I don’t have high expectations of my friends anymore. I just want to be able to relate to them and have a good time. It’s always been hard for me to make friends since I was little. I don’t have much to talk about with people and there are lots of things not going right for me that it’s hard to not come out even if I try. If I say, I’m not happy with my job situation, so I’m not able to focus on a couple of other things right now, they start giving unsolicited advice and I keep saying that won’t work because of so and so reason. At the end of the conversation it all comes out. I didn’t mean to give them specifics. The friend who was trying to help with the shopping for pants, is someone I can’t relate to on many other topics as well. I do want to limit my interaction with her because of that. I don’t come out of our interactions feeling joyful. I know I am always anxious, it’s always lurking below the surface. I wouldn’t even know how to find a competent therapist. I’ve tried therapy twice and it helped only 5%.

But, the situations I’m talking about happened more than a decade ago and I’m wondering if by remembering how I was hurt, I’m being resentful.

As a child I wasn’t depressed. I don’t know if my parents had a role to play in this. I didn’t think it was different, because I didn’t know what it was like in other homes. I didn’t have a lot of friends and that probably made me sad, but I was close to my older brother.

I don’t prefer living with my parents, but that is not really what keeps me stuck in anxiety and depression. I haven’t had a career really. I’ve had a hard time looking for jobs, getting stable jobs or jobs that I liked at all. I’ve had jobs but not a career. In my personal life also, I haven’t had any relationships and I’ve been going on just first dates that didn’t convert into anything. I try hard and for a while it seems like things are moving forward but then I go back to where I started. It’s like I’m on these 2 year loops. It’s these things that keep me stuck.

Now, I’m trying to find another job but haven’t been able to find something I will like somewhat. I had a side effect to a medication last year and my health took a turn leaving me so fatigued that I haven’t been able to actively look for a job. There is also this high level of apathy and lack of confidence. I don’t even know what I want to do anymore. My health/situation has left me feeling sad, angry and irritated at the same time. I have the option to move to another country within my company, but I really dislike my work content and I feel I am not being compensated as per my experience and qualifications. I’m in two minds whether to accept it. I was very miserable when I was in that situation 2 years ago.

I really need a holiday but I’ll have to go with my parents because I don’t have friends who would go. It’s not safe for girls to travel in my country alone. The new friends I made are getting on my nerves and I can’t stand them anymore.

It just seems like no matter where I turn, I will have to keep putting up with things that I don’t want. This is what made my health bad – being stuck in life and not speaking my truth.

I have had seasonal asthma since I was 10. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2014. It’s because of an autoimmune disease. I gained weight because of that. Then last year when my asthma season was on, I had a side effect to my inhaler. I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now. It led to a lot of fatigue, brain fog, lack of concentration, anxiety, depression, irritability. I feel I am 50% as productive as I used to be. I also gained weight which resulted in half of my wardrobe not fitting me anymore. I also have an iron deficiency, Vit D deficiency. I sleep for 7- 8 hours but never wake up feeling rested. This has been the case for the last 11 years. These things are just getting worse.

I have lived away from my parents and I do prefer it. But, I need a new job or to get married to move out. Neither of those are happening and those seem to be more of a problem. As for my part, I don’t really help around at home. We have a part-time domestic helper, but I don’t take care of any other tasks. My parents are the ones who spend money as well, they won’t take it from me because I am their baby and it’s all my money anyways.

When I say speaking my truth, I mean taking decisions that I want to do rather than what seems like the right thing to do. In my country, we need to pick our future career at the age of 15. My school had rules based on grades and I ended up getting something that I didn’t know much about. I wasn’t very certain what I wanted to do. I wanted to do research but my family said it wasn’t a worthwhile career. Then after high school, I again picked something that I thought was the next logical step. Same goes for my graduate school. I tried to switch to something else but I wasn’t able to get into the top schools. I only wanted to go to the top schools and did not apply anywhere else. When I started working, I didn’t enjoy the work or the work timings, so I quit without another job in hand. It took me 6 months to get another one that I thought I would like. But, it wasn’t the right place for me. That company shut down and I tried to find another job. I found one but turned it down the day before I was supposed to join because I was verbally offered something else. That offer also was taken away and I joined one of their other divisions, at a much lower level than where I should be and on a contract basis. It was the only job I had in hand, so I took it up. It was a good place to be, but I felt strange because I was much older than my peers and seemed behind them. I decided to go back to school and majored in something that turned out to be an incorrect decision. I had too much work experience for the kind of jobs in the market or they needed a PhD. I applied for jobs but got the only job that I didn’t want. I could make out in the interviews that the work environment wasn’t conducive and it did turn out to be toxic. I was also not very interested in the work content. I am still in the same job and unable to switch to another one. My health hasn’t permitted me to look very actively for one. It also broke my heart to not be able to find something that I wanted.

Yes, I do feel hopeless and despair over my situations. I’m tired of working hard and not seeing results. I am taking medicines for my iron, Vit-D and hypothyroidism. My asthma is seasonal but I’m doing whatever I can.

I have the chance to move out of my country within my organization, but I am not keen on the work content or the position that is being offered to me. It will offer me cleaner air, but again, it will seem like not speaking my truth. I will try and negotiate with my company, but if they don’t give me what I think is fair to me, I will just stay where I am and quit my job. It’s not like the move will be permanent and I’ll be sucked into something that I don’t like again. I felt a sense of relief when I made this decision, but now also feel a tinge of fear that I will make the wrong decision. I may never get another chance to raise my standard of living. I guess it’s a risk either way and being undervalued will also make me feel bad about myself.