I was a big horror fan, I loved horror books, games, movies anything really. I was a huge fan of the Alien franchise and John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing, I loved Stephen King, dead space, gears of war, resident evil… I’m playing gears 5 rn and fighting back panic attacks (and this game is mild) I still love these things. I still love the games and movies but I can’t watch play or enjoy them. I’m in tears because I’m just fighting to do what I once loved. I don’t feel like I’m ever going to be myself and enjoy these things again. It’s been 2 months on Zoloft, Atarax, Ativan, Klonopin, meditation, moving down to part time, finding new calmer hobbies, everything I can do, every med I can take and it’s only getting slightly tolerable. And in Gears 5 at the beginning Kait has a nightmare, she asks Dom if it gets better and he replies “it gets tolerable” and I had to pause before even starting to play the game because that’s how it’s been feeling. I don’t want it to get tolerable I want it to get better. I don’t want to just find a way to live with this for the rest of my life. I’m starting to feel more and more hopeless the more I find simpler and simpler things to be considered large victories in my day like going to the post office or cleaning the kitchen. I miss myself. I miss my laugh, I miss my video games and movies, I miss going out to bars with my friends, I even fucking miss going to work every day. I’m only 23 and I feel like this is the end of my enjoyable life. The rest is just… this. Idk. If you got this far obviously you feel the same or are interested enough in this story of my life. Can someone maybe tell me again that it gets more than tolerable? Please? Thank you for reading and I hope you’re doing better than I am rn.