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In Harry Potter there are creatures called dementers that suck every bit of happiness out of a person. Yet, Harry, hearing the screams of his mother in his mind, seeing Voldermort's followers taunt and tease him has to somehow call up a happy memory to chase these creatures away. I feel like I'm going to drown in despair. I have no job still, I'm down to the relics now, down to double digits in terms of money, behind on my rent and phone bill. There are no relatives I can or want to ask for help because I want to do it on my own and they are in their own little holes. Plus there are people I love drowning, and not much I can do to help. How can it be done, is it even possible to keep hopeful when I feel like I'm walking through a dark forest filled with thorns and the smell of roses being torn to shreads with each step. Though I really don't want to give up. I'm tired, I'm worn out. It's appealing to quit, but I don't want to. On my birthday I got the most amazing feeling... a feeling of completion. Usually my chest hurts, parts of me feel empty... but for about 3 days, I didn't have this feeling. Maybe it was those Dir en grey songs, even though they are dark and sad filling up the empty places. Maybe it's music itself, which I love more than breathing because nothing fills me like music does. I don't know... I just know that I like toying with the odd notion of unexpected paths. Of just maybe this hope doesn't exist unless you believe it does.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Visit a church. Talk to the Minister/rabbi/priest or nun. When family cannot help, there are those who will and can, and the do so usually without making you feel guilty. They don't push religion on you, they just try to help you up on your feet.
Or try a youth center.
Go to a park and watch the children play. Few things give me hope as children at play.
Don't just listen to the music, sing a song.
Talk to your family or friends. They may not be able to give you money or work, but they can help in unexpected ways. Just listening could be one of them.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Volunteer. I'm serious - find Habitat for Humanity, or a youth group that needs help, and spend your time at physical labor for someone else. Nothing will help as much as this.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I'm so sorry that this has been such a horrible time for you. Unfortunately, the sucky times can sometimes just get suckier before they get better. But they do get better, eventually.
I like your idea about hope. Sometimes we have to act like there is hope, even when we don't feel it.
Is it possible to get creative about your living situation, at least until you get back on your feet? Is there someone among your family and friends that could trade a couch in the basement for help with childcare or running errands? Maybe a cheap storage unit to keep your stuff together until work comes through?
Right now, my husband and I are helping his daughter get back on her feet in Canada. We're paying student loans while she looks for work logging trees (planting season has passed), or teaching snowboarding, or something. It's hard on her to accept help, but it gives her a bit of time and space to sort things out.
posted
It will come through sooner or later. After all, September is almost here and all the kids are going back to school. Perhaps it will work out one way or another. I do know that I have to stay here, in my own place, this place right here is my only home... but who knew how ridiculously difficult it could be to get a simple little job? And just how much of your confidence can be eroded by not getting that simple little job?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: but who knew how ridiculously difficult it could be to get a simple little job? And just how much of your confidence can be eroded by not getting that simple little job?
I so agree, Syn. If it weren't for my friends and family (here and elsewhere), who keep helping me rebuild my confidence, I would despair far more often than I do.
((((((((((Syn))))))))))
Feel free to email me or AIM me anytime (both in my profile). We can trade stories of how sucky job-hunting is, and the multitude of ways that one can hemorrhage money. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Synesthesia Hang in there. I don't know how old you are, but I can truly say "been there." Not long after getting out of high school, I found myself a long ways away from my home state, out of money, out of work, no food, no place to live. I still had a car, but only because they couldn't find me to repossess it. I slept in the car. I made friends with waitresses who would save me scraps. I would clean up at truck stops and go look for work. (with no phone or address for them to call me back).
But it wasn't the end of the world! All things eventually pass -- no matter how bad they get. Although it was one of the worse times of my life, I hung in there and eventually made it through. Looking back now makes it seem like such a tiny part of my overall life -- yet one of the most educational parts. I know exactly how much I can now live WITHOUT, so "things" don't mean so much to me. When you are stripped so bare, so that nothing matters but the basics of finding food, water, a place to rest -- then you find nothing else in life is really all that important.
Your power is in being able to be the one in control of how you think. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep trying for the jobs -- keep going back -- and above all believe in yourself. Set a goal (even though it will seem ridiculous at this time) and keep focused on it!
For all of you who read/or were forced to read by teachers: "Brave New World."
The question always discussed was -- if the people were ALWAYS happy -- if they were programmed to feel nothing but contentment and happiness, would it really be happiness? Or is happiness defined by us knowing the difference between unhappiness and happiness. Can we say we are glad if we have never felt what it feels like to be sad?
So in this life, am I more content now, because I've had the opportunity to have all else stripped away, so I now relish and rejoice in all little things others take for granted?
