Wondering why I bother

I've been in what amounts to a zombie state since I woke up this morning - no doubt from sleep deprivation. I cry some, I try to watch something to distract myself, it works for a while and then stops working, I talk to Doug and ask him to PLEASE communicate with me SOMEHOW, but he doesn't, I cry some more... lather, rinse, repeat.

I tried watching Season Three of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but I couldn't follow it. I tried to watch Schitt's Creek, but it didn't even get a chuckle out of me. I did manage to make it partway through the Ken Burns documentary on the Mayo Clinic on Netflix. I highly recommend it, as it's a fascinating history of one our most impressive medical institutions.

Alas, it didn't do much to distract me, for two reasons: first, because Mayo Clinic is a self-contained system that shows just how effective our healthcare system COULD be but isn't - given recent events, that's more than a little troubling; second, because there were too many pieces of it that resonated with me on a very deep level. For example, the Dalai Lama was interviewed, and said, "Without losing hope, there's the possibility to overcome. Our very life, you see, is based on hope. So hope is very, very important for our survival." One of the Mayo Clinic's physicians (sorry; didn't catch his name) said, "If a patient doesn't have hope, we're gonna have a lot of trouble even attempting to make them better."

And that, friends, is the crux of the matter: I have no hope. Zero. And why would I?

I may not write for a few days - at least, not here, for public consumption, because... well, frankly, my primary goal in publicly writing about my grief was to be understood, and I don't think I'm getting through: I'm still hearing that I'll get through this, that I'll find joy again, that too many people love me, BLAH FUCKING BLAH.

A big part of life is in what we have to look forward to, and for me there's nothing. I've achieved my goals. I've done what I needed to do. I have no goals that can be met here. I have no needs that can be met here. I have no reason compelling enough to stick around. And suggesting that I should force myself to pretend I want to be here, because this person or that person would miss me? Yep, they will. But no one will miss me like I miss Doug. Anyone who will miss me will indeed get through it and move forward and have a happy life; I know this because I've lost plenty of people whom I loved greatly, and I did just that.

This is completely different: when I've lost other people who I loved, I wondered how I'd live without them, but NEVER BEFORE did I WANT to stop living. Y'all are asking me to accept a life with no joy and no happiness and no Doug and no hope, when I don't even want to be here. That's just plain cruel. And I need you to stop. If you can't cope with how I feel, then don't cope with it. Don't bother reading if you can't resist writing a comment to tell me to hang in there, or don't bother commenting. Do what you need to do to deal with it. But stop trying to make YOUR discomfort MY problem. Stop trying to convince me that I shouldn't wish I could go (standard disclaimer: I'm not going to kill myself), because I WILL NOT STOP WISHING I CAN GO UNTIL I'M GONE.

That's how I've felt since February 20. It's how I'll feel until I finally shuffle off this fucking godawful mortal coil. Nothing you can say - and no pithy meme you can send me - is going to change that.