This will probably be somewhat incoherent. I apologize in advance for that.
I am 25 years old, and just graduated from a university with a degree in music. I took out nearly $60,000 in private student loans to get the degree, to say nothing of the federal loans.
My job prospects now are no better than they were when I was in high school, and are in fact worse, thanks to the economy and my foolish, self-indulgent decision to get a music degree. The worst part is that my family cosigned on the private loans, and they’re going to destroy their credit along with mine. I could tip my already-struggling parents into bankrupcy, and I could destroy my grandparents, who secretly cosigned the year my parents were turned down. They’re living on social security. My grandmother called me in tears less than two months ago, saying that the loan could not go back to them… that they can barely afford their prescriptions as it is. All of this is my fault.
I should have known better than to major in music. Regardless of the economy into which a person graduates, it is always a stupid decision and an utterly useless major. Even with the degree, I’m a fraud anyway… I’m a talentless singer and no excuse for a musician. More importantly, as I have been suicidal for most of the past 12 years, I should have killed myself before borrowing any amount of money, for any reason. And I SHOULD have bought life insurance when I had the chance, because the two-year suicide provision wouldn’t matter by now.
I thought that I would get better, that I would be employed and happy after graduation. But I’m not. And because I’m so horribly depressing to be around, and so emotionally unstable, everyone who was kind and generous enough to love me has finally given up on that. No one wants me around anymore. Not the teachers who trained and encouraged me, not my friends and colleagues, certainly not my family. They can’t stand to be around me, and I can’t blame them. Even my father, who has always been my hero, appears to have had enough. My voice teacher, who was also a dear friend, said that I couldn ‘t make her stop loving me. I proved her wrong. She’s done with me.
That’s what always happens. That’s what I do to people. They grow close to me, insist that they love me unconditionally, and then they give up within three years. It’s rare for anyone to stay with me longer than that. I am a horrible person. It just seems to take time for people to realize that… and for them to realize that no amount of medication will ever change that.
Now that I’ve graduated, I am entirely alone. I’m hours away from my family, which is painful in spite of the fact that they don’t want me. I miss my Dad, I miss the stepmother who wants me out of their lives, and I even miss my Mom, who verbally and physically abused me before finally abandoning me in a parking lot when I was 14. I miss my dogs.
I can’t do this much longer.  I go to work… the few hours that I get at work… and pretend to be normal. I keep searching for a second job and can’t find one… but I also don’t want to find one. I’ve been trying to draft a cover letter and update my resume for the past 8 hours, and I can’t. All I can think of is killing myself. But I know that when I do, I’ll financially destroy the people who put up with me the longest.
I should have done it before borrowing money for college. I hate myself for being too cowardly and selfish to do it then.
6 comments
i can only tell you that no matter what, to all those that love you or even just know you, your life is worth more than money. no matter the weight that it bears, it’s just paper and pressed metal not a heartbeat, a thought or an emotion.
I’m going thru the nearly same thing; I want to die, too. I’m so depressed and sad all the time, but I KNOW that if I do it, it’ll be even worse on my surviving family members.
BUT…I haven’t done it yet, and I don’t think I will – I just don’t want to cause any more problems. Think of how sad, destroyed everyone will be.
If you want to write me, go ahead. I feel like a worthless person, but maybe I can be of some value to you. You’re younger than me, and you have a college degree in music….you never know, something great MIGHT happen!!! All you need is ONE thing to happen, and that thing is getting a job.
I’m in the same boat (sort of); maybe we can just be friends. But, I’m very depressed and sad also. Maybe you can overlook that?
Don’t do it, and write me – leave yer email, and I’ll write you back. I actually know a LOT of people in the music business; maybe I won’t be getting any better, any closer to getting out of my depression, but perhaps I can help someone else? I KNOW what it’s like to be depressed, suicidal, and if I can help someone get out of it, I will.
Michael.
It seems to me that the answer to why you push people away from you is right here:
“… my Mom, who verbally and physically abused me before finally abandoning me in a parking lot when I was 14.”
When you have parents who make you feel bad about yourself, this is a MAJOR, major betrayal. These are parents who have horribly shirked their duty; they have committed a horrible crime against you to make you feel this way about yourself.
A kid, even a teenager, is very dependent on his (her?) parents to survive. Literally. When you get abandoned by a parent (your mom), this is the most terrifying thing that can ever happen to a child. There’s a part of every human that goes way back to ancient times, when being abandoned like this most likely meant you would literally die – get eaten by bears or wolves or something really horrible.
It’s a primitive, deep-rooted fear, and no amount of logic or reason can overcome it. We are hard-wired to be connected to the people who take care of us so that we can survive. Literally.
Because of how utterly terrifying it is for a child to be abandoned in this way, we will do anything we can not to have to think about it or face up to it. It’s easier to believe that we are unlovable than to truly realize that you’ve been left to die.
So that’s what you’re fighting now: You felt unlovable because of how your mother treated you. She failed you in the very most basic way a parent can fail a child: By not being there when you needed her.
So now, as an ‘adult’, you still have those same unmet needs from childhood: To be cared for, to be protected. To have a ‘soft place to land’, as some put it.
But since you’re now ‘on your own’, people expect you to be past all that. They don’t have much sympathy for an ‘adult’ who has those kinds of needs.
