Love help: I’ve been going through a tough time, and I need help. - Help.com

I’ve been going through a tough time, and I need help.

I didn’t realize it until now, but I’ve been pushing a problem away for the past three years I’ve been in college, and I’m just discovering it for what it really is. I’ve been carrying around this weight I had barely even acknowledged before, and it has grown so huge over the years of my neglecting, or inexperience, or naive youth. And now that I’m facing it, eyes open to the mass that it has become…
Ever since I was three or four, I loved to write. I had a big imagination, and this one story just came to me and developed over the years until I wrote it. Ever since then, I loved to read and write. I admired the literature that meant something to me, and in return, I wanted to be more a part of that world of literature by adding my own works to it. When my childhood book was done, I sent it away to publishers. It never got published, but I loved writing it. Absolutely loved it.
Now, I’m an English major and I have excelled academically. I have a 3.9 GPA and I am graduating a year early. I went to a college far away enough to dorm and close enough to visit my then boyfriend and family every weekend. When I started I was pretty happy, but secretly inside of me, an anxiety grew. I started to see how difficult it was to get published and how much I didn’t really know what I wanted to do career-wise aside from continuing to write.
This anxiety grew, fed with low confidence and fear. If I had to illustrate the darkest thoughts that would run through my mind, here is what they would be, “Publishing is hard. Writing is hard. Do you really want to write books your whole life only to see them never get published? Do you enjoy writing that much? I don’t think you do. Are you just hungry for fame? What do you really want to write about anyway? You’re not that good of a writer, you got too lazy. You won’t get published. You won’t get your childhood dream; therefore, it is a waste of time. Find a real career, find money, be someone else…someone who doesn’t have to care about this head-splitting desire to write.”

I ignored this at first, but the more I looked ahead, the more I tried to see myself in different careers, the worse it became. It’s keeping me from writing right now. I started to think about jobs. Careers. I started also to listen to what other people were saying about those things. I started to question my degree. I started to question writing. I wondered how it would fit into my life now. Of course I can’t just write to support myself, I need some sort of related career to foster it and stay alive. But as I looked into this, I only saw bleakness…

I considered working in news or magazines, because it’s the most practical application of my talent and love of writing. But I learned that those things are actually quite graceless nowadays. Reporters no longer investigate for the truth. “Puff” pieces are in demand. Puff is what sells, teen magazines that I never read when I was a teen…would be the most logical companies for me to work for…to write for. There are a few magazines I wouldn’t mind working for, but getting a job in journalism is so hard and unstable, it’s become unappealing. