boldlyoptimisticobservation

[boldlyoptimisticobservation]

Brain dump sorry

This is my first post here, it's more for me. To empty my thoughts, I've heard it's good for your mind.

Less than an hour into my 29th birthday, I have never felt more lonely and lost. In some ways I feel lonelier than ever when I'm far from that physically. I feel that I'm constantly suffocated, lying to myself that I'm happy but it's not so simple. I feel massively privileged and lucky compared to how others are living in the world amongst all that's going on. Yet, I felt I had a greater purpose here. I grew into this young, confident, strong man who feared nothing. Nowadays, I'm far from that version of myself.

I think of my old version of myself a lot, the fun party goer, part of a football team, popular, lots of friends for that moment and I was constantly chasing my dreams. Finish my undergraduate, finish my masters it's the right thing to do. It's going to give me a fulfilling career, it will help me land a well earning job. Though I can't help but feel angry at my younger self for choosing such a stupid degree not once twice.

I chose Sport Science thinking I'd be working with athletes which would be so cool, while on my undergraduate course I quickly noticed how I wasn't actually that good at any of it, I felt at a disadvantage as I came from abroad and my knowledge was so behind compared to my peers, then I thought okay let's do a masters and specialise in something. So I study Nutrition, thinking it had a placement for work experience which would help me even further. I find myself now 5 years since graduating and I'm back to an entry level job.

I think this is where a lot of my unhappiness stems from, I was destined for more. I started off with a good role to begin with, with very good pay much more than my current salary. Then Covid-19 hit, so I lost that job after performing so so well. I found a remote role where I performed exceptionally apparently, it was a good entry role but with no progression clearly laid out at the time. I got offered a job at a university thinking this is it, this is my career path. I'm gonna become an academic, I will have all these publications and I will be a prestige name in my field (LOL), I can become a lecturer a very credible role. Few months into this research post I started to realise, just how much of an isolated job it was working on a review study. I went to the office so I can be around people but I just could not focus, my head was scrambled. I somehow managed survive for a while, people initially thinking I was doing well but this started to fade away. More or less for 3 or 4 months, I just could not perform my job. Initially my manager was supportive in terms of my inabilities but her attitude did change, understandably so. I was kind of hoping she'd be able to guide me past this barrier in my job but she couldn't. I ended up spending my time gambling, trading crypto and stupid shit like that. I'd head to campus but instead of going to the office I'd go to the library thinking it would help me focus, instead I felt no accountability so I did what I wanted, anything but my duties at work. It was such an isolated role, my manager would rarely check in and she was a super busy woman managing many research assistants and more. So I easily just went under the radar getting past with minimum progress in my role.

I was absolutely failing, I've never failed at something to this degree before. I'm clearly an academic person, I managed two degrees yet what the hell was going on? I needed help but I didn't know what in and so it became impossible to be helped. At the time my partner was pregnant and so this was weighing on me naturally, but I felt I had to change my circumstances and find a new role elsewhere. I applied optimistically for a PhD style role at a different university in a different topic. This time my manager was not as chill as my last one, I was hoping this would help me get my shit together. I lasted 3-4 months, my newborn child had just been born, many sleepless nights and I brought the same lack of ability from my last role to this one. So I ended up handing in my resignation just before my full enrollment in the PhD programme as I was quickly noticing my failure once again.

Now I'm back at that remote job before the academic roles, back at level 0 after 5 years from graduating. I'm now contemplating a career change entirely, I've gotten myself into stupid amount of debt from being reckless..

What happened to my old version of my self? I used to be so driven , a go getter and chase my dreams. Now I struggle to get out of bed, hardly exercise and see no prospects for my career going forward.

I have a son which brings me so much light, I will continue this later. I think writing some of this shit down helps.

#mentalhealth