Life has stayed stagnant, in a bad way.

[Staele]

Hello to all,

I posted on this forum a few years ago during what was a rough time (that ended up getting rougher - and i never came back here because i didn't see the point) where i ended up losing my boyfriend after he cheated, my grandmother passing suddenly, mother leaving my dad (also cheating) and my grandfather being hospitalised shortly thereafter.

I sort of posted here as a last ditch effort to just... well i don't even know.. i guess just to have it down somewhere that i was struggling when honestly noone really gave two expletives.

That all started november 2016. My life prior to that was nothing fancy, and ultimately i have been a failure most of my adult life. The last full time job i held was when i was ~20 and it wasn't full time, it was flexible around my university times which worked. But i was let go because the company was not receiving its accounts receivable fast enough to keep up with its bills. Being casual, first to be chopped.

Since then i ended up dropping from uni as among other things i couldn't afford to go there anymore, i ended up coming out to my immediate family in 2012 as a "well ill tell them, worst case scenario i end up on the streets/alone anyway". Ive had 2 relationships, both partners cheated on me and left me for their other person/people.

I'm struggling with everything at the moment. When i can find motivation to sit down and attempt to apply for jobs, i look at my resume and just dismiss it entirely. I have no skills on paper that these jobs want, but also no way of getting them because noone will give me the chance. On top of that, due to having 0 finances of my own and such, i do not have a social life. I do not go out because i simply can't afford it, so i have no friends either that i could meet up with and even talk to.

My life has moved on in exactly 0% capacity since my ex left me and that was 2016... we're almost 1/4 through 2019 and.. i just don't know what to do anymore. I'll be 28 this year and i have nothing to show anyone, nothing to be proud of, nothing that stands out and nothing to offer anybody to even tip the scales in my favour to keep them in my life in any capacity. What do people do in these situations? My life is so far off track from where it needs to be.

[white knight]

Hi Staele, welcome

Sorry you had a less that happy time here last time. We are volunteers also with mental health issues so not everyone gets the care they need.

Two words -"you prioritise". You make a list of the things you need to get to a certain happy goal.

I did this at 40yo when my 11 year marriage collapsed. I worked but needed another job to enable me to afford child support and build my own home with my own hands. We had little equity so I was starting out again financially at 40. I knocked on doors for a srcond job and ended up with two part time jobs plus one full time shidt work. You can do it, get a job but you need to ficus hard on that as your first goal, no distractions.

Everything falls into place once you get work. You then focus on your shelter, comfort, meds etc, then savings. By this time your confidence has grown. It's the "snowball effect".

Thats finances and ambition, what about your emotional stability? Well sacrificing nights out socialising is hard to swallow especially when friends are always doing so and telling you about their gun. Remember, some people are luckier, some dont have issues, thats how life is. You can make your own luck, carve out your own future, guts and determination.

Please google these amd read just the first post-

beyondblue Topic 30 minutes can change your life

Beyondblue Topic the balance of your life

Beyondblue Topic the financial world of snakes and ladders

Beyondblue Topic never ever give up

Beyondblue Topic only the strongest survive, make it YOU!

I hope you are ok. Repost anytime. We are never too far away.

TonyWK

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Staele,

Thanks for your post. I tried to find your other posts and it linked me to the Rainbow Cafe thread but that thread is 30 pages long so I wasn't able to get a full picture of what's going on. I am sorry though that you felt this way, and yet kind of glad you came back to give us another shot.

I am sorry that you're struggling. I'm feeling like I don't know where to start because there just are so many things in your life going wrong. I can imagine you'd be feeling pretty damn defeated.

On the other hand though, I also see a lot of resilience. Even with everything that you've gone through, you're still here and you're still finding ways to cope - even if it may not seem that way.

Can I drop a weird question here - if things started to turn around, what would that look like for you? If you were to look in the future, what sort of future would you like to have? If you're working - what sort of job? If you had more money to go out - what would you be doing?

My thoughts behind this question are that if you can get a better picture of where you want to be, maybe you can find a step in that direction.

Hope this helps,

[NotYetEffulgent]

Hi Staele,

I’m sorry to hear of your losses and hardships. Your post really connected with me, though our experiences differ, I’ve had similar thoughts.

My ex left about 11 months ago, 5 months prior to that I was put in a position where I had to resign my apprenticeship. Grief over the loss of my relationship has left me pretty flat lined. I’ve always tried hard, but I’m 26 now and over the years the constant failings have left me with the feeling of no agency or ‘capacity’ as you say. My adult working life has been bouncing job to job in casual dead-end positions, and doing TAFE certs in between. I have nothing to show for my life, and like yourself I find myself also wondering how I can get back to where those years should have lead me.

On getting a casual job, in my experience it can be more important to play the numbers than what’s actually on the resume. My feeling is though, like me you’ve got more to offer than just surviving in this world, and that requires more than a job, it requires a career. I’ve decided my only solution now is gaining the skills and confidence necessary to work for myself. If I can’t find an off the shelf solution “a worthy job” then perhaps I need to create one.

Meeting people with no money is indeed a real problem, even a bus trip to the city from where I live is like $7 return. While not a solution for everyone I’ve been trying to walk everyday to gain the strength to walk places rather than catch transport. I’m working on my written communication, as I figure a pen pal is better than no friend/s at all. The flip side of no friends is more time to work on those independent aspects of yourself.

With respect to the external world, no matter how much you lose around you, you have you. Strangely the very things which you yourself are bleeding out for, can be the very things you have to offer. Even the small things in life can go a long way, whether that’s cooking meal for someone or a sympathetic ear. What you see is all there is, but which lens you look through makes a big difference. Worth goes beyond the material, knowing this I believe makes me stronger in the face of other peoples judgement.

Financially, something a friend told me once during a conversation was ‘at least you’re not in debt’, and that’s really stuck with me. Zero is still not negative. You don’t need a university to do study and you can learn anything you want. YouTube for knowledge not entertainment.

Perhaps I’m just rambling 🙂
N.Y.E