I was identified as gifted as a kid, but even if I hadn’t been identified as such, I would have always felt alien. Remember the Jim Carrey movie The Trueman Show? I fantasized as a kid that everyone in my life was like an alien or a robot or something, wearing a mask, telling me everything is okay, watching me like a bug under a microscope. That even God wore a mask.

I have only recently really begun to struggle with existential depression. Some might write it off as mid-life crisis, but I think I have managed to avoid it because of my pervasive enthusiasm and hope that I will “someday” fulfill my life purpose. I’m almost 37 years old. To date? I haven’t done anything of note. Hell, I haven’t even got a university degree yet. And now? Do I even care if I get one? To what end?

I have realized that I need to be proactive about avoiding things that depress me. A friend was raving about a horrible book about a serial killer, spelling out in extreme detail how he tortured one victim for 36 hours – 36 freaking hours! – before finally bludgeoning her to death. I told my friend that, as fascinating a topic as the mind of the psychopath is (it IS interesting), for the sake of my mental health, I would have to pass on reading it. I just told her flat out, once I read it, it’s in there. And it ain’t coming out. A bad stain that just repeats itself over and over. I’m sorry I even heard about the book in the first place. I have to leave the room if there’s a torture scene in a movie. I can’t watch Titanic because it actually happened. I watched Saw. Once. My question: why the hell doesn’t it bother anyone else that a human mind had to come up with this shit?? That, to me, is the most disturbing thing about movies like that.

So I found that empowering, to protect myself by rejecting those things that I know would really bother me. Once my friend understood that I’m “allergic” to psychically harmful material, she was fine with that and knows better now to not bring things like that up again.

I used to be a believer in conventional Christianity, but I have had to reject most of the mainstream interpretation thereof. I have developed a mish-mash world view that adopts concepts such as universal consciousness, Akashic records, God as intelligent energy, and the existence of Christ as an inherent part of the immortal soul, the finest and truest part. All else that we perceive of ourselves is an illusion. I also feel that, if I’m going to believe in something beyond this finite life, the multiple lives theory makes good sense. Somehow, knowing that I wasn’t just PUT here, but that I actively participated in the decision to live this life and in its design. I came here to feel this way. To experience it. I also came here to feel the contrast between the abysmal lows of existential depression, and the stratospheric high of being in flow with nature, being in love and really – REALLY – connecting with someone, having my faith in humanity restored (if but for a short time) when I hear about some of the extraordinary people inhabiting this earth, or when people come together to take care of one another in times of crisis.

This world can be so incredibly beautiful. But that in itself depresses me because I experience it so profoundly. How do I share that? What is the point of experiencing it if only for myself? All these things that I see and feel and hear and taste and touch, and all that that means to me, will die with me because I have no way to bridge the gap between myself and another human being.

I am not happy. I don’t believe I ever have been.

I take medication for depression, but its effects seem to be negligible.

I want to meet a girl who feels this way. I want to converse. Please.

I’ve been going through stages. At first, I was just angry. I was so angry! I was angry at the world, at this country, at everyone, at myself. But as you’ve mentioned before, futile anger quickly evolves into depression, and that is just what happened. I’ve been very depressed, and even suicidal, for the past couple of weeks. I’ve come very close to ending my life. I even wrote a suicide note, which my mother accidentally discovered just last night.

Now, all these emotions and deep sadness has just kind of subsided, and I feel mute. I just don’t feel anything anymore. I have no desire to live; I have no interest in anything. I feel trapped in a meaningless, purposeless life. I’m going to look into books about Buddhism and existential depression, but in the meantime, I’m just trying to stay alive.

Huzzah for the concept of data preservation on the interwebs!

OP: I read your post, and the majority of the longer and more positive responses, and I feel like I’m reading things that I forgot that I had written in the past. There are resonating gems in here…and I find myself wishing that I had any opportunity to meet any of you when I was younger. It would have just been an explosive glow to find another who new what the f*$k I was talking about when I was trying to verbally address my concerns with the world, with existence.

