Cerpin Taxt

This is more of a rant, but...

When I was going through school, it was so easy to not worry about what direction I was heading in my life. "I'm going to school!" I would say, whenever people asked me what I was doing with myself... it always seemed like a conveninent excuse, rather than a statement of empowerment.

I spent those four years coasting my way through classes, doing just enough to get by without doing horribly. I know for a fact that I could have achieved much higher grades, but I simply did not care to. School was never my ticket to something better, it was a pacifier to keep me from truly figuring my life out. "I'll worry about it when the time comes" I'd say, "I just want to enjoy this as much as I possibly can." Looking back on my time in Ottawa, I can honestly say those were some of the best years of my life and I regret nothing.

I was able to snag a Town job doing road work through a student program after my first year of University. How I managed to get this highly sought after job, I don't know, but for that summer and the next two summers between school, I enjoyed a cushy full-time job which paid great and the work itself was fun. When you add together school and a job I was free to come back to as long as I was going to school, you can pretty much say I was free to go on autopilot.

Then came August 28th of 2010, my last day of work after graduating that April. I came home with all my stuff from my locker cleaned out, sat down and thought, "Hey.. for the first time in my life, I don't have school in September to look forward to."

The first few months off I took deliberately, having saved a decent amount of cash and wanted to enjoy my new 'freedom'. In November I thought, "Okay, maybe it's time I got a job.." and applied for another town job and recieved an interview. "Great! A new job coming up and I can keep right on working."

So, the interview comes and goes, and for the next month I spend waiting, calling each week and being told about how they we're re-staffing an entire section of the Town (about 40 positions) and that they were still interviewing and figuring things out. I felt my call was just a matter of time, until I got a LETTER stating that "While you're qualifications are impressive..." Seriously?! I had failed to get a job as a rink rat with a University degree.

It was around this time (December) that things started sinking in deep. More and more do I get the feeling that I should be doing something but I cannot decide on any one thing. Anxiety and slight depression creep up on me for the first time on my life. Even with my brother visiting (spending time with him pretty much made me forget about everything), I managed to have a panic attack on Christmas Day. Christmas itself felt the emptiest it's ever felt. Usually it's a celebration of coming home and reuniting with family, but I'd been sitting on my ass at home for the past 4 months and only remembered it was Christmas when I noticed that the yearly decorations we're everywhere.

It's been two months since then. Two more panic attacks (one severe; lasting a few hours) and a constant anxiety that just won't go away. I was granted a delay for my student loan payments, but they start in May, and they are for $400 a month. That alone makes it feel like I have a deadline to figure shit out, not to mention living with my parents for 5 months and not making a dime.

But I have absolutely no idea what direction to go.

I've considered getting a job around here, but anything I can get would only be around minimum wage and it would certainly anchor me here at home (I want to LEAVE). I feel I have so many directions to go, and so many things I believe I could be good at... but I have no ambition to make a decision and put everything I've got into it (something I've never done in my life). I'm changing my mind on a constant basis.

This is the life I've set myself up for myself all those years of being carefree. School was the system which gave me enough 'direction' that I never felt I needed to worry. It was almost as if I lived as if it would never end. Add the fact that school always came easy to me, and I never really needed to try to get through it, and you have a CT casually strolling through life.

Now, no more school, no more money, impending debt payments, living with my parents, unemployment, and fighting the urge to throw myself back into school or a minimum wage job purely to pacify me and keep me from facing this life any more than I already have.

I want to move, but don't know where, or how.
I want to work, but don't know what I can push my heart and soul towards.
I want direction, but find myself spinning in circles with a finger pointed, waiting for some arbitrary cue to stop.
I need a path, but cannot shake the habit of expecting to be thrown onto one.

Growing anxiety and depression, impending debt, and nowhere to go.

I. Am. lost.

__________________
Step Back. Evaluate. Recognize.

"All memory is really a form of regurgitation of undigested experience."
-Alan Watts

Let's Chill

i was in a very similar situation before, have u tried talking to a professional?
SSRI's helped me get back on track greatly

my_scatterheart

What do you love?

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Be mindful even if your mind is full. -J. De La Vega

kitch

weed, women, good food, maybe some beer and some call of duty. that shit makes me pretty happy.

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HTAM

Play your guitar.

More.

