> Do others here have similar feelings? How do you cope?

Yes - I don't know how I cope, but I have for decades. I've been feeling anxiety ridden since my 20s.

I'm not going to give you advice. I'm just going to be honest about how I feel right now. Honestly, I'm tired of people's advice. I really don't want to bother reading half of these comments. I'm sure a lot of the advice is solid.

I'm just not in the mood for it. Also, I feel like I can give you something better than advice. I can give you an honest glance at how I feel.

I feel tired and empty.

I'm in my 40's. I don't earn several hundred thousand a year, but I have a lot of responsibility. If I got hit by a bus, I could see my company spending 3-5 years of my salary to replace work I've done. I don't use that to get a raise. I leverage it too keep my job.

My anxiety is high. My random panic is very old hat these days, but I still feel it. Sometimes I deal with it better, sometimes I don't.

I've thought about suicide daily for years but it hasn't been an active thought lately. I really don't care about your thoughts about suicide and I'm not interested in talking to a therapist. I don't see much purpose in the world and I realize I've pretty much conditioned myself to work all the time. I feel like a shell of a person. I'm running on an anxiety driven autopilot.

I'm tired.

I don't talk about with my wife, not because I'm ashamed, but because she wants to leave this earth too. She's ready to go, but in reality, she isn't. Neither am I.

We don't because we don't want to devastate our family. It's not reflexive, we deeply care about them and don't want to scar them with us killing ourselves. We don't have kids, but our parents are still alive. I have siblings and they have children. Also, my siblings' health isn't great so I often wonder if I'm ever going to have to step in and help raise them at some point in the future. I don't want to abandon them.

But my wife and I talk about our "retirement plan" on occasion. We talk about it the same way other people talk about going to Paris, but the truth is we have no idea if it's actually going to happen.

I've been working from wake to sleep for years. I lose vacation time. I've been burned out for so many years it's not even worthy of small talk anymore. It's just the same thing. I haven't taken a real vacation in over a decade.

I'm the only one who works. If I lose my job, it will hurt. I haven't lost a job in 20 years. We don't own a home because I never felt like I could afford it, because we've lived in placed with high costs of living. I work really hard to keep my job because I'm afraid to go out and interview.

I try to be calm and collected and I'm surprised at how many people actually buy it. I try to act emotionally intelligent, but I'm not. Some believe it, others see through it. I really like half of my coworkers and despise about 10%.

I'm tired. I'm working late, but this is normal.

I'm not posting this for you. I'm posting it for everyone else who's absolutely burned out for too long and who doesn't feel like they have the luxury of quitting their job.

I don't even feel like I have it bad, but I wonder on a daily basis if this is my last good day. When does it all start going down hill? At what point will my wife and I execute on our retirement plan? Will we go to Paris first?

Don't be a fucking idiot. Your job isn't everything and it can consume you if you're a fucking idiot.