I’m 33. I have a beautiful wife and our first child on the way. I have an Ivy League bachelor’s degree, own half of my own home and have 500k in my savings account (savings and a settlement from a drug trial for a botched antidepressant).
I came from a high pressure household and was bullied relentlessly by siblings and classmates K-12. I was found near dead at age 14 after trying to kill myself. I have always suffered from severe depression, general anxiety and social anxiety. I have Crohns disease. I am an alcoholic. For four years I had chronic pain in my face due to a neurological disorder.
There are three times when I had a glimmer of confidence in my life: When I got accepted to a fancy school, when I met my wife, and when I started work in my dream industry (laid off a year later, industry never recovered). I now have and have otherwise always had absolutely zero confidence in myself. I’ve been working dead end jobs for the past year because I have no faith in my own ability and nothing inspires or interests me. I recently quit my last job at a non-profit after 7 years @ $20/hour. I graduated with honors at Stanford. I don’t know what to do with myself. Everyone from my cohort has cured cancer or invented the iPhone.
I have lots of things going for me but nothing that motivates me to keep living other than my obligation and responsibility to my wife and unborn son. I am stuck in the conclusion that there is nothing out there for me in life to make me happy and stimulated. I am bored out of my mind and want to die (don’t worry, I won’t kill myself, and I have a regular therapist, but I’ve been with him for 10 years now and should probably move on under the circumstances).
I’ve been throwing myself at a particular career for a couple of years now and have been relentlessly informational interviewing, applying, and if I’m lucky, regular interviewing. I’ve gotten nowhere. I feel like nobody wants to give me a shot and like I don’t have a place in the world.
There are thousands or millions of people out there who would kill for my advantages, but something is seriously wrong in my brain that prevents me from using them to find happiness.
Everyday I wake up wanting to kill myself, but I know it would destroy my wife.