[ SECRET POST #2028 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2028 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 107 secrets from Secret Submission Post #290.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

19. http://i47.tinypic.com/i6gpwh.jpg

[emma_moon]

I made some of my best friends through fandom. We've only met in person a few times but after almost a decade, we're still friends and talk when we can.

If there isn't anyone in RL you can turn to, is there a fandom friend you could talk to? I know you think they'd turn away from you but I don't think that would happen. You have legitimate worries and need someone to talk to. There are things I won't talk about to my RL friends and find easier to talk about with my fandom friends all the time. I hope you find the help you need.

[(Anonymous)]

Then go out and get yourself a job. Believe me I know it's not easy and I'm having problems with anxiety myself.

But there is professional help for that and until you're able to get that there is always just pulling yourself together and go through it anyway.

No amount of feeling ashamed of yourself is gonna change a damn thing. If you want to change something about yourself then go out and change it. It's not gonna be easy but it's not impossible.

I'm sure your fandom friends wouldn't look down at you, especially not if you decided to change things. That's always a big step and a scary thing to face. So I'm sure they'd be there for you if you decide to do anything about your life.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel ya, anon. But then again, I have a good friend who I chat with regularly online, and since we're both fandom crazy (a little) it helps with dealing with the stuck-in-a-fucking-rut feeling.

[(Anonymous)]

You're only 23 OP, you're still young, your life isn't going to be over any time soon. Start out with baby steps, maybe talk to a therapist or try finding part time work that you think you can handle. Just remember that making mistakes or not succeeding all at once is normal, and doesn't make you a failure. You can do it OP, I know you can :-)
Heck, I'm around the same age as you, and I still not sure what I'm doing with my life. You're not the only one.

[(Anonymous)]

Please OP, get yourself some help if you can. Therapy might be a good thing for you.

I only wish that one of my ex-fandom friends was as frightened/ashamed about this as you are. Maybe then she would realize that fandom shouldn't be something that encompasses your whole life. Because you're right, it's unhealthy. And people will kind of judge you for not being a productive member of society.

I do hope that you get a job soon, because it does get a lot harder when you get older, and job prospects are going to wonder why you didn't work earlier in your life.

[(Anonymous)]

I wish there were a way I could tell all the women in their early 20s that 20s suck for nearly everyone. Unless you're lucky enough to get right into a job or grad school, you're likely to be confused, poor, without the support of family and friends, and have a shitty living situation.

You CAN start climbing the ladder. You don't say whether you need a job for financial reasons or not, but working on something--whether its volunteer or unpaid--to build your resume would be a great start. Look for something free or cheap you can do in RL--a hiking club or book club or language club or something to get out of the house. The big secret of job hunting is that you can meet job contacts anywhere, but you have to put yourself in a position to meet them. (Not sure what your field is, but check Meetup.com for professional groups in your area.)

[(Anonymous)]

..You're 24. There's still hope.

[(Anonymous)]

wow this sounds almost exactly like my situation. i'm in counselling but it's hard to make any changes when my living situation isn't that great.

[(Anonymous)]

Grow up OP. You are not the first person to have fears and worries about a job search. This idea that your situation is all that special and your problems are so different than anyone else in the world is crap. There are thousands of graduates and those who have left college without degrees that go through this every single year. What makes you different is that instead of harnessing that fear and trying to overcome it, you sit in front of your computer whining about how this is your deep, dark secret.

Take a shower, put on your interview clothes, and go outside.

It is hard work to balance a busy social schedule, work, and fandom. It's easy to sit in front of your computer and do nothing else. If you can't bare the thought of your online friends judging you (which they probably will because as you said, this is your life), then congratulations, there are state and government agencies that have resources to help with interviewing, resumes, and job hunting, there are online websites that specialize in this sort of thing. Time to grow up and do something!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious, if you have no family and you don't work, what are you living on? What's your living situation. I'm trying to imagine how that's working to the extent that you're not massively and urgently motivated to get a job.

And really, people are right that you should get help, if you can, but unless you have extremely and uncommonly serious mental health issues (not just run of the mill depression and anxiety, which it certainly sounds like you do have) the best thing you can do is FORCE yourself to go out there and take whatever kind of job you can get that isn't illegal and doesn't risk life and limb. If you don't like the job, if the people there aren't very nice to you, if it doesn't make you happy, if it doesn't fulfill you, if it's boring, if it makes your feet hurt, etc? Suck it up. You're 23, it won't kill you. I know that sounds unkind, but I believe it's what you need to hear.

