Losing my job, friends and a loved one has left me desperate

DEAR BEL, THIS is difficult, but I am desperate for some words from you as I have nowhere else to turn.

I am 50; my wife and I have no children — and have endured a horrible few years that have taken their toll on our mental health.

Three years ago I was forcibly retired as a police officer due to mental ill health caused by insensitive managers within the service. Enforced retirement left me socially isolated and feeling worthless.

Efforts to gain suitable employment have failed. This is demoralising; I feel my age and continued mental health problems are making me unemployable. In addition, we have suffered trauma within our family as my mother-in-law died last April following a terrible two-year cancer battle.

Her cruel and painful death left my wife and I as the primary carers of my father- in- law, 83, an invalid

W hat can we possibly do when the whole world seems to be against us?

how do we even begin to accept the fundamental inequality of existence — which dishes out punishment to those who do not deserve it, and seems to reward others with blessings. I have no answer to such conundrums.

Few people really do, except perhaps Buddhists, who see no alternative to dependent upon us for all his domestic needs. My wife and I desperately needed emotional support from our wider family but none was forthcoming, despite asking. I am an only child with parents who appear to be concerned only about their own lives.

My wife’s brother lives away, only bothers about his career and doesn’t make the effort to visit his widowed father or phone my wife to ask after her welfare; he is the most coldhearted, selfish person I know.

My experiences have made me lose faith in humanity. I used to have several good friends (I thought) but all have cut contact with me for reasons unknown. I have never argued with them; I’ve been discarded like rubbish.

I am now at my lowest ebb and feel very pessimistic about my future as nothing good ever seems to happen to us any more.

Please can you offer some advice? DAVID accepting suffering on the path to Enlightenment.

Perhaps a good place to start is not to ask ‘why’ (which, of course, you do) but to flip that question, asking instead, ‘why not?’

this is the hardest question — but I see it as the first stage to coming to terms with existence.

and that, in turn, is the first block in building a wall of personal strength. It is a tough lesson I have taught myself at times of great stress, fear and grief.

I think you should start by dividing your problems up. They are less overwhelming that way.

There are some things you cannot change and others you can. For example, it’s too late now to alter the early retirement, but not too late to shift the way you look back on events that left you ‘socially isolated and feeling worthless’.

You must realise that is not an uncommon response to retirement or redundancy. Many people tend to define themselves in terms of work — and being deprived of that self-image is like a bereavement.

Something is lost — and the sudden emptiness as well as resentment at the attack on your core self-image can damage the spirit. Add that to your failure to find a job since . . . and the downward spiral is inevitable. Yet you can combat it.

Have you sought medical help for what you describe (with no detail) as ‘ continued mental health problems’? If not, you really should; make enquiries about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

I also ask you to try to flip this too — so you focus hard on seeing that unwanted retirement as a liberation. Is it not better to be released from a culture of bullying and belittlement?

If you’d still been working, wouldn’t your mother-in-law’s illness and wife’s grief been much, much harder for you?

Instead, you were able to support them both at a terrible time — and are there now, at your wife’s side, caring for her poor father.

You know, sometimes fate deals a hand which only makes sense in time. Losing your job may prove to be just such a one.

Hurt and resentment at family neglect is another issue — and very painful too. It has left you disillusioned about humankind. But you cannot alter how your parents or brother-in-law are, so they are not worth your anguish. Don’t waste energy on bitterness.

Did those friends melt away because you were depressed, leaving them helpless? That is not to condone their inadequacy — merely to assure you it is not unusual. Sometimes people shy away from the pain of others as it’s too painful a reminder of what’s in store for them. See it as not to do with you, but sheer cowardice.

There isn’t much you can do about that either — except to chase them up now (why not?) and also realise it’s never too late to forge new connections.

At the moment my husband and I have some new friends whom we treasure. Life is full of new beginnings, David — and just looking at yourself in the mirror, forcing yourself to smile and repeating that sentence can help.

Try it. Then make a plan. Go to your GP and say you need help with counselling and respite care. If you could take your wife away for two days it would do you good. You both deserve it.