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Well, it's been two months now and my spouse and I have sort of patched up things with a bit of help from my therapist. They still refuse to acknowledge they did anything wrong, however, and I know it's only a matter of time before this happens again.
Goalie, you are almost certainly correct: part of this is menopause and she's started hormone replacement therapy, so that might help. Still, there's something basically broken in our relationship that may not be able to be fixed.
Meanwhile, I got called for a professional interview in a new department… only to find that "colleagues" of mine from a quarter century ago are stonewalling me, even though there are four vacancies, three candidates, and I am probably the strongest candidate of the three.
Why are they blocking me? I wish I could say. It comes down to the fact that they just don't like me and are willing to pretty much say that to my face. I have never done any of them wrong. I have worked my ass off and they know it. I am ultra-competent for this position. Part of this I think is just pure jealousy: I am too successful for their liking — in many ways, more successful than they are and, when I entered my field, I came out of nowhere with no support from higher up, strategically placed mentors.
This wouldn't be so depressing if I hadn't been specifically called in to the interview. I even asked people in the department "Look, I don't want to waste my time. I know there people are in the department who don't like me. If I apply for this position, it will take a couple of weeks of my time and I will just get depressed if I am rejected out of hand. So please tell me straight: is this serious? Because if it is a popularity contest, I have better things to do."
No, it was serious, I was told. I should totally try out for it. So I put my heart and soul into the process, because it would be my dream job, and… I got rug-pulled.
And for nothing. For petty jealousies, rumors, gossips, and people who want to stack departments with their pals and minions.
What's worse is, I went into this with the specific goal of continuing my deceased mentor's work. They need someone doing that and I am pretty much the only person available (it is an in-school transfer, so the talent pool is small) to do that. We lost all my mentor's records in a university fire a few years back. So not only is this a calculated snub to me, it's spitting on my mentor's grave, to boot.
I have spent so much time and effort working on the things I do and there's little professional recognition because I am bad at putting myself out there and glad-handing. I am not a narcissist, sociopath, or a person who'll do anything for their career. I am just a good professor, researcher, and extensionist. That's it.
It feels so wrong to be this depressed when, objectively speaking, my life is so much better than that of so many other people posting here. I mean, I have a good job, a good partner, a good house. But first in my relationship and now in my professional life it seems that I am only headed downward. I just turned 55. I don't know if I have it in me to continue doing this. And my depression is making it so I can't work, so this whole thing is becoming a downward spiral.
I have my SN and my anti-emtics, because I live in a country where both are easy to get.
The next few months — particularly with the elections coming up — are going to be very hard to get through. I am using this thread as sort of a diary that I can point people to just before I kill myself, so if you are friends or relatives reading this, you'll know what has happened. I will also link, if I kill myself, to a suicide watch blog I began in 2016, so you can all see how this latest round of anxiety and depression began.
Drugs and therapy have really helped, and I am blessed to have them and have them be effective. But in a certain sense, they've only made things worse. I feel I am much more clear-headed and less frantic than six years ago and this has just made my planning for suicide more rational and incremental. I am taking small steps and, sooner or later, I feel I'll just ease myself into suicide after a lot of long, slow meditation on it.
Now, in case worse comes to worst, I need to make one thing REALLY clear: this site has helped me more than almost anything other than drugs and therapy.
First of all, it has steered me away from crazy dangerous methods that are most likely to cripple me and really traumatize others. It has helped me see that there are a lot of people out there like me and most are far worse off. This has often given me strength to go another day, week, or month. It has taught me that suicide is something that shouldn't be rushed into, but must be carefully planned and, if one cannot do that, one isn't ready for suicide.
But most importantly, it has allowed me a place to freely talk — more freely than even my therapist's office. A place where I will not be judged.
If you are reading this and are also wracked by depression and anxiety, please: give medication and therapy a try. If you get the right combination, you will feel much happier. My last four years of therapy and drugs have actually made my life much, much better and not a constant horror show, where I just want to rip my face off to make it all stop. If you are my therapist, and you are reading this, THANK YOU Dr. R! You did so much good and nothing wrong!
But, as you probably already know, sometimes that just isn't enough.
I hope six years from now I will be reading this with the same bemused lack of comprehension that I now read my writings from 2016. But, just in case, I feel it's important that I leave a record of what I am feeling and doing so my friends and loved ones can get some kind of closure.
Goalie, you are almost certainly correct: part of this is menopause and she's started hormone replacement therapy, so that might help. Still, there's something basically broken in our relationship that may not be able to be fixed.
Meanwhile, I got called for a professional interview in a new department… only to find that "colleagues" of mine from a quarter century ago are stonewalling me, even though there are four vacancies, three candidates, and I am probably the strongest candidate of the three.
Why are they blocking me? I wish I could say. It comes down to the fact that they just don't like me and are willing to pretty much say that to my face. I have never done any of them wrong. I have worked my ass off and they know it. I am ultra-competent for this position. Part of this I think is just pure jealousy: I am too successful for their liking — in many ways, more successful than they are and, when I entered my field, I came out of nowhere with no support from higher up, strategically placed mentors.
