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So you hit rock bottom in life ...

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what are you actively doing to solve your problems? that is the million dollar question. sulking around about how bad things are, or this and that, is a dead end and absolute waste of time.

sit back and truly evaluate what is going on, and the best path to get back to "normalcy" so to speak. would picking up a second job, or more hours at your first, put a dent in the debt after a few years? or if the debt is that insurmountable what about going back to some sort of school? i'd think - but may be wrong - that you'd qualify for some sorts of financial aid so you wouldn't be adding much to your current debt.

what about your spending habits? i'm not saying become a hermit and spend $0 on entertainment/having fun, but there has to be certain areas where you can cut down or out completely. look for cheap hobbies that you'/d potentially enjoy - most notably some sort of exercise as that has so many varied benefits (hiking or running, bodyweight exercises, gym if you can afford, maybe co-ed leagues once you have a bit more spending money and can go out w/ teammates/friends afterwards). or going to the library and getting into reading. or volunteering for some cause you support, which would help add to your resume. or something among the many other opportunities. investing time, and sometimes money, in improving yourself does wonders for your confidence, happiness, and makes it far easier to make friends/meet women.

also, after that above eval, STOP looking at the big picture. keep it in mind, obviously, but focus more on the short-term and the small victories. if you're always looking at everything that is wrong, it can be so intimidating and make climbing out of the hole that much harder. things aren't going to be fixed overnight, or even in the next weeks, months, or even years. it takes time, sometimes more than others depending on your circumstances. but the bottom line is to stay progressing, even though it won't seem like much in the big picture. paying off an additional $XXX in debt every week, or getting in an exercise routine, or truly finding cheaper hobbies you enjoy will push you towards your solution a little bit at a time.

finally, truly realize where you are in the timeline of life. you are 24. 24! roughly a third of the way through your life, on average (tho this will likely be increased in the coming years anyway). so even if spending maybe 2 years fixing your life seems like a lot of time, it's really not because you'll get to enjoy life again for so many more years of your life.
 
My grandfather used to say "things will work out in the end, and if they haven't worked out it's not the end"

I know it's beyond cheesy but it's something I always remember. Anyways, life is full of ups and downs, it's not supposed to be easy. You can overcome whatever it is that you're currently going through.
 
You should move closer to your family and friends asap and then go from there. Sounds like you aren't really walking away from anything.

Debt and career are weird things to get suicidal about at 24. Are you sure there aren't other deeper and more serious issues?

Almost everyone is in a similar situation at that age. You need to be closer to a support system. Move and then start over.
 
My parents said I could fall into a pile of shit and come out smelling like roses. (I guess living in Amish country made that phrase more applicable back in the day, as it was very possible to fall in some shit.)

Point is, just keep doing what you can, and it will get better. We've all had our dark times, when everything seemed terrible, but I bet if you look closer, you've got a lot of good things going on.

Also, I'll save Quad the post and tell you to bang some strange.
 
There is nothing in this life that isn't fixable. Things may seem bad now but at one point things were good. They will be good again. I've struggled with my happiness before. Thought about suicide. Who hasn't? But what kept me going was the thought of disappointing my parents. I'm $1200 away from being debt free. So I understated the burden of debt it's a bitch. You just have to prioritize it. Again the reason I never attempted suicide was the thought of my parents burying me and thinking they failed me. That kept me going through the tough times
 
I won't respond to every post, but trust me, I read them all.

Without going into personal detail about this-- Have you talked to anyone else about the way you're feeling?

Everyone has struggles, and you'll never know what the next man/woman is going through because everyone deals with issues in their own way.

Just a quick assumption by your not so detailed post: You seem extremely homesick. Maybe you're not so social/introverted.
24 is so young and you have so much time to repair what you feel is broken within you. Everyone is broken at some point. You have your RCF brethren to offer advice and give you insight on their own struggles. You shouldn't feel completely alone.

I've talked to a few people. Responses are generally the same as what you see in this thread. Depression is a weird thing. I think I've suffered from it for over a year, to be honest. I don't really think it's homesickness. My hometown is a waste. I love my family but when I go home once in a while, I'm ready to leave after about 2-3 days. They are a support network though, something I don't have in here right now as I don't have any truly GOOD friends down here anymore, so being 200 miles away does add to it. I'm extremely social, on the contrary. People have always liked me and always wanted to follow me. I've generally had a lot of friends; in high school, and in college I had a good amount too. That was two years ago though. Everyone has moved away and started families and careers. I'm still in my college town and once you're in the real world, I've found meeting new people does not come that naturally (especially with no money). At least nowhere near as easily as when I was in school. I think my problems fall into two areas: lack of monetary and professional growth and lack of personal growth. I'm an extremely ambitious person who craves success, so the former hurts me a lot, but the latter is even more important to me.

