This is so much longer than I wanted it to be...
Without giving my entire biography here, I will say succinctly that my life has been characterized by inner turmoil for the majority of it, and my sense of self-worth has been defined solely through academic achievement. I was first diagnosed with clinical depression in my freshman year of college. In spite of this, and in spite of increasingly serious run-ins with bouts of suicidality, I graduated with Honors in Psychology from a top tier university last May. I was offered a position as a research assistant at another prestigious university some 600+ miles away from the state I was living in. This position was absolutely perfect, as I was working with a renowned professor, someone who I had been dreaming of working with since I was junior in college and whom I wanted to continue working with for graduate school. Long story short, this arrangement did not work out as planned. This professor turned out to be a horrible fit for me personality wise, was very controlling, unsympathetic, and impossible to please. After 4 months of what was supposed to be a year long position doing my dream work, this professor saw best to terminate me from said position, plunging me into unemployment without notice, terrible shame, disillusionment, and another bout of severe depression. Needless to say, with being jobless in a difficult economy, fresh out of college with no real world work experience, and 600 miles away from home, I was fairly devastated...
As an aside, I should also mention that my moving to this place precipitated a break-up with my boyfriend of 1 and a half years. There were many other issues with this relationship before the distance became a factor, and this was actually another (in the fact, the CHIEF) source of major emotional distress for me before the matter of my job, but the break up also added an additional amount of distress in this situation. I picked up my life and moved to a far away place to embark on a new professional career, my dream career, and was stopped completely short in the process. I would likely still be with him had I not left to take this job, and he wouldn't have self-destructed. He totally self-destructed when I told him we couldn't be together anymore... more on this another time maybe...
2 months of unemployment and 50+ job applications later, I finally managed to secure a new job, with pay that is fairly close to what I was making before. But my plans for entering a doctoral program had been thwarted. The timeline was a tight one, with recs, GRE's, and other shit that I just couldn't focus on. So I fell to a back-up plan.
I decided to apply to several M.S.W. programs in order to build a career in clinical therapy (the hypocrisy of this, given my own issues, is a source of conflict for me, but that's another story). This was easier to do since it did not require the GRE and the timeline was much longer. Well, I've gotten into every program I applied to (still waiting on one more decision), including one at the school where I am living now. However, none of these schools are offering me any financial aid. Coupled with the student loan debts I have now, accepting any of these offers would plunge me into crazy debt ($100,000 at the cheapest, around $140,000 at the place I'm at now). No back-up plan, in my mind, should ever be this costly. And social work is one of the most ridiculously underpaid fields in the world.
To make matters worse, my apartment complex is demanding that I renew my lease TOMORROW, if I am to stay here. My lease expires at the end of May, and this complex is at full capacity.
Now, as another aside, I have a VERY difficult time making friends and building a social network. I am terribly introverted, socially anxious, and most people are turned off by the depression thing. 4 years of college and no social ties to speak of other than my now ex-boyfriend. Most of my friends from high school are no longer in my life, and I'm somewhat distant from my family (physically and emotionally). However, I have managed to build a strong network here, but if I leave here then I would be sacrificing this extraordinarily rare phenomenon of having good people in my life. But... I'm feeling pressure to make this decision to stay or go, literally in a few hours.
If I were to accept the cheapest grad school option, then I am moving away. If I accept the most expensive option, then I am staying. Both choices suck in terms of finances and render me in a constant state of despair to have such incredible debt hanging over my head that, in all likelihood, would be a struggle at best to pay off on a social work salary. If I choose to just not go to school altogether... then I am totally lost and aimless. I have the shame of telling my rec writers, who expect a lot from me, of yet another failure, and I don't have any idea of what course my life could possibly take. I have no other aspirations, nothing else that would make me feel worthy of life or motivated to live it. Failure is the one thing in the world that I am the most ill-equipped to handle, and there has just been far too many setbacks in such a short time...
Today I almost ended my life. This isn't the first time, but I went further than I ever had before. I had everything arranged, a note, my apartment door unlocked so that I could be easily found. I used to cut myself when I felt suicidal, but that was super painful. Now I've moved on to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-I felt like I was slowly falling asleep.
But I couldn't finish it, and I wish I could...
There have been so many other times where I have wanted to die, and on each and every occasion it was due to serious emotional pain, pain that I eventually managed to overcome, and that was always connected to an isolated event. But this time it's different. This time it's due to matters that truly are out of my hands, problems that don't disappear with time and isn't resolved by "toughing it out." Matters of practicality and logistics, not interpersonal ones. This isn't simply, as my former therapists and friends would put, an issue of depression clouding my perception and influencing my emotional experiences. This is as concrete as it gets; it would appear, a cut-and-dry case of being caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place. The long-term consequences of any decision I make here is real, and I cannot see any escape.
Tomorrow, I'm going to beg the financial aid office at the school where I'm currently located to give me a chance at making my enrollment a feasible option. I'm also going to beg my apartment complex for more time to make a decision regarding my lease renewal. Both requests are a long shot. If rejected, I don't know what else to do.
