I Feel Useless
 

Recently life has gone downhill, to say the least.

I'm one of those stubborn people who hates asking for help and likes to take care of everybody else. While the rest of my friends were in their senior year in high school I had already gotten my GED and was in my first year in college, so I knew I had an advantage. I was the only one with a car, the only graduate, the only one with a job, and I helped them all out. I drove them around, I bought them gifts, I took them fun places and taught them new experiences they had never known before because their families were too poor...

And then BAM! Everything hit at once.

I quit my job because I was planning on going home to see my family for the summer. During the time I was getting ready to leave I got a girlfriend, my grandma informed me that if I left she was going to let my brother take the room I had been living in for a year and planned on living in for at least until I finished my semester, and my father informed me that I couldn't bring my Leopard Geko, Donovan, with me to home. Considering all those elements, I decided to stay in town at least half the summer despite not having a job.

Then I broke my phone, so I bought a new one for $150. I lost it the day I got it, before I even activated it.

I got a speeding ticket because I was having a stupid race with some friends. I won, but that doesn't seem to matter with how pricey said ticket is.

Then my grandma kicked me out - forcing me to give away both Donovan and my beta fish, Gerabaldi, and leave my dog at my parents' house. This is because I caved in and let myself get angry as she pushed my buttons.

I found I had spent so much money on gifts for my friends I was 600 dollars in debt.

My car was leaking two quarts of oil a week and was shutting down on me about twice a week. I put oil in it earlier today and forgot to put the cap back on the engine, so when I went to take it to the mechanic's today it was too messed up to even get that far and my oil cap is now lost somewhere on the highway. If I can't fix this cheaply and have to get a new one, this will be my 3rd car in the less than 2 years I've been driving.

Due to my decision to stay away from pot smokers while they smoke (When I got the speeding ticket the girl in the backseat had pot in her purse and the cop swore I had burn marks on my tongue that you "only get from smoking pot," even though I've never smoked a god damned cigarette, let alone pot. It made me decide to avoid them during moments when I could get, you know, arrested.) most of my pothead friends decided I was stuck up and talk bad about me behind my back all the time. I lost over half my friends, and an even larger chunk decided to leave once I wasn't single and they didn't have the chance to date me.

Do you know how stupid and useless I feel? It's like I'm a leech, now draining on everybody else as I desperately flounder towards some poor resemblance of humanity to keep my sanity intact.

I'm the one who's supposed to take care of everybody else. I'm the strong friend, the wise friend, the stubborn friend, the resourceful friend, and here I am begging for money. I felt bad enough needing money from my family for the debt and the ticket, but now car repairs or (god, I hope not) a whole new car? I'm a parasite taking thousands of dollars from my loving, supportive parents because I failed. I made a mistake.

I hate making mistakes. I'm a perfectionist whose spent their entire life getting in the 99th percentile on all their test scores. I do things right or I don't do them at all, but lately it seems that's not true.

How do people handle being imperfect? Normally I just shut it out of my head, but...

It's just hard, I guess. Really hard.

[/end whining]

I feel for you, I have a similar personality and while I haven't had problems as severe as yours, I've also had to borrow money from a friend due to the job market being completely dead around here.

I know it's not much comfort but you've just got to try and keep yourself sane while you work through this. Can you contact your old employer and see if they have any other openings?

My old employer is Wal*Mart. :\ If you quit you're pretty much blacklisted and can't work for them or any company under them.
...not that I know those companies.

I can see about begging, but I doubt it'll work with a heartless megacorporation such as they. (Honestly, I won't even weep if they turn me down. Working there was a living nightmare.)

I'm living with my parents while I try and figure out what's going to happen and next time I go into the city I'm going to try to see if my college will let me be involved in a workstudy program so I can afford to pay rent on a place to live so I can go to college. (My parents live in the absolute middle of nowhere, so I can't go to college from their house and had to go to the city 2 hours away to attend.)

The problems are going to get solved, I know that much, it's just knowing that most of them are my fault and I brought this stress on myself and my family is rough on me. >.> The fact that nobody is mad at me only makes it worse.

Ahh, Fortis, Fortis, Fortis. It sounds like you are indeed mostly a good person caught up in some bad times. I'll start off with some of the negatives, to get those out of the way, then move to the positives.

