General life and career advice needed

[Shieldmaiden]

Once again, I'm turning to the collective wisdom of the Colony for some life coaching. I've got a couple of issues that I could do with a few different perspectives on, plus I find writing stuff down helps my thought process. Thanks in advance for indulging me.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been hit with bad bouts of depression for the first time in months; full-on, I can barely muster the will to drag myself out of bed level stuff. I handle crises well and I'm very good at coping, but then I drop to low points once things are stable. I thought I'd pretty much kicked it, but that's not the case and I'm going to attempt to drag myself to the doctor tomorrow morning to get some professional help. I'm also going to ask what kind of assistance I can get with weight loss, because the issues I'm having with my knees are really getting me down. To be perfectly honest, I also want to lose weight in order to increase my attractiveness to the opposite sex, because it is playing on my mind and hitting my confidence badly.

I also want to address the stuff that keeps popping up in my head whenever I'm feeling down. It's always the same stuff and I've been chalking it up to the depression and ignoring it until I've felt better again. I think I need to actually deal with it. The big one that keeps coming up is my career, or lack of.

I'm turning 30 in six months and I've only once had anything other than a bog standard, entry-level admin or retail job, which is the three years I spent working as a teaching assistant. I have been in degree-level education twice, but on both occasions I've ended up having to leave due to problems in my personal life interfering with my studies. In one case I quit, more recently I was kicked out.

I'm currently working for a friend's online retail business. It's enjoyable enough, but I really feel like I need to move on. Things have stagnated and I'm getting increasingly frustrated. It doesn't help that the store opening that would have brought my working hours up to proper, full-time hours has been delayed again and again, so I've not had a hefty wage increase that I've been expecting for 4-5 months. As a result, I'm still labouring under personal debts that I had planned to have paid off by now and I'm getting sick of living in a fantastic city and not being able to take advantage of it. I have no particular need for loads of money, but right now I'm barely making minimum wage.

The trouble is, I don't have a clue what kind of job I want to do, or even how to start looking into it. It's always been a problem for me, I've never had anything that I've really wanted to do, or a particular skill or talent that suggests a career path. I'm at least as bright and capable as pretty much everyone I know, I'm knowledgeable, I'm good with technology and people, I can write well. I've just never been able to channel that into a career.

I've tried to not let it bother me, but I have to admit that it does. I used to get bullied a lot when I was a kid and I always relied on that classic nerd outlook of "well, at least one day I'll have a great job and make loads of money and then I'll show 'em" to get me through that. I kinda ballsed that up and it's getting me down. I'm the first person to put my hands up and admit when I'm no good at something, but my grades at uni were great (I was walking a 2:1 with very little effort and I could have got a first if I'd put the work in. I ended up getting kicked out because my depression was so bad that I wasn't attending class or doing the work. My grades were either really high or non-existent.)

I'm really thinking that I need a completely fresh start. I love London, but there is still mental baggage from the breakdown of my marriage and my failure at university here and I don't think I can make a clean break while being here. I'm seriously considering emigrating. One of my other hang-ups is the fact that I've not left the UK in close to fifteen years and the idea of just moving somewhere else really appeals. Yes, I'm aware that I have a massive intellectual inferiority complex, although this is the first time I've ever been open about it.

I've spent the last twelve years limping from one false start to another and I really want to sweep all that away and start again. I could really do with some help with making plans and taking the first few steps. I want to look back at my thirties and see positive progress instead of stumbling from one train wreck to another.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

I've spent the last twelve years limping from one false start to another and I really want to sweep all that away and start again. I could really do with some help with making plans and taking the first few steps. I want to look back at my thirties and see positive progress instead of stumbling from one train wreck to another.

Your years of limping and false starts are most likely affects from your depression. Reading your post, I'd say much of how you see your lack of progress are typical symptoms of depression. It seems you have done a good job to overcome them on your own. You might not have the results you might have seen for yourself that you wanted, but knowing from what you have posted about your personal issues, you've dealt with and overcome quite a bit by yourself.

