The SquabbleI have a beautiful husband, two beautiful girls, a beautiful home and a great job. But I weep because I hate myself every night. I am horrified by my incapacity to face the pressures–economic, intellectual and emotional. I see others facing real problems and I do not understand why I can’t handle myself with my my countless benefits. My wife believes that I have been excessively loved as a kid and always pursue an unattainable A grade. My job is stressful and involves enormous budgets. I lost a child in utero five years ago–an enormously painful experience. I fear that stopping work would harm my children and burden my husband with heavy burden.But it’s sad to see our girls less than an hour a day. It might mean my kids are taken away and I will lose my work and destroy my family by acknowledging it.
Mariella answersYou have a vivid fantasy. I can guarantee you that depression would not imply that your kids were carried away if that were part of the matter. This is a diagnosis that awaits the treatment, not a disease that will unravel after it has been recognized. As parents, when life began to fall, it would be little if any kids were not cared for as soon as we are considered insufficient. You may be amazed to learn how many individuals are fighting for self-esteem and depression in every way of life. The ingredients we are told are essential to a happy life and disappointment is at the core of a lot of present disappointment.
What can you do if you have all, but it feels like the other way around? You’re not the first individual to fight with a conundrum like this. It would make much more useful to follow a cash if it could actually purchase happiness, but I saw too many instances in my five decades to keep this true. It seems, however, that your high life expectancy is preventing you from being satisfied with what you have accomplished to date.
Aren’t you a strange anomaly? It’s not that the division between what you seem to be outwardly and what you feel internally is disturbing. This is a disease that many of us have encountered. The problem is how your doomsday predictions are inflated in comparison with your life’s truth. To say that you show “everything or nothing” tends to underplay the drama of those opposing instincts. It sounds like for a great part of your life you’ve been like an inferno and burned out.
You would be anathema to what you describe as the concept of time saving to develop what you want from your brief tenure on the planet. It is precisely what you must do, however. We may live in a globe which says external achievement is essential, but deep inside we all understand that what impresses others often brings private fulfillment.The least constructive option is to maintain the status quo while hoping desperately that basic changes will take place. Every region in your lives is red, so you need to be serious about your well-being and learn to be kind.
The first thing you need to do is visit a GP or contact an organization to which your emotions can be relieved (Trial Mind, charity for mental health, at 0300 123 3393,mind.org.uk). Professional participation will create a big difference in the diagnosis and support of your present state of mind.
I can only read your letter and look at the globe that we have developed with growing interest. It really makes me want to get to the bottom of life’s meaning— which can not be burdened, desperately attached to any and all possibilities for more wealth or to the detriment of our health until our bodies collapse in fear.
I have been in remote Ireland this summer and on a small island in Greece, each with a comparable perspective on what constitutes a healthy life: food in the stomach, time for friends, family, sleep and a relaxation distance enough between you and a whirlwind world to be able to look at stuff in proportive percentage rather than being caught in the storm’s eye. They may not be the most prosperous economies, although Irish companies can be seen, but they are definitely less likely to lie on their deathbeds to wonder where the time has passed!
I can’t be certain that your husband is happy to share more loads, but I know it doesn’t make for good, sustainable living every day to fight for a lifestyle that doesn’t give you happiness. How much of your present dissatisfaction with child loss is unknown, but it’s one of the numerous fields you should stop and see as you try to restart your settings. You sound like an incredible energy phenomenal woman, none of whom presently addresses your own well-being. I recommend that you prioritize yourself not just for yourself, but for your kids too
Peter Beaumont is a senior reporter on the Guardian’s Global Development desk. He has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East and is the author of The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict. Email: peter@thehearus.com