Why do i ruin everything

By Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. Ph.D.

You are more tolerant than you think.

Or maybe you just feel awful through no fault of your own, but your inability to do anything about *that* makes you feel guilty and inadequate.

Lovely.

Not surprisingly, this internal pile-on doesn’t make you feel better. (Cue feeling guilty about how guilty you feel. Your brain may actually be an evil genius. Sorry.)

It's possible to ruin your life more than once. (And this is actually a good thing.)

Here's the thing. Some of us know that it’s possible to ruin your life beyond all repair, more than once. And while that may sound terrifying, there's actually a clue here about why we dive so deep into the Pit of Despair.

At 23 I thought for sure I had no future. I thought my brain was completely fried.

Back then, I had no way of knowing how totally I would transcend the pit of despair I found myself in. I had no way of even imagining that I'd one day look back and say, 'that pit of despair *made* me who I am, and I wouldn't change a thing'.

Then this year, a decade later, I ruined my life again (no drugs this time, just pure organic, grass-fed Life Stuff).

This time around there was a tiny voice in my head saying ‘wait on, we’ve been here before.’ 

In some ways that voice helped. ('I have expertise in Ruined Life Reclamation'). And in some ways it didn't help at all. ('That doesn't make this any less awful.')

But the fact that I'd been there before did point me toward something really important. Despair doesn’t have to make sense. It feels real, even when it’s completely unfounded.

You will feel like your life is ruined, even when it isn’t. And that my friends is a very big deal, because it means...

Fear can't see the future

When we're stuck, when we're hung up on whatever Thing is ruining our life, in our lighter moments we may try to convince ourselves that the Thing is not so bad, that the Thing will get better. And then, moments later when the fear returns, we feel all the more hopeless.

If you're anything like me, you then take that feeling of hopelessness as evidence of how fucked you are. You say to yourself, 'if I'm this afraid of having no future, I must really have no future.'

And yet, it is possible to despair at losing all hope of a good life, and then go on to live a very good life. It is possible to do this more than once, and each time think for sure that *this* one's the one you won't come back from.

Our fear can't see the future. That's the whole point. We're afraid because we don't know what's going to happen next (will I feel this awful forever? will this awful thing get even awfuller?). And in the grips of that overwhelming feeling, we think that means there *is* no future (or at least no good one).

Your problems may never get smaller, but you will get bigger

You can probably think of some worry that consumed you years ago, but doesn’t even warrant a second thought now. (That break up you agonised over, that exam you completely tanked.)

But sometimes things do leave a scar. Sorrow that won’t ever really go, or that will take so long to process that for a long time you won’t believe it will ever end.

In these instances, it’s not about making the problem smaller. The comfort here is not platitudes (‘it’ll be alright’), because even if it *will* get better, your fear won't let you believe that.

The comfort, when you can find it, is something more like this: These problems are big. That may or may not change. But know this, you won’t always be this small.

You will grow, and you will be bigger, and these big problems will be less overwhelming by comparison. Every day, week, month you stay on this earth, you will grow.

There will even be times you feel really big - sitting and meditating perhaps, or in flow out in the world doing the thing you’re great at, and your mind will be like sky and you will feel (really feel) that there is space for this big horrible stuff. Even space for that. And then there will be times, sometimes mere moments later, when the sky crashes in, when you are small again, when you seem to be completely overtaken by these big problems. And you can survive it all. Even all this.

There will be times when you get sick of this back and forth, and you won’t be sure whether you can keep it up. And then there will be times you see that back and forth as a kind of wayward, soulful dance, and you’ll find your feet, and your feet will find your rhythm. And on and on it will go, as long as it needs to. Wherever it may take you.

Redeemably Yours,

Graham.

p.s. Hey you know what? This here page is the number one way people find The Big Feels Club - searching some combination of ‘what to do when you’ve ruined your life.’

The good news? That means it ain’t just you.

Want to feel a little less alone in your brain? Come join thousands of other sensitive cats in The Big Feels Club. Real content about mental health, made by people who’ve been there too.

i feel like i ruin everything which makes the guilt and shame compound on itself and make me feel even worse.

i went to a ballgame with my partner yesterday and we were looking forward to it for weeks. i went to go to the bathroom and then came back and couldn’t find where they were sitting in this packed stadium and suddenly it was like information overload and i felt like i was out of my body and lost. the stress alone just took over. so then i finally found them and i was so angry and upset at myself that i was in a dissociative shame spiral for almost the rest of the time. which led to my partner feeling really sad and alone. and knowing that just makes me hate myself even more. i ruin everything. i just want my partner to acknowedlge that by being with me they relinquish all expectations of ever just having a good time. because i’m fucking mentally ill and broken.

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