I don't even know what I'm doing with my life. I don't know what I want to do. I'm afraid that I'm doing it all wrong. That everything I do is terrible and I'm going to wind up miserable and shitty and pissed off because I'm not good at anything. I got this internship to write for a food blog-paper thing, and I thought I was a good writer but apparently I'm bad at this or just don't know what to do with vague criticism and no direction (this is why I was not a journalism major).
And I hate being here & hate my job, but I have the potential to move to NY and do a higher level of my job and possibly either hate it more or hate it slightly less since I'd be living in a city that I love and making more money to dull the pain.
But I've also possibly got the opportunity to take a similar job for less then I make now (possibly a lot less) in Singapore. Which would be a great and fun experience and when would I ever get to do that again - provided I get this job and pull enough money out of my ass to move to and live in Singapore?
Singapore would be fun & I could travel and have all kinds of experiences and see the world and do things I never imagined and then maybe write about it - or at the very least start a blog about it. And it could open up the door to so many different opportunities & possibilities in the future.
While NY is my eventual "end game" plan, and it's sitting within reach now, do I want to subject myself to the same bullshit, different geography? Or do I take major risk and move halfway around the world with barely any money into something that I might even like or be able to afford to do?
At least the trying to live in Japan thing offered some sense of security, some sense of camaraderie with other people on similar positions; but I don't know anyone in Singapore.
I just don't want to sit around and look back on this whole scenario and wonder if I made a mistake like I already do when I think about moving to Philadelphia. And I don't want to think I missed a chance to do something amazing because I was held back by fear or money. I also don't want money & location to be my motivating factor behind my decision.
...so what do I do? What should I do?
Maybe I should just turn them both down and keep waiting for something better to come along. Maybe just because this is here doesn't mean it's right.
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Friday, June 11, 2010
Square Peg in a Round Hole
I am an only child. Growing up, I was very independent and did a lot of keeping to myself mostly. I didn't have many friends growing up. But it didn't really bother me back then. I had my own group that I hung out with. I liked to go out and do things and have fun just as much as anyone else. (I avoided that whole party and get drunk on the weekends thing in HS though; It just wasn't really my thing.) My parents didn't have any friends, and they seemed fine. I never really thought it was strange that they didn't socialize with other Adults or my friends' parents or anything like that. And so, I didn't really think it was a problem. Until I got to College.
College is a time where you are supposed to make friends and branch out and explore the world outside the Parental bubble that has been built around you for the past 17 years of your life. Yeah, that didn't really work out so well for me. My college made us fill out surveys to determine our living and roommate situations. I said that I like things quiet and calm and neat, mostly because I didn't want some crazy party girl slut roommate always coming in at 3 am waking me up. The people over in Residence Life apparently took this as me basically being a nerdy shut-in and so I got placed in a dorm that the year before had been the "Quiet Dorm". It was all the way on the back end of campus. Most people I met had never even heard of it and asked if it was a real dorm. The building was an old house with U-shaped floors, separated single sex with girls on floors 1, 2 & 4 and guys on 3 & 5.
Half the people in my building went home on the weekends, so it was hard to mingle. This left me with little options other than the handful of people I had met at Orientation. Which meant that it was hard to make friends with people who were barely ever around, or to make new friends with people who weren't even sure you actually lived on campus. I started to notice that it was really hard for me to approach people. I guess I was always kind of shy growing up, until people really tried to get to know me. I didn't understand why I couldn't just go up and say "Hey, what's up?" and BOOM! Insta-Friend! I thought I was a pretty cool chick. I was definitely a nice person. And I liked to go out and have fun just like everyone else. So why couldn't I make friends?
I would get kind of a tingle in my nose thinking about social interaction. My heart would start to race a little. And I would feel like I was about to cry. I had social anxiety disorder. When I transferred schools and moved back home, I started to have increased anxiety and panicky episodes. I went to the doctor and she prescribed me Paroxetine (Paxil) and that began to help me a little bit. But I had already formed a big social group by becoming part of a big subculture: Raves. Raves were fun, giant parties with loud music and lots of people under the influence so it was easy to talk to people and make friends. (Especially if you were under the influence yourself sometimes as well.) I joined an internet forum for Ravers as well and began to meet many "friends" that way as well. I also enjoyed moderate Celebrity status as at every party, I wore a pair of Bunny ears and was instantly recognizable and lovable.
