I was just layed off from my job of 8 years due to outsourcing. I'm single with no kids ( I'm single with no kids, (and gay, yet not a part of the "LGBT community", as I don't fit "the lifestyle" or the stereotypes, yet can't be with the one person I ever loved that way). Work it was the last thing I had in life, after I both cut off my abusive family in 2017, after I found some nasty skeletons in the closet, and also left behind by my best friend at that same time. Then the world shut down. Now, this. I left the house for the first time since I found out this week, to go to the store, and almost broke down in tears in public thinking about how this might be it, and no one would miss me.
I got severance, and most likely will get unemployment, but my lease is up at the end of May. So I have to not only find a job, but a new place, as I don't know where I will be working, or if I will be able to afford this place once unemployment runs out. But worse than the uncertainty of work and home is that I have to start over again from scratch with people in the workplace. I have few connections in real life, now, and have no emotional or physical support, no one to even get a hug from.
I was already on borrowed time. I wanted to die after I found out about my family, but I didn't have the means. Then my best friend left. Then, as I started to rebuild and get myself together, and tried to find community online, which held me for a little bit, but I'm already introverted/Aspergerish, and a bit of an outsider, and on the sidelines, "watching the wheels". But I had sever kidney stone blockage for six months and almost died from that. (And I even wanted to, but survived it.) Then another 6 months to get back in shape and feeling alive, only for the world to shut down with Covid, and be cut off from most contact. Now, this; the last vestige of structure and support. I've done everything I'm "supposed" to do; I've tried to forgive my family's past abuse, only to have that trust betrayed again. I went to therapy, and despite learning how much unearned guilt I took for my family's sake, and how intellectually it helped, it didn't heal me emotionally; it didn't replace the loss and anger and sadness with any love. I was able to put an end to the negative, but not to replace it with a positive. (I've been spiritually "dead inside" since. I tried to re-find religion, but it didn't take, intellectually, and my prayers for a personal connection with "God" were just met with silence.)
I've been responsible financially and with my health, only to start the slow, inevitable decline (and now, without insurance for who knows long. I've gone above and beyond at work, and did a great job, by all accounts (there and elsewhere), but that was futile, since the whole organization will soon be gone, anyway. I can only do so much in the face of a larger collapse that's happening everywhere. And believed that I had a duty to soldier on despite the loss of family and friends, to keep trying. But But this just may be the last straw.
I am trying to tell myself that this is a "blessing in disguise", that it will work out, that I have time and money to find something new, and maybe even something better. I've done it before. But I was younger then, and didn't have the disillusionment from experience. I'm almost 48, I've always thought I'd never see 50, and I just don't have the emotional fuel, this time. (I've already lived 20+ years longer than my father, who CBT'd, at least). I was already planning my exit, now that I have the method and means in hand, once I payed down the last of my debts. I was only a few months away from doing so at this point, and was going to take it day-by-day, after that, and see where things went, what life choices were open to me. I had been thinking about finding new work anyway, because the organization is quickly going downhill overall with layoffs and changes. But we had a merger, but we were told this would actually CREATE more opportunity for us; they lied.) But now I feel like my hand is being forced. With severance, I could pay it off in a couple of weeks easily with money left to carry me while I figure out what's next. I keep hearing that employers are desperate to hire, and I've sent out resumes and applications already. But that just feels like yet another cruel dangling carrot to keep me going indefinitely, with false hope; I can see the writing on the wall at large, not just for me. The anxiety of having to find a job, a place, and start my life all over again once again (that doesn't even mention the difficulty of trying to do so this time in the current inflationary economy/political climate), with no emotional and personal support, with no reason beyond my simply existing to exist...I've been lonely for too long, and I don't have it in me to start anew with strangers, at this point.
The only thing keeping me from doing it TONIGHT or tomorrow is that I am working on art projects. One is almost finished, an album, and will be finished in a week. I said I would never write another one after the one I finished in 2019, while racing the kidney stones, and I didn't want to do this one. But this one came about because of Covid and lockdowns and the world going crazy, as a way to deal with it. I added the final touch, tonight, sonically: a sound effect of a gun shot. My body feels like electricity is running throughout. It's not my personal method (that was my father's; I can't do to others what he did to us when we found his body), but the symbolism is there. It's not quite autobiographical, but it is, partly.
