Day One: A Promise to Myself
I am writing this today as a promise to myself. Today, like many other days, I woke up and just didn't do anything with my day. I just sit at home, watch TV, and Jerk off all day.
Recently I went through a major depressive episode and wasn't even feeding myself but I got some help and spoke with a psychiatrist. Up untill a few daya ago I felt like I was drowning and barely managing to take a breath. I finally feel like I canat least catch a breath.
I have basically hit rock bottom. I don't have a job and have dropped out of college. I know I'm a pretty smart guy but I just can't seem to get the will to start and stick to anything. I just do the bare minimum, breath.
I won't lie, sometimes suicidal thoughts come to mind. This somehow made me feel ashamed.
Thankfully I upped my dose on some medications and haven't attempted anything.
I feel ashamed because my life is pretty shit, for lack of a better word, but my parents had it worse. It's this thought that comes to mind: like fuck all these people had it worse and yet they want to keep on moving and seem to have this lust for life but I just don't. I ask myself why I don't really seem to enjoy anything. Anyways today marks the day I genuinely want to change.
I've had grandious thoughts like this before but never put them in writing. I even looked myself in the mirror and did the whole movie scene thing where I agressivly pointed at myself. I'm making this time real by writing it down and putting it out there.
I want to put myself out there so that anyone who is feeling or going through something similar may find comfort in that they are not the only ones because I know it can feel like that sometimes. This is also for me which I have greatly neglected. I have neglected myself because growing up I was thought by my environment to be harmless and to put others needs before mine. This is mainly a coping mechanism and something I aim to get over.
Growing up I was severely bullied, like 13 reasons why bullied. Any attempts to get help just made my situation worse so I eventually learned to shut up and just live.
This made it so I emotionally shut down and I feel like I have just been numb for my whole life. I am now mature enough to know that I have basically been depressed my whole life. As bad as it kay sound since entering school I have been depressed, even as a young child no more than 5 years old when the torment begun in kindergarten.
This combined with my living situation has made my life not so great. I am the child of two immigrants who didn't even complete grade school. I live in one room and growing up I didn't even have enough money to eat out at a McDonald's.
The only thing I had going for me were my grades. I never really tried in school, learning just came naturally to me. I literally just went to school kind of sat there and the information just stuck. To me school was hell it was just something I had to do. I just took tests and turned in homework if I had to. I even did this through AP classes. I would calculate the minimum amount of work needed to get the grade I wanted. School was bad and home wasn’t much better. I was just all alone.
I just kept to myself and played videogames. Eventually I was admitted into a good college and I thought I could finally change things.
I now realize as I'm writing this in my notepad that it is getting really long so ill give you the tldr version.
When in college I continued with my bad habits but somehow did extremely well. I begun to seek out parties and drugs because I thought I would be cool. I was basically compensating for being austrecised and ridiculed my whole life by immitating the people I thought I wanted to be. This lead me to where I am today.
I never had a solid plan and my anxiety was so bad that I somehow managed to get four years out of an institution. This is a weird situation because I never interacted with any counselor or professor from my college I basically was able to take out loans and do everything through a computer screen. This is an important detail.
My anxiety used to be so bad when meeting new people I would internally go into a state of panic but people on the outside couldn’t notice. The anxiety was so bad my vision would blurr sometimes. This got lifted somewhat with the help of alcohol.
However, no one in my family had gone to college and I was all alone. My anxiety kept me from joining any organizations and I just kept taking classes. Fast forward some years and I was still in college somehow.
I had so many mental health issues that managed to go unoticed for so long but they finally caught up with me and now I am here at home with no money to my name and extremely depressed.
I want to change. I promise that from this day on I will not waste a second. I recently applied for a retail job and plan on working and studying on my free time.
Before leaving college I was majoring in computer engineering. The time spent in this major taught me that I can learn anything as long as I put in the time. In the past I found I had a knack for problem solving.
So I want to break into tech. Mainly because of the salary. Some people may say money won't buy you happiness but it truly can... or at least get you peace of mind.
I my friends am truly at a level of poor where I can't sleep at night just worrying. I developed such bad anxiety that for a period of what seemed like 3 months I was not sleeping for more than 2 or 3 hours a night. It got really bad. Sometimes I wouldn't sleep for days. Somehow I still took tests and attended lectures. I was living on campus. As long as I passed my classes and showed up at work no one knew how bad I was doing.
Not befire ong I begun to make careless mistakes. I would go into a zombie like state and sometimes have holes in my memory. Thankfully that intense period is over.
People underestimate how being poor can sometimes feel like you are trapped. There is true power with having some family even extended family that can help out and has some generational wealth. But In my situation I am truly alone. I have tried seeking out some opportunities but without a car it has logistically been a nightmare. Things like getting a lease or being approved for an auto seem inpossible right now. My parent’s don’t even believe in credit. Ironically, I was able to take out student loans without an issue.
I recently have been interviewing for several IT jobs and landed a small contract role. Hopefully that goes well and gives me a much needed financial boost.
Finally, things at home aren’t good either. With my whole family living in one room things like good sleep hygiene are impossible. There are also a plethora of problems with my sister and parents that truly make this an unhealthy environment. I just simply can’t afford anything else. If I want to eventually get a car I have to live here. I’m going to have to work two jobs to be able to afford a car since I’ll be paying off loans. On top of this I will have to probably pay for my own health insurance. This will have me working weekdays 8-5 in IT then 6 - 11 at a retail job. I’m going to have to do this for a couple months. Seems kind of harsh but it is just what I have to do to afford to live.
With that said I won’t give up. I can take a corner of the room as I’m doing now and blast some music to tune out everything and concentrate.
So that's the plan. I'm going to work two jobs; save money; complete The Odin Project; eventually go back to college in a year or two; and finally work in tech.
I promise to not give up. I promise to use my time for the sole purpose of bettering my situation. I promise to go abck and finish my degree. I want this for myself and will be fighting tooth and nail.
Untill the next update.