I feel like I am trapped under a burning couch.
"We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, ever movement smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us." -Munroe XKCD comics
I feel like I am trapped under a burning couch. My life, and dreams being slowly suffocated under the weight of what I need to do. I need a job to make money to pay bills so I can continue to die a little more each and every day.
I spent my childhood in group homes, the victim of circumstances of being the odd one out due to what I have come to believe is a minor case of Aspergers. My mother was constantly mentally ill so I spent the first thirteen years of my life in various homes.
I went through high school a social pariah. Due to these two factors I lost my childhood and adolescence. I graduated high school at seventeen. I bounced between jobs and trying to make my life a success with little to show for it. At 24 I went to community college full time. At 26 I decided to study business for lack of a major. At 27 I went to university. At 28 I graduated with dual degrees in International Business Management and Marketing management.
I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that this education will have been for naught, as I am not a "people person" and you have to have this trait to go anywhere.
I graduated university six months ago, and got hired in at a warehouse through the California Department of Rehabilitation. I hate this job. I don't like most of the people who work there, and they don't like me.
So I go to the warehouse job to throw boxes at night, to barely make ends meet. I am paid reasonably well, just under fourteen dollars an hour. I have no health insurance. I take care of my mentally ill mother. I get paid to do it.
I have not had a life, I do not feel like I am living a life. I feel like I have never had a chance to live. My schizophrenic mother killed any chance I had at a social life. I have never had a girlfriend. I have (with the one exception of a week in Tijuana and one year in a training facility in Utah) ever been outside of the 90 miles surrounding my home in the Inland empire.
I want to see the world. I want to see Seattle, and Oregon. I want to stand in forests, I want to join a Wiccan circle and reclaim what little spirituality I have left. I want do see new things and I want to meet people, I want to have a normal life, but god dammit. I am trapped. I feel powerless to change. If I quit my job, cut the ties that bind me to this miserable existence I feel like I will be worse off.
I am told that I should look for a career in my spare time, but I work 40 hours a week at the warehouse (plus overtime) and 20 hours a week taking care of a mother I feel like I have nothing in common with. I have hardly anything left for me, let alone to look for a better job. I struggle to forgive my mother for being the way she is, every day I ask the universe for the strength to deal with my life and my mother.
I am told I am lucky to have the job I do. I don't feel lucky. I feel powerless and trapped. I will be 29 years old in November and I feel like I have never had a chance to live, and it is killing me.
I feel like the days of my life are ticking off. Every day I wake up, there seems to be a little less of me left.
If only...
The economy were better I could find a career.
I had more money to finally have the power to make a break with this not life
I didn't have this disability to connect with people so I could use my extensive education.
I didn't have to work nights.
My mother could take care of herself and the five cats I love more then just about anything in the world.
If, if, if, if.
The endless possibilities are being stolen from be. I am being extinguished.
Sun Nov 06, 2011 at 8:34 AM PT: 11/6/2011
I am seriously considering quitting this job. Granted things will be a lot harder, but I cant continue to live like this