I’m Done.

I’m about to be 51 years of age. I’ve been dealing with depression for the last 30 years. Then, in consulting with my psychiatrist, I was told that something I had experienced forever had a name: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Now? I’m in the midst of being diagnosed with ADD. (or ADHD as they seem to called both of them that, now.). It wasn’t that I was a “flighty” kid. It wasn’t that I was actively “not living up to her full potential.” It wasn’t that I purposefully didn’t follow up on great ideas – I was literally ADD!

I am struggling – fighting – to keep my head above water. I’ve had an extremely rough five years, and it all seems to have come to a head seven months ago. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer but was stable. We could deal with that. The death of my beloved stepfather. Aunts and uncles soon followed. The freaking pandemic – cutting my time with my Mom and sister – because I was still working and they were immune-compromised. Then I was laid off. I mourned the loss of my job – which, apparently, was tied to my identity. I grieved. Back to work through more shutdowns. My Mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung & Liver Cancer – she passed 37 days later. My sister sold everything and moved her family to Costa Rica. I quit my long-time job to try something new. It was an unmitigated disaster. I was off work for a month before heading back into the retail world. My sister took a turn for the worse, and I made a last-minute trip to see her. Then, I LEFT HER THERE TO DIE. That was the hardest plane trip of my life. She passed three weeks later. I took a new role at work but felt like an outsider and was treated as such by the supposed leaders of the business. My youngest son moved out on Mother’s Day – four hours away. I had to make the awful choice to put a pet to sleep. My “father” decided to take ill and found himself in the hospital. He called four days later to tell me. When I enquired if he had finally gotten around to making a will (at 75 years old), I was labelled a “buzzard circling before the corpse was cold”. He thought I was “one of the good ones, but I guess I was wrong.” That my younger half-sister was more worthy of inheriting anything he had because she hurt her back and couldn’t work. To be told, by your parent, that another sibling is more worthy of anything than you are? Even if we haven’t been close since he left when I was seven years old – that is the absolute lowest of the low. I vowed right then and there – he would never hurt me again. I’ve dusted off my palms and walked away. Fuck him. They deserve each other.

All of this, the stress, the heartache, the struggle have been building all of this time. I’m done. I’m done working my ass off because of the Hustle Culture that I was raised in – it’s gotten me absolutely nothing but overwhelming stress and debt and a sick fixation with “stuff”. I’ve always been driven to make a difference, but, someone triggered my RSD today and I’m reminded, yet again – to stay in my own fucking lane. I can’t. I can’t continue to try to improve my lot in life and of those around me. I get shot down, dismissed and shunned for even making the effort. No one. No one knows what that does to me. I’m sitting here in my dining room, bawling at all of the feelings that I haven’t allowed myself to process because “I’m resilient. I’m strong.” Fuck that too. I don’t want to be those things. I want peace, happiness and to feel that I belong – somewhere, anywhere.

And, so. I will retreat into myself until this RSD response passes, even though I’m desperate to connect. To make that difference in someone’s life.