Once I finish this, I have one other project. It was actually what I started to do BEFORE the album, and the lockdowns, a graphic novel. It's a bigger, grander theme that is more personal and autobiographical, but more universal, too. I already had it storyboarded, but got sidetracked when the world shut down. Only now, I don't know that I can resume it and finish it before the NEXT deadline of finding a job and a new place.
Part of me thinks I could ride out a year on my savings, finish it, and release it to the world and THEN release myself from the world. But the other part of me says "why?" I'm not famous, no one cares about my art, so why bother? It's already written in my head. It doesn't matter, it won't make a difference if I finish it or not to the world at large. I can't fix the world, and trying to maintain a sense of "business as usual" in a collapse just seems a fool's errand. Even if things did turn around at large, I'd still be alone; there'd be no place for me in it. The few friends I have left are physically distant, and have families or problems of their own, and I can't impose on them. I'd still be an outsider with no community or family. I am thinking that, rather than being a "blessing in disguise" to find a new job and home, that the "blessing" is that this is my window to CBT by lease's end, while I can pay off debts and make a clean exit with loose ends wrapped up.
Truth be told: A part of me smiles when I think about my exit. Instead of trying to be "responsible" by continuing to live for the sake of other's beliefs that I SHOULD continue, while continuing to jump through the hoops to do so, with my efforts meaning nothing in the long run, that I can finally stop burning myself out with diminishing returns. Ironically, I've been constantly told that I need to "relax", that I work too hard, that I should not be too invested, even as things around me fall apart. But because of childhood abuse and violence, I've always been hyper-vigilant, and I can't turn it off; it's too ingrained. I even thought about taking the extra money and just having a "good time" before I go out. Take a trip, enjoy myself, etc. But I've never been able to just be; I've never been able to be a "human being", always had to be a "human DOING", and would feel guilty about that. Besides, I wouldn't know what to do. Vegas? I hate gambling. I don't enjoy amusement parks, and sitting on the beach makes me bored. I just like to create music and art after a good day's work, as reward, and stargaze at night. But I feel I have to earn those simple joys, and without a job, I don't feel like I'm deserving.
(But then, I think to myself: What if I considered this my "retirement" years? Why does one have to wait until 65 to feel that they've earned it? It's arbitrary Well, not arbitrary, monetarily. People do have to provide for themselves, that's fair enough. And retiring young is a privilege reserved for the rich, usually, which I am not by a longshot. Still, I've paid down my debts. I've put in many years of hard work. And why not retire NOW when, while not young enough to not be so old as to not be able to enjoy it? Why do we have to wait until we're sick or feeble, if there's a way to enjoy it when we can?
Because we still need purpose, even when rich. And we still need love and connection. Neither of which I have now.
Besides: Truth be told, on the plus side, I'm simple in my needs, that way, and I've been blessed enough to do most of the things I wanted to do in life. But there's no excitement anymore in that regards; "the thrill is gone." But anything good that happens always followed with the other "shoe" dropping via abuse and trauma, which is probably why I don't enjoy amusements and such that much. Part of me thinks that maybe THIS is my time to let it go and enjoy myself as a reward, without having to worry about that shoe dropping again. But it would be a cheap thrill, or an empy "final hurrah". But I'm just not feeling it, and the anxiety of responsibility for everything outside of myself, and of what happens next would still be on my mind, So, to exit would be the only way to "relax", for me, ultimately. Because it's always going to be a matter of hyper "flight-or-fight" for me. And similar to the question of why waiting to retire, why not go out on a high note, instead of pushing a slow-decline without purpose or love? If I can take the reponsibility of living for sake of living, why not dying for the sake of my own sense of peace and finality? Why wait for a fatal illness or accident, instead of giving my death a purpose of its own, to end the suffering inside?
What to do? I don't know. Too many choices, with too many false hopes. All I know is that my body feels like it is burning just thinking about ending it.
