this job is draining me... emotionally and mentally. not to be overally dramatic here, but its true. its literally true. I have gotten advice from different people in different ways for various reasons which pretty much says the same thing - suck it up and live with it. What most people dont understand is how unhappy i am with this job and with the idea of this as my life. It has reached the stage where i think i will implode. it will destroy me.
I am a person who has suffered from major depression and there was a time when i could not control it in the slightest. events would happen leaving me sinking in a hole, falling deeper and deeper without a way to pull me out. I was stuck in such a precarious situation that it took drugs to actually pull me out. Since then i have learnt a lot about how i function. I am an extremely moody and sensitive person. there is nothing i can do to change it. but there are ways to handle it that make life a little calmer and less of a chaotic drowning falling out of control sensation. I know it may seem that there is nothing calm about my life and it is still totally chaotic. but its not. life still has its ups and downs, but now the downs are a little less extreme and the ups are so much higher and much longer lasting. perhaps the downs are more noticible now because there is always an up. previously it was always falling further and further down with barely an up.
"Jobs are hard. You have to suck it up. There is no magic perfect life out there." I know all that. I know that everyone tells me to just put up with it.... everyone else does. Its all well and good for everyone else. but not for me. i dont want to sound like a princess who has to have everythign better than everyone else for her. however it may seem to the outside world, i know myself. i know how to keep my sanity. i know how to prevent myself from falling over the edge. For the past few years, my life strategy is to keep myself content and happy. if somethign doestn feel good, or if somethign feels wrong, dont do it. do what makes me feel good. that may seem extremely self indulgent and self absorbed. but it honestly isnt. its just survival. I've been as down as one can go... and it is nearly impossible to get out of that hole. i did it once. i dont know if i would ever be able to do it again. so my strategy is not to ever let it get to that point.
I dont know what made me depressed in the first place.... i was depressed for as long as i can remember. maybe it was just genetics. what i do know is things taht made it worse - lack of control, not being happy with the situation i was in, being forced to do something, not getting what i want. im not talkign about petty little things. im talking about life altering matter - where to live, where to study, who to marry, when to get married. a lot of variables are in my control now. its the job thats getting to me. i shouldnt be saying job - its this career. if it was a job that was a means to an end, well thats all well and good. but this job, this career - this is not what i want.
Sometimes i get scared that im never working towards anything - im always running away. Is that because i never found the real passion in my life? or is it because thats just the way i am? am i really the person who cant be happy and im always looking for something new and excitign because for a while the new thing distracts you from the reality of my life? i really hope that is not the way i am. but im scared. im scared that if i pursue that illusive dream of being an artist... even that will not make me happy and i will want to run away. But i know i need to try. i will never know if i dont try.
The time to try is now. i can feel it. maybe its because i feel the need to run away yet again from an impossible situation. maybe ive just reached the boiling point. nothing else makes sense anymore. all that i know is that i cant survive long like this. i can feel it taking hold of my life and twisting it in a pattern that i dont like. i can feel myself becoming something that i dont want to be. its affecting not only my life but my most important relationship. when im in a hole, i dont want to be around anyone, i dont want to talk.... i just feel like being completely isolated. if im not happy, nothing in my life goes right.
All that is well and good. but the reality is that i cant do it. lets be practical here for a minute. I need to have a stable job that pays reasonably well. because running a household on a one person income really isnt possible at this time right now. so im stuck without a way out.
i had a near miss on friday. i could have had a really bad accident. it really really shook me up. more than anything that has happened to me before - ive been in car accidents before. but never has anything shaken me up this badly. am i supposed to take it as a sign? isnt that what happens to people, they face a near miss and it shakes them into changing their life? what was this supposed to mean? that life is not in your control, something totally out of the blue can smash into your life and you just have to take it as it comes and deal with it the best way that you can?
2 comments:
jaan if theres anything i've ever realized is that from the very beginning that you were definitely the better artist and far greater talent. and as long as i draw breath i will do my utmost to bring you to that point where youre totally confident in yourself as an artist and as a person you want to be.
I'm amused by people who crib about their jobs yet persist in them. I pity people who crib about their lives yet do nothing to change them. I know you're trying to change your life. You get frustrated by things but then you go ahead and confront the situations and try to change them.
Finding a job that makes you happy is a trial-and-error exercise. It's a lot of bumping in the dark kinda like losing your virginity: everything else that comes before isn't enough to make you happy and when it does finally happen, it takes a while to start enjoying things. =D
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