It’s not all in my head

I appreciate what I am going to talk about probably comes under First World Problems. I have no gun to my head, and do have food on my table.

I do have certain issues – certainly depression, anxiety, hoarding behaviors, and an inability to keep my home tidy among other things. I also can’t socialize well.

Having been prescribed medication for my depression several years ago, I began to realize how many of my problems were *not* in my head. The church has been a huge boon to me. Sure, it has many problems, but it has also provided me with a stable community and got me living healthier. I was never an alcoholic, but I did have a drink problem and the church made me stop it. It made my depression much worse. But that has stopped. Anyhow, while the medication dealt with my depression, it did not get rid of a lot of things distressing me – financial, social etc.

Still… I realized I have never been able to get a decent job, because interviewers don’t care for me. I have never had a relationship that was truly meaningful (although I did briefly go out with the love of my life). In fact, for years, I have had no family, some friends (who I value very much, but they come with their own issues)… and there is every prospect of me dying alone (and old?) at some point in the future right now. I feel I am constantly trying to fulfill the expectations of other people in all areas of life in a way I don’t understand. In fact, if I had better interaction with other people I think my mental health would improve.

I am not completely destitute, but my inability to get decent work means I am on a slow slope downwards. I just don’t know how to deal with my employment situation – how to get around the interview problem, how to deal with the stress of sending out hundreds of applications to get nothing back. My work experience is bad, which doesn’t help me at all. I have a degree from years ago, but don’t find myself able to use it. My lack of decent employment distresses me. I have some savings, but they are withering on the vine. In fact, applying for work in the past has given me suicidal thoughts.

Also, I find the way our whole society is set up to be utterly sick. Not only are we made to live in hideous, sterile environments, but we are constantly bombarded with threatening demands to pay this that and the other if we don’t pay them off. I am having horrific problems paying off road tax just now, because of the sheer complexity of this country’s system for applying and paying for it. Yet most of my work comes via this. I also can’t cope very well with the way everything is getting put online, despite using the internet a lot. Both the government and businesses are doing this. The bills for my heating go up and up every year, but I can’t match it.

I really think that our society is set up to benefit big business and not people in the working class and lower middle class. If you’re not rich, they work out ways to cream more and more money off you.

The short version… I feel that I am attending to some of my needs, the spiritual ones anyway. But I’m a fairly intelligent, well read guy, who can’t get a decent job. My social skills and looks don’t serve me well. I’m trying to get around my interview problem, by setting up a new business, but the sheer bureaucracy of registering it is hellish. On our first registration attempt, the government here rejected the form and kept a hold of some of the money and won’t give it back. We have managed to register it finally, but this is an example of the **** we have to go through. But I look at life, and despite the beauty I see around me in certain areas, it is human society that truly pisses me off.

Anyway, that’s a long spiel. I don’t know if it’s clear.