#MentalHealth #SelfEsteem #Paranoia #JobStruggles #ADHD #BPD #PTSD
🌟 Overcoming Job Struggles and Building Self-Esteem 🌟
Hey there, friend. It sounds like you’re going through a really tough time, so first and foremost, let’s take a moment to acknowledge just how strong you are for reaching out for help. You are not alone in feeling this way, and there are steps you can take to improve your situation. Let’s dive into some ways you can start to shift your mindset and work towards a more positive and fulfilling future.
Understanding Job Struggles and Mental Health Challenges
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It’s important to recognize that your struggles with employment and maintaining stability are often related to your mental health challenges. Here are some key points to remember:
– Your experiences in the service industry and academia have been valuable, even if they were difficult.
– Your mental health conditions can impact your ability to thrive in certain work environments.
– Seeking support and treatment for BPD, PTSD, ADHD, and potential social skills challenges is a crucial step towards building a more fulfilling career.
Exploring Potential Career Paths
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It’s clear that you have a passion for learning, as evidenced by your pursuits in cultural studies and art. Here are a few potential paths you might consider exploring:
1. Career in Mental Health Advocacy: Given your personal experiences and academic background, you may find fulfillment in advocating for mental health awareness and support.
2. Creative Industry Roles: Your interest in pop culture and representation could lead to opportunities in the creative arts, such as content creation, cultural criticism, or community engagement.
3. Holistic Health and Wellness: Consider exploring careers focused on holistic well-being, such as yoga instruction, mindfulness coaching, or mental health support services.
Building Self-Esteem and Confidence
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You are not a loser, and it’s important to remind yourself of this every day. Here are some strategies for developing self-esteem and confidence:
1. Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer to a friend in need.
2. Seek Professional Support: Consider finding a therapist or counselor who can support you in working through feelings of low self-worth and building confidence.
3. Daily Affirmations: Start each day by affirming your worth and capability, even if it feels challenging at first.
Addressing Hyper Vigilance and Paranoia
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You mentioned feeling hyper vigilance and paranoia, which are common experiences for individuals with PTSD and BPD. Here are some strategies for lessening these feelings:
1. Grounding Techniques: Practice mindfulness exercises and grounding techniques to bring yourself back to the present moment when you feel overwhelmed.
2. Support Networks: Engage with supportive friends, family members, or mental health professionals who can offer reassurance and understanding.
3. Therapy and Medication: Consider seeking support from a mental health professional who can help develop coping strategies and explore medication options if appropriate.
Moving Forward with Hope
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You are not defined by your circumstances or the expectations of others. Embracing your journey towards healing and growth is a courageous and empowering choice. Take things one step at a time, be gentle with yourself, and remember that you are worthy of a fulfilling, happy life.
You deserve compassion, understanding, and support as you navigate these challenges. Keep reaching out for help and exploring opportunities for growth. You are so much more than the struggles you face, and brighter days are ahead.
You have so much time to turn all of this around. Number one. Treat the depression. Everything is going to seem impossible to fix otherwise. You believe you are a loser, you have to change this just as an experiment at first to see how much damage this and all related ideas are doing to your experience of being and having community and friends!
Have you considered working at a bar as a bartender? I know it won’t pay as well as working at a Michelin Star restaurant but your experience as a sommelier could definitely help you land you this role. Plus you would make decent pay, (like $1000-$4200 per month). This should at least help you manage and pay off some of your bills, reducing your mom’s stress. I would recommend getting a bartender job nearby or in the closest major city you live near to ensure you’re able to make on the higher end of the salary spectrum for bartenders (working in major city definitely correlates to a higher salary, especially in the service industry). I would recommend trying to find a more casual bar to avoid running into the same toxic work culture you experienced as a sommelier. You’re experience with mental health would definitely help benefit you as a bartender since a lot of people will look to bartenders to complain about their lives and problems when their feeling extremely down at the bar). If you’re able to offer them decent advice then you’ll be able to earn some pretty good tips too.
If you’re struggling to get out of bed then I recommend using this hack, put your phone or alarm clock (whichever you have) on the other side of the room and make sure you put the volume on the loudest setting. This will help force you to get out of bed in order to turn it off. If this doesn’t work try buying a natural light alarm clock, which wakes you up with light instead of sound.
You’re just depressed honey it happens. You have a fine foundation to establish a life and career, you just have to do it while managing and overcoming your mental health challenges. Lots of us have been there, it is not easy, but your depression is shaping your perception and energy so those things can’t be trusted for now. For now focus on whatever will let you be sustainable right now, and work on whatever you have to do for the depression. After making some progress on that, then move on to pushing yourself.
