Well, I think I'm on a spiral downwards. Not that I'm anywhere near suicidal level yet (and nor do I think I'll get to that point), but I can feel it getting me down.
I spiral down a bit, tell myself that there are people far worse off than me, or I have a little win and I come back up again, but not as far as I was before I spiralled. And then it all starts again.
Let me give you guys some background. Some of you may have read my post in the 'Marriage - bliss or hell?' thread, my wife and I separated March last year, after 16 years of marriage and 29 years together. We're pretty amicable still, but I still think about the separation regularly.
We sold our house, split the $$$ and our belongings. She moved into a unit and I moved into a rental house. The house was a quick decision and it gives me the ****s. I hate the place. The previous tenant left it a mess with stinky carpets and curtains, and everything is worn with nothing really working properly. But it had the right size garage for all of my gear (XR8, jet ski, all of my dad's tools etc).
Last October, I woke up one morning with no hearing in my right ear. Long story short, I have now lost all the hearing in my right ear with little chance of ever getting any of it back. Along with the loss of hearing was bad vertigo to begin with. It has improved, but I still am dizzy most of the time. The best way to explain it is that my neck is a spring and whenever the movement is bad enough to displace the spring, it takes a bit of time for it to settle down again. Or it's like driving on a corrugated road: you can see everything just that it's all blurry.
And because of the dizziness, I've had to give up my real social passion; flying. I've started some physio recently to try and exercise out the dizziness, with the aim of improving to the point where I can get back in the cockpit again.
And work has been **** lately. My boss has told me that his two bosses are unhappy with the work I'm doing and that I'm not providing them with the information they want. When I ask him what information they want, the answer is that they don't know.
So how am I supposed to deliver something to them when they don't even know what they want? I've been in this role for about 4 years now, and for most of that time I've been trying to deliver to our head office expectations. The problem is that none of that is important for our site management. I produce a monthly report and run a monthly workshop. Despite me asking every month, I got no feedback on improvements to the report, and only a handful of people (out of over 30 invited) would attend the workshop. For a number of reasons, I stopped producing both. And not one person asked me why they weren't happening.
I feel like the efforts I have gone to have not been appreciated or valued. As a result, I have become deeply unmotivated. And hence the spiral at work starts.
I have my daughter with me each alternating week. She's just turned 15. For the last year or so, I've really enjoyed spending time with her; going for walks, bike rides, swimming and day trips. But, now she has a boyfriend and all she wants to do is spend time with him. Which I completely understand. Dad's aren't cool at that age. But I miss spending time with her.
I don't have a big circle of friends either. As I work about 45 minutes form where I live, I tend not to socialise after hours with the guys I work with. And because I work so far way, I don't have a big circle of friends in the town I live in. I had one couple I was close with, including a mate that I had been friends with since the start of secondary school, but the separation caused a bit of stress. I had misunderstood something my ex had said about inappropriate advances, thinking it was mate that was doing this, and felt betrayed by his actions. I still got on with his wife, but limited my time to avoid running into my mate. I've only recently got some clarification and found out it wasn't him, but the covid restrictions mean I can't go around there and start making up for lost time. Nor can I tell either of them why I was so hesitant to go around as the inappropriate advances was one of their family members, and they know nothing about it.
On top of all of that, I have been in the market to buy a house to settle in to. I wanted to get a house about the same standard and features of what I had before we separated. We sold that place for just over $400k: 4 bedroom plus study, about 25 years old, nice outdoor area, shed, garage, good area etc. But, to buy something similar now means I need to spend around $450k and as I don't have enough to buy it outright, I'll need to take out a loan. Which feels like a massive step backwards, especially given we were very close to owning the house outright. And the market here is so tight, with more houses being sold than the real estate agents can get on the books. As a result, it gets me down every time I look at a house and find that it's not suitable. In hindsight, I should have bought my ex out of her share of the property. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, right?
And my ex bought the place she moved into as a rental. It seems like everything is working out for her and nothing is working out for me. Not that I begrudge her because of that (lord knows she's already been through enough in her life, so she deserves things going right for her), just that I'd like something to go my way for once.
I keep telling myself that there's a lot more people that have it worse than me. A work colleague lost her father to cancer just over a year ago, and lost her mother to cancer last week. I've got a secure job during these pandemic times, when a lot of people are out of work or have had their hours reduced. My mum lives by herself (my Dad passed away 12 years ago) but she can't see her friends because of the restrictions. As I said before, that makes me realise that I shouldn't feel the way I do, but it doesn't change much for me.
The reason for this post is not to get sympathy. That's not what I'm after. It is just to share where I'm at in my head at the moment. I think I spend so much time looking after other people's feelings and well-being that I don't place myself as a priority.
If you've read all this, then thanks for your time. By doing so, it feels like you've invested more interest in me than most of the people in my life at the moment.
I'm keeping up the exercise, if only to get the dog out and exercised, so that's a good thing. It's probably the one thing that is keeping me on the sane side of the ledger at the moment.
There's times when I just feel like curling up in a ball in the corner.