Hi there, I hope you're all doing well and looking after yourselves 🙂
Just need a vent, but I welcome advice, and thank you in advance for the time you've given to reading this.
I'm turning 20 this year. I work 2 great jobs, I study my passion at uni, I have a little but wonderful social circle including my loving boyfriend, and I'm going on exchange to study in Japan next semester. I have a loving family however complex, I don't pay rent, I bought my own car, and I'm hopefully getting my Ps this week. I'm extremely grateful for all these things. The only thing I lack is time.
But I am so exhausted and overworked. Between job 1, job 2, uni, working through the exchange process, preparing for practical placement for my education course, working towards my Ps, and maintaining all my friendships/relationship... A few days a week I wake up for work at 7am, work from 8:30 to 5, then go home to work my second job 6-8. By the time I eat dinner and shower, I am so tired and have no energy to do anything productive, such as my overflowing uni work that I simply cannot keep up with.
I know the simple solutions is just "do less" – but I can't afford to. I can't work less hours because I have to fund my exchange, and everything else is simply mandatory. Another simple solution is to stay up later, but I feel like I've reached the age where I cannot physically or mentally function if I'm tired, so I can't help but go to sleep at my usual bedtime every night (11:30pm).
It's gotten to a point where I'm just looking for escapes; skipping class to sleep, reading instead of studying, procrastinating with music or browsing or online shopping, always saying yes to social outings to get away from the constant grind, etc.
I know people have it way worse than me, and I'm grateful for all these opportunities. The funny thing is, I've struggled with depression since my early teens, but for the first time I haven't felt depressed in a while despite how much I'm struggling. So there's that!
I know this post is a big sob story about how privileged I am, but this isn't sustainable and I can't do it and I don't know what to do to fix this.
I wish I could just float away to a little cabin in the woods, and read and paint and bake and write.