@Triumph36 I'd throw my debt and recent follies (car accident plus a few other things) into the first category. Thing is, my debt isn't even bad. In fact, it's very manageable...under a decent salary. My problem is working retail, I don't make anywhere close to decent "salary" (salary? salary? What the fuck is a salary?). So find a new job, right? Believe me, way easier said than done in this town (I would move out of state for a career-type of job, but only that, and I haven't found anything). I went through that when I graduated, tried hard to find a job with my degree. Best shit I could pull up was making $11 or $12 an hour. Suck my dick, who spends tens of thousands of dollars on college to come out making a few dollars above minimum wage? Anyways, I sort of gave up for a long while and got complacent at my shit job. That changed about 6 months ago when I decided I really, really fucking wanted to turn my life around and I got super motivated. I had one dream fall through (Marine Corps OCS) and it sucked but I rebounded quickly and decided I was going to go back to school and correct a few of my college mistakes (ie do what I REALLY wanted to do now that I am a young adult and have more life experience, not a stupid 19 year old trying to float through college) and get a good degree and take full advantage of an education. I had just started taking some prelims towards an engineering degree. Without going into too much detail on my personal life again, I had to drop my classes for financial reasons, and as a smack in the face I STILL got charged a bunch of fucking money for classes I'm now not even taking (money due in 2 days).

That's pretty much when I made this post. So you asked if I was doing anything about it, if i was just sulking or if I was working on it. Well, to answer you, I was working on it. Now after the latest episode, I am sitting here. Talking to you. Because I'm pretty fucking defeated after that one. It's all stress. Every day is just one big shitty stress fest. It's like a string being pulled tighter and tighter, it has to snap eventually, right?

@JiggaHo I'm not really suicidal. I said that because it's honestly how I feel. But I don't think I'd ever kill myself. Career and debt is weird to get depressed over at this age? Maybe when you look at it that way. I don't know if there are "deeper" issues (part of depression, I think, is not even fully knowing WHY you are sad), there probably are, but I do know there are a lot of issues. Debt is depressing, lack of direction in life (linked to career) is depressing, lack of money (linked to debt) is depressing ... when you're facing all of that alone (lack of friends, no relationship in years, etc) ... I think you can understand why the gravity of the situation seems to serious from my point of view. I know myself. I know when something is wrong. I don't cry, I mean ... ever. In the past two weeks I've broken down in the back room at work, three times. Yeah, that isn't me. When that is happening, something is wrong.

@CavsRules ... thanks ... that Andrew vid did get me laughing. :chuckles: I miss that guy.

I know what the issues are, I suppose. Right now I kind of need to regain my composure and rally myself. I told myself in December that 2013 was going to be the year I got my shit together and started living. I still have half a year to make that happen. Right now, it just seems so bad.
 
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I won't respond to every post, but trust me, I read them all.



I've talked to a few people. Responses are generally the same as what you see in this thread. Depression is a weird thing. I think I've suffered from it for over a year, to be honest. I don't really think it's homesickness. My hometown is a waste. I love my family but when I go home once in a while, I'm ready to leave after about 2-3 days. They are a support network though, something I don't have in here right now as I don't have any truly GOOD friends down here anymore, so being 200 miles away does add to it. I'm extremely social, on the contrary. People have always liked me and always wanted to follow me. I've generally had a lot of friends; in high school, and in college I had a good amount too. That was two years ago though. Everyone has moved away and started families and careers. I'm still in my college town and once you're in the real world, I've found meeting new people does not come that naturally (especially with no money). At least nowhere near as easily as when I was in school. I think my problems fall into two areas: lack of monetary and professional growth and lack of personal growth. I'm an extremely ambitious person who craves success, so the former hurts me a lot, but the latter is even more important to me.