The best thing you can do for yourself if to find a job and unless you're actually being BEATEN or something keep the job until you can find something better. Some people have the luxury of being able to quit a job they don't like--people who have spouses to support them, people who don't mind mooching off of their parents, people with trust funds, etc. I'm a single person without other people or funds to support me, so I know I have to suck it up when a job sucks. The good side of that is that sometimes by sticking it out the job ends up getting better.

I like my job a lot most of the time, it really works for me, but when I started there I hated it. Also, when I got the job I was just off of a major depressive episode that involved brief hospitalization, but I had no choice but to support myself so I got out of the hospital, got my ass in gear, pasted on a smiley face and went on interviews. Anyway, one coworker was a massive bitch to me all the time, another called me names, it sucked for well over a year. But I kept it because I needed that goddamn job. And after a while the guy who called me names quit, and the massive bitch got fired, and I got a raise. Result of sucking it up: steady job that doesn't make me unhappy and pays my bills. :D

[akashasheiress]

I love how some of the comments here are all smug BOOTSTRAPS and shit. No, actually, I hate it.

[silverau]

I understand being scared, but you gotta try. You're still young and you still got a chance. Just try. Good luck OP.

[thene]

I don't have a job right now either - I had to quit my job to move out of state and haven't yet found another one. Jobhunting is completely terrifying to me too, but I try to break the process down into small tasks, like 'call [this person] today' or 'read lots of stuff about cover letters today' to make it less anxiety-worthy.

I wouldn't treat you differently if I knew your secret - most of the economy for entry-level people has been completely shit since at least 2006. I was jobhunting hard for a couple of years after school and didn't get anything except for a part-time job in a street-corner laundry; that's how my jobhunting confidence got so shot in the first place and I'm sure the same has happened to you. The only thing I'd advise you to do is to go hard for trainee and seasonal work where you might not be expected to have a strong prior work record - that's how I finally crawled out of my slump, and I even accidentally discovered my real career vocation by doing a free training course a couple of years ago. I've also just signed up for something on http://coursera.org , and while it may not be a formal qualification the knowledge is going to help me in my (currently nonexistent) career.

Fandom is honestly a great support when your real life is a recessionary wreck like that - being involved in a fandom project, or refining your skills and making great fanworks, can be really fulfilling and it can keep your brain and social skills ticking over when they'd otherwise atrophy. I've not worked in a few months but I've line-edited a fanbook, helped organise a 2013 calendar project, and written a bunch of shortfics and it all helps keep you going. No shame in that.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm in the same situation. My solution was to accept that fandom IS my life, and take pleasure in it. It's not like I'd be any happier if I was a hairdresser or a police officer or whatever else counts as a productive member of society. All that would do is mean I'd own more things.

[(Anonymous)]

Someone might have mentioned this already but try some volunteering if you can. It'll give you some skills and references. Some even pay travel costs and give you drinks and snacks so there's a chance it might not cost you anything.

To be honest, I've felt similar how you seem to feel while job hunting and I think doing something productive could be the perfect remedy.

Wishing you all the best.

[(Anonymous)]

I have/had the same problem as you, and I'm a couple of years older. I was terrified and alone and ashamed, because everyone else managed to do all these simple things and I couldn't. And my life wasn't that bad, loads of people had it worse, so I was probably just lazy and if I could just get over myself I'd be fine in no time.

I spent years thinking that. Even when, after a while, I considered going (back, in my case) to a therapist, I put it off because 'it wasn't that bad'.

I am in therapy now, have been for a few months. But I could have been there and getting help months or even years earlier if only I had admitted there was a problem. Because, you're right, the longer you wait, the bigger the problem gets.

You've already reached out, and that's great. And maybe you don't want or need therapy. I hope you don't completely dismiss it, but I understand if you want to try some other options first. Do you have any family or friends you're close to in RL? Someone you trust with what you told us? Someone who could help you? Then maybe tell them? They might not understand everything, but they can help you with some of the other stuff.

It's going to take a while to see results, but it will happen. Good luck

Transcript

[agentcthulhu]

Fandom makes me so ashamed of myself.

Most of my online friends have full lives outside their computers, but I don'. I haven't had a real job since I left school, mostly because I feel so useless and incompetent that the very idea terrifies me.

Fandom is where I go to forget all of that and just be someone else for a while. But lately it's getting harder and harder to lose myself in fandom while my real life crumbles around me.