I'm glad you are going to see a doctor. I'm not one to push meds, but if they are needed the better. Mood stabilizers though work better with talk therapy. I think you have a lot of strengths to work with. I'd find a talk therapist that focuses on your strengths, one that can work with you to guide you to what YOU want. As i've said before around CoG when discussing talk therapy, you are the consumer. If you don't like the therapist, then get another one. Never feel the therapist knows all. Not all therapists fit every individual. I think seeing your doctor and if you choose a talk therapist, is the first steps to helping yourself.

[Shieldmaiden]

I saw a therapist while I was at uni, which definitely helped. I was also on anti-depressants for a while last year and I was referred to a therapist again, but I didn't go because I ended up staying with my mum for a few weeks while I was flat hunting and missed the appointments. I definitely think I need to get back on both those trains.

[rein]

I don't have a lot to add but I have been/am in your situation about the career side of things. I'm even older. For me, I finally found a job I was happy with and felt I could retire there but it was outsourced. The only thing I can tell you from my personal experience is you might be better of buckling down and landing a degree even if you're "not sure" it's what you want to do. Getting moving in any direction is better than not moving at all. That was my mistake....

Regardless, I hope everything works out well for you. You've got several more years to get it worked out before age becomes a bigger career move obstacle. In other words, just get movin' in a direction before you end up like me.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

I saw a therapist while I was at uni, which definitely helped. I was also on anti-depressants for a while last year and I was referred to a therapist again, but I didn't go because I ended up staying with my mum for a few weeks while I was flat hunting and missed the appointments. I definitely think I need to get back on both those trains.

It's good to hear you have had positive experiences with medications and talk therapy. I give the suggestion sometimes for seeking out support of a doctor/therapist bracing myself for "i've tried that and it almost killed me" retort. That's why I always emphasize, any doctor and/or therapist, you go to see one that fits.

You are going to get some solid advice from others around here (i'll leave that to the others since they will do a better job than me ). You will take/sift through the advice better with the first step though. It seems you are willing to help yourself, that is the biggest positive. You are motivated to change. Knowing that you want to change, having that frame of thought in you, remind yourself you are doing something. Sometimes as we are in the midst of changing, or working toward change, it is easy to beat yourself up for not being where you want to be yet.

[Shieldmaiden]

I'm seriously considering moving back up to Peterborough. I could really do with having my family around me for support and I think that it's going to be a much better place for me to be working and putting away some money for education (or paying for part-time education.)

It's going to suck leaving my friends behind, but most of my really good friends don't even live in London, they're scattered around Essex and jumping on a train to visit them isn't that much more expensive from Peterborough than it is from here.

[J Arcane]

I'm going to just second what Purps said.

Depression warps your sense of cause and effect.

You see a poor life history, of crappy jobs and failed degrees, and this lack of direction, and assume that the depression is because of those things.

It's not.

It's the cause of those things.

I went through very much the same kind of life. One crappy job after another, none of them lasting long, none of them fulfilling, always feeling directionless, always second guessing myself, and through it all I was depressed as hell and I let that depression happen because I assumed that it was just the natural result of all this miserable stuff happening.

But the truth is, I let those terrible things happen, because I was depressed. The depression saps confidence, it saps drive, it saps motivation, and because I lacked those things I kept falling into those traps and one failure after another. I was ruining my life because I was depressed, and then using the ruined life as an excuse to be more depressed. It's a cycle, and one that's incredibly hard to get clear of.

I am glad to hear you are getting help. It may take some tries to find someone you trust to speak with about things, but I recommend talk therapy, because I think by itself, the medication created such changes that it was simply too difficult to deal with on my own.

I would also put on hold thinking too much about moving until you've taken some months for the medicine to even out, your mood to follow, and for you to spend some time working with your therapist on your issues.

One of the things I find myself doing when I'm depressed is that I want to run away from things, but if you run away, but still don't have your mood and your mind on stable ground when you do, that new life will crumble just like the old one did, only now you're even farther afield from your support structures and your comfort zone, and it'll just get that much worse.

