Fighting The Fall Into The Abyss

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My circadian rhythm is off. Time for me has flip-flopped. I am sleeping when the majority of my coast is awake. I am in deep thought because I am a thinker. I think best at night, but strangely, it is evening as I write this. I am trying hard to stay away from the edge of the abyss.

Tearfully, I am fighting the fall into the abyss. For me the abyss is depression. I have battled depression since I was a child. Age three is when I first recall an awareness of a deep, painful and inner sadness. I self-diagnosed myself with depression when I first read about the connection between depression and suicidal thoughts. I was in fourth grade when I checked out some books on the topic in the school library. I recall the librarian asking me, with the strangest look on her face, if I would be more interested in reading “happier” books. I said no. Although her eyes showed she was concerned, in hindsight, I now feel that she should have at least felt a sense of alarm. Maybe she did because she asked me each time I checked out books from that point on what I was learning. She said I was the most interesting and peculiar child. She had no idea. I was a child searching for remedy to pain.

Nevertheless, by the time I was in fourth grade, I was aware that I wanted to die. I had a real need to die. Although I had reached out to a relative in a cautious way, I did not get help. I needed help, and I understood that knowledge was my power. I soon found that reading was my key to escape life in the abyss. Instead of the normal story books most children were reading at that age, I was reading medical and psychological books because, for me, the abyss has always been a real place. At first that place was called home. My home was the abyss. I was born into a narcissistic family. Need I say more? Despite not knowing that anyone lived a life other than what I lived, I did not know my issues were in my family. I really thought the issue was me because no one gave me the impression they felt the way I did.

No, I am not licensed in the field of psychology. I am not certified to give anyone any clinical help even though I have a master’s degree within the field. I think I earned it more to help myself … to understand my plight as well as to gain a sense of clarity about myself and my past. Still, what I lack in credentials, I make up for with a wealth of experiences from while deep within the abyss, hanging around the abyss, and attempting to run away from the abyss. Basically, I could be deemed a psychological expert regarding life in the abyss except it is not a place I have truly over come. Truthfully, I have not even conquered my ability to fall into the abyss. I do not know how to yet.

In my latter teens, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. This diagnosis transformed into double depression, dysthymia, and anxiety. By the time I reached my mid thirties, a therapist said the struggles of my life had all culminated into me having what is often termed complicated grief. Yes, I have known enormous grief, and that grief has been extremely complicated. In fact, there are obvious indications that much of my life had been spent within the abyss. I would contemplate a suicide attempt three times. My final suicide attempt was a final outcry that led to my seeking therapeutic assistance. A psychiatrist introduced me to psychotropic relief in the various forms of antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, and mood stabilizers that have only helped to numb the pain I have felt while traveling through the abyss, but I am actually grateful for those times I did feel numb. In truth, I simply settled for something to work. I needed to feel nothing (numb) even if nothing meant feeling absolutely no pain.

In retrospect, talk-therapy has helped me tremendously, but it certainly has not been cheap. Otherwise, I have found more therapeutic success through writing. I keep a journal. It is my daily release when the ears of others just will not actually hear me. Finding support from others has not been easy – especially since my circle of “friends” and family includes a lot of people with toxic behaviors. Consequently, I do not fully trust my heart to other people either. My personal experience with people has been for me a stern teacher. I am most often surrounded by a sea of narcissistic people and their enabling associates, and from my educated understanding of narcissistic personality disorder, I am currently both directly and indirectly surrounded by five people that would be classified as some type of literal textbook narcissist. Yes, these people would receive the clinical diagnosis for narcissistic personality disorder from a certified clinician for sure.

Because I know not to trust people with narcissistic traits, I know that I do not have the available ears of others to really listen to my problems. If they do listen, they listen to analyze whatever I say to attach to themselves personal narcissistic injuries and to make their own assessments to aggressively attack me. Their fake empathic support (which always means absolutely no empathy and no support) is a push against me into the abyss. So, as one can tell, I do not really want their insight into anything about my life situation despite the fact that I know they would never give me honest insight anyway.