The Paxil worked pretty good for a while. I felt more confident. I was making friends. I was being more assertive. I had a good relationship and a good job. I wasn't feeling anymore anxiety. So I decided I didn't need to take it anymore. The medication had worked, right?
Cut to a few years later. I began dating a guy who treated me like shit. He caused me a great deal of stress and duress through his mannerisms, both towards me and in his everyday life. I started cutting myself off from these new friends I had made because I put myself in this bubble where it was just him. I was afraid of him and what he would do to me, and the hatred he had for my friends and family and the threats he would make against them. And the fool that I was, I loved him and didn't want to lose him. So I lost everyone else. And I lost myself in the process. I began having the anxiety attacks again. I was losing ground and didn't know how to fix it. I went back to the doctor again and she prescribed me Lexapro. The anxiety stopped, but the torture in my relationship continued.
I had burned so many bridges, it was hard to get my life back. I had been living with this animal and when we broke up, I had to move in with my parents who had moved almost an hour & 1/2 from where I grew up. It was the middle of nowhere and I was now 24 years old. It was going to be even harder to make friends. My mom suggested I get a part-time job. That worked for a bit. I stopped taking my medication again because I hated feeling mechanical and medicated. I made some friends and hung out a bit, but they weren't the kind of friends I was looking for. The area I was living in was very suburban and close knit, so it was very much like High School part 2. (Especially when you had 20 somethings hanging out with 16 year olds and drinking with them on the beach at night.) That just wasn't for me, so I cut them off too. Plus, I had finally found an out from this middle of nowhere place: a new job, a new city, a chance for a new life.
I moved to Philadelphia in the Summer of 2009. It was supposed to be my chance to start over. Make new friends, explore new places. (It was also supposed to be a chance for me to Love again, but that is a post to be saved for a later date.) Unfortunately, hanging out with Gay men (my best friend and his friends) didn't really give me much chance to explore my options. The one coworker close to my age in my office was married. Strike 2. And the fact that my love life imploded coupled with a depressingly long and blizzardy Philadelphia winter sunk me into a deep 5 month long depression.
With the warm weather here now, it should have put me in a better mood, but the fact remains: I am 26 years old and I don't know how to make friends. Everyone I meet is married, divorced, engaged, gay or in a relationship. I am afraid of marriage. I am wary of dating. I am afraid to trust and let people get close to me because I have been burned a lot recently. Where do you go to meet people and make friends when you are 20-something? And how do you go up to random strangers and make conversation without seeming like a complete Asperger's/Socially awkward weirdo?
As much of a nice and fun person I (like to think I) am, I wonder - Why would anyone want to be my friend? I don't really bring much to the table. My life is not exciting. I don't have a boyfriend. No siblings. I am not close with my family. And so I try to avoid social situations in which I have to talk about myself or my personal life. I don't really interact with others at my office because I hate small talk and don't really care about asking people how their weekends were or about their families because those are not people I'm interested in being friends with and do not like being friendly for the sake of being friendly. (Even though that is probably something I should be doing to develop my social skills to begin with, and maybe that is the problem.)
Should I blame my parents for never fostering these types of social skills in me? Maybe. Should I blame my ex for ruining my ability to trust and interact with other human beings? More than likely. My anxiety is slowly creeping back. Thinking about even being in a situation to meet people makes me uncomfortable and causes me stress and makes me cry. I do not want to medicate myself anymore. I want to be free of this. To be normal. To have fun and be social and to not have to use the Internet to make friends. (Even though some of the most interesting and awesome people I have met as of late have been from the Internet, and are even cooler in person, but unfortunately live 9000 miles away.)
I live alone in a strange city and have no friends close by or siblings or pets.
I am an only child.
