Changing careers permanently

[Glides]

I can't afford to go back to school. But I'm not sure what else I should try. I'm very very lost.

[Hielario]

What have you been doing until now? What did you study? What jobs have you had?

[Glides]

two months with no job.

spend most of my time alone.

every application ignored.

it's like i don't exist.

i don't speak to people anymore. i think they forgot about me.

[Hielario]

Yeah, sometimes you gotta remind people of your existance by force. Calling to confirm if a place has received your application is discouraged these days, right?

[Glides]

Yeah it's considered close to harassment at this point.

I dont know what to do. It's like I'm invisible. I might not exist.

[Glides]

Well, time to update this because I did sort of actually do this but now I'm just feeling lost in general.

I'm a college instructor now. It's weird to type that out. I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I was expecting. I'm not necessarily done with filmmaking but it's much more consistent income and I was paid for a five week class the amount I could expect to make after quite a few gigs in a row. The same amount of money for considerably less work. Granted, this isn't like a metric fuckton of money, but more than before. Aside from the single editing gig with a documentary series that was ultimately rejected for distribution (don't worry, you've never heard of it and you never will), it's the most I've made during a very turbulent and uncertain career that mostly involved me neglecting my mental health and making bad choices.

I am now largely removed from freelancing, minus a couple online writing gigs and a handful of video gigs I still have. I don't go to those godawful parties that go all night anymore. I've lost a pretty huge portion of friends by not going, but after two separate suicide attempts and both happening at two of those events, it's just not safe for me to be in those environments anymore, I had not recognized how badly I was doing till that point, where I have made a lot of changes in the last several months. These are not changes that have made me happier, but they are changes that have made me healthier. There is a difference between the self-destructive things I would do to myself to be briefly happy and the things that guarantee longterm health and not immediate death.

I'm going to try and aim for going into academia fulltime. It was a decision I initially made purely for financial reasons, but now I think it's one I want to do for personal reasons too. I'm not <i>good</i> at being an instructor, but I don't feel the sense of inherent confusion and lack of acceptance I felt as purely a freelancer trying to appease my way onto sets for a living. I've written more over the past five months than I've written during my whole life. None of it is any good, but it doesn't matter. I'm trying to reteach myself the joy of writing that I had as a little kid. I pop in headphones and play classical music and just let my fingers fly, I'm relearning how to walk. It's the first time I've made a big decision for myself in a long time that felt like my choice. I may not always want to do that. But I want to do that for right now, and because I don't have to sell my soul to be there, and because I'd get benefits if I was able to make fulltime.

I'm not happier. I'm healthier. I've lost a bunch of weight again, though getting badly sick a couple times has helped. I'm trying to figure out my identity some more. Everything keeps on changing. I need new friends. I don't have many friends anymore. When too many people in your life are toxic, that means that you're toxic.

I will have had my three year anniversary with my abusive ex on the 29th. I've been having a lot of panic attacks and not sleeping well as it comes up. This time last year, they manipulated me into meeting them and sleeping with them. I'm really nervous they'll try to contact me again so I plan to spend the whole day anywhere where they can't track me. They haven't tried to contact me in nearly a year, but I just need to be free and to move on.

It's tough to be alone with my thoughts. I have no idea what I'm doing. At 18 I pretended like I knew what I was doing and paid for it. Now I'm 24.

I just want to be good. I don't even need to fall in love. I just need to be good and responsible and live a life worth living and not harm anyone else.

[Enail]

Glides, this is fantastic! I'm so glad you're doing better and looking after yourself and found something that pays and is good for your life! And that your health scare the other day is sorted out. You sound so unbelievably much healthier and more mature than when you first came to this forum. I'm really proud of you!

[Glides]

Glides, this is fantastic! I'm so glad you're doing better and looking after yourself and found something that pays and is good for your life! And that your health scare the other day is sorted out. You sound so unbelievably much healthier and more mature than when you first came to this forum. I'm really proud of you!