Go to a doctor, go to a therapist. Find out what you need and work on getting help. Don't even necessarily worry about the weight thing right now, focus on getting comfortable with yourself, on building yourself up above the depression. Find something, anything, that you're good at, and go out and do it with gusto.

Once you take those steps to start getting help, and rediscovering your confidence and your own happiness, you'll find other stuff follows. Those self-improvement urges, instead of coming out of guilt, will instead come out of sheer drive and motivation just to keep feeling better and better about yourself, and you'll be more likely to do them and stick with them because your failures won't be an excuse to fall back on depression.

I still have a lot of work to do, so I don't want to present myself as some miracle story, truth is I think I could still be doing better, and I keep working on it. But in just over half a year I've gone from one of the darkest places I've ever been and a life not too much different from yours, to building a new career, at a new school, and even finding love, and all because I took the step first to ask for some real help from actual professionals, and followed that up by helping myself to build myself a ladder to climb out of that depression.

You can do it. It'll be rough at first, it might even seem worse than before for a while, but then it gets better, and then you start finding yourself doing the things that keep making it better for yourself.

That's my story. And I don't think I'm that special to be the only one that can have it.

[Shieldmaiden]

Realising that depression is a cause in itself was one of the things that came out of the therapy I had a couple of years ago. I used to really beat myself about a lot of behaviours that were caused by it.

I've been looking into the practicalities of moving back to Peterborough and I'm thinking that it's the best way forward for now. I'd not wanted to go back because it felt like admitting defeat. Now I realise that it's something I probably should have done ages ago. I'm really isolated where I am now. I live in a tiny room in a flat share with a bunch of strangers. I rarely get out because I can't afford it. I don't even have friends nearby that I can visit without it being an expense and a lot of effort.

I've looked into rents back home and I can a decent sized flat on my own for what a single room in a share costs here. I've got family and friends that won't cost at least £8 in public transport a time to visit. It's also a lot more comprehensible. I know the place inside out, finding somewhere to live and a job is going to be a lot easier than it is here.

[Krispy]

Good luck Jonno. You deserve happiness.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

I'm going to just second what Purps said.

Depression warps your sense of cause and effect.

You see a poor life history, of crappy jobs and failed degrees, and this lack of direction, and assume that the depression is because of those things.

It's not.

It's the cause of those things.

I went through very much the same kind of life. One crappy job after another, none of them lasting long, none of them fulfilling, always feeling directionless, always second guessing myself, and through it all I was depressed as hell and I let that depression happen because I assumed that it was just the natural result of all this miserable stuff happening.

But the truth is, I let those terrible things happen, because I was depressed. The depression saps confidence, it saps drive, it saps motivation, and because I lacked those things I kept falling into those traps and one failure after another. I was ruining my life because I was depressed, and then using the ruined life as an excuse to be more depressed. It's a cycle, and one that's incredibly hard to get clear of.

I am glad to hear you are getting help. It may take some tries to find someone you trust to speak with about things, but I recommend talk therapy, because I think by itself, the medication created such changes that it was simply too difficult to deal with on my own.

I would also put on hold thinking too much about moving until you've taken some months for the medicine to even out, your mood to follow, and for you to spend some time working with your therapist on your issues.

One of the things I find myself doing when I'm depressed is that I want to run away from things, but if you run away, but still don't have your mood and your mind on stable ground when you do, that new life will crumble just like the old one did, only now you're even farther afield from your support structures and your comfort zone, and it'll just get that much worse.

Go to a doctor, go to a therapist. Find out what you need and work on getting help. Don't even necessarily worry about the weight thing right now, focus on getting comfortable with yourself, on building yourself up above the depression. Find something, anything, that you're good at, and go out and do it with gusto.