When Syn makes it through this difficult time, will she (he?) be more rejoiceful when things are restored?
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posted
(((((((SYNESTHESIA)))))))) I am so sorry, and I hope everything will be better and easier for you!! My heart goes out to you!
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
This may sound royally cheesy, but hey - that's what I'm all about.
I was having a really hard time a couple summers ago. I was beyond being depressed - I was numb to the world. Nothing could move me, everything washed right over me. I'd listen to music as loud as I could trying to feel the beat and get excited, but nothing ever worked for me. I'd go to social events, but nothing ever interested me.
Then one night, after a heart-to-heart with my roommate that left me in tears, I was sitting in my room and put in a CD I had heard a million times. For some reason, though, the lyrics just jumped out and grabbed me by the heart. I suddenly was able to look at things in perspective and see that the world isn't rosy - it's full of dirt. It's mucky and scary, and sometimes that's all we see. Sometimes you've been all over, and it's been all over you - but you wake up and you can see the sky and you realize that the world is beautiful, muck and mud and all.
And, strangely, the lyrics of this rock song metamorphosed in my head into the words of a hymn, and for the first time in months I was able to feel.
I don't know much for certain, but I do know that even after everything crumbles and falls apart, there is still something in us that lives and can smile and can see beauty if we can let it.
posted
Synesthesia, believe me when I say I know how it feels....
Almost three years ago, I somehow acquired an exotic eye infection. Though not as painful as it was supposed to be, it gave me terrible sinus headaches and left me barely able to walk in the sunlight even with sunglasses on. Most of my favorite recreation became impossible, as I could neither make out print without great difficulty or look at a computer screen. (TV was possible, but I could get no reception.) Nor could I complete my classes. I spent months like this, mostly lying around hopelessly in bed. Sometimes I ranted to myself or God. Sometimes I cried. At one point I gave up prayer, convinced that God was deliberately inverting everything I asked for to torment me.
Eventually my doctors figured out what the problem was and I was cured. But by that time it was too late for me to complete my classes and, having clung to hope too long, I had been unable to get a medical discharge from school. Not only did I owe the school $2000 for the semester, all my student loans came due because I was no longer in class. But I had spent every penny I had on the expensive medicine.
After summer, I thought I had managed to cut a deal with the school that would allow me to return, but either there was a misunderstanding somewhere or they reneged. Three weeks later I was ordered out of the dorms. Rather than go home, where I was certain I would never find work, I moved into the basement of the University Christian Student Center. Eventually I was able to get into rent-controlled housing, and finally found work washing buses.
The pay was good enough, but the hours were very bad, at least for me. Ten hours a day, starting early in the morning, left me too exhausted to get much enjoyment out of the money. I would come home and drop, exhausted, into bed to lie there for a couple of hours before I felt awake enough to get up and eat or get online. Eventually I fell behind and was fired. By this time, new regulations on housing meant I had to continue paying some money, and I also now had car insurance to keep up. I calculated that I had three months before I would have to run home to mommy and daddy, where I would presumably have to live until they threw me out.
Three months later, I returned from Memphis (where I had gone in a desperate attempt to find a job elsewhere) to find that I was overdrawn. My electric bill was coming up and there was no way to pay; if it was shut off I would lose the apartment. Practically at the last moment Cracker Barrel gave me a job washing dishes--then one of their night maintenance men failed to show up and I ended up doing that instead.
The pay was no higher per hour than I had been getting washing buses and I had fewer hours, though at least I was able to adjust to the new time schedule better than I ever had to waking early. A few friends helped me keep from starving to death before my first paycheck. Then my car suddenly failed me; I had been forced to neglect it while I was broke. Having it towed and repaired took most of my money, leaving me out of cash again.
But after nearly a year at Cracker Barrel my checking account has finally broken $1000 in the black, following my most recent paycheck. (Though it will fall below in a couple of days.) Someone has mysteriously paid off the money I owe the school, and a relative of my previous employer is helping me pay the bills to complete graduate school at last. If I can squeak through, I should be able to get a better-paying job--teaching, if nothing else--and perhaps this will never happen again.
There is light at the end of the tunnel for me at last, Synesthesia, after three years of darkness. May you find your own soon.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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After reading this thread I want to say what Peter Gabriel said on his album, So, titled Don't Give Up. If you need some music that is uplifting, I found that entire album to be excellent. Hopefully, it will take your mind off things, even if just for a while.
A good friend once said to me:
Know your limitations, then break through them.
This sounds to me like you are running out of options, but I encourage you to find the willpower to face whatever is troubling you deeply, and beat it, once and for all!
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