@Triumph36 I'd throw my debt and recent follies (car accident plus a few other things) into the first category. Thing is, my debt isn't even bad. In fact, it's very manageable...under a decent salary. My problem is working retail, I don't make anywhere close to decent "salary" (salary? salary? What the fuck is a salary?). So find a new job, right? Believe me, way easier said than done in this town (I would move out of state for a career-type of job, but only that, and I haven't found anything). I went through that when I graduated, tried hard to find a job with my degree. Best shit I could pull up was making $11 or $12 an hour. Suck my dick, who spends tens of thousands of dollars on college to come out making a few dollars above minimum wage? Anyways, I sort of gave up for a long while and got complacent at my shit job. That changed about 6 months ago when I decided I really, really fucking wanted to turn my life around and I got super motivated. I had one dream fall through (Marine Corps OCS) and it sucked but I rebounded quickly and decided I was going to go back to school and correct a few of my college mistakes (ie do what I REALLY wanted to do now that I am a young adult and have more life experience, not a stupid 19 year old trying to float through college) and get a good degree and take full advantage of an education. I had just started taking some prelims towards an engineering degree. Without going into too much detail on my personal life again, I had to drop my classes for financial reasons, and as a smack in the face I STILL got charged a bunch of fucking money for classes I'm now not even taking (money due in 2 days).

That's pretty much when I made this post. So you asked if I was doing anything about it, if i was just sulking or if I was working on it. Well, to answer you, I was working on it. Now after the latest episode, I am sitting here. Talking to you. Because I'm pretty fucking defeated after that one. It's all stress. Every day is just one big shitty stress fest. It's like a string being pulled tighter and tighter, it has to snap eventually, right?

@JiggaHo I'm not really suicidal. I said that because it's honestly how I feel. But I don't think I'd ever kill myself. Career and debt is weird to get depressed over at this age? Maybe when you look at it that way. I don't know if there are "deeper" issues (part of depression, I think, is not even fully knowing WHY you are sad), there probably are, but I do know there are a lot of issues. Debt is depressing, lack of direction in life (linked to career) is depressing, lack of money (linked to debt) is depressing ... when you're facing all of that alone (lack of friends, no relationship in years, etc) ... I think you can understand why the gravity of the situation seems to serious from my point of view. I know myself. I know when something is wrong. I don't cry, I mean ... ever. In the past two weeks I've broken down in the back room at work, three times. Yeah, that isn't me. When that is happening, something is wrong.

@CavsRules ... thanks ... that Andrew vid did get me laughing. :chuckles: I miss that guy.

I know what the issues are, I suppose. Right now I kind of need to regain my composure and rally myself. I told myself in December that 2013 was going to be the year I got my shit together and started living. I still have half a year to make that happen. Right now, it just seems so bad.

What did you major in? Some jobs require you to start at the bottom even with your degree (i.e. Hotel Management). If your good at your job, the higher ups will notice and reward you. Generally, I don't think anyone is making what they feel they are worth. Even those that are making 100k a year.

As far as student loans coming up, there's many options on making them more affordable.

Option 1: Graduated Plan
You can lower your payments dramatically. However, your loan payments decrease dramatically for the first 2 years. Then they gradually go up every 2 years. If you end up with a job where you can pay more great, there's no penalty to change the plan back to the original or paying on the principle balance. In years 9 and 10 you might be paying more then you are now, but your earning power in 9 years should be higher.

Option 2: Income Contingent Plan

Andrew is now a Heat fan for the record. Until LeBron comes back that is of course...
 
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If you are covered under your parents' insurance (if they have any), you may be able to see a psychiatrist free of charge.

It's what I did when I was 21 and in a rut.
 
I won't respond to every post, but trust me, I read them all.



I've talked to a few people. Responses are generally the same as what you see in this thread. Depression is a weird thing. I think I've suffered from it for over a year, to be honest. I don't really think it's homesickness. My hometown is a waste. I love my family but when I go home once in a while, I'm ready to leave after about 2-3 days. They are a support network though, something I don't have in here right now as I don't have any truly GOOD friends down here anymore, so being 200 miles away does add to it. I'm extremely social, on the contrary. People have always liked me and always wanted to follow me. I've generally had a lot of friends; in high school, and in college I had a good amount too. That was two years ago though. Everyone has moved away and started families and careers. I'm still in my college town and once you're in the real world, I've found meeting new people does not come that naturally (especially with no money). At least nowhere near as easily as when I was in school. I think my problems fall into two areas: lack of monetary and professional growth and lack of personal growth. I'm an extremely ambitious person who craves success, so the former hurts me a lot, but the latter is even more important to me.

