So angry...
I am so angry right now... I went through the depression again this weekend, gambling related or otherwise who knows anymore?! But it wasn't a good wknd, fought with my wife frequently about stupid little things. She says I was in a bad mood and I say that she just treats me like crap which puts me in a bad mood. I was also feeling extremely jealous of all the "other people"... the other people who in my mind live such great lives, the other people who have jobs and money and friends and do things like go to a cottage, go to the beach, go boating on a lake on a nice sunny day, have a bbq with friends.
I feel so completely powerless to control my own destiny and I hate this life with such force that it is going to tear me up inside. Gambling seems to be the least of my worries right now, even though I would like to forget about everything for a while I don't even want to run to the casino because I know it is just hopelessness that waits there, and if I did go and lose right now I think I might do something horrible and just end it all.
How do I regain control? How do I live the life I want? It starts with work, as it always has, and my dissatisfaction with work. Any employment I have had in the last 11 years now has been temporary and fleeting, paid less than satisfactory, and either been abusive or ridiculous in some way. I went to University to pursue what I thought was a valuable education to provide me with at least some meaningful or at least financially rewarding work. All it gave me was inflated expectations and a debt that I was only able to erase through bankruptcy.
Right now I have free time but never enough time, no money but just enough to survive, which is keeping me trapped in a job that doesn't give me any respect or opportunity to grow. I haven't had a raise in 2.5 years and I know I am being paid far less than I deserve. I am teaching college and making half of what High-school teachers make. I am working part time and driving 10 hours a week to work 20 hours, on top of which they expect me to work at home doing things like prep and marking student work. I can teach marketing, selling, HR, accounting, but I can't get employment in any of these areas so what good am I? I am just a waste of space on this earth...
I don't know if it actually makes it better or worse but my students were telling me how much they appreciate my classes today. They were telling me about all the horrible things the other teacher makes them do. It should make me feel good but it makes me feel worse in a way because I am almost ready to quit because it seems like the school would rather have employees like this other teacher, who don't try and change anything but rather just plod along, reading straight from the book, show up late, talk on her phone and go on facebook while her students struggle. If they did value me at all they would give me a raise and give me more classes to teach, and respond to me when I ask questions about trying to improve the material for the students!
I want to blame everything on everyone else, not getting the right opportunities, the world, not treating me fairly, but it must just be me right? Its all my fault and I am powerless to change anything. I am a big failure. And I will never be anything more than that, a failure.
I feel so completely powerless to control my own destiny and I hate this life with such force that it is going to tear me up inside. Gambling seems to be the least of my worries right now, even though I would like to forget about everything for a while I don't even want to run to the casino because I know it is just hopelessness that waits there, and if I did go and lose right now I think I might do something horrible and just end it all.
How do I regain control? How do I live the life I want? It starts with work, as it always has, and my dissatisfaction with work. Any employment I have had in the last 11 years now has been temporary and fleeting, paid less than satisfactory, and either been abusive or ridiculous in some way. I went to University to pursue what I thought was a valuable education to provide me with at least some meaningful or at least financially rewarding work. All it gave me was inflated expectations and a debt that I was only able to erase through bankruptcy.
Right now I have free time but never enough time, no money but just enough to survive, which is keeping me trapped in a job that doesn't give me any respect or opportunity to grow. I haven't had a raise in 2.5 years and I know I am being paid far less than I deserve. I am teaching college and making half of what High-school teachers make. I am working part time and driving 10 hours a week to work 20 hours, on top of which they expect me to work at home doing things like prep and marking student work. I can teach marketing, selling, HR, accounting, but I can't get employment in any of these areas so what good am I? I am just a waste of space on this earth...
I don't know if it actually makes it better or worse but my students were telling me how much they appreciate my classes today. They were telling me about all the horrible things the other teacher makes them do. It should make me feel good but it makes me feel worse in a way because I am almost ready to quit because it seems like the school would rather have employees like this other teacher, who don't try and change anything but rather just plod along, reading straight from the book, show up late, talk on her phone and go on facebook while her students struggle. If they did value me at all they would give me a raise and give me more classes to teach, and respond to me when I ask questions about trying to improve the material for the students!
I want to blame everything on everyone else, not getting the right opportunities, the world, not treating me fairly, but it must just be me right? Its all my fault and I am powerless to change anything. I am a big failure. And I will never be anything more than that, a failure.
