It would take a whole book to write my story, but here are the quick and dirty details.
I am an alcoholic newly in recovery and I am taking a leave of absence from my PhD program. In the interim I have applied for a job to sustain myself.
I have an AA in theatre, a BA in psychology, and a MS in biomedical science. I have 5 years of research under my belt and I've been in college for 10 years. I've taken a pretty weird and surprising path and I did most of it drunk. I even took exams drunk.
Now when I got sober my doctorate program became a real struggle. I was making mistakes and forgetting things and my wife left me (happy ending: she wants to move back in once I get my new place). I had to do analytical stuff which I'm inexperienced in and the other doctorate student in the lab was a real prick…. My animal surgery work had very limited success and I have very little to show for my blood sweat and tears over the last year. Anyways my mentor and I decided that I could take a year off and unfuck myself and then come back after I got my life straightened out.
Anyways I applied for like 15 jobs, got 4 interviews and 1 offer. It's a high school science position and they offered 41K.
Like I have a master's degree+ 2 years of additional education… I have friends who fucking mop floors for that kind of money (no disrespect to my maintenance friends because they are awesome… But they don't have 100K+ in student loans)
I was stupid and young and got a worthless theatre degree and took 6 years to get my bachelor's in psychology after that due to absolutely no helpful advisors and all my medical school prerequisites… Poor choices and an overwhelming disease of addiction.
On a different note, I have to move (long story) and there is nothing even close to the steal of a duplex I have now. I have to downsize AND pay more… Close to double $$ for less square footage.
It's so demoralizing. It's absolutely and utterly humiliating.
The silver lining is that I won my wife back and I'm sober (7months). I may never achieve the height of my career goals and be a professor at a medical school… And that's ok as long as I have my sobriety.
Why is this so miserable to me? It was never about the money… Right?
I just feel like shit. But it felt good to get it off my chest. Thank you all.