@Triumph36 I'd throw my debt and recent follies (car accident plus a few other things) into the first category. Thing is, my debt isn't even bad. In fact, it's very manageable...under a decent salary. My problem is working retail, I don't make anywhere close to decent "salary" (salary? salary? What the fuck is a salary?). So find a new job, right? Believe me, way easier said than done in this town (I would move out of state for a career-type of job, but only that, and I haven't found anything). I went through that when I graduated, tried hard to find a job with my degree. Best shit I could pull up was making $11 or $12 an hour. Suck my dick, who spends tens of thousands of dollars on college to come out making a few dollars above minimum wage? Anyways, I sort of gave up for a long while and got complacent at my shit job. That changed about 6 months ago when I decided I really, really fucking wanted to turn my life around and I got super motivated. I had one dream fall through (Marine Corps OCS) and it sucked but I rebounded quickly and decided I was going to go back to school and correct a few of my college mistakes (ie do what I REALLY wanted to do now that I am a young adult and have more life experience, not a stupid 19 year old trying to float through college) and get a good degree and take full advantage of an education. I had just started taking some prelims towards an engineering degree. Without going into too much detail on my personal life again, I had to drop my classes for financial reasons, and as a smack in the face I STILL got charged a bunch of fucking money for classes I'm now not even taking (money due in 2 days).

That's pretty much when I made this post. So you asked if I was doing anything about it, if i was just sulking or if I was working on it. Well, to answer you, I was working on it. Now after the latest episode, I am sitting here. Talking to you. Because I'm pretty fucking defeated after that one. It's all stress. Every day is just one big shitty stress fest. It's like a string being pulled tighter and tighter, it has to snap eventually, right?

@JiggaHo I'm not really suicidal. I said that because it's honestly how I feel. But I don't think I'd ever kill myself. Career and debt is weird to get depressed over at this age? Maybe when you look at it that way. I don't know if there are "deeper" issues (part of depression, I think, is not even fully knowing WHY you are sad), there probably are, but I do know there are a lot of issues. Debt is depressing, lack of direction in life (linked to career) is depressing, lack of money (linked to debt) is depressing ... when you're facing all of that alone (lack of friends, no relationship in years, etc) ... I think you can understand why the gravity of the situation seems to serious from my point of view. I know myself. I know when something is wrong. I don't cry, I mean ... ever. In the past two weeks I've broken down in the back room at work, three times. Yeah, that isn't me. When that is happening, something is wrong.

@CavsRules ... thanks ... that Andrew vid did get me laughing. :chuckles: I miss that guy.

I know what the issues are, I suppose. Right now I kind of need to regain my composure and rally myself. I told myself in December that 2013 was going to be the year I got my shit together and started living. I still have half a year to make that happen. Right now, it just seems so bad.

I know all the "I've been there" posts only get you so far, but this is the hard part in life. The thing is, after you get out of it, you'll look back and know it was beatable. But when you're stuck in the middle of it all, it seems very dire.

The tough part is figuring out what is it you need to get yourself into a good place. You're highlighting a few big issues here. You're lacking a solid support system (family, friends, community, religion), you're lacking a solid financial foundation, and you are lacking confidence, personal aspirations, and long term goals (or at least a strong concept in how to obtain them). You're healthy, and that's a big plus, but it's hard to appreciate it unless you've been on the other side. The hard part is getting things right. My advice would be, slow it down. The truth is, some of these issues will solve themselves over time, without actively engaging in them, so long as you get into a good frame of mind and let things come to you. Making big changes (IE joining the military, going back to college, moving to another state to take a flier on a job) might seem like the best or only solutions, but that's only because they are immediate changes you can make today. Sadly, they wouldn't likely do much to fix the underlying problems, and would function more as a sedative rather than a cure.

Let me ask you this, honestly. Your situation may be shitty right now, but for the foreseeable future will you be able to eat and keep a roof over your head? If so, let the rest of it go for now. It's far more important to find ways to engage with yourself on a daily basis than fix big issues over time. I can't stress this enough, but there isn't necessarily something you can do today to make things significantly better in 10 years. If you are trying to find that magical solution every day, you'll only get more depressed. Opportunities present themselves on their own terms.

I know how hard it gets, I've had a bout with suicide in the past and at the time it seemed like the only possible solution to the shit I was going through. (Lost my job, fiancee cheated on me, which effectively led to losing my daughter full time, and my parents were going through a divorce, so there was no real support there. I lost my apartment and thought I was going to lose my car as well). From experience, nothing I did over the next 5+ months changed anything. Maybe not even over the next 3+ years, though after that time had past, I was in a much better situation. Time solves a lot of issues.