Mafoo

while i totally know where you are coming from, im still in school so im sure ill soon find myself in freefall similar to what you are describing.

you just spent a good ammount of energy getting that all out, is there anything you could be doing to help your current situation?

i have a feeling that once you start to see a path before you, the anxiety and other stuff will melt away.

in a way though, the anxiety probably shows that you at least have a desire to make something of yourself and what not. so thats good

heres an exerpt from a favorite book of mine, i think it might speak to you because it sounds like your path is kind of killing you at the moment:

“Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.” ~ Don Juan, Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

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PLUR
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return

kitch

also: don't worry about working in a field different from your degree. be a bartender or something you'll make dece money then just make a game plan while biding your time. Being unemployed sucks. There is honor in any job.

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Waves

you sound like everyone i know dude

for what its worth

including me, except ive managed to delay growing up by fucking up out of high school, working for a few years full time, and then going back to school so im still getting my associates degree at 24. no idea what i want to do professionally. i was going to do music production but my life will be much easier if i go into the family business which is family owned, and ive been working there on and off since i was a teen. so im lucky to have a safety net as long as I do well in school and at work.

its really not THAT bad a situation if you think about it. you are better off than alot of people who dont even have degrees. all you need to do is find employment. which, given the current world economy might be tough, but not impossible. start in shit positions doing shit you are overqualified for, but has the potential of working your way up. you might have to live at home for awhile. alot of people are doing this, dont sweat it.

the idea that one needs to be out of the house doing their own thing in their twenties is really a north american thing. alot of cultures you live with your parents until you have enough money to live on your own. not here though. here you get piled on mounds of debt and end up slaving the rest of your life away to pay it off. but at least you get to feel independent and grown up doing it! /sarcasm

and finally most people switch careers 3-7 times throughout their lives, so if you end up working in something you didnt go to school for dont sweat it. its real world work experience that counts in the real world anyway.

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

tedkennedy

what is your degree in? where do you live? how old are you?

maybe you need to relocate or rethink what type of jobs you are applying for. no matter how bad you think it is, just remember its not that bad. you have some reason to have anxiety, but you should rationalize it by the fact that many people are like you and cant find good jobs. thats life, take what you can get, try your best, keep trying and hope for the best. if you do this, eventually something will come your way.

broski

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matthew munari

my_scatterheart

This is why I love you mafooby.
This is pretty much where I was going.

You can do a hundred things in the amount of time you will spend doing one thing you love ... and we do. We'll flit from one job to another, hobby, hobby, distraction, job, school, hobby, leisure. Moot. At the end of the day distraction is distraction, and things that don't have your heart in it will dissipate.
The two questions that have always been the most valid to me, are the two questions that I pose to myself in frequent intervals. They're questions that I have yet to grow out of.
1)What do you love?
2)What are you afraid of?

1 helps guide me where I want to be. 2 reminds me to go to that place.
Palahniuk I think it was said something like "Find what you're afraid of and live there." There are a lot of things I read that I've carried with me for years, and that's one thing that I'm glad I've remembered. It's life. I'm fucking terrified I wont be able to get a job after I'm an RN. Completely fucking terrified. There are nights where I can't sleep over it, and then I force myself to keep going. To think ok, hypothetically, I don't get a job. And then what happens? I keep trying until I do. I don't fucking know, but I don't stop. As far as I've gotten, I've found two ways: You can either get to the failure in your thoughts, and stand there, or you can walk through it in your mind, clear past it.
Half the battle is reassuring yourself that you can get to wherever it is you're trying to go. We're all just wading through.
If it's "I don't know where I'm going" kind of lost - it's simple, no one really does. But you have to know where you don't want to go. So you move forward, in whatever manner you choose, and if you go somewhere you don't want to be, you keep moving. If you find somewhere you feel suits you, you stay. There's no real answers to much of anything.
Heart.

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Be mindful even if your mind is full. -J. De La Vega

Cerpin Taxt

I really do appreciate responses that have been posted in this thread.

I can only be simple and direct in saying that I am considering all of it, including the options and ideas suggested that I think really would help me get things going and kick start my life at this point. Any movement is good movement.

Again, thanks you guys. I hope in coming back to this thread I will only have updates with good news.

Cheers,
Marc

__________________
Step Back. Evaluate. Recognize.

"All memory is really a form of regurgitation of undigested experience."
-Alan Watts

~1~

And remember brother, keeping up with the Joneses is tiring and quite counter productive to a happy Marc, achieve your goals.