Without giving my entire biography here, I will say succinctly that my life has been characterized by inner turmoil for the majority of it, and my sense of self-worth has been defined solely through academic achievement. I was first diagnosed with clinical depression in my freshman year of college. In spite of this, and in spite of increasingly serious run-ins with bouts of suicidality, I graduated with Honors in Psychology from a top tier university last May. I was offered a position as a research assistant at another prestigious university some 600+ miles away from the state I was living in. This position was absolutely perfect, as I was working with a renowned professor, someone who I had been dreaming of working with since I was junior in college and whom I wanted to continue working with for graduate school. Long story short, this arrangement did not work out as planned. This professor turned out to be a horrible fit for me personality wise, was very controlling, unsympathetic, and impossible to please. After 4 months of what was supposed to be a year long position doing my dream work, this professor saw best to terminate me from said position, plunging me into unemployment without notice, terrible shame, disillusionment, and another bout of severe depression. Needless to say, with being jobless in a difficult economy, fresh out of college with no real world work experience, and 600 miles away from home, I was fairly devastated...
As an aside, I should also mention that my moving to this place precipitated a break-up with my boyfriend of 1 and a half years. There were many other issues with this relationship before the distance became a factor, and this was actually another (in the fact, the CHIEF) source of major emotional distress for me before the matter of my job, but the break up also added an additional amount of distress in this situation. I picked up my life and moved to a far away place to embark on a new professional career, my dream career, and was stopped completely short in the process. I would likely still be with him had I not left to take this job, and he wouldn't have self-destructed. He totally self-destructed when I told him we couldn't be together anymore... more on this another time maybe...
2 months of unemployment and 50+ job applications later, I finally managed to secure a new job, with pay that is fairly close to what I was making before. But my plans for entering a doctoral program had been thwarted. The timeline was a tight one, with recs, GRE's, and other shit that I just couldn't focus on. So I fell to a back-up plan.
I decided to apply to several M.S.W. programs in order to build a career in clinical therapy (the hypocrisy of this, given my own issues, is a source of conflict for me, but that's another story). This was easier to do since it did not require the GRE and the timeline was much longer. Well, I've gotten into every program I applied to (still waiting on one more decision), including one at the school where I am living now. However, none of these schools are offering me any financial aid. Coupled with the student loan debts I have now, accepting any of these offers would plunge me into crazy debt ($100,000 at the cheapest, around $140,000 at the place I'm at now). No back-up plan, in my mind, should ever be this costly. And social work is one of the most ridiculously underpaid fields in the world.
To make matters worse, my apartment complex is demanding that I renew my lease TOMORROW, if I am to stay here. My lease expires at the end of May, and this complex is at full capacity.
Now, as another aside, I have a VERY difficult time making friends and building a social network. I am terribly introverted, socially anxious, and most people are turned off by the depression thing. 4 years of college and no social ties to speak of other than my now ex-boyfriend. Most of my friends from high school are no longer in my life, and I'm somewhat distant from my family (physically and emotionally). However, I have managed to build a strong network here, but if I leave here then I would be sacrificing this extraordinarily rare phenomenon of having good people in my life. But... I'm feeling pressure to make this decision to stay or go, literally in a few hours.
If I were to accept the cheapest grad school option, then I am moving away. If I accept the most expensive option, then I am staying. Both choices suck in terms of finances and render me in a constant state of despair to have such incredible debt hanging over my head that, in all likelihood, would be a struggle at best to pay off on a social work salary. If I choose to just not go to school altogether... then I am totally lost and aimless. I have the shame of telling my rec writers, who expect a lot from me, of yet another failure, and I don't have any idea of what course my life could possibly take. I have no other aspirations, nothing else that would make me feel worthy of life or motivated to live it. Failure is the one thing in the world that I am the most ill-equipped to handle, and there has just been far too many setbacks in such a short time...
Today I almost ended my life. This isn't the first time, but I went further than I ever had before. I had everything arranged, a note, my apartment door unlocked so that I could be easily found. I used to cut myself when I felt suicidal, but that was super painful. Now I've moved on to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-I felt like I was slowly falling asleep.
But I couldn't finish it, and I wish I could...
There have been so many other times where I have wanted to die, and on each and every occasion it was due to serious emotional pain, pain that I eventually managed to overcome, and that was always connected to an isolated event. But this time it's different. This time it's due to matters that truly are out of my hands, problems that don't disappear with time and isn't resolved by "toughing it out." Matters of practicality and logistics, not interpersonal ones. This isn't simply, as my former therapists and friends would put, an issue of depression clouding my perception and influencing my emotional experiences. This is as concrete as it gets; it would appear, a cut-and-dry case of being caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place. The long-term consequences of any decision I make here is real, and I cannot see any escape.
Tomorrow, I'm going to beg the financial aid office at the school where I'm currently located to give me a chance at making my enrollment a feasible option. I'm also going to beg my apartment complex for more time to make a decision regarding my lease renewal. Both requests are a long shot. If rejected, I don't know what else to do.
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