College is a time where you are supposed to make friends and branch out and explore the world outside the Parental bubble that has been built around you for the past 17 years of your life. Yeah, that didn't really work out so well for me. My college made us fill out surveys to determine our living and roommate situations. I said that I like things quiet and calm and neat, mostly because I didn't want some crazy party girl slut roommate always coming in at 3 am waking me up. The people over in Residence Life apparently took this as me basically being a nerdy shut-in and so I got placed in a dorm that the year before had been the "Quiet Dorm". It was all the way on the back end of campus. Most people I met had never even heard of it and asked if it was a real dorm. The building was an old house with U-shaped floors, separated single sex with girls on floors 1, 2 & 4 and guys on 3 & 5.
Half the people in my building went home on the weekends, so it was hard to mingle. This left me with little options other than the handful of people I had met at Orientation. Which meant that it was hard to make friends with people who were barely ever around, or to make new friends with people who weren't even sure you actually lived on campus. I started to notice that it was really hard for me to approach people. I guess I was always kind of shy growing up, until people really tried to get to know me. I didn't understand why I couldn't just go up and say "Hey, what's up?" and BOOM! Insta-Friend! I thought I was a pretty cool chick. I was definitely a nice person. And I liked to go out and have fun just like everyone else. So why couldn't I make friends?
I would get kind of a tingle in my nose thinking about social interaction. My heart would start to race a little. And I would feel like I was about to cry. I had social anxiety disorder. When I transferred schools and moved back home, I started to have increased anxiety and panicky episodes. I went to the doctor and she prescribed me Paroxetine (Paxil) and that began to help me a little bit. But I had already formed a big social group by becoming part of a big subculture: Raves. Raves were fun, giant parties with loud music and lots of people under the influence so it was easy to talk to people and make friends. (Especially if you were under the influence yourself sometimes as well.) I joined an internet forum for Ravers as well and began to meet many "friends" that way as well. I also enjoyed moderate Celebrity status as at every party, I wore a pair of Bunny ears and was instantly recognizable and lovable.
The Paxil worked pretty good for a while. I felt more confident. I was making friends. I was being more assertive. I had a good relationship and a good job. I wasn't feeling anymore anxiety. So I decided I didn't need to take it anymore. The medication had worked, right?
Cut to a few years later. I began dating a guy who treated me like shit. He caused me a great deal of stress and duress through his mannerisms, both towards me and in his everyday life. I started cutting myself off from these new friends I had made because I put myself in this bubble where it was just him. I was afraid of him and what he would do to me, and the hatred he had for my friends and family and the threats he would make against them. And the fool that I was, I loved him and didn't want to lose him. So I lost everyone else. And I lost myself in the process. I began having the anxiety attacks again. I was losing ground and didn't know how to fix it. I went back to the doctor again and she prescribed me Lexapro. The anxiety stopped, but the torture in my relationship continued.
I had burned so many bridges, it was hard to get my life back. I had been living with this animal and when we broke up, I had to move in with my parents who had moved almost an hour & 1/2 from where I grew up. It was the middle of nowhere and I was now 24 years old. It was going to be even harder to make friends. My mom suggested I get a part-time job. That worked for a bit. I stopped taking my medication again because I hated feeling mechanical and medicated. I made some friends and hung out a bit, but they weren't the kind of friends I was looking for. The area I was living in was very suburban and close knit, so it was very much like High School part 2. (Especially when you had 20 somethings hanging out with 16 year olds and drinking with them on the beach at night.) That just wasn't for me, so I cut them off too. Plus, I had finally found an out from this middle of nowhere place: a new job, a new city, a chance for a new life.
I moved to Philadelphia in the Summer of 2009. It was supposed to be my chance to start over. Make new friends, explore new places. (It was also supposed to be a chance for me to Love again, but that is a post to be saved for a later date.) Unfortunately, hanging out with Gay men (my best friend and his friends) didn't really give me much chance to explore my options. The one coworker close to my age in my office was married. Strike 2. And the fact that my love life imploded coupled with a depressingly long and blizzardy Philadelphia winter sunk me into a deep 5 month long depression.