This wouldn't be so depressing if I hadn't been specifically called in to the interview. I even asked people in the department "Look, I don't want to waste my time. I know there people are in the department who don't like me. If I apply for this position, it will take a couple of weeks of my time and I will just get depressed if I am rejected out of hand. So please tell me straight: is this serious? Because if it is a popularity contest, I have better things to do."
No, it was serious, I was told. I should totally try out for it. So I put my heart and soul into the process, because it would be my dream job, and… I got rug-pulled.
And for nothing. For petty jealousies, rumors, gossips, and people who want to stack departments with their pals and minions.
What's worse is, I went into this with the specific goal of continuing my deceased mentor's work. They need someone doing that and I am pretty much the only person available (it is an in-school transfer, so the talent pool is small) to do that. We lost all my mentor's records in a university fire a few years back. So not only is this a calculated snub to me, it's spitting on my mentor's grave, to boot.
I have spent so much time and effort working on the things I do and there's little professional recognition because I am bad at putting myself out there and glad-handing. I am not a narcissist, sociopath, or a person who'll do anything for their career. I am just a good professor, researcher, and extensionist. That's it.
It feels so wrong to be this depressed when, objectively speaking, my life is so much better than that of so many other people posting here. I mean, I have a good job, a good partner, a good house. But first in my relationship and now in my professional life it seems that I am only headed downward. I just turned 55. I don't know if I have it in me to continue doing this. And my depression is making it so I can't work, so this whole thing is becoming a downward spiral.
I have my SN and my anti-emtics, because I live in a country where both are easy to get.
The next few months — particularly with the elections coming up — are going to be very hard to get through. I am using this thread as sort of a diary that I can point people to just before I kill myself, so if you are friends or relatives reading this, you'll know what has happened. I will also link, if I kill myself, to a suicide watch blog I began in 2016, so you can all see how this latest round of anxiety and depression began.
Drugs and therapy have really helped, and I am blessed to have them and have them be effective. But in a certain sense, they've only made things worse. I feel I am much more clear-headed and less frantic than six years ago and this has just made my planning for suicide more rational and incremental. I am taking small steps and, sooner or later, I feel I'll just ease myself into suicide after a lot of long, slow meditation on it.
Now, in case worse comes to worst, I need to make one thing REALLY clear: this site has helped me more than almost anything other than drugs and therapy.
First of all, it has steered me away from crazy dangerous methods that are most likely to cripple me and really traumatize others. It has helped me see that there are a lot of people out there like me and most are far worse off. This has often given me strength to go another day, week, or month. It has taught me that suicide is something that shouldn't be rushed into, but must be carefully planned and, if one cannot do that, one isn't ready for suicide.
But most importantly, it has allowed me a place to freely talk — more freely than even my therapist's office. A place where I will not be judged.
If you are reading this and are also wracked by depression and anxiety, please: give medication and therapy a try. If you get the right combination, you will feel much happier. My last four years of therapy and drugs have actually made my life much, much better and not a constant horror show, where I just want to rip my face off to make it all stop. If you are my therapist, and you are reading this, THANK YOU Dr. R! You did so much good and nothing wrong!
But, as you probably already know, sometimes that just isn't enough.
I hope six years from now I will be reading this with the same bemused lack of comprehension that I now read my writings from 2016. But, just in case, I feel it's important that I leave a record of what I am feeling and doing so my friends and loved ones can get some kind of closure.
Celerity
shape without form, shade without colour
- Jan 24, 2021
- 2,733
Whatever she was like before, she is incapable of being a good life partner now. It sounds to me like she is struggling with her own demons and has become an alcoholic to cope. You, on the other hand, have internalized your problems. She is abusive. Before taking that final exit, you should leave her and give yourself sometime to evaluate whether life without her could be worth living. At the very least, I bet it would be a damn fine improvement.
I wonder if Ukraine is accepting 55 year old out of shape volunteers? :)
Best and most concise sociological comment I have seen in awhile. Kinda perfectly fits why my old colleagues do what they do:
That's kinda… difficult. I know I should, but she's really the least of my problems right now.
Best and most concise sociological comment I have seen in awhile. Kinda perfectly fits why my old colleagues do what they do:
Attachments
Celerity
shape without form, shade without colour
- Jan 24, 2021
- 2,733
I was a PhD student years ago. I understand where you're coming from. I too was ostracized for holding beliefs that didn't fit the mold. I could never imagine just how much discrimination of this sort occurs in the ivory tower. I think it's worse than what you see in the private sector, though it does of course happen.
It's not even beliefs: it's more like I am too arriviste for this crowd. I am too good at what I do, mixed with a lack of class status, mixed with a bunch of identity markers which makes discrimination acceptable. Most of these folks are foreigners, but elite foreigners and from countries that are, well, more-or-less acceptable. I am a working class foreigner from a country that it is acceptable to discriminate against.
I am not saying I am a victim of social exclusion here: racism or what not. It's just a convenient hook for them to hang their snobbery on in a way they would never openly do with my parterner, say.
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