Venting I'm tired of this ride

[notwhereIbelong]

I'm tired of the cycle. Every once in a while I'll get a reason or two to live, a reason to try. I get more social, I try to make plans for the future, I try to make something of myself.

Then shit hits the fan again, usually a depressive crisis for one reason or another, I completely lose my grasp and I'm back down in the pits again. I don't see a reason to try anymore, what's the point if everything fails?

One small hurdle and I'm back to despising myself, one small hurdle and I lose whatever friends I managed to make, along with any hope I had for the future.

It made me scared of trying; I've failed so many things in my life, who says I'll ever succeed at anything? What's the point of the constant up and down? I'm just wearing myself out.
And I know that living my life as a hikikomori/neet is not the solution either, I tried it, it just feels as miserable as everything else.

I'm in a very weird spot, for the first time I'm not extremely depressed anymore, but there's no happiness either, just apathy. I'm stuck in acedia, living by inertia, and I don't know what to do. Everything feels so tiring, I'm too scared to try anything to move myself forward, and yet suicide doesn't feel like an option either?

Recovery feels like an infinite uphill battle.

Is anyone stuck in something similar? The constant up and down phases? Is there an out, besides becoming a grey shadow?

 

[timf]

Cycling indicates that you can make things better and you can do it repeatedly. As you progress you should be able to make the highs higher and longer. One difference is that you may need to experiment with additional skills. The ability to work out of depression may be different that the skills needed to expand happiness. You may want to experiment with trying different things when you are in an up cycle.

 

[doener11]

I'm very sorry to hear you're going through this. Having experienced something similar 3 years ago, I found the only way to feel good and eventually led to my recovery was to focus on the future. It is an extremely sad thing to lose friends, lose hope for the future and fail, yet that will remain true if you feel continue to let yourself down and don't feel like anything can get better (as you saw with your life as a hikikomori). Sulking about stuff never makes things better, and often just makes it worse. I'll try my best to explain my thinking (I don't really understand it myself, and will probably butcher the explanation). If you let one bad thing in your life affect other aspects of your life, then it will destroy you. For example in my life, 3 years ago I had major friendship issues, which then led to bad sleep, and the bad sleep led to a constant low mood, being reported to school, leading to my parents finding out about everything, which then made me hate everything, purging, really bad sh, suicidal.. you get the point. It's the butterfly effect. It is tragic, yet you can't let that destroy any hope of the future, you can't afford to stop trying, otherwise it's guaranteed that you'll live in these bad moments forever, then potentially leading to suicide. You don't want to die, and that's great to hear, and that means that you need to live life to the best of your ability, meaning you have to not let this impact other areas of your life. You miss every shot you don't take. One of the best quotes I've ever heard was:

"What people say about you only lasts seconds, what you stop doing lasts a lifetime".

I have no idea about the specifics of your situation, and whether this quote applies to you, but life, especially yours, is a cycle, with moments of good and moments of bad. I know I've said this a lot this message, but I really want to get the point across, you HAVE to try. You can be scared of it, but you'll hate yourself more if you don't. The worst that can happen through trying is you end up in the same position you were in before you started, meaning you've lost nothing. But even if the chance of failing is 90%, that 10% will transform your life for the better, and it would be worth failing to get there. I understand I might seem apathetic, but I am trying my best to give the most authentic information that helped me. Without trying, I would either be dead or in the mental hospital. Now this doesn't mean infinite happiness forever; even now I still have a vast multitude of friendship issues and moments of suicidal ideation, but I took what was in my control (sleeping on time, eating good food etc) and stopped these bad things from ruining my life and catapulting me down 'in the pits again' as you say. Bad things are bound to happen to you, yet if you can survive, you will get better.
I wish you all the best, and I really hope your life gets better quickly. Good luck! <3