The thing that I'm having a lot of trouble shaking is the thought that I've wasted so much time on such pointless bullshit that it's too late for me to live a meaningful life that I can be proud of. This then has the effect of paralyzing me to the point where I don't make any effort to pursue anything that might make my life more meaningful. But can I be so judgmental of myself considering where I grew up, the kinds of people I've had to interact with, the toxic ideologies I was forcibly immersed in? Actually achieving my original goals would be compromising so many others, I wanted to be the great director instead of working on things that actually meant something to me because I so desperately wanted to be loved and acclaimed by people to make up for how much I had suffered as a kid. I want what I do now to have an impact, to help others, and I genuinely don't want accolades for that, I just want to know that my life is a net positive, that I no longer am the leech I feel like I've been my whole life.

I keep wondering if I should try to do more for the queer community (though I'm still so new to that concept), something to protect them or advocate for them, something for Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights, there's too many options and I feel insanely lost, because I don't want to exist on this planet and then just die. This isn't coming out of any sense of altruism, because all I have to give to any of this is myself and my time and my effort and altruism suggests you're giving back from a place of success, which I don't have. I want to pay my bills without having to worry, I want to be self-sufficient, if I'm going to be in a relationship I want to be in one that isn't toxic and isn't about two or more people projecting onto each other. I have such a difficult time figuring out what I want these days. I don't recognize myself anymore.

This isn't even a "I'm so sad and I hate myself" rant, you of all people know what those look like from me, this is just a "I'm so lost and I want to do better and maybe all the good people on the planet are just assholes who were humbled" rant, because I've been an asshole for a very long time, and I know I've been an asshole because I remember for so long thinking I was the only good and just and kind person on the planet and only assholes think that about themselves. I'm not sure where I fit in as far as the world goes. I know a lot of people feel like that. I know the feeling that everyone else has their shit together and I'm the only one who doesn't is my mind talking, but it's a very loud voice I still struggle with.

[Hielario]

It's pretty great to see you have at least some stability in your life and you'rw doing things because you want to and not because you want to impress others.

[Glides]

I still haven't been able to find consistent work anywhere and I've been what is referred to as "underemployed" for almost a year now. I keep getting reassured by my parents and others that at my age, they too weren't even done with school yet, but I'm still not sure what to do in order to find a fulltime position. I compensate by helping out at my parent's work when they need it, I'm considering looking for volunteer opportunities somewhere just so I'm not sitting around hating myself whenever I'm not trying to fill out an application. I just wish more jobs would outright reject me than ignore the application. I have no earthly idea where to look for anything when I'm not begging for freelance gigs and every 100 nos can bring about a single yes that'll barely be enough.

I'm not sure where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I've been applying for more adjunct positions but I've been getting ignored as well. I have no earthly idea how to get these bastards to respond to me. I have a sinking feeling they only post the position after finding the person for the job so they don't get in legal trouble. But also some people seem supernaturally good at finding jobs and I'm not. I don't know.

I need a new therapist. I'm just sad and constantly being ignored and rejected is getting to me, much worse than I thought.

[Glides]

Still no fulltime work. What the fuck am I doing wrong?

[Glides]

Bombed an interview in spectacular fashion today. I'm too overqualified for minimum wage and too underqualified for literally anything else.

Hi, I'm Glides. I live with my parents at 24, I'm underemployed, I can only find work as an adjunct faculty and a proctor for the SAT and I intentionally sabotage any potential relationship so any potential partner won't learn that about me. Nobody wants to date a fucking leech so I eliminate the middleman. Yeah, I know I'm back to the usual self-effacing insults but I haven't been in therapy since I was told my gender identity was a mental illness and I sure as fuck can't afford a new one. That clearly contributed to why I did so fucking terribly on the interview today, my one chance to be a human being.

The difference between being single and being almost jobless is that at least when you're single and you have money, you aren't a leech.

[Enail]

Dude, no. Being underemployed sucks, job-hunting sucks, the over-under-qualifyed bind sucks, and some people are shitty about the whole thing, and that sucks too, but living with parents and being under-employed are incredibly normal, and have nothing to do with a person's humanity.

Get yourself on all the waiting lists for free mental healthcare you can find, start looking for sliding scale therapy that slides way down, check out LGBTQ+ and trans-specific organizations and website lists that might be able to hook you up with trans-friendly therapists or offer therapy or support groups themselves. Looking after your mental health is key.

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