So hard to escape for good
Hi Ashley,
You're a comforting and calming influence, for sure. Thank you for that.
You ask me a big question - who am I, and what do I value? Wow......
To start off prosaic, I'm 50 years old, live in a city in England in a small, run-down house with my long-term (female) partner and two of my three sons (the eldest is away at University). My sons are 14,17 and 20. I work as a librarian, but my work to me is purely and only how I make a living. As a result of that, I've not had a glittering career. That's only important to me insomuch as it means I don't earn very much (hence the small run-down house).
My family is very important to me. I do not have friends (that's not a self-pitying exaggeration, I really do not have friends) and have a social phobia, so my family are the only warm human contact I have. I'm very proud of my sons, though I feel they've grown up so well despite me, rather than because of me. It's their mother who has done the great job there. I have let my partner down on occasion, have 'strayed' whilst in the grip of this reckless abandon when nothing seems to matter, have sought comfort, anonymity and a kind of oblivion in the arms of strangers. So I'm no angel, and feel neither proud nor ashamed of that.
Aside from my family, what else is important to me? As you'll have gathered from my previous post, I value creativity greatly. I'd love to be a musician above all, and I do play the guitar, but I have no illusions about that - I do it just for my own entertainment, but have no real talent in that direction. And I write (well, I did up until a day or two ago). Now that's all gone. Will I resume? Maybe, when I'm back on an upswing, but not now. Apparently I'm quite good at that, but I can't keep it in proportion and I'm too much of a perfectionist.
What do I value in other people? Consideration, generosity, honesty, humour. I have pretty high standards and feel hostile towards people, including myself, when they fall short. Also, I am terrible at bearing grudges. I don't forgive easily.
I don't have any religious faith. I was brought up Christian, and was for a few years a Buddhist, but I lapsed, though parts of Buddhist thought and philosophy have stayed with me and shape my worldview even now.
Maybe, as you say, the depression is talking and thinking for me now. If it is, it has a strong, seductive and convincing voice. There is a kind of perverse comfort in giving in to it. It's familiar, predictable....and doesn't it make me narcissistic too?
Thanks for listening, if you are still awake. You see, I have no great dramas in my life, and much to be thankful for, which adds a layer of guilt to the way I am feeling at the moment.
