If anyone reads this, I want them to know how strongly I considered not writing it. Just, starting with that out there. When I realized that was avoiding my feelings, I decided to write it. Time will tell if that was a good decision.
There’s so much to unpack, I’ve been chronically ill most of my life. On several occasions I managed to pull myself together, and if that’s all there was to it I wouldn’t be here right now, as in writing this. I pumped myself full of optimism and good brain chemicals and took another shot at life. It even sort of worked for awhile. But reliable as the morning sun, that time ended, and I became as sick as I ever was before.
and so this time around is different. I’m not going to just jump out of it because I can, because that’s not working.
and that’s where I’m stuck. I’ve started to look at various options, how I might return to a somewhat “normal” life. For background I have a lot of experience in mental health (and my bachelors degree in psychology), and a little experience in IT and programming. I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but that seems like a far off fantasy. Heck, even returning to function within what my education is for seems pretty fantastical.
and that’s part of why this is so hard to write. It’s hard to explain why though a door looks good, you don’t trust it. It’s hard to explain that while function definitely has benefits, the costs are often invisible. And you HAVE TO have other people you can trust. That’s the big issue, I’ve been screwed over enough. I rebuilt my trust in the human race, and it kicked me right in that kind optimism until I didn’t trust it again.
but there are things I want, and I don’t have a clear way to get them without trying to find alliances, trying to find someone who at the very least won’t actively sabotage me.
because it’s a huge smoke and mirrors game, the world of employment and “normal people”. Good jobs, if they exist, look almost exactly like terrible jobs that will rip your soul out. I keep having to talk myself down, when I get an idea of something I might do.
Like today I found a university I might like to try and attend……. buuuuuut the last time I tried that I spent 9 months working my butt off trying to get financial aid only to find out there wasn’t any, and they wanted $15k a semester and if I didn’t have it, don’t worry there’s DEBT……. the people at this university did not live in the real world, and had nothing to offer to anyone who did. For the last five months I’ve had nothing to do, because I trusted that stupid university, and put everything I had into trying to make it work.
Same goes for jobs. I found a few I might be up to applying, then my mind goes down that path. Then they’ll want to interview me, there’ll probably be a ton of paperwork, and I’m not going to get paid for any of that time, that’s expected gratis if I want a shot at a job…. then when I have months of effort invested in the job, it may way turn out to be one where I’m abused as badly as I was at prior jobs. I could quite easily end up spending all my time and effort for months on a job that I can’t keep.
There’s a part of me that wants to trick me into trying again, because I don’t see any better options. Then there’s the part of me that wants to keep trying to walk away from a broken system with no place for anyone that wants to do good work and have a home life.
The idea of a healthy relationship with an authority figure I’m not related to seems pretty damn delusional, and that’s what I can’t get over. I feel most of all alone and not understood for these feelings. Most people I meet and talk to never had an employer as toxic as the ones I have. Just lucky I guess.