That’s why so many people seek a romantic relationship: It can be a place where you can finally get the appreciation and support you never got from your parents. But in the absence of that kind of relationship, it can be really lonely. There’s a big part of you that’s always trying to make up for being abandoned, for being left behind.
Being abandoned makes it so you can’t trust anybody any more. So you keep trying to get close to people, but whenever they start acting like they care about you, you get scared that they’re going to abandon you just like your mother did. Rather than risk that, you start doing things that make them not like you. It’s a way for you to stay in control – to not be vulnerable to being let down again. It’s normal to protect yourself this way when you’ve been hurt so badly by someone you depended on (your mom).
The way out is to recognize that it’s not your fault that she treated you this way. She was a bad parent.
Since your family doesn’t get how the thing with your mom has had all these long-lasting repercussions, you’re going to have to find somebody else to help you.
Ideally there’d be an older person somewhere in your life who sees what’s going on with you and says, hey, I see what’s happening here, I’d like to help.
But most of us don’t get to have that kind of person in our life unless we’re very lucky. Sometimes there’s a teacher (like your voice teacher) who will do this for a while. But what we really need is someone who’s in it for the long haul, not someone who will walk away just like your mother did. Unfortunately, this is not so easy to find, either. Which is why people go to therapists: To at least have somebody to talk to to get them through the immediate pain, until they can find someone who’s willing to be there for them in a more reliable, dependable way.
I hope you will look for someone to talk to about all this. Keeping it all inside is what makes the pain grow and grow, until we feel like this horrible burden that nobody wants to deal with. It can be very hard to find somebody to listen, somebody who feels safe to tell everything to. But I believe it’s the only way out of the pain – to find someone to listen to your story, and believe you, and care. And most of all, someone who will help you with the things you need help with, not just make sympathetic noises or give lip service to caring about you without actually doing anything to help.
Another thought: It seems to me that what you need is for somebody in your family to say, “hey, we get how horrible it was that your mother abandoned you. We can see that it’s had a long-term impact on your self-esteem.” Or something like that, something that showed that they ‘get’ how this is affecting you.
And then they would be there for you talk to them any time you needed it, and they would give you lots of hugs and reassurance, and they would know it takes a long time to heal that kind of a breach of trust. Because after all, if your mom abandoned you at age 14, what was happening all those years leading up to it? Was she really nice to you up til then? Sounds to me like you had 14 years of abuse. Which doesn’t go away overnight – it needs time and patience from somebody in your life to help you overcome it.
This next bit may be harder for you to read, because I’m pretty sure you think you have to be grateful for the ‘help’ your family has given you. But I’d like you to question their motives a bit, to think about what *they’re* doing that contributes to why you feel so bad about yourself. Because any problem in a family is not just about the person who’s the ‘black sheep’ or whatever – there’s always other stuff going on, the other people are part of the problem too.
So here goes: The problem with them giving you money (co-signing on the loan) is that it can *feel* like they’re pushing you away: “We’ll help with the money so long as we don’t ever have to talk about that thing with your mom.” It’s like a way to silence you. So even while they *appear* to be helping you on the surface, what they’re really telling you to do is to shut up. That your problems don’t matter to them, that what they really want is peace and quiet, and not to have to listen to your stories that make them so uncomfortable. People are quite selfish, really, when it comes down to it. They’ll do something like the big gesture with the money because they like to feel generous and helpful. The fact that it’s not what you really *need* is beside the point for them. They just want you to let them off the hook; to stop making them feel guilty for not being there in the ways you need.
Many people want to commit suicide, because the thought of expecting love is in vain.
But when they find out that this thought of suicide commands a change, and realize this has to be switched to loving themselves, a new life begins.
The situation is like this. People can cheer a poor soul up, but to a limit, until they got tangled like the state of mind of the poor soul, and they will pull themselves up away from all this to rescue their right state of mind. It is just normal way of doing. If you want happiness, you have to be happy first. If you want people to be happy, you also have to be happy first. Aim high will only disappoint you. Only aim right. If have to be bankrupt, then bankrupt, if things have to go that way. Treat it as a course of life you have to experience. If there is a job that can fill your basic need of life, may be just a tutor course for the youngsters, then take it for the time being. And have to enjoy the bits and pieces that the money can buy. Even the taste from a hamburger bite will be a juicy one. Don’t concern the expectation from others that makes you weak. Concern only how you can make ends meet and be satisfied. After you turn into a happy person, good things will always follow. And that’s life!
I wish I hadn’t been too afraid to come back and check this when I wrote it. I don’t know if any of you will see this, because it’s been so long, but thank you, all of you. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
And I’d like to email you, Michael, but I don’t know if you’ll see this, and I don’t know if I’ll find you elsewhere on the site. And I don’t know if there’s a way to contact other users via email. But I’d love to have a friend.
Pulling the Plug – I don’t even know what to say. I think your first post is dead on, and your second one may be, too. Perhaps not in the case of my grandparents, but quite possibly in the case of my father and stepmother. As to your first post, I’ve had people tell me that what happened with my mother was the root of my emotional problems, but no one ever explained it, so it didn’t make sense to me. What you said makes perfect sense… and simply understanding it helps. And you’re right about the abuse. Thank you for posting what you did.
I hope you guys see this. I’m still around, back on an old (not hugely effective, but cheaper than what I was taking) antidepressant, but I’m still struggling.