It’s extremely depressing to realize you currently have nothing to live for. My mood is a fucking roller coaster. It is exhausting and always refreshingly strong in its mania and depression.
Be Careful What You Wish For…
So, I realized why I’m so miserable since I came home from my year-long internship in Puerto Rico. (Believe me, I was miserable there too, but in a different way.) I have nothing to live for. I don’t have anything going for me in my life. I thought this is what I wanted. I thought I could use several months to reset and improve my life. To focus on myself and in a sense set myself up for success when I ultimately begin my career. Nope. That did not work.
I’ve been back at my parent’s home since July. It’s been three months. Feels like so much longer. I hate the emptiness. I thought I wanted to be free of school and work stress. I dread getting a job, because people stress me out. I can’t live without anything at stake though. I’ve gone from one extreme to the next and every day I feel like I’m worse off. I had the opportunity to move to West Texas with a friend and I decided against that because my father in a heartfelt moment told me “you’ve suffered so much already”. He pretty much told me to take a long deserved break. That got to me.
Another Flashback to my Less than Perfect Childhood. Boo Hoo. Feel Free to Skip; You’ve Read This All Before.
Thinking back, my life has been as easy as an unfortunate life can be. By age ten I was used to the idea that I had to look after myself. Moreover, I felt responsibility for my family (my mother, brother, and father). By 14 and for the entirety of my high school years, I felt little to nothing. I was practically a kid. My mind was older, sage and self sacrificing and my body was grossly overweight like a middle aged woman, but my age was young. Too young for how I went about life and how it treated me.
I felt almost nothing those years. I remember admitting aloud that I did not feel love from my parents nor did I have feelings of love for them, but from my behavior you would not have been able to tell. They were my obligation. Fact, not feeling. I helped in anyway I could. Ways that shouldn’t have been asked of me and, to be fair, ways that were not asked of me.
Why I’m Obsessed with Achievements and Why I am a Masochist
But that is who I was. Who I still am, if these last three months mean anything. I tried to keep them happy. As happy as they could be, given the circumstances. I felt like their protector. I felt strong and learned to enjoy that spark of a high. If nothing else made me feel anything, being responsible for my family made me feel accomplished. Well, not that I could really feel that then. That may be why it did something for me. I didn’t have to feel it. It was evident. On paper and not in my heart, it was clear my playing the part of comedian, translator, perfect daughter, etc. was an accomplishment.
That’s how I learned the intoxicating power of selflessness. Of putting myself last. Of suffering for the health of others. And liking it. So, yes, to all of my friends who have come to know me personally and have asked me why I put so much on my plate or why I’m such a masochist. I finally have an answer for you. Selflessness meant something to me when nothing else did. So, in a sense, it wasn’t true selflessness, though I wasn’t aware of it at the time.
It gave me a purpose. School also gave me a purpose. My parents were preoccupied with other much more important things than me. I understood that and accepted it. I still do as much as it still hurts. I wasn’t about to stress them out more by being a mediocre student. So, I had a goal of high grades and going off to university to escape my home. As paradoxical as it sounds (and get used to that, because it’s the essence of my being), I strived for new academic heights as a way to please my parents, (well, not even that, just to not stress them) and I also did this for my own personal gain- escape.
But It Was Not Enough To Make Me Happy
I, understandably, was miserable. I grew up being told I was melodramatic. I believed it. I thought I should have been happy. My parents weren’t divorced, I had an older brother, had good grades, and a couple of friends plus those everyday things sometimes taken for granted like clothes, clean water, electricity, etc. and I was capable in many areas as my never ending new hobbies proved. I felt I should have been happy, but I knew I wasn’t. So I left.
Without more than enough money awarded to me by my high school to pay for the dorm fee and without the support of my father (to move several hours away) I left for university where my purpose was free from my need to please them. I learned my own values and began therapy. I learned to feel. I was finally happy. I was free. I was me. Then I, confused and without anyone knowledgeable to ask, I picked my major. Then changed it the next semester. (As always here is the link to that story.)
And I Set Myself Up For a Life of Self-Loathing
I feel as if I tried to fail out of that major throughout most of my time completing it. I almost did, in fact. An internship is mandatory in my career. I almost did not get matched….but I did. If you’ve read my blog during the last year, you’ll know how that went. (Hint: I say this in the truest sense of the word- I am traumatized.) Now I have to take an exam. That’s it. I’ve tried so hard to sabotage myself and this could be it.
I went through the education to become a pharmacy technician and simply did not take that exam. That sent my life in a completely different direction. I ended up doing hospitality/customer service work (more trauma there) instead of a much higher paying job in the field I originally sought to pursue. (Link to that story here.) This lead to my first choice of major (hospitality) and ultimately my degree (nutrition and dietetics).
I Believe I Could Be Happy if I Chose to Be… But Will I?
I think I could be happy in this career, but I spent so long fighting it, I don’t know with certainty anymore. I should feel blessed. I am grateful. I understand a bachelor’s degree is an accomplishment. But it doesn’t feel like anything to me. I feel like a failure. I am very disappointed in myself and my life choices. Half the time, I fully hate myself. After five years of working for this wretched career, I’m at a critical point of make or break. I have no doubt in my ability to pass the exam. I have the capacity to learn. I just have to convince myself it’s something I want to do.
That’s terrifying. I still don’t have an exam date. I haven’t registered. (I don’t have the money for it, plus I’m just putting it off.) I also don’t doubt the possibility that I simply will not take it. That I will have suffered though that despicable internship for nothing. I’m in limbo. If that’s the only thing I have to work towards, if that’s the only guiding light in my life right now, it’s no wonder I feel dead inside. I don’t have anything to life for. Worse yet, the only thing looming in front of me is a career that so far has brought me more pain than joy (and not the good type of pain!).
WOO HOO! Summary Time Finally!
That was to be my first point in this rambling: the biggest thing I have to work towards at the moment is something I’m almost convinced I dislike. Obviously, I’m resistant. Obviously, this makes me unhappy. My second point is that, being back in this household, I’ve lost the sense of myself I’d gained during the last five years on my own. I’m not the perfect daughter or sister, but I still have strong urges to help my family before myself.
With how depressed I’ve been, that has proven difficult, but when it comes down to it they are a higher priority to me than myself. That isn’t healthy. My third point, and one for a separate post because that’s a much longer complaint, is that triathlon training is slow. My faulty coping mechanism of emotional eating was never resolved during my years away from home, but it was improved, for sure. Nope. Now I hear my parent’s voices sometimes and instinctively reach for chocolate.
So yeah, TLDR: I’m miserable. I’m all kinds of messed up and I recently realized I currently have no pleasurable purpose in life.
SO… life sucks. Try to have a decent day, but if you can’t, I don’t blame you.
My Dragonfly Life 