Cheesy and trite I know but honestly, it is true.

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José

Yes, yes, yes, you can't emphasize this enough.

Honestly I have nightmares about this kind of thing.

Having a career I enjoy has always been on the top of my list of things to do. If nursing doesn't work for me, I do have a backup plan or two.

What I do with my life is like the only thing I have, or at least it's what I tell myself even though I know it's not true. It's a fact, there's A LOT more pressure in society these days than there was 100 years ago. You can't get away from it, but you do have to learn how to deal with it. We all do.

For me, I love building model airplanes from scratch and flying them via remote control because it makes me happy. After spending 100 hours building a plane and then putting it on the runway and taking off for the first time brings me more joy than a girl could. It sounds gay, but it's totally true.

the point is, you have to find away to relieve the stress you have.

I watched a documentary on netflix the other week on stress and it's extremely interesting. I don't think people understand how much stress can affect you and your health. Supposedly it can take years off your life if you don't deal with it properly. Like it literally effects your biological system chemically to the point it's measurable.

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I've often wondered how true that statement really is. How much depression/stress can your mind really endure? Is it possible to experience so much pain that it becomes euphoric?

Anyways I'm getting off topic. I really hope this is just a phase for you CT. I don't know you that well but I think you're a good dude. I know you mean well, you just need to get your shit in order and figure out what it really is you want to get out of life. Honestly, I don't even really know what I want out of life. I think I have a pretty good idea, but in all truth my reality will probably be shattered one day just like yours was.

Stay strong brotha'.

SageTree

I really like what's been said here so far.

Mafoo really nailed it

Right now two of your worries seem to be solved by working, that sounds worthy of focus.

It's easier/less over whelming to look at one thing at a time or individually rather than the whole avalanche of issues.

If you don't get a job were you can pay debt and move out.... take it in stride the best you can.

If you are working and paying down debt, perhaps the home life will be easier to handle?

I'm not crystal clear on 'family life' details, so I won't go so far as to say "It's a blessing to..... or, anything."

But if it's an 'ought to move out' remember there is no manual for life.

To each their own.

How does your family feel about you living there?

Right now doing anything sounds like it would help.

Sometimes it's not the job we do, but the worth we find in doing it, that creates the 'value' of the work.... And that peace of mind helps us prosper and meet our goals.

From personal experience, the last couple of years I had lots of down time and have had very similar feelings and self worth questions. I don't have the same stresses exactly, but I can really feel in my bones where you are at.

I'm constantly guilty of shutting down from feeling up to my ears in options for 'direction'. Right now, 'path-wise', specifically. And asking myself "Who's potential am I not living up to?"

Our life is our Path... we're never 'off' it... we're just working it out.

This is my 'mantra' of sorts that helps me move forward.

Volunteering helps me feel like I'm contributing to other and myself also, via volunteering is how I manged to meet people who had work.... work I WANTED, not just a job.....

Not sure what your degree is in, but often times people who do their job for free, volunteering, get jobs in said field easier. And in my experience and my Wife's experience, I have to agree.


Lots of Peace and Love to you Brother Marc. I hope you find a little light in the darkness.


SageTree

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fenderbender

Mafoos quote pretty much nailed it.

as did what everyone else added.

Some real good advice in this thread.

<3


The only advice i have, is don't listen to that ignorant zombie that posted like second or third in this thread suggesting SSRI's...

f-real bro? Suggesting SSRI's because he doesn't know what to do with his life?
Ugh... you are everything that is wrong with society today.



But yeah cerp, take your time bro. 6 months aint shit really. I understand the impending debt, but you can always get a bullshit job to help with that and delay your actual life decision making...

idk man just chillllllllllll. You got another couple decades before you are really fucked, and in a shitty life situation...and even then you're not doomed.

So keep your chin up bro, dont let the love and beauty in life pass you by cause you're worrying so much.

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Imagine there's no heaven,It's easy if you try

<3

Lloydy

What degree did you do? Do you not want to work in that field?

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Keep the red flag flying high

Roach

same here, except I'm old too.

not old enough for SS (what there is of it), for another three years.






blame it on depression depression.

you are part of a large portion of people in this world we've created.

you now are a dollar value.

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לזיין את הקופים

SageTree

I enjoy your comments fb for the most part, thanks for adding such, however the quoted above I have some things to say...

