KuriGohan&Kamehameha
想死不能 - 想活不能
- Nov 23, 2020
- 1,816
By feeling the heat, I mean bombarded with societal pressure to "get your shit together" in whatever form this may look like.
I'm 26 now, and I'm struggling even more than I did when I was younger. With age comes wisdom, and 'mellowing out' somewhat, but the responsibilities keep piling and piling, and the older you get the more you are on your own to shoulder these burdens. And when you can't handle them, well, people look down on you, or worse, deprive you of the necessary things you need to survive, like employment and a steady income.
Whenever I was a teenager and young adult, I envisioned that life would still be a struggle, but I wasn't prepared for just how bad it was going to get for me. I've now been chronically ill for almost 9 years, and I don't remember what life was like before being disabled, especially because I was already born with autism and had PTSD since a young age.
I came to the realisation around the time that I joined this forum that I would be living with chronic fatigue and pain for the rest of my life, and that was an extremely crushing revelation that has weighed heavily on me over the past 4-5 years.
Over time, certain symptoms of mine have gotten worse as well, I really struggle with verbal speech and communication as well as short-term memory. The older I'm getting, the worse this problem is, and the job I have currently requires me to verbally speak a lot, so I'm constantly embarrassing myself and making dumb mistakes. There's a person I work with who non-stop puts me on the spot, and then on top of that I work with the public so I've had horrible insults, shouting, abusive language hurled at me. I've even cried before at work and had to just... Keep smiling and working.
Because of all my disabilities and chronic illnesses, I still can't work completely full time, and the amount I do work still puts me in lots of pain. I was told so many times when I was younger that if I pursued higher education/university, so many jobs would open up to me, but this was a lie. I stayed unemployed for months until I finally got this barely above minimum wage job, that I've been stuck at for a really long time now because there just, aren't any jobs. I was an idiot who did a STEM degree that requires you to go further in graduate studies, and now I'm not able to.
I always feel the judgement from others like an axe above my head about to drop. Oh, you're almost 30 and don't have a career? Oh, you're struggling to survive and are disorganised? Be more responsible, you're old enough now! Oh, you have no interest in having kids? Oh, you don't want to own a house? Oh, you still like "cute" things and want to have hobbies? You shouldn't care about anything but work and money! Which I don't make enough money to survive on my own, even when I work my ass off, which has left me stuck in abusive and toxic situations like a loveless marriage.
There's so much tragedy that accompanies getting older, I pretty much have no family left except my grandma, and she cannot stop talking about how she's going to die, and how screwed I will be when I have absolutely nobody left, for the past year and a half. I think my grandma is also extremely ashamed of my situation, doesn't fully believe I am ill, and had extremely high expectations for me that I couldn't fulfill. There's a profound denial of how much I struggle to function. It doesn't help that whenever someone learns I am autistic, they expect me to be some sort of super genius instead of the blithering idiot that I am.
I was told over, and over, and over again that "things will get better." But each year grows more difficult. Whenever I wake up to go to work, I feel nauseated and exhausted, knowing I just don't have a choice. I have to push myself to be in more physical pain and constantly embarrass myself for a pittance of money that isn't enough to survive on. Whenever I see other people my age having fancy careers, non-stop holidays where they go hiking and swimming and all this other crap I can't do because I'm disabled, having happy marriages, children, buying houses, enjoying time with their family, I just want to cry knowing my future is forever going to be this.
So yeah, I am definitely feeling the heat now. I know it's not my fault that I'm this way, but the world makes me feel like the most useless garbage person ever because I have to struggle so much for nothing. With the type of illnesses I have, if you don't get better in the first few years, it seems highly likely to be permanent. My symptoms started almost 9 years ago now, and never got better. Now that I'm getting older, I know my body is going to wear out and slow down even more. All of this just makes me want to cry!
I'm 26 now, and I'm struggling even more than I did when I was younger. With age comes wisdom, and 'mellowing out' somewhat, but the responsibilities keep piling and piling, and the older you get the more you are on your own to shoulder these burdens. And when you can't handle them, well, people look down on you, or worse, deprive you of the necessary things you need to survive, like employment and a steady income.
Whenever I was a teenager and young adult, I envisioned that life would still be a struggle, but I wasn't prepared for just how bad it was going to get for me. I've now been chronically ill for almost 9 years, and I don't remember what life was like before being disabled, especially because I was already born with autism and had PTSD since a young age.
I came to the realisation around the time that I joined this forum that I would be living with chronic fatigue and pain for the rest of my life, and that was an extremely crushing revelation that has weighed heavily on me over the past 4-5 years.
Over time, certain symptoms of mine have gotten worse as well, I really struggle with verbal speech and communication as well as short-term memory. The older I'm getting, the worse this problem is, and the job I have currently requires me to verbally speak a lot, so I'm constantly embarrassing myself and making dumb mistakes. There's a person I work with who non-stop puts me on the spot, and then on top of that I work with the public so I've had horrible insults, shouting, abusive language hurled at me. I've even cried before at work and had to just... Keep smiling and working.
Because of all my disabilities and chronic illnesses, I still can't work completely full time, and the amount I do work still puts me in lots of pain. I was told so many times when I was younger that if I pursued higher education/university, so many jobs would open up to me, but this was a lie. I stayed unemployed for months until I finally got this barely above minimum wage job, that I've been stuck at for a really long time now because there just, aren't any jobs. I was an idiot who did a STEM degree that requires you to go further in graduate studies, and now I'm not able to.
I always feel the judgement from others like an axe above my head about to drop. Oh, you're almost 30 and don't have a career? Oh, you're struggling to survive and are disorganised? Be more responsible, you're old enough now! Oh, you have no interest in having kids? Oh, you don't want to own a house? Oh, you still like "cute" things and want to have hobbies? You shouldn't care about anything but work and money! Which I don't make enough money to survive on my own, even when I work my ass off, which has left me stuck in abusive and toxic situations like a loveless marriage.
There's so much tragedy that accompanies getting older, I pretty much have no family left except my grandma, and she cannot stop talking about how she's going to die, and how screwed I will be when I have absolutely nobody left, for the past year and a half. I think my grandma is also extremely ashamed of my situation, doesn't fully believe I am ill, and had extremely high expectations for me that I couldn't fulfill. There's a profound denial of how much I struggle to function. It doesn't help that whenever someone learns I am autistic, they expect me to be some sort of super genius instead of the blithering idiot that I am.
I was told over, and over, and over again that "things will get better." But each year grows more difficult. Whenever I wake up to go to work, I feel nauseated and exhausted, knowing I just don't have a choice. I have to push myself to be in more physical pain and constantly embarrass myself for a pittance of money that isn't enough to survive on. Whenever I see other people my age having fancy careers, non-stop holidays where they go hiking and swimming and all this other crap I can't do because I'm disabled, having happy marriages, children, buying houses, enjoying time with their family, I just want to cry knowing my future is forever going to be this.
So yeah, I am definitely feeling the heat now. I know it's not my fault that I'm this way, but the world makes me feel like the most useless garbage person ever because I have to struggle so much for nothing. With the type of illnesses I have, if you don't get better in the first few years, it seems highly likely to be permanent. My symptoms started almost 9 years ago now, and never got better. Now that I'm getting older, I know my body is going to wear out and slow down even more. All of this just makes me want to cry!