First off, street racing, bad idea. I did the same thing when I was younger, and stopped right after getting a ticket that ended up costing me $450 to get dropped. Secondly, if you are going to chose when to be around your friends based on their lifestyle choices, then you need to be ready for the consequences. Yea, it sucks, and it isn't fair. You treated these people with respect and dignity, and simply chose not to be around them when they engage in a certain illegal activity. Could you have gotten in trouble from hanging around them? Maybe. It would have been a slap on the wrist. But not doing so anyway is a matter of your own personal honor code, which I can respect.

As for everything else going on, such as the phone and the car problems, it sounds like you need to focus and slow down a bit more. You are throwing yourself into a cycle, in which you do something wrong, get mad at yourself, and while you are stressed about it, you do something else wrong because you are stressed. You just need to learn to chill out a bit and take a step back.

Outside of all of this, you sound like a great person, and I hope things get better for you. Being a perfectionist isn't easy, trust me, I know. But things will get better.

Ooh I used to work for them a few years ago. I agree with you, it's a shithole.

My rents live an hour away and due to night classes I started dorming. Hopefully your workstudy is better than the shit here. They only let you work up to nine hours a week at minimum wage.

The work-study program here will only admit you if you have zero expected contribution from your parents. It took my dad being unemployed for three years for the school to finally let me in. :gonk:

I hope the workstudy works well enough. If not, I'll just put in job applications every available day.
:\ I don't really need to worry about qualifications, because the only reason I'm able to afford any college is because I have a grant paying it all due to how poor we are. One of the reasons I feel so bad about putting financial pressure on my family.


Vix- Nothing put me off of going to Wal*Mart more than working there. It was just so...ugh.


Zazabar- I've been trying to keep myself reigned in my whole life, but recently I've been experimenting with how much is too much to let go on that, and I think I got a bit carried away. I'm aware that my constant, overbearing need for control and perfection in every movement I make is wrong, but apparently I'm having a hard time finding the go-between for "crazy strict" and "crazy crazy." My ID and Superego are having a contest to see who rules my brain, and my Ego has been doing a terrible job of, well, doing it's job. xD

I think a lot of what happened was like a cold slap to my face, though, and reminded me to keep my head together no matter what I do.

Dear Fortis,

Life hits you hard. Trust me, I know. I stayed so much in my closed environment that when I suddenly had to take care of myself a lot more I couldn't do it. Now you made a few wrong decisions, but that's nothing to get too caught up in. It happened, and you have to muster all your willpower to move on the best you can.
I'm very sorry that I cannot offer any real advice than that... I don't have any experience with being in dept and begging (well, that much in dept. I never have any money anyways >.>) I think that everything will work out, you just have to be a little more optimistic and a bit less perfectionist if you can try. The more you can cope with imperfect situations, the less things that happen will bother you. :>

The only thing that I can tell you is to appreciate that what's happening now is only for now. You may have made some mistakes, but everyone does. Everyone has rough times, and everyone has times when they're on top of the world. If you work hard and keep your head down, pretty soon you'll be on top of the world again.

I totally sympathise with you on the overly strict - overly crazy line. I'm a perfectionist and I went to a rather austere school, so now I often feel like the second I let go, I let go too much, and end up hating myself for it. Last night I was beating myself up for this very reason, in fact. ><

I DO think it was abit silly of you to go around with a circle of potheads if that kind of lifestyle doesn't appeal to you. You should have realised it would only cause trouble for you, as you refuse to take part in their addiction and they were obviously bound to not accept that. If they can't accept that you aren't bound to join in with them or even stay around them while they do this, they aren't even friends anyway. You can find better. I had a friend who smoked cigarettes once, and she never once pressured me to try or to stay with her while she smoked - she even asked me once if I'd prefer to stay away. THAT is a real friend, a person who respects your individual decisions no matter how much they might conflict with her own. I miss her so much... ><

Uhhh, sorry, went off onto a mini-ramble. I think that's all I have to say for now, but I'll stick around and try and help some more if you reply.

I would try my very best to get a new job so you can pay off your debts and such. They might take a little while though, but its well worth it. Also in future try not to buy so many things for friends, show them you care in other ways.