As far as your other challenges, I hope you will go on vacation, give yourselves a break and a chance to renew. Maybe you can find someone to house-sit, if not, maybe you can ask the police to keep a watchful eye on your home.

To me, it sounds like some change is needed. I encourage you and your husband to make a list of 5 things you can do to help yourselves. Some might be small, some big. Then pick one, do something that allows you to reconnect with some joy in your lives.

Warmly,
Jake

I have found that the quieter I get my head the less able I am to discomfort myself.

There is always a reason for being there. Sometimes there is a good reason, sometimes not. Mostly, it has to do with something I have done, or something that I have not done. No matter what, if it is really a “dark place”, there is nothing I can do about it. Except explore, record and learn.If I can do anything about it – it is not a dark place. I have stayed in solitude, deep into the northern woods, for two years now. I would not call myself hermit, but in practice I am. I kind of enjoy the experience even though it has meant visiting a lot of dark places. Just about all of the posts above are really good tips. But mostly for distraction from the matter of interest. Which very well can be needed when it gets too dark. But in the long run, there is no quick fix. You just have to face the reasons to why you are in this dark place.

Remember that everybody has been there except for the ignorant.

Good luck!

If I pain myself a lot I go for a walk and/or cry me.

To first find perspective I start with an inventory of my most basic needs, do I have shelter, do I have food, etc. and move up the list from there. While I may identify ways I challenge myself around some aspects of my basic needs, I work to keep my attention at a high level, avoiding getting into my details too much, am I really OK, Yes. Then with some foundation and grounding I am more resourceful to consider the specific ways I am “darkening” myself.

I hear you asking for advice on how to move yourself out of a dark space. I have movement come from an internal knowing, either a hint of what to do next or an all out revelation, could be either one, however for me knowing arises from within. To create the space for knowing to arise I have me needing to shift in a couple ways.

First, that where I find myself could be valuable. In my life I have found the space you describe yourself in as very fertile for creating real and lasting transformation. I have needed to shift the desire to leave the state I am in to an acceptance of this is how I am doing me now, and that there is an intelligence to my process. Second, transforming the questioning to an invitation for inspiration. And then sit and await myself, eliminating distractions and things that fill the space where knowing could arise.

Also I contextualize myself by considering if I am getting myself stuck in a way that has not worked for me in the past, am I repeating a pattern. For me my self loathing pattern looks like inaction, lethargy, so sitting in that is not my whole answer, I recognize I need to get out and renew myself in ways that always work for me. For me this involves physical movement, often intense, through the natural world. For others, a hot bath with candles and aroma therapy is always renewing. Once renewed I can return to awaiting and acceptance, insight, and eventually action.