Conflicting feelings: I don’t want to die, but I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all
Random musings on a Sunday morning
I’m happy. Content. Not depressed. I have everything I want (I think). A great job I enjoy doing, a strong and supportive network of friends and family, a partner that checks everything on my checklist — both the serious and the superficial. I don’t have a debilitating illness, I’m in a great place with God.
But sometimes, I don’t feel like there’s anything about life. I wake up some mornings and feel like oh I woke up. And I ask myself what is the point of life.
I wonder if this, shall I call it dissatisfaction, with life is a result of being content and having everything I think I want/need. I’m not suicidal. I know this because I have been suicidal in the past. When my life was a mess and everything sucked and I was broke and hated most, if not all, of the people in my family.
While writing this, I wondered if my wanting to not be alive has anything to do with me being at what I think to be a peak in my life (see: first paragraph)
I think I’m becoming apathetic.
having or showing little or no emotion
That doesn’t seem right. Because I still have and feel emotions. I love the people I love. I feel happy. I feel sad. I get angry and upset. I cry. I’m not going through life like some unemotional robot.
The second definition I found is:
not interested or concerned; indifferent or unresponsive.
This seems more accurate. I think I’m indifferent to life and living. I often vacillate between this and wanting to live. Given a threat to my life, the human basic instinct to live wins. But I wonder what I’m living for. What is my life for? What is it about?
Is this the need for self-actualisation that Maslow talked about? There’s a sense that I have cleared all the other 4 steps. My physiological needs are taken care of. I’m not hungry, I have shelter.
On safety, I’m as safe as anyone can be in Nigeria and I am confident that God protects me and has angels watching over me.
My psychosocial needs are also taken care of. (See: strong and supportive network of friends and family + best partner ever.) My self-esteem is probably the highest it’s ever been and I feel like I have accomplished a lot, especially in my short career.
So, the question is: what is my full potential? I often think to myself about creating something. A new concept in research or human psychology that people will study and discuss and argue and contemplate and refer to in their own papers and essays. Just like I’ve referred to Maslow’s hierarchy. So how can I get there? What do I have to do? Am I doomed to never achieve potential?
I am not doomed in Jesus name and I will achieve my potential in Jesus name.
While writing this, I googled various combinations of words that expressed how I feel: “What’s it called when you’re not suicidal but you don’t want to live?”
“Is it possible to not be depressed but still want to die/not be alive but you also low-key don’t want to die?”
The closest thing I found to this was this article. And this is the thing that best describes my current state:
Pragmatically, I just have no reason to end my life because I enjoy it more than I don’t enjoy it and know it would pain others more a lot more than me.
I wrote a continuation here…