Smart move on the social work. Money does matter, but demand for those roles plus stability matters too, you don’t have to save as much if you can be sure you won’t get laid off when you’re 50.
Nobody wants to go to work. Everybody wants to lay in bed, watch tv, play video games, and play with a pet. You’re not special.
Nobody’s gonna change your life unless you do. It’s up to you whether you want it bad enough or not.
Liberal arts degree was obviously a mistake but looks like you bounced back and got a decent paying job. Not sure how difficult it is to become a sommelier after you pass an exam but that would probably be an ideal move.
You’ve been through serious trauma with the abuse. Having the opportunity to go to college, etc. is a good thing of course, but if you are wounded from serious trauma (sexual abuse is serious trauma and emotional abuse can be too) you need trauma-informed support. Your social issues could very well just be an effect of the trauma. Abuse screws with our self-image, if it happens when we are young it prevents us from fully forming a healthy identity, it can create emotional dysregulation, shame, self-blame, and that feeling you described of being a “loser” (which you’re not. You survived a lot and you need and deserve support to heal and for you to be struggling and hurting emotionally like you are, what that tells me is not that you are flawed, but that you’re not getting enough support! Which means social support, medication if needed, therapy, etc… finding the right fit that works for you).
I’m also a trauma survivor and was labeled with BPD before later learning that this was not going on at all. I have a complex dissociative disorder and CPTSD. I have been very suicidal, very seriously depressed and all the usual medications were tried and barely helped at all.
What helped me with my treatment resistant depression was ketamine therapy (in my case, it’s given by oral tablet because I cannot afford the infusions). It has helped me a lot to lift the heaviness and make the depression more manageable.
With the depression more manageable, I’m better able to pursue my trauma recovery supports, implement healthy lifestyle choices that help with depression, try to work on building community and friends (this is also VERY hard for me! You’re not alone! Think about it: you learned people weren’t safe when he abused you. Of course you have trouble socially! Very normal, given what you’ve been through! You’re stronger than you realize. You’re a survivor.)
Sending you so much love ❤️
First off, I think you should give yourself a break and realize your amazing accomplishments! You got a Bachelors Degree, you’ve had so many jobs, you have done a lot so please do not call yourself or think of yourself as a loser. You are a winner in my book, things are just hard right now and you can bounce back but the hardest thing that may be stopping you is your mind. Instead of promising to do something one day, don’t think about it, get yourself ready to walk, look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you are a winner and yoj are good enough! Baby steps add up to adult steps.
Lmao I feel like this every day but still do what’s necessary, fuck it.
At least take a shower, brush your teeth, floss, and walk outside in the sun for 30 mins in the morning—do all these everyday for 3 months and see how much your life improves.
Also would try doing a low carb diet based on natural whole foods, no junk food 6 days a week, have one or two sugary/Carby treats one day a week. Change in diet can affect mental health for some, so try it
There are plenty of decent service jobs that aren’t that toxic. I worked in that industry for years and the nicer the place, the shittier the environment. Find a nice upscale brewpub where things are more chill and you still make $30 an hour. You’re thinking all or nothing. There is middle ground to find.
I suspect that you haven’t had healthy role models that could help set a good example of how to process trauma, and that seems like the holistic way to address what you described. It might not be pertinent to you, but it is worth saying anyway.
I study ideology as a hobby. The language you used wasn’t particulairly ideologically loaded, but if you spent several years studying cultural studies that shows a commitment to a set of beliefs that have some strong preconcieved notions to them.
Epistemologically faith preceeds reason, which means that our first principles are going to have vast influence over how we use our intellect.
When your first principle is that the world is a power struggle and that everyone is either an oppressor or oppressed there are conclusions and biases that naturally follow.
The reason that I bring this up is that victims have no recourse to trauma. We all experience various amounts of trauma throughout our lives and we need to be able to heal and function through the difficulties of life.
If we are integrating the raw unprocessed emotions of trauma into our personality that is the least healthy way possible to handle trauma. (BLM is a great example of this or the jews with the holocaust) We are constantly reminded of the pain, because the pain is how we identify ourselves and we necessarily think about ourselves in relation to others all the time. That doesn’t mean that the pain is unjustified or that there isn’t reason to be upset. Rather that it does not serve our own wellbeing to wallow in self-pity –regardless of how justified it might be.