Once you take those steps to start getting help, and rediscovering your confidence and your own happiness, you'll find other stuff follows. Those self-improvement urges, instead of coming out of guilt, will instead come out of sheer drive and motivation just to keep feeling better and better about yourself, and you'll be more likely to do them and stick with them because your failures won't be an excuse to fall back on depression.

I still have a lot of work to do, so I don't want to present myself as some miracle story, truth is I think I could still be doing better, and I keep working on it. But in just over half a year I've gone from one of the darkest places I've ever been and a life not too much different from yours, to building a new career, at a new school, and even finding love, and all because I took the step first to ask for some real help from actual professionals, and followed that up by helping myself to build myself a ladder to climb out of that depression.

You can do it. It'll be rough at first, it might even seem worse than before for a while, but then it gets better, and then you start finding yourself doing the things that keep making it better for yourself.

That's my story. And I don't think I'm that special to be the only one that can have it.

This was a great post. It's never easy talking about such personal stuff. I think it helps when someone can share if they can.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

Realising that depression is a cause in itself was one of the things that came out of the therapy I had a couple of years ago. I used to really beat myself about a lot of behaviours that were caused by it.

I've been looking into the practicalities of moving back to Peterborough and I'm thinking that it's the best way forward for now. I'd not wanted to go back because it felt like admitting defeat. Now I realise that it's something I probably should have done ages ago. I'm really isolated where I am now. I live in a tiny room in a flat share with a bunch of strangers. I rarely get out because I can't afford it. I don't even have friends nearby that I can visit without it being an expense and a lot of effort.

I've looked into rents back home and I can a decent sized flat on my own for what a single room in a share costs here. I've got family and friends that won't cost at least £8 in public transport a time to visit. It's also a lot more comprehensible. I know the place inside out, finding somewhere to live and a job is going to be a lot easier than it is here.

Fair enough on the move. It does actually seem like you already made the running away mistake by going to London, but also think hard about that feeling like leaving London would be a failure because it could just as easily become another excuse to put yourself down.

But if there are people there who can help support you through your depression, that could also be very valuable to the process.

So I would just suggest thinking carefully about why you came to London, what you wanted to accomplish by coming there, and take stock of whether you would regret not doing that more than that hometown support would give you.

[Doogie2K]

While I'd generally agree with J on the principle of tackling one problem at a time - and he has first-hand experience on this - I will note that exercise does have some anti-depressive effects. In combination with meds and talk therapy, I can't see that being anything but a good thing. To J's point, though, I'd maybe avoid setting goals at first, and just try to find something you enjoy doing and can do reliably, even for only a few minutes at a time, then get more focused and ambitious when you're ready for it.

[Shieldmaiden]

When I moved here, I was still married. We moved so I could go to university here after me being made redundant. About six months after the move, my marriage broke down. I stayed because I needed to for the course and, frankly, I didn't have anywhere else to go, because my relationship with my mum wasn't good at the time. It's been a struggle ever since. I've had some good times and made some great friends, however they're pretty scattered (I made most of them through LARPing.)

Now I've unburdened myself of the notion that moving back is a sign of failure, I can't really think of any reason not to.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by Doogie2K

While I'd generally agree with J on the principle of tackling one problem at a time - and he has first-hand experience on this - I will note that exercise does have some anti-depressive effects. In combination with meds and talk therapy, I can't see that being anything but a good thing. To J's point, though, I'd maybe avoid setting goals at first, and just try to find something you enjoy doing and can do reliably, even for only a few minutes at a time, then get more focused and ambitious when you're ready for it.

This is true.

As my therapist constantly points out, don't neglect the basic essentials. Diet, sleep, exercise. All three help keep the brain function healthy.

So perhaps what I would say is, don't worry about exercise as weight loss right now, but do try and find little habits like Doogie says here that you can work into your daily routine.

For me, it was taking the stairs at the college more instead of the shuttle or the elevator, and walking more places when I can get there on foot even if there's a bus or a cab that could get me there. My next goal is to start doing just a few pushups every day.

