Fighting the Demons

All my life I have felt like I'm really strong and I can tackle anything that comes at me. Why am I not able to tackle this? I feel helpless and unprepared for this burden.

I'll be sitting on the couch watching some TV and relaxing, not feeling too bad at all. Then out of the blue I feel a curtain come down, making everything dim and hazy. The voices start talking, telling me that I'm not really worth anything. That I am a fraud. They aren't voices so much as impressions and images, showing me suggestions of how I can solve these problems like stepping out into traffic or pushing a knife into my heart. I imagine the pain that it would cause me physically, and the impression says that the pain would only last for a little while and then it would all be over. I love my family. I can't imagine ever not loving in them, but at times like these I don't love my life very much. I know that when the curtain is up there are times when I do love my life. Sometimes it's hard to remember those times. Sometimes I'm too tired to remember those times or to fight for them.

My wife fights for me but my ego has a problem with that. Perhaps I'm too macho to be OK with that. Her love feels really good but I don't like putting the burden on her.

I'm writing this in part because it helps take me out of my current state of mind. Even though I'm staring right at those feelings, writing about them helps me feel a little bit abstracted from them. 

My therapist says that I need to give this thing a name. I suppose the point is to help me remember that this is not who I am but just something that's happening. I have you to come up with an appropriate name because I'm not ready to accept it.

Today I started out feeling OK, and even a little bit excited about life, and then it turned on me. I'm doing my best to try to turn it around. I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings.


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