Ready to throw in the towel

I'm 60 and was diagnosed as Gleason 7, T2B. Was given Lupron, 5 sessions of SBRT and they want me to continue Lupron for a year. I just got my second six month shot.

I honestly don't think I can make it. I worked REALLY hard to stay in shape but now my arms and legs are like toothpicks and my stomach is huge. I've forced myself on a 500 calorie a day diet (two protein shakes and a multivitamin) for the past month and it's STILL not getting rid of my belly. I stopped going to the gym because, frankly, I'm embarrassed to be seen there among my old gym buddies.

I had a fantastic sex life with a good number of f***buddies but now it takes so long to get an erection by myself that it's not even worth it.

Worse, though, is that I am SO sad with a grief I have never felt in my life before--not even when my parents died. I feel like I am underwater looking up at a hazy world. I cry or feel sad at least 4-5 hours a day.

I sleep, at most, four hours a night even though I take a double dose of Xanax (2 mg total) and two Benadryls. The drugs knock me out but I wake up at 2 or 3 AM and can't go back to sleep.

Today, I casually told a nurse I can't wait for the next six months to be over because that's the end of Lupron and she said it's going to be more like 18 months to get back to normal because Lupron takes a very long time to leave the body. Hearing that made me want to hurl myself off the roof of the medical building--I just literally froze with fear.

I'm technically "alive" but there is no quality to anything. My day consists of faking my way through work, then coming home and crying on the couch and staring into space. Sometimes my heart will start racing at 150-180 bpm for a few minutes and I pray I will just have a heart attack and die.

My friends and family have given up on me, and I honestly don't blame them. I also got tired of their "you need to be positive," "you need to have a positive outlook" bull****.

I guess what I'm asking is how the hell do so many other guys do this and still have any kind of a life. I feel like I'm 100% destroyed inside.

UPDATE: Nov. 15, 2024

To everyone responding to this post--thank you! I will say it is an older post and I have gotten help in many ways:

I joined a support group, I have a prostate cancer mentor, I am seeing a psychologist and a sexual health physician, and of course still participating in this group. One "advantage" of getting a prostate cancer diagnosis early in the year is that I was able to quickly meet my insurance deductible so don't have any out of pocket cost for these things until January so plan to take FULL advantage of any and everything available to me through my cancer center.

I have also been exercising a lot and outdoors as much as possible. I find being in nature is helpful. I also listen to a lot of sad music which is oddly cathartic and have been writing about my life which helps me to channel a lot of feelings and ideas into things that might somehow help others.

So, while the original post was negative and is true to how I felt at the time, my outlook is improving. I'm still not quite the cheerful carefree guy I was before but I'm also not crying three hours a day anymore, either. So, progress is being made and thank you to all who are responding.