Feel Like I'm Stuck In 'Groundhog Day'

[Retromancer]

Right now it feels like the universe is conspiring to keep me stuck in my not so fun 20's. With poorer health of course. I was on state disability and SSI in my mid 20's. Now in my late 40's I am drawing SSDI. It's hard to believe that I once broke 20K much less 30K a year once upon a time.



This time around life is a little plusher, a little easier but the outline remains the same. A subsidized downtown studio apartment -- which yes I am thankful to have. A calendar on the wall marking down the days to the next monthly payment. The periodic outings to the doctors and the food bank via bus. In my 20's there was some novelty to it all. I pictured myself as some type of dissident then. Now there is no novelty. It's deja vu all over again.



What's worse is that all my ideas of how to escape it or at least meliorate it are all achingly familiar. Been there, done it. And the desire to escape it too is also achingly familiar.



Not asking for solutions here. The job outlook for 45+ men with ever expanding holes in their resumes isn't likely to get better soon. But if anyone is sharing this experience it would be good to know.

[Unmanagable]

((((((Hugs)))))

[LaMbaL]

Sounds like youre in a good spot to start writing or playing music.

[CheekyMonkey]

That sounds not fun at all.

What is your biggest hurdle to getting a job?

[EnergizerJen]

The repetition is the real killer huh?

Everyday wake up.. do this, go here, go to bed..

Blah blah YUCK!

I'm sorry you're not able to get up and make immediate changes to make yourself happy.

Usually that is what makes all the difference in the world for me.

From your eloquent post, I can see your highly educated and motivated.
I can see how that can be frustrating to sit and not explore the things you would like too.

I don't have much advise.

I hope you get to feeling better soon.

[Fuzzy12]

I'm sorry. That sucks.

[Retromancer]

"The job outlook for 45+ men with ever expanding holes in their resumes". The standing orders down at HR these days is "Do not hire the long term unemployed -- especially if they are over 45".

Originally Posted by CheekyMonkey

That sounds not fun at all.

What is your biggest hurdle to getting a job?

[kilted_scotsman]

It's tough.... really tough to keep believing in oneself.

I'm sort of in the same boat.... at 50 I'm back living with my Dad.... I'm his carer and there's a kind of co-dependency happening as I can't get a job and don't like being dependant on him financially.... but that's the way things went after my divorce.

What saves me is a routine that gets me out.... I do some work for charities, one in particular I work for once a week. It means my CV'll look better and I'll hopefully get references from them... but I've no real hope of ever having a "proper" job again.... anything that happens I'll have to make for myself.

Being a carer is like being unemployed.... you become invisible to people, even old friends. It's like you carry some strange miasmic contagion of misfortune that people don't want to risk catching.

kilted

[ana futura]

Originally Posted by Retromancer

The periodic outings to the doctors and the food bank via bus. In my 20's there was some novelty to it all. I pictured myself as some type of dissident then. Now there is no novelty. It's deja vu all over again.

Sometimes I think my exposure to anarchist ideology as a teenager really did me no favors. It's taken me till my mid 30's to even be able to justify to myself why I should bother working at all. My natural state is to avoid work, finding an ideology that seemed to mesh with my brain so well was a mixed blessing. Unlearning my "dissident mindset" has been tough.

I still think capitalism is bull****, but I have to learn how to defend myself from it in a smarter fashion than just going around pronouncing how it's bull****. My disdainful avoidance of hard work has made my life hell, as I just wind up floating from crap minimum wage job to crap minimum wage job, miserable as ever.

I don't know what the solution is for people like us.

[DvlsAdv0c8]

Even with a job it still feels like groundhog day, every day. Even though I need the structure, it's SO boring.

It's hard enough just to do the basic things required to get through a normal day...not to mention all the little extra steps I end up taking because I forgot stuff, plus redoing all the stupid stuff I screwed up - it's so tiring.

I am hoping an official diagnosis will allow me to move on from this seemingly never-ending rut...until then I feel like I'm on hold and can't make any progress!

I am trying to teach myself a new skill in order to keep up with all the youngsters who are born knowing web development...HOPING it will up my chances at either a better-paying job, or going full-bore FREELANCE.

[Slo-mo a-go-go]

Originally Posted by DvlsAdv0c8

Even with a job it still feels like groundhog day, every day. Even though I need the structure, it's SO boring.

yes

Originally Posted by DvlsAdv0c8

hard enough just to do the basic things required to get through a normal day...not to mention all the little extra steps I end up taking because I forgot stuff, plus redoing all the stupid stuff I screwed up - it's so tiring.

yep

Originally Posted by DvlsAdv0c8

am trying to teach myself a new skill in order to keep up with all the youngsters who are born knowing web development...HOPING it will up my chances at either a better-paying job, or going full-bore FREELANCE.

totally
3-in-a-row -bingo!!

[tnhybrid]

Have been feeling like crap myself over similar issues and yet again - someone here understands! Thanks, y'all just made my day...

[Retromancer]

Well the "solution" for me lies in a cure for the periodic episodes of major depression that I find myself going through. Alas the capitalist pharmaceutical industry aka "Big Pharma" has not found one.

My bio is rather similar to yours, make of what you will. Came to the conclusion some time back that anarchism was the de facto ADD political belief system. Short on theory, long on "direct action".

Still working through "Do not mistake my compliance for consent" myself. It's one thing to do honest work to support oneself and your family. It's another to thing celebrate it and demand that others follow your example. Doubly so if your advice to the struggling is "Sell yourself!" Do they know what that sounds like?

One answer I have found to the internal "dissident" is to say to it that the question is not whether to be a dissident but instead it is how to be a more effective one. You may feel pure dumpster diving but you don't have the leverage that comes with an occupation, assets like a car, and access to credit. (None of which I now possess alas.)

Originally Posted by ana futura

Sometimes I think my exposure to anarchist ideology as a teenager really did me no favors. It's taken me till my mid 30's to even be able to justify to myself why I should bother working at all. My natural state is to avoid work, finding an ideology that seemed to mesh with my brain so well was a mixed blessing. Unlearning my "dissident mindset" has been tough.

I still think capitalism is bull****, but I have to learn how to defend myself from it in a smarter fashion than just going around pronouncing how it's bull****. My disdainful avoidance of hard work has made my life hell, as I just wind up floating from crap minimum wage job to crap minimum wage job, miserable as ever.

I don't know what the solution is for people like us.

[tudorose]

Groundhog day or viscious circle? Can't hold a job coz of the depression but not having a job contributes to the depression. It just f'd. Nothing feels worse than when your brains not working right. It's hard to function in the workplace in that state but it's also hard being at home with nothing to do and nowhere to go just passing time. Wish I had something more constructive to say.

[Lisa_Mac]

Why not employ yourself. What can you do to make money using the knowledge, abilities and resources that you have at your disposal. I know adhd and depression makes this hard, but is it possible. Not sure, you tell me.

Lx