I honestly believe people would treat me differently if they knew I didn't have a job and that fandom is my life. For this reason, none of my online friends know the truth about me. I'm too ashamed of myself and what I've become.

I feel like I'm going nowhere in life and have no future. I find it hard to get work because of a lack of references, but the longer I leave it, the harder it's going to get. I don't know what to do.

I'm getting older now, approaching 24, and I feel like if I don't do something soon I'm going to end up jobless, destitute, alone, middle-aged and miserable before I know it.

I need help but there's no one in my life I can turn to. I don't have a family, all of my RL friends have moved on with their lives and left me behind, and I feel so alone. I'm scared of what I'm going to become. :(| [sic]

[logicbutton]

I got my first "real" job when I was 24. At the time it seemed like everyone my age had an awesome life but me. Now I'm 28 and I've had some setbacks, but things have pretty much evened out and I've since realized that my inexperience at 23 was really not that big a deal or even all that uncommon.

Other people in this thread have given good practical advice on getting your foot in the door of the working world, so I'll just leave it at that.

[(Anonymous)]

OP, when I was your age, I temped. Assuming you're in the US (and I imagine there are probably these agencies in other countries, too), look in the phone book or online for temporary employment/staffing agencies in your area. You can obviously use a computer, so if you know office applications (Word, Excel and whatnot) all you'll have to do is go into the agency, sign up and take a test, and they'll look for work for you. It probably won't be steady at first but you can get long-term assignments and sometimes even benefits if you work full-time. One of my temp assignments turned into a job I'm still with 15 years later! IME it's a good option for people who don't enjoy/aren't good at the classic mode of job searching.

[(Anonymous)]

For what it's worth, OP, just going out and getting a job will help with those feelings of incompetence. I know exactly how you feel, and what it ultimately took to end the cycle of that useless feeling was to finally just go out and get the job. Any job. I worked at McDonald's for crap's sake, but it really helped my esteem and made me feel more confident in my abilities.

I hope that helps :(

Advice from someone who's been there

[(Anonymous)]

First, if you're having extreme mental/physical issues, job one is to get that sorted. Find a sliding scale clinic if your country doesn't have nationalized health care, but whatever you do, make your health the priority. You cannot be successful if you aren't able to take care of yourself.

Second, make it your job to find a job. Yes, it's rough and awful and discouraging. But you absolutely will not land anything if you don't put effort into it. Log out of your fandom accounts and start following leads eight hours a day, five days a week. That will both get you used to cutting back on fandom stuff and get your ass out there moving. If you find that your job search isn't taking your full eight hours, then do something else. Clean your home, get some exercise if you're able, do anything but get back online where the easy, instant gratification of fandom is. That only makes it easier to decide not to get up and try again the next day.

As for applying: remember, we are living in a new world, and college degrees don't matter for shit. You may well need to consider a 'career' you'd never thought about -- starting off as a barista or a janitor, for example. Don't rule out temp jobs and staffing companies either...the money may not be forever but it helps you make connections.

Good luck, anon.

sit down, this is gonna be a long one

[(Anonymous)]

I almost never comment on fandomsecrets and don't even have an LJ account... But I recognize so much of myself in you anon! And I got some words to say to you.

First of all, it sounds like you're falling in to a bit of a depression. Even if you haven't recognized that for what it is yet it's good that you're reaching out for help! Even if it is on fandomsecrets! I've gotta say I really disagree with a lot of the negative commentary here... If you're seeking fandom as an escape from feeling bad then making you feel worse about yourself when you reach out to people isn't going to help anything! I'm not saying that the people here who are implying that they think it should be easy for you to help yourself out of this or who are making you feel more pathetic between the lines don't have opinions that are not worth listening to, but I would take them with a grain of salt... It's likely that these people either have never experienced any sort of serious anxiety/depression, or are just very ignorant about how real and difficult these issues are. Personally I think they could be a little more understanding.

Now lets talk about spirals. It sounds like you have a bit of a cycle going on here: you get addicted to fandom, you neglect the rest of your life, you feel bad about how your IRL life is suffering form neglect and then you seek more fandom as an escapism. Right now you probably feel like you have two go-to emotions. The sort of fuzzy "happy" feeling you get when you're online, and then the extreme guilt and helplessness you feel when you go offline and things aren't going your way. Is this sounding familiar?

It sounds to me like you have a bit of a, as I call it, "downward spirar" going on here. It may have started small but now its just getting worse and worse and has been lasting for years!

