Venting Failure to launch

[thousandislandstare]

Did well enough in school. Gifted and AP classes. No social life. Got into college in 2002. Bookstore job did not provide enough hours. Dropped out and moved back here in 2004 for the subway system because I was never taught how to drive.

Got retail job. Moved into crappy illegal apartments with bad roommates. Thought I would eventually return to school.

Lucked into slightly better job. Did as much as I could with the opportunity and secured raises here and there. Found myself still moving further and further from work as rental prices went up and raises could not keep up.

Lived in places with 4-8 roommates. Places without kitchens. With intrusive landlords. Dealt with bedbugs, utilities being shut off, one landlord's schizophrenic mom harassing me on a regular basis, among many other things.

Had difficulty building and maintaining positive relationships. Found it impossible to work on enriching activities on the side without almost immediately being pulled away for one reason or another. No predictability. No guarantee of peace and privacy.

Finally qualified to move into a little studio apartment in 2025. I could finally start drawing again. Working on electronics. CAD. Maybe dabble in coding. Maybe enroll in school again. Have had this paracosm in my head for ten years, maybe I could finally show it to the world. Whatever. The point was that I could finally begin life.

Laid off 6 months later. Never had a chance to settle in. Barely any jobs. Market has been flat since April of last year. My work experience is useless. No degree. Savings now depleted. Credit now wrecked. Behind on rent. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Total collapse of executive function. Severe depression. Constant panic attacks. Probably on the spectrum.

This city, this country, and life in general are too much for me. I know there are other places where it is probably even harder, but I can't handle this. Too much to deal with on my own. I don't see how I can squeeze anything out of life at this point.

And it is isolating. I'm tired of the hindsight advice and people telling me to toughen up or adjust my attitude. Being told how lucky I am. I'm just so tired.

I swear this is not AI. I just don't have the capacity to make this pretty right now.

 

[fadedghost]

I swear this is not AI.

AI wouldn't be able to write this. AI would insert something about mental health or positivity. Clearly human.

 

[TimeTraveling4]

And it is isolating.

This. I don't have any social life. Currently not working, living with parents. Not having that social safety net is killing me. I'm unemployed and I already know getting a job won't fix me. I average 17 hours of screen time and I know it won't get better. How you survived for so long eludes me. I ruined my chances at life and I plan to CTB because of it.

Just because your post is well written doesn't mean it was AI. Many intelligent people write post here. It takes a certain type of thinking to realize that suicide is a solution and I don't think anyone who realizes that is dumb.

 

[fadedghost]

Real wages for most workers are close to Great Depression levels and capitalism and democracy are not functioning well, primarily because religious irrational people are being tricked into voting for people who serve the 1 percent but also support the bizaare religious wedge issues of the bottom 50 percent (ie, trans people shouldn't play sports, no aborting babies even if it kills the pregnant mother, etc.). This isn't your fault.

It's not just you.

 

[thousandislandstare]

This. I don't have any social life. Currently not working, living with parents. Not having that social safety net is killing me. I'm unemployed and I already know getting a job won't fix me. I average 17 hours of screen time and I know it won't get better. How you survived for so long eludes me. I ruined my chances at life and I plan to CTB because of it.

Just because your post is well written doesn't mean it was AI. Many intelligent people write post here. It takes a certain type of thinking to realize that suicide is a potential solution and I don't think anyone who realizes that is dumb.

Thanks, I thought it looked weird with the sentence fragments and paragraph spacing. I just didn't have it in me to write it like a normal essay or whatever

The feeling of isolation really sucks... Even if you could physically surround yourself with people, it often feels like there are too few people out there who would understand you. Trying to explain severe depression or suicidal feelings to most people is like trying to describe colors to a blind person.

Real wages for most workers are close to Great Depression levels and capitalism and democracy are not functioning well, primarily because religious irrational people are being tricked into voting for people who serve the 1 percent but also support the bizaare religious wedge issues of the bottom 50 percent (ie, trans people shouldn't play sports, no aborting babies even if it kills the pregnant mother, etc.). This isn't your fault.

It's not just you.

I keep wondering how much longer things can go on like this and how bad they can get. There is room for it to get even worse and I think people are going to be huddling together more and more and multi-generational housing will become normalized. A large and increasing number of people are already not moving out of their parents homes, but it feels like we're pretending it's not happening and there is still a stigma. I would be nice if there were something there available for the people who don't have that option.