Help
Gredfallan Ale, on 27 August 2015 - 10:41 AM, said:
@Puckstein:
I started replying, but then realized I couldn't say much but that I relate to a lot of what you're sharing with us. The only thing I can say is that it might help to start talking to someone about how you feel, just to get it off your chest and maybe gain a bit of insight as well. It always helps me to talk about how I feel and what I'm experiencing as I have to arrange things, build a narrative and, often, have to confront myself with some of the irrational cognitions I'm having. (That latter part for me is mostly about irrational anxieties, I'm very anxious of confrontations.)
You might also want to talk about your future, start thinking about alternatives or other positive plans to undertake. Sure, you can try to make your dreams come true, but, let's face it, not everyone is going to end up with their dream job. One of my best friends was unemployed for almost two years after graduating, she was stuck and did not really see a future in her preferred profession. She experienced similar emotions as you are experiencing now. When she finally came to terms with that fact, she started looking ahead again. She went looking for alternative fields she might like, digging up information on home education courses and going back to university. Now she's in the process of getting another degree (distant learning courses) and already has a part-time job in that new field. She has plans again, motivation, and most of all, she's enjoying her outlook on life again. Another friend pretty much did the same, in his mid-30s, he couldn't get a job in his field (organisational psychology), decided to something totally different (highschool math teacher), picked up courses and is now working for a highschool as a math teacher.
They do have one thing in common, they started talking about their situation and how they felt. It took a while, but then they started seeing opportunities again, started making plans or looking for alternatives (courses, &c.) and started feeling like they had something to care about again. Something to work towards.
I started replying, but then realized I couldn't say much but that I relate to a lot of what you're sharing with us. The only thing I can say is that it might help to start talking to someone about how you feel, just to get it off your chest and maybe gain a bit of insight as well. It always helps me to talk about how I feel and what I'm experiencing as I have to arrange things, build a narrative and, often, have to confront myself with some of the irrational cognitions I'm having. (That latter part for me is mostly about irrational anxieties, I'm very anxious of confrontations.)
You might also want to talk about your future, start thinking about alternatives or other positive plans to undertake. Sure, you can try to make your dreams come true, but, let's face it, not everyone is going to end up with their dream job. One of my best friends was unemployed for almost two years after graduating, she was stuck and did not really see a future in her preferred profession. She experienced similar emotions as you are experiencing now. When she finally came to terms with that fact, she started looking ahead again. She went looking for alternative fields she might like, digging up information on home education courses and going back to university. Now she's in the process of getting another degree (distant learning courses) and already has a part-time job in that new field. She has plans again, motivation, and most of all, she's enjoying her outlook on life again. Another friend pretty much did the same, in his mid-30s, he couldn't get a job in his field (organisational psychology), decided to something totally different (highschool math teacher), picked up courses and is now working for a highschool as a math teacher.
They do have one thing in common, they started talking about their situation and how they felt. It took a while, but then they started seeing opportunities again, started making plans or looking for alternatives (courses, &c.) and started feeling like they had something to care about again. Something to work towards.
Thanks for your input, it's really appreciated. I just want to clarify some things.. Which got a but long again, but I can't talk to anyone irl, so ranting on the internet is my only outlet.
Call me starry-eyed, or naive, but I don't think I'm at a point where I have to pack it and realise that my so-called dreams are not realistic. Chiefly because I've been out of uni for just a few months, and because I am - and have always been - aware that it takes time and patiece and a lot of work to achieve what I want (which, actually, isn't particularly specific; I want to work in a particular field, but I'm not choosy about what exactly I want to do within it). It's not that I don't see any future in my preferred profession - quite the opposite, I think with enough time and patience it will work. The main trade fair of my field is in barely two months, and maybe, when every interview I may manage to secure there will end with "Sorry, but you're nowhere near good enough", THEN I will admit defeat. But really, why should I give up without even trying?
My problem is not bleak future prospects in what I want to do (at least for now), but the fact that I am stuck in a field that's related, but which I absolutely hate, every second of it. I have always hated it, but I have made the mistake to listen to people who told me I should be realistic, so I ended up working in it. Yes, be realistic, do something useful, don't pursue your dream (which never existed to begin with, unless being good at something and opting for pursuing it is a naive dream). Might as well just shoot myself, for all the good being realistic is doing me. I'm running mostly on anger now, and I'm angry at myself for letting people stir me away, and now I am bogged down doing the ONE thing I NEVER wanted to. It's related, but the field is big, and I'm doing the one thing out of it that suffocates me. I felt better during a part-time job cleaning toilets.
What's the worst about it is that it bogs down my mind and my will and my motivation, to the point where I can't get out of bed when I know that I have work to do that day. I am wasting time I could be using to build my website, my portfolio, arranging interviews, just DOING something. I have a TONNE of stuff I could be doing, stuff that would get me somewhere. Instead, I am doing things I hate, because they pay in the short term, and because I cannot afford to piss off my mother and the whole network of people she's got.
Maybe that sounds stupid and spoiled. There are people who can work under extreme pressure. I can't, at least not when that pressure comes from the outside, from things totally unrelated. I don't know how to explain it. I deal well with pressure like deadlines, I can work through nights and never even notice, but when the pressure comes from outside sources I just blank. I have anxiety problems, and the field I am in right now is a literal mine field of anxiety triggers. Every little thing has my mind shutting down. I say, no, I won't do that, I never learned this or that, I am not qualified. And it gets ignored. I get told that in that case I should put in the time to learn how to do something, because, after all, I studied it. When the truth is that no, I did NOT study that. Just because I made my own website does not mean I suddenly can make an online shop. I have never had anything to do with photography, I have zero interest in it. Yet I am expected to organize someone who can take pictures of whatever someone wants to sell, then build an online shop. WHY? What do I have to do with that? There are people who have spent years learning how to do that, there are students who are happy to do it because that's what they want to do, I can even give pointers regarding where to ask, so why should I do it? And what for? It doesn't even pay enough to warrant the mental stress that fighting down the anxiety means. Why can't people take no for an answer? Of course, I know why, because my mother is involved, and she thinks I should do it because it brings short-term money. But just because I know my way around Photoshop does not mean I can wave a hand and do magic.
If that's stupid and naive, so be it. If, ultimately, it turns out that I'm deluding myself and I'm utterly shit at what I want to do, that's okay, too. But I'd like to at least try, which I am finding myself mentally incapable of right now. And, in the end, that's what gets to me, not the fact that it might not work.
I have been telling myself for years that I just have to endure, and I will manage to break free of a life my mother basically controls. We were almost there. Then she got a new friend and said lady knows freaking everyone and thinks I totally need the work and it's totally okay to send people my way even when I say to her freaking face that I do not want that kind of work. Problem is, I like helping people. On the other hand, as I already mentioned in my last post, my life is not going anywhere, precisely because I FAIL at breaking free of my mother.
Right now, I am heavily engaging in evading tactics. I turn off my phone, and avoid my email inbox like the plague. I have started to pretend there's no paper mail in the mailbox. I do not like that tendency. My mother does it, and there's never been one good thing that came of that. I am perfectly aware of all of that. Yet being aware is not enough anymore to not engage in this behaviour. I need help. But I can't ask anyone. Or talk to anyone in person. Again, I am sorry to clog up the thread.
Anyway, sorry for ranting.
In other news, I had my doc give me a referral to a therapist. While I was at the doc's office, I saw the leaflets I did last month lying around. I had hoped to never have to see them again, but turns out my doc and my mom's cosmetician are best freaking friends. Beautiful.
This post has been edited by Puckstein: 27 August 2015 - 01:04 PM