Before the ideologies that are pervasive in our culture trauma was handled differently. When you were traumatized you were encouraged to take recourse to responsibility (in what you can be responsible for) and fortitude. People understood that it was dignified to confront that which is difficult and strive to be good despite it. People still felt hurt, but their identity was informed by the choices they made despite that hurt instead of the hurt itself.
If our focus is not on our pain forgetfulness can ease the burden and the fruits of our love and labor can act as a sweetness that make palatable the suffering that we have endured. This is why it can be counterproductive to focus on mental health and more effective to focus on loving others.
Hey, it’s okay. I promise. You’re a worthy person, and I am really praying things go your way and the universe shows you kindness as you work through this.
Masters level social workers in private practice can make $100,000/year.
Library sciences isn’t gonna pay spectacularly but every librarian I know is happy and feels their job is low stress.
I know nothing about viticulture.
In the mental health front, there’s a huge overlap between borderline PD, PTSD, ADHD, and Autism
Trauma—especially polytrauma from a young age, is a bitch, and harder to treat than if there was one event that you could blame everything on, but therapy is a necessary step to your path forward.
Check out a university training clinic. They will have student therapists closely supervised by licensed therapists who are experts at treating what’s wrong with you. Since they are being supervised they’ll be sticking close to the manual, and following the book is often how therapy works best. They’ll also have a sliding fee scale, so you may only pay $8 per session.
During or after therapy, there’s the question of what to do with the rest of your life. Sounds like you are passionate about art and wine, there’s gotta be an intersection of those two things in Chicago lol
Maybe finding that niche and either working there or figuring out from those people how they got where they are. Maybe it’s education, experience, nepotism, but the way to find out is by asking and researching. Maybe there’s space for you there in Chicago, maybe your destination is St Louis or some other city with a thriving arts scene (actually I haven’t been to St Louis in +10 years, but the arts were thriving last time I checked)
I don’t think you are privileged. Some people have safety nets and some don’t. Some people’s parents don’t fuck them up and some do. Those are the things we don’t have control over, and all we can do is make the best hand with the cards we’ve been dealt.
Good luck ❤️
You like chess. You might be a nerd but you aren’t a loser 🤣
Honestly, you sound really nice and cool. Bloom where you are planted is usually my go to advice but if you were planted in a toxic environment that won’t work for you.
Based on my personal experience, I would recommend TEFL teaching. It is something similar to the Peace Corps but actually pays a good wage (depending on what country you go to). TEFL and psychedelics saved my life.
If public service doesn’t do it for you drink some Ayahuasca and she’ll help you figure it out
>I know, I’m a fucking loser. I don’t even brush my teeth most days. If I didn’t have my dog, I would never leave my bed. I want to be better.
Dude! You’re not. Your thesis sounds fire, you sound really smart. You also sound depressed as hell! Get to therapy! Meds will be a good start. I have no advice for jobs in the meantime, other than to seek that professional out, and maybe they can refer you to a social worker or something who can help you figure out more support, and work options that are less social, until meds help you feel stable enough to function. Hugs. You sound exactly like my partner in his past, and he’s the smartest, sweetest, most empathetic person who feels *a lot*. It’s a great thing, when you get help to deal with all the trauma and feels.
See a doctor and therapist. That’s the only way this stuff is going to get fixed.
You could think about some sort of combination of both of your experiences. Over here in the UK there’s specific charities which offer mental health support for those working in the hospitality industry, which I’ve been involved with before (I’m a chef who struggles too, I get it). It could be worth checking to see if there’s anything like that going on in your area?
Regardless, good luck with everything. Keep on keeping on.
It’s not true that there is no money in SW. If you get a LCSW which is a lot of work, but allows you to be a therapist which you might enjoy because you would learn how to help others in similar situations to your own.
You seem like a very capable person going through a mental health situation regarding depression. You will likely thrive in the right work environment as well. Working for a fancy restaurant is not an easy job.
Hey, you’re not a loser. I’m in a similar position to you right now. Mental health is a bitch. Career isn’t everything. You need to get a bit better before you put all this pressure on yourself.
Please bear with me, because I’m here for a long comment.
I have ADHD and was diagnosed with CPTSD three years ago (I’m 43F). I identify with you in many respects. ADHD and CPTSD symptoms can overlap, and it can get very ugly. I’ve been focusing on treating the CPTSD, and even if the work is life-long, I’ve been getting better at navigating triggers, and at being the caring, understanding, and self-regulated adult I need to be when I get deeply overwhelmed by life and interactions with the world out there.
