Hello, my invisible listeners. Welcome to The Barnaby Times podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about where I am in my life, how I am processing my emotions, and what I’m looking forward to and what I’m working on right now. I am successfully completing my match manufacturing training program in New Haven, Connecticut.
I have been attending for two weeks now, so I’m two weeks in, and I am starting my third week on Monday, and it’ll be my third week, and out of So I have a few more weeks left and it’s going well. The goal is to get a manufacturing position here in Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut.
And it’s allowed me to kind of focus my skills in a different area to learn new skills and stuff like that too. So here I am. Doing the match training program in New Haven and I’m enjoying it. However, for me, the pursuit of this program has led me to have a hole in my being, right?
And I say that because even though I’m doing exceptional and doing really well and my instructors Like me and I’m, I’m excelling as a student. I, I just am kind of like, I don’t feel whole and I don’t feel right. And I, I, I, I don’t feel joy. I don’t feel happy.
And it’s a super, it’s a super struggle. Right. So, uh, I guess today I want to talk about what that has looked like in my life and how I’ve overcome it and how I’ve pushed through it. One of the ways I enjoy getting through anhedonia or feeling like a lack of joy or
a lack of happiness in my life has been just talking about it and putting it out the open and recording my thoughts and understanding The process in which that may occur, right? So at the end of the day, here I am. It’s September 11th, Friday, 2026.
And I feel like I am the same place I was last year when it comes to my thought process. I wrote a couple of posts and poems about my nihilism and fatalism. And one year later, I’m still struggling with that and it’s so annoying, right?
I spoke with people at my program and I asked them, what is your purpose? What drives you? What makes you, you? And it is encouraging to hear their responses and I got some really good responses and good insight and perspective But I wonder that for myself, right?
It’s so interesting because like I’ve done and accomplished so many things in my life, right? And we could go down the list. I paid off my student loans. I relocated my life from Connecticut to North Carolina in 2013. I earned a $20,000 paycheck. I traveled to Japan, Haiti, Mexico. I lost 100 pounds.
I became independent and I started writing. I wrote a book. It’s on Amazon. So I’m writing a second book and it’s going well. I’m editing it. I have a voice when it comes to my writing. And I mean, that’s just like a general list, right? So I think for me,
when I think about my life and how well it’s gone, it’s one of those things where it’s like, I don’t feel the joy of the accomplishment of what I’ve done. And that’s what the most frustrating thing has been. Even though I’ve done all these things and I’ve excelled when it came to my I still felt empty.
And even though I earned $72,000 a year, I still felt lost and I felt broken. And it’s just a wonder right now because Now that I don’t have the money and I don’t have access to my certain pleasures, whether that’s paying for pornography or smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol or overeating, right?
And I don’t have the means to facilitate those activities. I guess for me, I’m left with trying to reconcile myself To be content and to not depend on those external factors to bring me joy. Even though I’ve chased it and I’ve chased those things when I did have money
and it didn’t satisfy me now that I don’t have money and the means to do it. I still am left with not being satisfied, if that makes sense. I’m not sure if that all made sense. However, here I am articulating my thoughts, and I just want to express how much anhedonia is real,
which is the lack of joy and happiness that’s in your life. So it’s interesting. It’s just one of those things where I’m not sure if it’s because of Invega, the medication I’m on for schizoaffective, or if it’s Lamictal and Trintelix, or the combination of all three,
where I don’t have the drive or the pleasure of accomplishing things or the fulfillment of doing things like I used to. And I don’t know if I’m dull because of the medication. So it’s interesting. So for me, with that being said,
I just find it that I have to talk about my health and my reality of living with a mental health condition and a chronic illness. I don’t know. What’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate. Or maybe I do. I’m just saying it’s interesting because there’s no ability to find true happiness in my life.
I don’t know what that looks like. I feel like I’ve lost my direction in life. I don’t know my purpose and my why of doing things, my reason, my because, my conviction. Before when growing up, it was sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and being very passionate about God
and loving people and being there for people and helping people. That was my mission in life, to be altruistic and giving and caring for people and strangers. That’s what I focused on. And then years later, I deconstructed and I’ve been in this deconstruction process for the last 10 years.
And it’s come to a point where I may not believe in God right now. And so where does that leave me? Do I still become caring? Do I still become altruistic? Do I still help people? Do I still allow to love myself and others? And what does that mean to love people?
And what does that look like if there’s no direction of doing that from a biblical perspective or a mandate from the Bible? So these are things I’m working out and I’m trying to understand and process myself. And I don’t know where I’ve landed. I’m still wrestling with my unbelief and I don’t know if I want
to disregard Christianity as a whole, but still keep Jesus or throw away Jesus and throw away Christianity and become a complete atheist. And not participate in the spiritual aspect of reality that seems apparent, but I don’t know if that’s true. People say they think that we have souls and the spirit and possibly that could be true.
I just can’t prove it. I can’t prove that God is real. I can’t prove that Christianity is true without the Bible. I can’t prove any of it. Right. And so it just leads me to think that I’m just trying to ask more questions. I’m trying to be more empirical.
I’m trying to not I’m trying to have a healthy dose of doubting that that makes sense. But that’s where I’m at. And I just wanted to hop on here to record my current situation. I’m I’m I’m having a hard time. Finding joy in myself and others and other activities.
I’m having a hard time pursuing my purpose and I don’t know what I want to accomplish. And I’m having a hard time understanding what life is like post the gospel of Christ and what that means for myself and how to live out That essence of my being without being mandated by a book. So that’s where I’m at.
I wanted to just share, get it all off my chest, make a little note of speech and put it in ether. And thank you for listening. So I will see you next time. All right. Take care. Bye.
