Now You Know

I’m not a robot, yet that is exactly how my life has felt for a very long time. It seriously never ends. It’s just one issue after another.

2022 has made me stronger, but I question at what cost?

My job has been a consistent source of stress since we opened last year, and despite some new management in recent months, it still feels like the same shit show.

About 6 weeks ago, I was denied a promotion to be part of the leadership team, for a reason I find very petty.

I have wanted to quit numerous times and it has taken a lot of therapy to try and keep my head on straight. A few weeks ago (do to additional life stressors) it got to the point where I was luckily strong enough to reach out to my therapist and leave a message. Lol can’t have a crisis worker calling his own place. I wasn’t suicidal and luckily never have been, but I was teetering on going into full crisis mode.

There’s a lot I could say about my job, but I won’t because it is what it is. I just wish I didn’t have to work for someone anymore. I’m tired of asking for permission to do anything. It’s so strange though, because in other regards, staff have a lot of autonomy.

I get it, everyone has to feel important, but with the way our society is today, we need collaboration, not more damn authority.

My life has continued to be all about others mental health, my own, my partners sanity as she continues to go through some very difficult times with personal and family health scares. My mother’s wellbeing hasn’t been good for a long time, but she refuses to seek help. My father is slowly fading away as Alzheimer’s takes his memory.

Despite all that, I have remained relatively strong. I have had no choice. I have had to be there for everyone it seems.

It seems like nobody has the capacity to be of long-term help anymore. For the few days that life “just flows”, it’s good. But it never lasts long. Not nearly long enough to take the desperately needed time to re-charge and re-discover what I want the rest of my time remaining on this Earth to look like.

My biggest support hands down is my partner. We have been through so much with mental health and with medical issues in our relationship. We are quite the team. We are not robots though, and eventually we will completely crash.

I will be completely honest. I often think to myself that I just want to disappear from my current life.

Don’t get me wrong, we have been very fortune financially, being able bodied adults, and have (more my partner, friends that reach out), plus we have our sweet fur babies that had love to our life. I really try to keep an attitude of gratitude most days. But I am human and I just get damn tired of being strong all the time.

Besides connecting with people at work and my partner, I have been unable to form any friendship beyond that. I still firmly believe, by evidence, that being a guy is like a death sentence for any solid friendships. I didn’t know better in my 20s and early 30s, but bar friends don’t last if you are trying to make substantial changes to be a more, complete person.

I feel like I have so much to give at times, but am weighed down by dumb people. Selfish people who have nothing better than to feel good about themselves by telling others how it’s going to be. Also, there seems to be a wide gap between smart and really ignorant people these days.

I just want to be a human being and enjoy/explore the wonders of life that doesn’t revolve around being “Mental Illness Ben” or “Caregiver Ben”. I will probably never be able to shut those off, which is probably a good thing, but I would like to have another identity. I’ve succeeded for brief moments, but obviously need to work on it.

I miss having fun for the sake of having fun!