I recognize in your words what I’ve always experienced, and it is that untreated trauma is governing your body, your thoughts, and your emotions. You’ve lived in survival mode probably most of your life, and your nervous system’s been always on fire by default.
Given the pattern of men that your mother’s been with, it sounds like she herself had something going on that she wasn’t aware of and didn’t have the tools to address, and hence you didn’t have around a parent who was reliable and emotionally mature that could make you feel that you were truly safe.
When you’re brought up by dysregulated and/or dysfunctional adults, you don’t get the chance to learn how to regulate yourself when things get challenging, so you just tough it up and live life to the best of your ability with the limited emotional tools you have (which in these cases are just a survival kit and do not help with processing what’s causing the emotional and mental turmoil, and processing is in fact what hinders trauma from developing, and also helps survivors to heal it). The abuse that you sustained is a serious matter, and all the emotions and fear that resulted from it are still trapped in your body. This can result in depression bouts and deep feelings of hopelessness, and like one’s trapped and doesn’t have enough agency, if any at all sometimes.
I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was 17, and I’ve read tons of Psychology books and self-help publications because although I could feel some relief after sessions with my therapists, I had the sense that there were things that were running at a level that we were not accessing in the slightest. I didn’t feel I was improving enough. I needed to get to it and understand what it was and how I could tackle it, because I was so fed up with the intensity of my emotions, and the ups and downs, and the depressive bouts, and the mental chaos, and the self-deprecation.
Before I started treating the CPTSD, I could experience very ugly anger outbursts and would tend to hurt myself (the anger and violence were never directed at anyone around me). This could happen in the presence of my mother and my husband, and of course when I was on my own at home. I would hit walls with my fist or hit myself, kick doors, and throw things around). I was very short-fused. I would feel extremely tired, depressed, and extremely ashamed after these episodes and could barely function. That’s all gone now after two years of doing trauma-informed therapy.
Regarding the behavior I described above, please just be aware that BPD is many times misdiagnosed in people who have both ADHD and CPTSD, because the lack of self-regulation and emotional intensity that stems from each one alone and the overlapping of the two may sometimes resemble BPD symptoms. Many psychiatrists are way too hasty in their decisions and have no capacity to see beyond a standardized test, which they should when there’s a case of COMPLEX trauma. If they’re not trauma-informed and don’t have enough knowledge and training in this area, they can get the wrong picture of what’s truly happening with an individual and have no clue of what the person needs to heal. I don’t know the details of your case, but I just want to put this out there for you so you can do further research and perhaps get a second opinion.
All this said, what’s been helping me these last two years is a therapy modality that’s called IFS (Internal Family Systems). Here’s the link to the website so you can read about it and get acquainted with it: [https://ifs-institute.com/](https://ifs-institute.com/) There’s a directory of IFS-trained therapists on the website too.
This method has helped me improve in two years what I haven’t in years of CBT and traditional therapy. There are also a lot of videos on YouTube that explain how it works (including videos of the founder, Richard Schwartz, talking in depth about the method).
The work of Peter Walker has also been crucial in my understanding of complex trauma, how it has affected my life, and how it can be treated effectively. He’s a licensed psychotherapist and a leading figure in the treatment of CPTSD, and he is himself a trauma survivor. His book ***”Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide And Map For Recovering From Childhood Trauma”*** is a must-read for those of us who want to heal and free ourselves from the prison of trauma. I highly recommend it.
I wish you the best, truly. I believe you can heal, and you deserve it. I believe you can get out of the vicious circle that you get trapped in. Things get much better with time and practicing every tool one can learn, both from a trauma-informed therapist and all the wonderful mental health practitioners specialized in trauma who make their work accessible on social media.
Healing doesn’t happen linearly, but IT DOES happen. Take care☀️🌷
Me toi
Genuine question, are you purposely picking degrees and careers you know you’re not going to make a livable income with?
I’m in Chicago myself and can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Unfortunately the job market here is abysmal right now. As a job seeker it is brutal and many companies are holding out for their ideal candidate.
If you have technical skills, or can get them, help desk jobs are always hiring.
Perhaps you could find a low key data entry job or file clerk job to bring in some income for now.
What I suggest is that you take care of yourself especially during this time of year. It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s depressing. I recommend meditation for clearing your head and calming your nerves.
I really understand where you’re coming from and if you need someone to chat with and vent to, I’m here.
I have a feeling there’s a lot of hyperbolic phrasing used here, if not just full of exaggeration in order to garner pity