I was going to write that a lot has happened since my last post, but it would be more accurate to say that nothing has happened. The thing that I hoped to happen, that I had put my hopes on and imagined as my future, didn't happen. Now I am feeling really lost. – That is what I wrote at the end of April after getting rejected for an apprenticeship as a librarian.
Right now I am just feeling a bit defeated at seeing how much of a struggle it really is for me to find work that actually feels like it suits me, where the challenges and struggles and expectations don't feel like I have to basically become another person to manage them. I guess my core belief of the traditional work life just not being for me will just always hold true and that is my hardest ultimate challenge. – That is what I wrote exactly one month later in late May after three days of an internship at a local manga store.
After the never ending winter came the spring dreams that didn't become true and now I am afraid that this summer will be filled with nightmares. Even if it ends up becoming the summer of new beginnings, I feel like I have been in this stage of new beginnings for a while now, so it wouldn't really be the summer of new beginnings I feel like. Well, maybe the wording would still make sense since I think these last few months are more like the months of struggle instead of the months of new beginnings. – That is what I wrote in the middle of June as I was trying to deal with things that I had pushed off for way too long.
That entry continued:
It's nothing new that I didn't
take care of things that needed to be taken care of for a while. I
have done this before. It is still a bit weird to me though. Like I
know that ignoring things does not lead to anything good, but I still
do it. Can I just not help it? Is it really ADHD which makes it easy
to just forget things or autism which can mean that something being
demanded of me gets avoided? If it was, would that really mean that I
can't help it? And what would that mean? What would be the
consequence of that? That I just can't do certain things? That I need
help?
I mean I already know that I need help.
My emotional state at the time was as follows:
That's
how I am feeling now – overwhelmed and lost. I can see myself doing
many things and there are many options for me, but it's just all too
much. I feel like I am drowning in it, like I can't breathe. I really
honestly do not know where to go from here or more like how. How do I
move forward? How do I stop being this stuck?
As always I tried to cheer myself up:
I can do
better, I do still believe that, but it's hard. It's a challenge and
it might always be that way. This might never ever come easy to me. I
might always struggle with this at least to some degree. That's kind
of terrifying in it's own way. Fuck, why is the whole world just so
terrifying? I am really hoping for a summer of new beginnings and not
a summer of nightmares, I am already terrified enough, thank you.
Then I wrote this at the end of July, feeling
worse:
I don't feel like I can write on some silly fanfic today.
I've been trying really hard at continuing my 500 words a day streak
and it's been going really well, but today I just feel really really
sad and hurt and lost and damn, I am just not doing well at all and I
hate, I hate it so so much. I don't want to feel like this. I just
want to feel better and be okay.
The thing is I think I was never
really okay. There was a time where I thought I was a very balanced
person and that I was handeling life well, but... I think that if
that is actually the case you don't think things like that. If you
are actually balanced and handeling life well, you don't even think
about it, you don't even realize it. You only think about it and
realize it because you have not been doing well previously and you
know how easily and quickly you could end up feeling terrible again.
You are painfully aware of how fragile you are, how vulnerable, how
sensitive and how hard you have to work to stay balanced, to manage
life, do be doing okay.
That is me, I am painfully aware of all
these things about me and right now I am at a point in my life where
I feel all of that so intensely that I can't pretend anymore. And yet
I still try to pretend every single fucking day because that is all I
have ever known, that is all that feels comfortable and safe. And
yes, I do want someone to see, to point it out, to be like “No,
actually I can see that you are not okay!”. But I am too good at
pretending, too good at hiding it, too good at masking.
Or maybe
it's not even that. Maybe people just don't want to see it or they
simply don't care. I feel very strongly that no one actually cares
about me and I know it is not true. It is not true at all. There are
people who care. I know if on a logical level, but I just can't feel
it.
Two days later I wrote about feeling worthless because
of things that feel worthless to me:
I think I am worthless in
regards to how I fit into society, more specifically: work places,
communicating, traditional values and systems. I am not worth
anything in society's and my own eyes when it comes to those areas
within the society I live in. And why is that? It is exactly because
I personally think those areas are worthless to myself. It's a
self-sustaining circle. My own worthlessness within society comes
from the worthlessness I see in society.
This lead me to the following conclusion about what
worth work has to me:
So the only worth in work that remains is
making money. And honestly that is simply not enough for me. Money as
the sole worth, the sole reason for doing something works for a
little while. I can deal with it, I can cope, I can handle it. For a
little while. I can manage it for a little bit longer when the
circumstances are right and I have already figured out that spending
as little time as possible on work and being in control of when I do
that are two very big factors. Those are things that have value to
me, that are worth a lot to me – my own free time and control of
work time. In turn those are giving me value, giving me worth because
they mean that I choose the time that I work very deliberately, I
actively make time for work, so when I work I am more productive,
more focused. I am there for the work and the work only.
Now to
find a work that makes this possible! Or even better: A work that I
am also personally passionate about, that does not even feel like
work work, that is actually fun and something I want to do anyway, be
it for work or not. Well, this feels like a situation where only two
out of four options are possible or maybe even just one. I just wish
making money wasn't something that you have to tick off each time.
Because that always leads to situations where making money becomes
the focus or making money just is the focus of working. I mean
working is meant for making money, so it does make sense. I simply
hate that making money is such a huge focus of adult life and life in
general. It irks me endlessly.
