Story I'll never love again, my world is ending

[GhostShell]

Forgive the cheeky title, huge Evangelion fan.

I had it all, I was living my best life - I had an amazing wife, I was leading a non-profit, I was an activist, I was volunteering in my free time, I had so many hobbies there weren't enough hours in a single day. I was on the path towards achieving all of my dreams in life. So fucking happy after everything I went through to get there.

Then, as it usually goes in these stories, everything changed.

2 years ago, after a Covid infection I became disabled with severe ME/CFS. Ever since then my condition has only progressed for the worse. Half a year ago, once my wife realized this isn't going away and is likely permanent, we broke up. Though she is still my caretaker because I would be dead otherwise, being bedbound in a dark room all day everyday with nothing to do sucks. It is both kind and cruel of her at the same time. Disability is a very quick crash course on the very transactional nature of all relationships. All of my friends left me too and I ended up completely alone.

Life, to me, is meaningless without love. Why live if you have nobody you can share your successes, comfort them in their worst times, stand by them at all times and try and build a great future together? I have been searching for my real soulmate ever since. But being disabled puts you at the very bottom of the pecking order in all parts of life. So many people told me straight up that they would love to spend the future with me if I wasn't disabled. Looks and personality aren't everything and no matter how pretty I am, how much people love my personality, they can't see a future with me because I am disabled. That fact is the most cruel realization of my life.

Still, I managed to have a few dates at a great cost to my health (ouchie), and some people even fell in love with me. But in the end every single one of them did the math. Math, my greatest enemy. Them + me does not equal a future. So they suppressed their feelings until the sparks extinguished.

I wouldn't even be that mad if my life was great for longer than a year. Finally escaping my abusive parents to end up with the literal worst illness there is? Fucking hell, this world really does not want me here. All my life I have been swimming against the current, trying to find my place in this world. And once I think I am finally there, it is all taken away. Sometimes I like to think this world isn't real anyway.

Sorry for the rant, I know people here have it much worse and I am just an useless disabled woman whose feelings are worthless anyway.

 

[MyShadow]

First, don't apologize for expressing your pain. From my short time here, I find that is partially what this forum is for... screaming into the void without fear or judgement. Your feelings are valid.

Second, you got dealt a bad hand in life that was made worse by the person who you loved walking away when you needed her most. You have every right to rant.

Third, you made a painfully true statement about the transactional nature of relationships. I feel that down to my core. A year ago, I was in love and thought she and I were working to build a future together. I was wrong. Beneath that delusion were lies and ultimately, betrayal. It was devastating. I also know that with the transactional nature of relationships and the manipulative games that people play today, I will never put myself into that position again. It's simply too difficult to face that sort of pain again, so I have chosen to remain alone.

I hope that we can both find peace and learn to love ourselves a little more.

 

[mysticatedwine]

not a useless woman, you sound like someone great even in your handicap. i'm sorry this life has taken you everything.

your feelings aren't worthless as long as you are sharing them with someone, just as you've said it yourself. you venting here with all this energy in your words makes me believe you haven't given up trying, and that there is still a place for you in this world. but that is for you to decide.

(i know a lot of people who would date a disabled person, for what's it worth.)

good luck

 

[webb&flow]

For your sake, and for the sake of humanity, I hope that this terrible disease (and all ones disabling like it) will eventually yield to science.

You seem like an amazing person—with absolute value, that cannot be overstated—and I feel this is precisely why this disability is such a punch to the gut of morality itself; because the beautiful value, passion, and livelihood you have as a human being, is restricted painfully by this.

Sorry for the rant, I know people here have it much worse and I am just an useless disabled woman whose feelings are worthless anyway.

I promise you that your pain is valid. This is a very serious situation, and biology has indeed treated you cruelly here. Please know that you are not useless even if you feel limited in your actions. People are more than sources of utilities for others.

I read your description of what life was like for you before you contracted your disability. It really does seem like you were living the life. I am so, so sorry for your loss. You really do seem like such an amazing, kind, and hard working person, who truly does deserve the good life like one you were experiencing before… all this.

Your experience reminded me of this Atlantic article I had read many months back. Here it is now:

Fatigue Can Shatter a Person

Everyday tiredness is nothing like the depleting symptom that people with long COVID and ME/CFS experience.

www.theatlantic.com

"Fatigue Is So Much More Than Being Tired", Ed Yong, 7/27/2023

It includes some ways out in the form of some advice for this serious condition as well; it's no panacea but I hope that it will help you even a little bit, in this serious situation that you are in.

I am wishing you, digitally, a warm hug in these cold times.

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.

—Jean Luc Picard