Replies
I am sorry that you are going through such a hard time right now. I want to say something profound to make you feel better but Im just another human being walking a similar path, feeling a lot of the same things you are feeling, and trying to keep my chin up.
I was always taught to buck up. I was taught that having negative feelings was a sign of weakness. I was taught that depression was just all in my head. I think this is one of the reasons I gambled to escape these feelings. I had to be strong no matter what, whatever it took. I think men are taught that from childhood.
After I quit gambling, I spent a couple of months in a deep funk. I just let it be. I didnt try to pretend to be happy or strong or anything I wasnt. I was grumpy and irritable. I was no fun to be around. I worried about just going off the deep end and that I was being selfish but it ended up being the right thing for me to just feel my sadness and live truthfully.
Looking back, I feel like I had to walk through that fire to get to the other side, which was just alright, but that was much better than feeling like I was worthless and gambling my life away.
Because I was afraid of my own self during this time I tried to do things that reminded me of what happiness felt like. I kept a journal just for happy things. I would print out pics of when my kids where babies and tape them to the page and write about what I could remember about that day. I would write my favorite quotes in it - anything that I found a little happiness in.
Something else that was useful to me was that my therapist told me that I didnt have to make any major decisions right then. All I had to do was focus on quitting gambling. Maybe I would decide to quit my job, end a relationship, move. But the time for that was later. It took some pressure off of me about making hard decisions and gave me the time to just take an inventory of all of the things in my life that werent right.
I hope that you can find some peace in knowing that you are not alone in the way you feel. I believe that no feeling is final though. The saddest you feel or the happiest you feel it all changes. You will not feel like this forever. Just hang on.
Aw, that is so touching! and I do think it\'s profound... I\'ve got tears in my eyes now! Maybe I just need to let that out... It sounds like pretty good advice. I feel like I have to fix everything, right this instant. I\'m not happy with my relationship, my job, my life, and I want it all changed but I don\'t know where to start. But it\'s true, removing the gambling and focusing on that for now needs to be a priority. I need to end the cycle. Normally if I get to this point I throw up my hands and say fine, if I can\'t be happy I might as well gamble. One of two things happens then, I win and it goes away for a bit, I have a brief feeling of reprieve, like something is going my way even if its false hope, or I lose and I give myself some very immediate problems I need to focus on like how to survive and pay for things for the next 3 days, week, two weeks etc. Either way I remove the real burden that is preventing me from accomplishing anything. Fear. Feeling powerless. All those things that I\'m feeling right now, it is so easy to make them go away but therein lies the problem. Therein lies the reason I have lost ten years of my life and feel like I\'ve accomplished nothing. I feel like a child who has never really seen the world. I don\'t know what its like to be a real person.
I think you are right on with what you\'ve said. I did the same thing. My life completely sucks, I mine as well gamble because nothing matters! But it does matter when it all comes down to it. We don\'t really want to kill ourselves with gambling. We just want to stop feeling like we don\'t care if we die. The stress and sorrow and anger of gambling just masks every other feeling we have in our lives. How do we even know what we really want, who we really are, until we can stop gambling? Concentrate on that first. Throw every ounce of energy you have into it. Ask for help. Keep going despite being afraid or faltering.
This journal proves you are a real person. You are more real than a lot of people I\'ve met in my life. You feel pain and struggle and want to be better and you\'re not afraid to admit it. That\'s pretty authentic right there. xoxo
Hi alex. First off you are not a failure! The stress that gambling brought to me thru the years made me feel the same way. i have a few months gamble free...but still have many regrets i cant let go of. i too see my friends buying houses and boats and enjoying weekends with their families...while i am stuck still paying off debts from all my years of stupidity. And im still single at 37 after losing numerous girlfriends due to gambling. My job is not what i had planned to be doing as a career neither. gradually i have started to feel better and almost debt free. i try not to think about it too much and just look at everyday gamble free..is a day for new opportunity. hang in there i know exactly how you feel. I see your from Ontario..... Casino Niagara in niagara falls was the beginning of my downfall they open when i was 19 and introduced me to gamble i live right near the bridge in niagara falls N.Y....gosh i wish that place never opened! well anyway hang in there . if you ever need to vent feel free to send me a message Take care Johnny