And again I tried to cheer myself up:
And I feel like
as long as I focus on my two goals of finding a money-making job that
gives me enough control over my work time as well as is interesting
enough along with figuring out how to make money with the things I
already love to do, as long as I stay focused on that I can endure
the purely money-making job. I will endure it for the sake of those
two goals. I can do this. I will do this. I am worthless in a job
that is worthless to me for the time being, but in the end even this
worthlessness will have a worth because it is the ground on which I
walk towards the work with worth that will give me worth as well.
Now it is the end of september, almost two months later, and I already got to the point of not being able to endure it any longer. Actually I think I have not been able to endure it anymore for a while. I felt gone, so so far gone. I felt like I was not here anymore. I felt like I didn't exist. Everything felt so surreal, so far away, like I was far away myself and everything was far away from me as well. It was like I wasn't alive, I just... wasn't there. I was just a shell, a marionette, a puppet played by society to fit all of those terrible expectations I am supposed to fulfill, especially the money-making one, maybe even just purely that one.
[TW for the next paragraph only:
Suicidal thoughts]
Feeling like that was just how it was
going to be, how the working life is like, made me want to not exist
anymore. I never actually wanted to die. I don't think suicidal
thoughts are even about that at all. If you have those thoughts, it's
not and never about dying. It's the opposite – it's about wanting
to live, wanting to live so desperately while at the same time it
feels like there is no way to fulfill that want, that need. Because
you can't live with the way things are, the way your life is,
whatever it is that you are experiencing. You can't live like that,
your need to live is not being met, is impossible to be met. That is
when you want to die – when you actually so desperately want to
live, but there is no way to do it, so the only thing you can do, is
die.
I feel like if I let this go on for longer, for long enough,
I would have gotten to that point.
I don't know how, but somehow I still managed to have some joy, some excitement, something that gave me life while I felt so far gone, so out of this world. A silly little video game called Baldur's Gate 3 gave me that joy, that excitement, that life. It saved me. It truly saved me.
I am talking about all this like it is in the past or even long in the past, but it's not at all. This is the first day I feel somewhat present again, somewhat back in this world and it's still all a bit hazy. I am actually physically sick (just an ear infection), so there isn't just this mental whatever going on.
Somehow somewhere in all of that mess or insanity or whatever you want to call it, that disassociative state paired with this physical sickness, I managed to get myself out of the situation that was causing all of it. I actually managed to look at job listings in that desperate state of knowing that I had to change something or something else would happen, something not good. And I found a job listing that sounded exactly like what I needed – way less hours, late hours, still an okay-ish pay. Not like money matters to me at all or that I even need much to begin with. It's the end of the month and I still have what to me feels like so much in my bank account and I am about to get my next pay check. What do I need that money for? Why am I selling my time, my body, my wellbeing for money that will just sit in my bank account?
Like yeah it is super nice to have that money, don't get me wrong. It does make me feel a bit more stable, a bit more secure, less worried and all that. It does feel nice. I do need it in that sense. But what is the cost of me having that money? Is it worth that cost? The answer is a very clear hard: No, not at all! Nothing is worth feeling the way forcing myself to work like this made me feel.
I know for a fact that I need more time to myself, for time to rest, to cope, to deal with life. If I spend so much time on working and commute, there is just nothing left. Yes, I was able to still do some hobbies – writing, reading, watching stuff, playing that wonderful game that saved me. But it was more like I was clinging to them, they were my safety buoy, my literal lifesaver. I would have drowned without them. They were all that I had left, all that kept me afloat. They gave me that little energy, that little spark of motivation to keep going. They let me focus on something nice, kept my mind off of the darkest darkness. They were my last line of defence.
Through those hobbies I was able to rest, recover, cope and deal that tiny bit that I needed to keep pushing myself, to keep going, to not give up. But they would not have been able to do that forever. It was like they were the extreme battery saving setting that still let me have that tiny bit of battery. Even that would have run out eventually. And I guess it kind of did. Me getting sick really showed me that I just can't keep going any longer.
I don't know how others cope with this. It baffles me. How do people live like that? How do people work 40 hours a week or even more!? HOW!? It seems so impossible, so horrible, so destructive to me. Is everyone just miserable all the fucking time? Is everyone just better at accepting it? Is everyone just disassociating far worse than I did without even noticing? Is everyone just walking around as shells? How... Just how... I don't understand.
Fuck, I never thought adult working life would be this hard, would make me struggle this much. I recently realized that I never even thought this far. All I had was this vague idea that I would study something related to literature and I would write my stories and hopefully become an author I guess. But I always knew that was a dream, a silly little dream and though I now feel like I can actually make that dream possible, I didn't think that at the time. So I didn't really have any actual plans. Yeah, I said I would maybe work at a publishing house and stuff like that, but I never saw myself doing that. I only saw myself writing stories. That's the one thing that's for sure – me writing stories. Nothing else is certain.
I didn't really have a goal, a plan, anything like that. I just wanted to write and dream and yeah, basically not deal with the actual reality of life. I was delusional. I kept pushing off facing reality and now it is hitting me hard, knocking me off my feet, pushing me down and holding me there, pressing all the air out of my lungs. I am gasping, trying to struggle, but I feel so weak, so so weak. Just giving up sounds so nice. That was never really an option for me though. I do take strength from those weakest moments. I do turn them into something powerful. I will fight this off, fight reality off and bend it within my possibilities to get it to be the way I need it to be. I am not strong, but I am resilient. In my own way.
I am able to breathe again now, at least a little bit. Soon I can take deeper, fuller breaths. Soon I can live again. I already feel so much more alive, so much more present, so much more capable. I've wanted to write this whole experience down for so long and now I finally could. I made it this far and I will come out the other side. I believe in myself.
I was gone, but now I am slowly but surely returning. I was gone, but now I am coming back.