But here's the thing anon.

Feeling happier and more content also happens in spirals. I guess we'd call them "upward spirals."

And like the comments above said, these spirals also start in baby steps.

As for my personal experiences. I don't have nearly the same problem as you do. But I recognize all your stages of spiraling from my own experiences with school. Basically I have a bunch of learning disabilities that have caused me to drop out of school. I have spent months struggling with borderline-suicidal depression and school-related anxiety issues. And ended up taking time off from school entirely because of it, which has been very difficult, because my entire self-identity is related to academics and I can't see myself doing any other thing in life than learning things.

Here's the thing though anon, and I don't want it to come off as too much of a cold hard truth but... Over the past few years I have had several depression periods, intermixed with periods in which my life was going well and I was "spiralling upwards" and achieving things and feeling better and more on top. What I'm trying to say is, you're about to enter a struggle for a balanced and content life. (And remember that "being content" means lots of different things for different people! A state of being in which you are content can absolutely still include fandom things! Its just that for you obviously too much is a bad thing here... Which is also okay! The balance is different for everyone!) Now you could see this struggle as a "war," and a war is made up of battles. You're going to loose some of these battles and you're going to win some. THERE WILL BE SETBACKS. The trick is learning to recognize patterns, learning from your mistakes, learning to love yourself, and never. Giving. Up.

I read (I think on tumblr) the other day about this:

It's not going to be easy.

But its going to be worth it.

Finally anon, I'd like to tell you: You. Are. Not. Fucking. Alone. EVERYONE goes through this. Everyone has set backs. Its ok to be discontent with your life. Everyone is sometimes. Some more than others. Some seek professional help, some don't. Some have medical diagnoses, others are just struggling because they are but NONE of these facts make your problems any more legitimate or unlegitimate or pathetic than the other. It sounds to me like you're in a serious downwards spiral here and I can't imagine how helpless you must be feeling (well I can, because I've been there). And it takes people a lot (A LOT) of effort and fighting to get through this but people. can. do. it. I myself am going back to school next year again. (It took me TWO YEARS to feel like I'm ready) I have a psychologist who is helping me with my disabilites who I can trust (I went through FIVE different doctors and psychologists before I found one who I felt could help me) and I have a job that I don't love, but that I am content with and can find a reasonable amount of job satisfaction in so that I can enjoy it. (It took me ONE YEAR to find a job like this, during which I was fired TWO times and quit THREE myself. I have dealt with everything from illegal below-minimum pay to sexual harassment to get where I am. There were many times when I felt that I wanted to give up or felt despair because I though I was never going to be able to have a job that I enjoyed and would be stuck with this for the rest of my life. I worked hard. I made progress. I'm not there yet but I'm working on it and every day I feel better.)

And finally, FINALLY (good god this has been a long comment...)

As all my family keeps telling me

As all the comments above have said

anon

you are very young.

And to be honest, even if you were 40, I would still tell you that you were very young. Because there is always, ALWAYS a lot of life ahead of you. You don't have to live your life like the movies, a lot of people don't and are still happy and living fulfilled lives. For you right now, little baby steps that make you love yourself and your life a bit more are the key. Any thing, the tiniest things. Getting the dishes done. Getting out of the house at least once every few days. Meeting a friend at a cafe. Getting a job interview, even if you don't even get the job! Showing up at a party, even if its for a little while! All of these are the right places to start.

Get these upward spirals going anon. Its ok if it takes you awhile.

And

You asked for help here on fandomsecrets.

Congratulations, you've already taken the first step.

....this was really long. I'm sorry. I hope it helped.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, OP.
I'm in kind of a similar situation to you at the moment. I had a job when I was younger working fast food. I quit that during my final year of school.
And with the current state the retail sector is in, I haven't been able to find another job.
It's annoying, because I'm in that "in-between" age where no one wants to hire me - too old/expensive to pay for the fast food joints, too young/inexperienced for the retail jobs.

OP - it can be really disheartening when you keep applying for jobs, over and over and over. And when you're rejected for a job - it hurts. Part of me takes it personally, and wonders if they just didn't like ME, even though I know it's because of the economic situation.

But you need to be persistent, OP. Don't let the rejection weigh you down.
Here are the odds: if you stop jobhunting, there's zero chance you'll get hired. If you keep jobhunting, you still have a chance.

[(Anonymous)]

I was just thinking that I might know you op, but then you said you have no family....

Just start at the bottom. It'll suck, but at least you can work to get references and some cash.