Nevertheless, I am feeling on the verge of just jumping into the abyss. I even picture myself diving into the abyss like a championed swimmer even though I am a horrible swimmer. Besides, I liken the abyss to hitting rock bottom; there is no water for swimming. Primarily, I am exhausted from the weight of constantly tackling with these toxic personalities. I am even exhausted from the weight of tackling with myself. Yet, I decided last year to embark upon a journey to understand the root causes of my issues and how to fix them. I also wanted to understand the connections I have made with narcissistic personalities within my life. Sure, I have learned various ways of handling my problems while attempting to free myself from the abyss, but some of these ways of handling my problems provided only temporary relief. I am actually looking to have freedom.

In the grand scheme of my life, narcissistic personalities have always been a problem for me. I know that I cannot blame them for my root issues. That would be so easy to do. However, I have to internally investigate the root of my issues for myself. I have to figure out why I set such strong boundaries only to loosen them again and again. Mainly, I have to take responsibility for the issues I create in my life as well. Thus, herein lies an obvious issue for me: I continuously attract narcissistic personalities on a consistent basis within my life. I sincerely do not even go out looking for them. It feels like there is some type of magnetic radar that alerts them that someone like me is nearby. So they come.

In the last few years, there seems to be an uptick of narcissistic personalities coming into my life, and I desperately need to understand why. I desperately need to be free. I desperately want to know life far away from the abyss. I hate depression. I hate the darkness of it. I hate the pain of it. I hate being engulfed by it. Yet, last year I decided that enough was enough. For some reason, I felt I needed to reconnect with it. I needed to once again feel my depression to understand it and know why I have it. I know it sounds like the craziest thing. Even my therapist thought so and warned me against breaking helpful ties, but I slowly weaned myself from my one antidepressant. Somewhere inside of me this was already set into motion. It was time. I needed to start a new chapter. To understand why I lived life in the abyss, I needed to figure out why I was falling in the first place.

My new chapter included not only ending antidepressants, but also included ending therapy, resigning my job, and cutting myself off from a lot of toxic individuals. I needed to find myself. I needed to understand myself. I needed to know myself in and out of the abyss. Prior to the coronavirus, I coasted through life resigned to the acceptance of daily suffering. When the pandemic hit, life slowed down enough to help me to recognize that I no longer wanted to suffer. I wanted change, and I needed change. It just so happened, thanks to some narcissists, that circumstances would bring the plot of my life story to a perplexing climax where I would be handed a plot twist. So, I accepted the plot change. I decided to change my course. Yet, today, I fight the urge to just let myself go into, merge with, and fall headstrong into the abyss. What gives?

The gist of it is … I am exhausted – psychologically and physiologically. I feel like my reserves are gone, and if not completely gone, I have the bare minimum. I wonder what the point is … what is my purpose. I do not want to give up, but I feel more inclined to do so just to rest. I simply want it all to stop. I want to cease to exist. I do not want to die. I just wish I could disappear. I wish that time could stop so that I could simply breathe and take in life without drama. I wish that this absorbed pain from the years of distress would just release from me. I wish that narcissists would vanish from my life. Yet, I know that even if they vanished here, they would still find some way to be there in the abyss with me. No matter where I am, there narcissists always seem to be.

In the end, I have long battled depression enough to have learned how to keep depression somewhat at bay. I feel like I could almost be on the brink of some fantastic discovery that saves me … a key to freedom from all things narcissistic. In fact, this time from working has enabled me significant space and freedom from working so closely with narcissists who were the source of some of my stress. I find that life dramas have lessened to a certain extent because I have chosen to discontinue contact with some of them. If these narcissists could all just vanish, that would be great! Yet, I know, on some level, that is only wishful thinking.

As of this writing, I am fiercely fighting the fall into the abyss. I am fiercely struggling to hang on. I do not know how much longer I can do this. I do not know how much longer I want to do this. This is not a cry for help. I am not feeling suicidal. I am just exhausted. I am sadly exhausted, and I cease to see the reason to fight anymore. For now, it is just the conversation I would have when I normally journal my daily thoughts . Like today and every other day, I will just get up tomorrow and look for ways to keep from falling into the abyss. But right now … exactly now … I feel like I am fiercely fighting the fall into the abyss. Can you relate?