I feel hopeless.
I would guess that people who throw around words and concepts like depression or blame bipolar on everything would say “you’re just depressed. Things will look up.” But I’m not depressed. Hopeless doesn’t mean I am depressed. I’m not depressed at all. But I do feel hopeless.
It’s the situation with my neighbor. Six plus months of harassment. Music and bass day and night. The intense anxiety. The panic attacks. The migraines. The inability to even stay in my own apartment sometimes. The dozens upon dozens of times I have called the police with noise complaints. The realization, after trying to do something about it and failing horrifically, that I can’t see anymore anything I can do about it.
It’s the situation with my landlord. The landlord I have been telling for six plus months about the neighbor who has been harassing me with his noise. The landlord with the power to do something about this situation and who has done NOTHING. Who says one thing but then doesn’t bother following through.
It’s my job. The job I love with the boss I love doing work that I love and with people who I respect immensely. But that pays me so far below what I am worth that I sometimes want to cry. The job that I should have an entirely different title for, that would enable me to get paid (if only a small amount) closer to what I am worth, but that I am refused because of “policy.” The job where my boss works himself to the bone trying to do right for the people under him, but that despite that I am absolutely realizing I am going to have to leave sooner than I would like because I just can’t afford to stay – for both monetary reasons and pride reasons. And the guilt that leaves behind.
It’s knowing that, unless I suddenly change my entire career path or magically start being paid more than twice what I make now or fall into a relationship I can fully share my life with, the cost of living here means I will not be able to afford to move somewhere here that is both nice and not in the boondocks.
It’s someone asking me recently about the concept of “Settling Down.” How I define it. What I think about it. Would I ever consider it. And then thinking about it. Figuring out how I define it. And considering it. And realizing that it’s like a fantasy. Something I could dream about it, but that is so far out of my reach it could never exist in my reality.
I am not depressed.
If I were depressed, I would see all of these things and just accept them for what they are. That would be my lot in life and if change happened it would be entirely through the whims of circumstance. I know how this feels. I have spent a great deal of my life living in the personal hell that is my version of true depression. This is not that.
Hopeless is seeing these things and NOT wanting to accept them for what they are.
Hopeless is not wanting to accept them but not knowing what to do about them.
Hopeless is knowing what to do but feeling unable to directly affect the changes I want to make in my life.
Hopeless is also knowing how I might be able to do things to affect change, but believing they are so out of my reach I can’t even try to make the changes happen, because trying is fruitless.
Hopeless is fear.
Welcome to my world 