I'm a 15 year old student who's loving with her parents without a part time because of the ongoing pandemic. I have to say that I'm honestly stressed about the world I'm living in.
I'm fortunate enough to live in a middle class house with a parent that gets paid enough to sustain my family. (But my dad's a software developer so go figure.) I've known for a few years that life was going to be hard when I grew up and moved out of the household so I began to set myself unrealistic expectations. For a while I've been trying to make my self get all As in school and take the most advanced classes possible. The Idea being to try and set myself up for a scholarship but I've experienced burnout multiple times and I've finally come to the conclusion that the longer I keep this up, the more I'm going to be killing myself mentally.
I already suffer with diagnosed Depression and Generalized Anxiety so I probably need to stop making things worse for myself, but I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't.
All my life I've known the stability of the income my parents have been able to provide and I'm scared of losing it.
I'm scared of being paid peanuts for having to pull myself out of bed on days where I'm at breaking point. For working as hard as I possibly can and not be guaranteed anything that's enough to live by.
It probably doesn't help that my school has this class that I'm required to take called Career Prep. (I could rant all day about this class.) The only thing I get out of it is a bunch of more stress shoved in my face.
Entire lessons going on about how the only way to survive comfortably in life is if you can go on without accumulating any sort of debt and be able to live in a perfect world where you earn enough to put in a savings and retirement plan.
It hurts my brain, and it hurts my heart.
I grew up thinking the sky was the limit only to find out that the sky is actually a fake ceiling 30 feet away from my face and that the limit is high I can jump. (The analogy I'm trying to use here meaning that no matter how much work you put in, it's improbable that you're going to jump high enough to achieve anything close to what you wanted.)
I feel like in this world that even if I managed to get a scholarship and didn't have to pay a bunch of student loans that it doesn't guarantee I actually get a job I can sustain myself with because there will always be someone willing to do more and get paid less.
Anyway, that's my rant over. Even though I know none of y'all, I feel a bit better having typed this out and getting these thoughts and feelings off of my chest.
Thanks to anyone who read this over, and if you have some advice or words of wisdom, I'd love to hear them.