So, speaking of chilllllls and pills.... take one for a second man and let me say a few things from my experience....

Cheers... this is all well meaning and I'm sure you have your own reasons and feelings that helped you develop your opinion.......

I think that poster was talking about how he related to CT's situation and that SSRIs worked for HIM.....

He wasn't like 'Go see a fucking doctor and get on some pills deeeewwwwwwwdddddddddda, because pills are the only way to fix your shit.'


At least that is how I see it.

There is irony in:

because essentially what you are doing is something I think, is just as 'wrong with society'....

That is... creating a stigma about mental health options, of which counseling is part of.

There are actual uses and needs for these. Just because you use them for a time, doesn't mean your on them for the rest of your life.... or even more than a short time in some case.....




You might not know it... but I'm speaking from personal experience here.

The summer before I went into 11th grade I had lots of loss in my life.

My parents abusive marriage fell apart (thank God I was awake every morning to hear them start fighting promptly at 4am ). My Grandfather, who was one of my best friends, died of a stroke suddenly at an early age, and I was nearly in a car crash were everyone died..... I wasn't in it because of a phone call I didn't return.... and someone else died in my place.

My point is... aside from being 16-17 and those stresses, in an abusive household, failing in school, etc.... I got to a point where I was basically either in tears or trashing stuff.... I didn't know what to do.

So I went to my family doctor without my parents knowledge and talked to him. Amazingly he said that I seemed to be the one working it out the best out of my whole family, who had been to see him apparently, and that he was sure I would work it out.....

He gave me PAXIL which is an SSRI.

It took the edge off enough for me to see that I wasn't in complete darkness and there was hope....

(Today I would add that counseling alone might have helped, and the STATS on counseling and meds are WAY higher than either one alone)

THAT is where the healing started.

After nearly year I stopped taking them and I kept moving down the Path of Life.

What that PAXIL did for me was helped me stay stable enough to engage my wits... because anger, sadness and fear were making me WAY more a zombie than a pill ever could.




That isn't to say that I didn't and don't still work on these issues and residual feelings, and isn't to say I don't stay mindful of what that depression felt like.

(As a side on counseling) I've seen a counselor half a dozen times, years after the fact, who helped me find tools within myself. Granted I went went when I saw the 'feelings' start to happen again....

Luckily I was also engaged in a mindfulness practice previously and 'seeing' unskillful thoughts and emotions arise helped me act before it was too late, before I was back in the pit of dark stuckness, which, after the fact, included implementation of the thought strategies the counselor helped me find.




Now... like I said... I'm sure you feel the way you do because of experiences you've had or seen... I'm not knocking your opinion.... and I hope that you hear and understand mine.


I'd personally advocate seeing a counselor over a GP, where I stand now in life. But I can't deny that medicine doesn't have it's place.

Perhaps you are boldly against SSRIs and not other meds?

If so, I'd like to know

Mental health and treatments are a unique.

My point in saying all this is....

We're here to help CT and I'd rather not have an option squashed with words that essentially amount to 'ignorant pill zombie'. Your opinion isn't wrong... but please consider this is a helping-healing place here on the boards and a clever reply about why you feel like that about SSRIs or Meds, might strengthen how your opinion is taken .... and increases the helping.

Again, I hope that all comes off kindly and clearly as I intended.

Peas and Love
SageTree

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~1~

Sage, I'm going to slightly disagree with you on your zapping FB's attitude.

He is right, every time a person is faced with a decision in life that is a bit tough we get sent to the medicine cabinet. We think we can't cope because the stress of every day life is just too much...


There are no bush men in the Kalahari taking Zoloft or Xanax or Paxil and those guys are worried about getting eaten on a regular basis.

Stress in America, please...


If you need medication to cope, which far less people who are on meds do (and ironically most who really do, aren't) then by all means get some but today we say "I can't hack it" and a script gets shoved in our face when a lot of the time what we need is someone to kick us in the head, tell us to shut the fuck up and stop being a pussy.

Edit: Okay Sage, I will admit, we are all different and what works for one won't work for everybody. One size indeed does not fit all, however in my experiences I saw good people turned into Jell-O because the medical industry is pushed by money and there is way more money in pharmaceuticals than psychology.

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my_scatterheart

Speak for yourself lovely

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Be mindful even if your mind is full. -J. De La Vega