to clean it, which makes me feel worse — but it feels safer than the rest of the world. This is mostly due to my depression, but I think it’s also in part because of a car accident I was in last year.

I don’t go to stores anymore; 99% of the time I get things delivered. I work part-time from home, and my job thankfully requires no human interaction; not even email or video calls. The only time I really go out anymore is for petsitting gigs (which I wouldn’t do at all if I weren’t drowning financially), and I go out to dinner roughly once a month with family or friends.

Convincing myself just to walk my dog is torture; lately I only take her out once a week, usually after dark. I can’t bear the thought of being seen by other people, or even worse, being forced to interact with them. My dog has other dog friends that come over once every week or two, but outside of that and food puzzles, she gets basically no enrichment anymore. I feel like a horrible owner. I used to take her to a different trail/park every day without fail, and I spent another hour every day on play or training. Now that feels impossible.

I’ve always wanted to have a child, but more often lately I’m thinking I can’t do it. I can’t raise a child in isolation. Even if I get better, there’s a high risk it’ll get bad at some point again, and I can’t put someone else through that. I don’t want to teach another person to live in fear of the world around them. Yet it still crushes me when I think about having to give this dream up.

I just needed to vent somewhere.