With the warm weather here now, it should have put me in a better mood, but the fact remains: I am 26 years old and I don't know how to make friends. Everyone I meet is married, divorced, engaged, gay or in a relationship. I am afraid of marriage. I am wary of dating. I am afraid to trust and let people get close to me because I have been burned a lot recently. Where do you go to meet people and make friends when you are 20-something? And how do you go up to random strangers and make conversation without seeming like a complete Asperger's/Socially awkward weirdo?
As much of a nice and fun person I (like to think I) am, I wonder - Why would anyone want to be my friend? I don't really bring much to the table. My life is not exciting. I don't have a boyfriend. No siblings. I am not close with my family. And so I try to avoid social situations in which I have to talk about myself or my personal life. I don't really interact with others at my office because I hate small talk and don't really care about asking people how their weekends were or about their families because those are not people I'm interested in being friends with and do not like being friendly for the sake of being friendly. (Even though that is probably something I should be doing to develop my social skills to begin with, and maybe that is the problem.)
Should I blame my parents for never fostering these types of social skills in me? Maybe. Should I blame my ex for ruining my ability to trust and interact with other human beings? More than likely. My anxiety is slowly creeping back. Thinking about even being in a situation to meet people makes me uncomfortable and causes me stress and makes me cry. I do not want to medicate myself anymore. I want to be free of this. To be normal. To have fun and be social and to not have to use the Internet to make friends. (Even though some of the most interesting and awesome people I have met as of late have been from the Internet, and are even cooler in person, but unfortunately live 9000 miles away.)
I live alone in a strange city and have no friends close by or siblings or pets.
I am an only child.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Growing Pains
At some point in our lives, we're supposed to reach adulthood. You know, the moment that the perfect job, house and family that you dreamt about as a kid eventually starts to become a reality. Yeah, that hasn't happened for me yet. I get this suspiciously nauseated feeling anytime someone calls me ma'am or implies that I have responsibilities of any sort. The thought of being someone's wife makes me want to throw myself off a cliff. And having babies? Forget it - you might as well be burning me at the stake. But at 26, what can the world really expect of you? You're basically just a few years out of college, getting your bearings like a freshly birthed calf. I barely have a job that can be considered more than a glorified receptionist position and can almost pay rent on time if I eat ramen noodles 6 days a week. Now you want to add getting married and bearing children on top of that? I don't think I like the sound of this growing up thing. Nope, not one bit.
Of course, continuing to live it up as though you're still in college on the weekends tends to give more straitlaced people a biased opinion of your life. They give you the side eye when you talk about blacking out and not remembering your Saturday night or how you woke up naked in bed clutching your sandal. Hey, just because I like to party a little doesn't mean I'm not serious about my future. I have life goals just like anyone else. Of course, these tend to involve finding a divorcee going through a midlife crisis who has managed to avoid having his ex wife bleed him dry & being my sugar daddy for a bit while he enjoys the hot young arm candy and blowjobs his wife has withheld from him for the last 15 years. I don't think this makes me a whore, I think this makes me smart. A wise old man I used to work with told me once: "Find an old guy with a house, a car and a lot of money. Then marry him and give him a heart attack. Then you can marry whoever you want after that because you already have a house and money." Truer words were never spoken.
Of course, continuing to live it up as though you're still in college on the weekends tends to give more straitlaced people a biased opinion of your life. They give you the side eye when you talk about blacking out and not remembering your Saturday night or how you woke up naked in bed clutching your sandal. Hey, just because I like to party a little doesn't mean I'm not serious about my future. I have life goals just like anyone else. Of course, these tend to involve finding a divorcee going through a midlife crisis who has managed to avoid having his ex wife bleed him dry & being my sugar daddy for a bit while he enjoys the hot young arm candy and blowjobs his wife has withheld from him for the last 15 years. I don't think this makes me a whore, I think this makes me smart. A wise old man I used to work with told me once: "Find an old guy with a house, a car and a lot of money. Then marry him and give him a heart attack. Then you can marry whoever you want after that because you already have a house and money." Truer words were never spoken.
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