I feel like I have no right to bitch or complain but I'm drowning and feel like I'm swirling a toilet bowl and I have no one to talk to about this. I'm sorry but I just need to vent, I need to get this off my chest.
I'm extremely lucky to have a job right now in my area with some severe layoffs in my area/environment. I have two degrees in history, can't find a job that utilizes them, can't find someone willing to take me in outside of the job I have now because I'm “overqualified” for the position due to my degrees. I tried my hand at teaching public education and that failed, adjuncting was so sporadic it isn't stable enough income to live off of (AND i need to pay for my own insurance), and I can't apply for any proper college locations as a full time employee without a PhD which for those curious, average degree time span for a historian is an additional 6-8 years.
I had left an EXTREMELY toxic environment in public teaching prior to this job that paid fucking pennies. I'm now at a job that pays a little over COL, but I have to drive an hour to get to it (And work nights). It started great before having to swap departments over insane work expectations and work hour creep *(see: mandatory 7day weeks+10 hour days during some of those days).
The department I'm in now was fantastic….and then our company went through restructuring three times in the TWO years I've been here and each time it gets progressively worse. The department I work for now has a HIGHLY inflated workload, so much so that it is literally impossible to achieve the quotas they require. I have been yelled at multiple times for being too slow in processing things *I work in Quality Control* and holding up production. I have felt used and abused the 2 years I've been here and it always starts with the creep, the creep of abuse and toxic work flow. I'm sitting here in tears trying to keep it together because I know. I KNOW people have it worse, I KNOW i should be thankful to have a job. But the abuse we take, the wall of never ending expectations and EVER growing work that just CANNOT be met on any realistic level, the consistent threat of “If you cannot keep up, we just can't afford you” is starting to take a serious toll on my health and mental health.
I just want to be happy. I want to experience life without spending 98% of my life in work or sleeping. I feel the growing anxiety because I know for a damned fact that we are in a recession. I need the job and I need the insurance. I desperately need the money because haha, life costs money. I'm depressed because all I can ever think about is how am i going to survive the next few years? What plans can I possibly make to have a happy and fruitful life with my future husband who is also struggling? I'm so bitter because I took a small break over the weekend and it was honestly the best I had, not thinking about work, relaxing. And as soon as I get back and I peak at my work email, I see that work has devolved into a full blown trashcan fire. I'm just sitting here just crying but I feel like I just can't talk with anyone about this because “You are lucky, why are you upset?! You have a job. You have income.”
I've spent the better part of the last 3 months job hunting, throwing out applications like candy and all I get back in response is nothing, not even a “Thanks but no thanks”.
TLDR; I'm struggling and nothing is fine, things are expensive. Nothing seems right. I can't really talk with anyone about this and deep inside I feel like I'm being entitled so I also feel a SUPER deep seated guilt/exhaustion/anxiety over this.