Somewhere to vent.

I’m new here. Primarily I wanted to voice my feelings. This ended up being somewhat lenghty; something of a stream of conscious. Maybe people feel similair, maybe not. 

I deem myself a failure. Not by the standards of society, but my own standards. Scraping together enough money just to survive is trying.

My life isn’t too bad, I admit. I have a room in a shared house. I have a few luxuries: a PC, a games console. I buy DVDs occasionally and books now and then, though I go to the library more. Spending money on even relatively cheap items is something I have to think over for a long time though; £10 (for I am in the United Kingdom) could well be all I have left of my overdraft at the end of the month.

I’ve been living in my overdraft for over a year now. Even had a steady low paid job for most of that. Didn’t help to get me back in the black.

Choices I’ve made in the past just aren’t working out. Trying to make a career as a freelance illustrator and animator. I have some talent when it comes to drawing, but it’s a competetive market and the sales side of thing is something I’m terrible at.

I’ve had other jobs since I graduated from University. Call centre work mostly. Customer service and sales. I’m just as terrible at selling other peoples products as I am at selling myself as an artist.

Got fired from my last call centre job. I phoned people up to ask them to do surveys about the service they recieved off the bank. Many people understandably don’t like being disturbed, and they’d often get annoyed and occasionally abusive. My skin isn’t thick enough to put up with that; I take things personally. So I swore down the phone after the interviewee had hung up and that was the end of my career in customer surveys.

I understand the companies decision, and I understand the interviewee’s attitude, I find how angry I got pathetic.

I get angry over little things. I’ve never raised a hand against anybody. Don’t even have arguments with people. I hate confrontation. However, I do get passive aggressive. When my pent up anger is released it’s towards myself or inanimate objects. Never cut myself, but I often punch my legs or hit the side of my head, sometimes making myself slightly dazed.

Inanimate objects sometimes take my pathetic wrath. I’ve broken computer mice and keyboards, and headphones. Once broke my mobile phone. Reading around the internet, some people who break things in rages say it feels like they were out of control. I actually feel in control. I know exactly what will happen when I smash the keyboard on the edge of the desk. I even forsee the aftermath. I know I’ll have to spend another £5 buying a cheap replacement keyboard, but I proceed anyway, some nihilistic desire compels me to continue.

I’ve gotten better at turning away from my rage triggers, if I feel myself getting frustrated with something I’ve learned to turn away. But some things are unavoidable.

I live in a shared house. I can’t afford a place of my own, so I’m stuck living with an old University friend and one of his friends. Any friendship I had with my housemate has dwindled. We barely even say hello to each other when our paths cross in the kitchen or living room.

He’s messy. My other housemate is messier. I’m certainly not anal about tidiness, but when there are no clean plates because neither of them have done their washing up for a week I think I being annoyed is acceptable

They live on a different time scale to me. They’ll often be cooking dinner, clattering around in the kitchen when I’m trying to get to sleep. They enjoy going out or having parties. They are part of a clique of which I want no part. I don’t begrudge them their lifestyle. But when their lifestyle intrudes on my own, it’s annoying and frustrating.

I described myself as being stuck living here, and “stuck” is  truly how I feel. Despite all the flaws with this domestic situation, the rent is cheap. Even then I can’t always afford to pay it on time. So moving out would be too expensive.

I’ve been here for far too long. This place doesn’t feel like a home, it’s just a house where I eat and sleep and try to distract myself from reality. Every year I give myself the goal of securing enough income to be able to get a place of my own, every year I fail.

I’m deeply unhappy with my life. Stuck living in a house with people I don’t want to live with. My freelance career has gone nowhere, but as I don’t have any applicable qualifications the chance of starting a new career elsewhere is virtually impossible. The only places that even give me interviews are dead end jobs in call centres, which is a work enviroment I despise.

I don’t care if I particularily like any prospective job, I just don’t want to do something that I actively hate doing. Particularily if the  job means I have to pretend to be happy and cheerful whilst trying to hide a growing urge to punch the computer monitor.

I’ve had fantasies about how I’d commit suicide. About what the fallout would be. In an ideal world I’d just fade away; cease to exist without anybody realising I’d gone. But my dad and my sisters would be upset. My nieces would be confused. Aside from those blood relations I don’t think my death would leave anyone grieving.

Still, those blood relations are reason enough for me to push aside the suidice notion. But looking  at the trajectory of my life suicide does seem to be a future possibilty. I even gave myself a deadline. A generous 10 years. I’d be 40 years old then, a nice round number. Hopefully I’ll be able to make changes by then so my life doesn’t feel quite so tiring. Or maybe I’ll hit 40 and extend the deadline.

But at the moment the prospect of miserably trudging on this treadmill for another 50 years seems unbearably bleak.

Even if nobody reads this, writing down how I feel has calmed me down and gave me an iota of clarity, so thanks for the website at least.