This is just me yelling into the void. I am 30 and feel like I am drowning.

I found the love of my life at 18, we were high school sweethearts when we met, and we are still happily married today. I joined the navy right out of high school because I really didnt think I would be able to support us any other way. That ended up being a good choice as it set me/us up for a future together. Life was pretty good while I was in the Navy, not perfect, but not awful either. Our marriage was rocky at first, but every year it got a bit better.

Fast forward to October 2014 and we have two beautiful kids, and I just started a new job at a great semi conductor company. Job was a good fit, and I took to it right away. Life is still good, still have normal issues and stuff, but at 28 I felt like I was doing good.

Everything seemed to fall apart in 2018 in my life. We were threatened with an eviction from our town home due to having a parakeet. Landlord didnt want to hear anything about the mistake, or how we could fix it. So we entered the housing market under duress of fear of losing our home. I quickly succumbed to an anxiety the likes I have never felt or experienced.

Thoughts of suicide became a daily occurrence for me, and I decided to go see a doctor. The doctor put me on a SSRI (would make the problem worse) and I began taking them hoping to feel normal. Every so often when I felt like I was slipping I would have the dosage increased until it was maxed. About this time, my company was bought by one of the parents and I became worried about the future of my employment there. I took a voluntary severance package they offered and entered the job market once more.

About this time the new normal for me was depression. At 29 I had begun to lose sight of the meaning of my life. Why was I here, is there a better existence waiting for me when I died, should I die? I ended up relatively quickly finding a new job working for an electrical testing company this year.

The job started good, but quickly devolved into an anxiety inducing nightmare. I was brand new to the field, and while the manager though I was qualified, my co-workers held a differing opinion. The expectations were set extremely high, and now I feel like I made a mistake in taking this job. I am stuck now because when I was younger I racked up a massive amount of credit card debt that now hangs over my wife and I. Being financially irresponsible was my fault, but it doesn't change the circumstances that we face.

As I worked for this company further my mental stability slipped to the point where I found myself with my 9mm in my mouth, sitting in my truck, wishing I never was born. The only thing that stopped me was my wife calling me over and over again. It interrupted my attempts to build up enough courage to just pull the trigger and get it over with. I ended up driving home and trying to hide what happened.

A few weeks later I ended up drinking at home with some friends and my wife. My thoughts went to an extremely dark place again. I got up, went to my closet, and opened up my gun safe. My wife followed me in and saw what I was doing. I was more ashamed that my wife knew about my problem than anything else at this point.

We do marriage counseling every other week to keep our marriage healthy and bring new insight into our relationship. My wife brought this up to the counselor, and he recommended I be admitted into a mental health hospital.

I was there for about two weeks, diagnosed with bipolar disorder/major depression, and put on more drugs. Found out the SSRI was making things worse for me. As I took the medication my anxiety reached a new peak. I ended up having a mental breakdown at work a couple of weeks after I was released from the hospital. It was a full blown panic attack and I couldnt function at all. The lead of the job I was working on was threatening to send me home. It was too much at the time and I didnt know what else to do.

I went to see a psychologist after this and found out I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and that the medication I was on was magnifying my anxiety. I was taken off that medication and put onto a higher dosage of my current anti-depressant.

This brings me to tonight, where I sit in a hotel room alone in Ohio. Currently away from my wife and kids for training for my current job. At this point I feel like I have a proverbial backpack full of stones I have picked up my whole life, or the weight of the whole world on my shoulders. I cant look past each day or I begin to feel overwhelmed with life in general. I dont know how to live a fulfilled life anymore by going through it watching my metaphorical shoes take one step at a time. I feel like the only value my life holds is in my life insurance policy. I sometimes wish for a quick accident to take my life, or for something magical to happen to give me my normal thoughts and feelings back.

I dont think this is a midlife crisis as I long to die most of the time. I dont have the desire to end my own life anymore, but I feel as though my life has lost its meaning. I dont get joy from the things I used to, and I feel like a robot on autopilot going about my day to day. I dont know if its my new job, medication, my mental problems....shit at this point I dont think I know much of anything. I dont see an end to this until I die, but I wanted to scream this into the void for what it was worth. I dont regret my life choices, but I do regret being born.