What does gratitude mean to me?

Hello blog,

I recently was tasked at taking some self-reflection and thinking about what I was grateful for.  I have really been struggling with this as I feel trapped in self-misery and self-hate and happiness something that I see others have but will never accomplish on my own.  Here is my personal thoughts to keep my journal authentic, but it may be triggering/depressing for most audiences outside my head. 

What does gratitude mean to me?  

In appearance, I have everything that my upbringing in white middle-class America has told me to shoot for.  I have a wife, an outstanding daughter, a home, well-paying job, good health, some retirement money set aside, etc.  I don't have financial stress in my life and have the ability to afford to handle any emergencies and still take some exotic vacations once in awhile.

So why am I so miserable every day when I wake up? Why does the world to me look like just a dull shade of grey every day, monochromatic and no better that any day in the past or future.  I think something inside of me is biologically wrong.  I don't want to get into the nature versus nurture debate but I think inside my wiring is just all fucked up. I should be happy. I should be thankful and grateful with all the blessings I have.  I should just be more positive and appreciative.  I should, should, should ....

Despite all these shoulds, the fact is that I can't make myself happy.  Actually the concept of happiness seems like a foreign emotion that has shriveled up and disintegrated inside that collection of neurons that is called my brain.  Like gratitude, happiness also seems like a nebulous concept that doesn't have any meaning to me.

So if I don't possess gratitude and don't possess happiness, does that mean I only possess resentment and misery.  Is the fact I can't even fathom the positive traits like gratitude and happiness because I cannot give up the negative traits in my life?

Clinically I can define many reasons that someone could look at me and nod their head at factors that may have caused me to feel resentful.   We can start with childhood as all therapy does, and talk about how my family was not normal with a special needs sister that took alot of the resources.  Being different to the outside world is never a good thing, and I could probably claim that I development resentment toward my peers based off of this.  I was also near the bottom of my group in terms of good looks, athletic ability, talked funny and had a very shy personality so that again made me different.  I never developed close friends and dated little and again withdrew further from the world I resented.  As I explored my gender issues later in life, I started to resent that I was male which only threw more gasoline on the dumpster fire that was my self-hate and loathing.  I even sometimes felt resentful that today's trans community has so much more understanding than we did in the pre-internet age (although it appears the world is only superficially understanding and even that minimal level is causing alot of societal friction).

As I list all these things out, I am guessing I am resentful but it feels like it must be a subconscious feeling since I don't go around all day long thinking things like "I wish I was like... or I hate that this is like .." .  Instead, I have the more active feelings of acceptance of my worthlessness.  I may have had a shitty childhood but I have accepted that I can't change, I can't use to make excuses for how I am today because of, that was a result of my actions and really blaming my parents or the environment or anything will not do any good.

Likewise, I have accepted that there is no one to be resentful towards the way my life is today because this is a product of my own doing.   Like gratitude, resentfulness seems like an obtuse trait that I can't feel honestly towards the world at all.

Instead all the hate and anger I have is directed back at me.  I feel like the only emotion that I truly possess and that takes up 100% of me is my self-hate at myself.  Just writing a few words about my self-hate feels so triggering as all I hear are loud voices screaming inside my head about how fucked up I am, how I can't do anything right, how that I am beyond repair, how I just wish I was never born.

I feel like I can't get back to a positive topic like being grateful for all I have without it dissolving into my self-loathing and my self-hate.  I can say out look all that I should give thanks for but internally I feel like the only thankful thing I could have is to end this miserable life.

I've tried talking this out, or listening to tools to change my mind's thinking on things but I just keep up ending on here.  I feel so unable to dig out of this and change and perhaps I need something more radical like a frontal lobotomy since I can't change.  I can hear others tell me it is because change requires discomfort but that I really don't feel lying in self-hate is really comfortable either. Suicide is always out there as a solution albeit not a popular one.   Given my acceptance that I can't feel gratitude or anything besides self-hate every fucking moment of every fucking day, it makes me wonder why I just don't go down that route.  I feel like for me the question of suicide is not a matter of if but a matter of when I just finally relent to it.  This is the cycle of self-hate and misery at my inability to ever change, and the answer my warped mind ends up every time.

So, trying to bring this back from my bleak mindset, I guess I should have gratitude for not killing myself.  I should have gratitude that despite inside feeling so miserable almost every moment, I do have the resources to manage a fake persona and support my family.  I should be grateful for being able to act normal in a world while hating myself in it.  I know back to the shoulds, but since I don't possess the capacity for anything positive, a should is the best I can provide.

I should be grateful for another blissful grey day ahead.  For me, that is about as close to happy I can get.