I’m not entirely sure what I’m seeking in posting this. I’m severely depressed and just need some relief, some sense of community and understanding. I hope I can find it here. I’ll try to keep it brief:
I’m your typical case of “gifted kid syndrome”. High achievements as a kid and teen then crashed somewhere in college. I was told that I could do and be anything and I skated by on the strength of being “gifted” without discipline, unfortunately. I crashed somewhere in my college years and had to fight through debilitating depression daily to graduate. My first job out of college was soul sucking to say the least, but paid decent. I fumbled it because of the burnout. My current job is that feeling multiplied and I want to quit everyday but I need a steady form of income to fund my “American Dream” that I can’t put back on the market because of the current real estate trend.
I’m an INFP (16personalities.com for your reference) and believe in healthy work life balance and doing work that matters. I feel like I sold out my personal values to be severely underpaid and overworked. I don’t want to buy into the glorification of entrepreneurship – I recognize it will be a lot of work to get my idea of starting my own brand consulting service off the ground, but at least I would be doing work that matters to me. I have potential clients lined up but I don’t have the mental capacity to maintain both jobs until my consultancy picks up. I also don’t have any savings to float me so that I can focus solely on restoring my health and building my dream.
I just feel like I missed out on so much of my youth chasing financial security and the bare necessities that I’ve lost sight of what actually is worth living for. I feel like nothing and look forward to nothing. It’s like I’m walking in place. I refrain from talking about it with my loved ones because I don’t want to scare anyone, but I’m sure my weight gain and erratic behavior has tipped them off already.
I don’t know…if you’ve gotten this far, thank you for listening.