Im 30 years old. Is it too late to start over ann get my life back?

Not at all man. I was stuck in a nasty relationship a few years back. I followed her out to California from Illinois. I proposed before making the move, and then sold everything I couldn't fit in her apartment and moved. A couple days after I moved there, she made a drunken confession that she was in love with somebody else. The next day, she swore she was just being drunk and stupid, but over the course of the next couple months, it was clear that she was continuing to cheat. She'd go out on my work nights when I couldn't (I worked at 6am), then come home wasted and picking fights at 4, when I was just getting up for work.

I really just wanted to die, often choosing to drink myself asleep while I was alone in my apartment (I didn't really have my own friends there). When I finally confronted her and told her I was done (on my 30th birthday), she flipped out and attacked me with a knife, slicing my side open. I hopped in my car and drove home, with nothing but a computer and a couple of tshirts to stop the bleeding.

After I got home, I was having severe panic attacks, having to ask my mother for the Valium that I was prescribed. She had it hid because she was afraid I'd kill myself. I might have. At the time, there was such a constant, crushing feeling of dread that I didn't think I would ever be my old self again.

I began going to counseling twice a week and got on medication. There was no lightbulb that went off, but eventually I just started making steps forward. I started reading again, playing music, doing a lot of the things I'd abandoned in the last year. I got a shitty job, which led to a very good job. I started to date, and met who I now know will be my wife and mother of my children.

I'm very happy now, and things are only getting better. In fact, they're better than they've ever been. The point is, you get so down that you think it's impossible for anything to get better, but you know what? It always does.

/r/AskReddit Thread