[Shieldmaiden]

I actually get a decent amount of exercise, I usually walk at least a mile a day and get in 2-3 mile walks at least a couple of times a week, plus I have viking training at least once a week. My issue has been various health problems (recurring knee problems, depression and IBS-related gut pain) preventing me from getting that exercise. The only reason I'm as heavy as I am is that I have a tendency to comfort- and boredom- eat.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

I actually get a decent amount of exercise, I usually walk at least a mile a day and get in 2-3 mile walks at least a couple of times a week, plus I have viking training at least once a week. My issue has been various health problems (recurring knee problems, depression and IBS-related gut pain) preventing me from getting that exercise. The only reason I'm as heavy as I am is that I have a tendency to comfort- and boredom- eat.

Ahh. Yeah, if it's an eating habit thing, that is definitely something that therapy can help with.

I have some bad eating habits I've been working on. Last year I cut out sweetened drinks entirely. Nothing but water, tea, coffee, and natural fruit juices is allowed to pass my lips, not even artificially sweetened stuff. I also cut out fast food, and I've been cutting down the snacking pretty heavily, though my sweet tooth still gets the occasional weekly indulgence.

I'm kinda the same way, in that when I'd get bored, I'd snack. When depressed, I'd go for something fatty or rich. And since I was spending all my time with a best friend whose only idea of going out to do something was usually going out to eat, well ...

[Doogie2K]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

I actually get a decent amount of exercise, I usually walk at least a mile a day and get in 2-3 mile walks at least a couple of times a week, plus I have viking training at least once a week. My issue has been various health problems (recurring knee problems, depression and IBS-related gut pain) preventing me from getting that exercise. The only reason I'm as heavy as I am is that I have a tendency to comfort- and boredom- eat.

Yeah, that's a bitch of a habit to break, even without multiple medical maladies getting in the way. Sounds like you've got good exercise habits, anyway, so once you get the other stuff straightened away, you should find your weight dropping in good time.

Another, related thought: regardless of where you are, playing recreational sports might be a good way to socialize and meet/hang out with people, and feel less isolated. Pick-up or beer-league football (or whatever you're into) is another thing to consider once you're in a position to do so.

Originally Posted by J Arcane

As my therapist constantly points out, don't neglect the basic essentials. Diet, sleep, exercise. All three help keep the brain function healthy.

So perhaps what I would say is, don't worry about exercise as weight loss right now, but do try and find little habits like Doogie says here that you can work into your daily routine.

For me, it was taking the stairs at the college more instead of the shuttle or the elevator, and walking more places when I can get there on foot even if there's a bus or a cab that could get me there. My next goal is to start doing just a few pushups every day.

Bingo. I was highly resistant to exercise when I first started losing weight, but changing a couple of small things at a time grew over the course of several years into five days a week of either hour-long weight sessions or running 5 km around my neighbourhood. Starting small makes it so much easier to stick with it, and the energy and confidence you get from it is just fantastic.

[J Arcane]

Pick-up or beer-league football (or whatever you're into) is another thing to consider once you're in a position to do so.

This is a GREAT idea. I wish I'd thought of that. I love football but I haven't played it in years, and while I don't have the running stamina I used to, I could at least take line in a game.

I should look into that when I move. Be a good social opportunity too.

[Dark Acre Jack]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

I thought I'd pretty much kicked it, but that's not the case and I'm going to attempt to drag myself to the doctor tomorrow morning to get some professional help.

You may find that with treatment, some answers to your larger-scope questions will appear.

That was my experience, anyway. Best of luck!

[violent]

My suggestion would be to start at a point where everything after will benefit from its success.

Truly invite change in your life. Specifically, make it your priority to start respecting your body. Diet and exercise. Don't go on a diet, change your life to a healthy one. With time, you will feel physically better and you will start to feel strong of mind when you see your accomplishment. Cultivate your victories and your self-esteem and confidence will rise. With strong confidence, you won't apply for a job, you'll walk into an interview and tell them why you're an asset. Then just keep elevating.

But it all has to start with serious change.