This is partially just in case you are still monitoring this, Steve, and partially to continue the encouragement of others who find their semi-random ways here in their individual explorations. There are still others who think and feel a very similar way to you. It’s a bit hard to fully realize, due to the relative unreality of interacting virtually, but even the *sign* of others who are seemingly your ilk can be a lifesaving, refreshing wave of information.

In terms of my own reactions to the stuff posted here, I have some sweeping agreements and dismissals that I’ll simply summarize, in the name of brevity (hah!) within a four-plus-year-old post.

Self-exploration and assessment? Agreed. Through whatever system(s) of discovery, philosophical or otherwise, that gain you some additional insight, and perspective.

Psychopharmaceuticals? Boo. Not a fan of relatively blindly trying to alleviate symptoms with the whitewash of compounds that affect our workings. I have a bit of an anti-outside-substance bias, though, so take that with this much salt. Non-smoker, non-chem-user, and I even generally stay away from painkillers and cold meds. (I do admit to a stubborn curiousity about hallucinogens, however, to see what my brain would come up with under such an influence, in as ‘organic’ a form as possible…haven’t gotten up enough to do it yet, though.)

‘Forgetting’? Un-ringing the bell? Pushing it all from your mind? Distracting yourself enough to just not think about all this? Isn’t that advice just recommending you to regress? Forward, cyclical progression, my friends, is what I seem to be buying into, dangling prepositions be damned. Growth, development, discovery. That’s my vote, anyway. Fearless personal exploration! At least, this is what I think my younger-self mind might have benefitted from hearing in some of the rougher times. Sympathy, understanding, support.

I realize that this all may be reiterating stuff you’ve most likely come up with yourself, since this came up, but I just feel like weighing in, sympathizing, and trying to strengthen the community with some additional, supportive statements.

All you sensitive, thoughtful, morally-aware, outnumbered, and probably-self-doubting folks out there: you are not alone in your…your what? Your fog? Your state or condition? Whatever we can call this.

I find myself thinking, ‘has there ever been a common spot to actually meet with those of this ilk?’ Apart from inflaming the haters of such thought processes, I’d think that such an experience would be of great benefit. Someone clever should come up with a convention idea or something, online or otherwise.

There’s my inflammatory two cents, anyway. All good things to the lot of you.

What helped me a little bit was reading Camus. It’s a bit of an anti philosopher, examining the question whether we should kill ourselves or not. Now that’s the literature I like! In ‘the myth of Sisyphus’ he explains that the fact/thought that life seems meaningless, doens’t imply you should commit suicide. He argues by telling the story of Sisyphus, who was punished by the gods; his punishment consisted of constantly, repeatingly rolling a rock on a mountain, then letting it roll down again, to no avail at all. Fully aware of what he was doing, he still found some kind of liberation at last. Camus ends the essay saying ‘one must imagine Sisyphus happy’. Checkitout you can find it online.

Of course, it’s not in itself a life changing book. Maybe it can be one of those many a little that make a mickle. Also, it’s just beautifully written, so very beautiful at times. And it’s a great way of getting the whole absurdist vibe, which you probably already have, yet in my experience it can come as a relief if someone somewhere explicitely states the way you feel things are.

Excuse me if i irritated anyone with bad english, and good luck to all of you getting through life, i know it’s very very hard for actually healthy thinkers to go through it, since doing so is completely absurd. It’s just impossible not to be “an egoist”. As someone said, we are completely sealed in our own bodies, but that is not our fault and I’m sure if we could change it, we all would. Since suicide is not really a solution, the only thing we could do is “sit around smoke cigarettes and babble what-the-fuck”

Those are the words that I hear as I read all these posts. God has placed within some of us an incredible desire to make this world a better place. To be the hands and feet of Jesus…. That your soul cries out against trauma, injustice; that your heart breaks for others is just a fraction of what God feels for us. Compassion for others is God’s way of teaching us to love others.