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No One Tells You This

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Glynnis MacNicol

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“She leaned in and placed her hand reassuringly on mine. "And don't worry, dear," she said conspiratorially. "I know it will still happen for you. There's still time." There it was. ...But much to my surprise, I didn't need to lean on my collective self to navigate around this nice woman who thought she was providing me comfort by assuring me that, despite my age, I appeared to be someone to whom things could still happen...For a minute I felt all the old defense mechanisms go up, like metal toward a magnet. I took a deep breath and prepared to deliver my well-rehearsed responses...all the things I was used to saying to get out of this conversation and make the other person feel more comfortable. Instead, I found myself resisting the urge to laugh. Not at her. At the suddenly absurd idea that I was running out of time. I was no longer running, I realized. I was off the clock. "I have to tell you," I said, making sure there was not one ounce of defensiveness in my voice, "I think it's going to be pretty great even if it doesn't happen.”

FeminismFortySingleSingle LifeLooking For LoveAgeismBiological ClockNo KidsWell Meaning And Failing
Book:No One Tells You This
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“I’m the living dead. I feel no connection to any other human. I have no friends and I don’t really care much about my family any longer. I feel no love for them. I can feel no joy. I’m incapable of feeling physical pleasure. There’s nothing to ever look forward to as a result. I don’t miss anyone or anything. I eat because I feel hunger pangs, but no food tastes like anything I like. I wear a mask when I’m with other people but it’s been slipping lately. I can’t find the energy to hide the heavy weight of survival and its effect on me. I’m exhausted all the time from the effort of just making it through the day. This depression has made a mockery of my memory. It’s in tatters. I have no good memories to sustain me. My past is gone. My present is horrid. My future looks like more of the same. In a way, I’m a man without time. Certainly, there’s no meaning in my life. What meaning can there be without even a millisecond of joy? Ah, scratch that. Let’s even put aside joy and shoot for lower. How about a moment of being content? Nope. Not a chance. I see other people, normal people, who can enjoy themselves. I hear people laughing at something on TV. It makes me cock my head and wonder what that’s like. I’m sure at sometime in my past, I had to have had a wonderful belly laugh. I must have laughed so hard once or twice that my face hurt. Those memories are gone though. Now, the whole concept of “funny” is dead. I stopped going to movies a long time ago. Sitting in a theater crowded with people, every one of them having a better time than you, is incredibly damaging. I wasn’t able to focus for that long anyway. Probably for the best. Sometimes I fear the thought of being normal again. I think I wouldn’t know how to act. How would I handle being able to feel? Gosh it would be nice to feel again. Anything but this terrible, suffocating pain. The sorrow and the misery is so visceral, I find myself clenching my jaw. It physically hurts me. Then I realize that it’s silly to worry about that. You see, in spite of all the meds, the ketamine infusions and other treatments, I’m not getting better. I’m getting worse. I was diagnosed 7 years ago but I’m sure I was suffering for longer. Of course, I can’t remember that, but depression is something that crept up on me. It’s silent and oppressive. I don’t even remember what made me think about going to see someone. But I did and it was a pretty clear diagnosis. So, now what? I keep waking up every morning unfortunately. I don’t fear death any more. That’s for sure. I’ve made some money for the couple of decades I’ve been working and put it away in retirement accounts. I think about how if I was dead that others I once cared for would get that money. Maybe it could at least help them. I don’t know that I’ll ever need it. Even if I don’t end it myself, depression takes a toll on the body. My life expectancy is estimated to be 14 years lower as a result according to the NIH. It won’t be fast enough though. I’m just an empty biological machine that doesn’t know that my soul is gone. My humanity is no more”

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Author:Ahmed Abdelazeem
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