Me too, my friend. Me too.

Same. I already had sexual abuse and mental illness to deal with, but even that didn’t cause me so much stress and struggles in life. 2007-2012 was a horrible time, you couldn’t get any job. Nowadays I am still amazed when I see so many shops and cafés advertising open positions. My group from college was un(der)employed for years, some still are. I was the same and switched careers to something I felt challenged me and paid well, but which wasn’t really my passion. Now I have to fight the inadequacy of being older and less energetic than people who are at my level and in their 20s. I still have an unreasonable fear of losing my job at any moment, and not being able to recover. That recession led me to make a series of decisions that prioritize material safety over my true wants and needs. It’s taking a huge toll on me, it has kept me from divorcing my partner just out of that fear of failing and losing what little I managed to build. And to top it all off, it seems like we learnt nothing from it. We are marching decidedly towards the same mistakes, with even more inequality and climate change in the mix. Meds keep me afloat, but rationally I am completely checked out and have no idea what I am doing here.

I mostly blamed it on my birth, but maybe yours is better