One thing which may help (it did for me at least) was looking into some eastern buddhist scripture. I read a lot about Shambhala Buddhism, and it's a completely different perspective on what denotes success. Instead of worrying about wealth and prosperity, the focus is on mental clarity and peacefulness. Just learning and understanding that people can judge themselves on a different axis than a capitalist one did wonders, and it helps put the rat race in perspective a bit. I still love capitalism, but I appreciate it for what it is, and it's certainly not an ends to happiness.

Good luck Chris. If you want someone to talk to, feel free to send me a PM. The only thing I can tell you with any certainty is things will definitively get better. Not in any way you can see or anticipate right now, and not necessarily by anything you actively do to improve it. But in time, things will improve.
 
sorry I'm at work on my phone so I can't say much but that was a really good post. I might say more when I get home tonight but going back to school is really really what I want to do it it's not something I am just doing to do. I truly do think it is the right move and it won't solve everything instantly and I realize that but I am the kind of person that needs direction.I was actually doing a lot better those few weeks I was in class I was really excited and then I just got shit on again as I always do and I'm back at square one that is when I made this thread. I hope I can get back into school in the fall that is my plan but I need to do a lot of things over the summer to make that a reality.
 
Chris,

Have you considered working in a casino, at least as a second job? Where are you currently living?

Estimated pay 17-21/hr, part-time depending on the house.
 
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Well I know my next stop
 
I won't respond to every post, but trust me, I read them all.



I've talked to a few people. Responses are generally the same as what you see in this thread. Depression is a weird thing. I think I've suffered from it for over a year, to be honest. I don't really think it's homesickness. My hometown is a waste. I love my family but when I go home once in a while, I'm ready to leave after about 2-3 days. They are a support network though, something I don't have in here right now as I don't have any truly GOOD friends down here anymore, so being 200 miles away does add to it. I'm extremely social, on the contrary. People have always liked me and always wanted to follow me. I've generally had a lot of friends; in high school, and in college I had a good amount too. That was two years ago though. Everyone has moved away and started families and careers. I'm still in my college town and once you're in the real world, I've found meeting new people does not come that naturally (especially with no money). At least nowhere near as easily as when I was in school. I think my problems fall into two areas: lack of monetary and professional growth and lack of personal growth. I'm an extremely ambitious person who craves success, so the former hurts me a lot, but the latter is even more important to me.

This is a very difficult struggle that you can never relate to until you've had to experience it. I feel like I could've written this same paragraph two years ago. My hometown is a cesspool I avoid altogether outside of the holidays (even when I go back I lay low and try to avoid as many of my loser high school friends as possible).

Two years ago I moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown and 900+ miles away from the city I lived in the previous five years during college and work for a job in a city where I knew absolutely no one. It was an unbelievably tough transition. I had a girlfriend that couldn't move down to live with me until another full year and as you mentioned, all of my college friends seemed to be moving to different cities and doing their own thing. There were nights I came home after a 10+ hour workday with no one to see or nothing to do and wanted to cry.

A big suggestion that still helps me today is to make good use of your cell phone. I try to make a strong effort to call 3-5 of my close buddies (all of which live 900+ miles away) as well as my parents and brother each week. I'm not talking about texting or facebook chatting... you would be amazed the level of joy you can receive after catching up with a close friend for 20-30 minutes over the phone and hearing their voice. It got me through some very lonely nights a couple of years ago.

As far as post-college branching out in a town where you know no one, it's very difficult. I'd recommend reaching out as much as you can, even when you don't feel like it. I've signed up for work functions that I had no interest in simply to try and meet new people. Look to explore your hobbies and use it as a means to meet others (e.g. play pick-up basketball at the local gym or park). I joined a club and have gone to a few dinners or events (one of which got me a Thanksgiving dinner invite last year) that I wouldn't have dreamed of doing before if I was in my comfort zone. But that's something you need to see as a positive. There's a reason that the "loser high school friends" from the hometown cesspool never advance or improve their lives. They're comfortable doing the same shit they did back in 10th grade. While you're hurting now, you're going to be much much stronger for it in 2-5 years, trust me!

I wish I had more concrete advice for you, but I think you'll be fine once you get through this tough patch. Just keep your head up and remember to try and make progress each and every day.
 

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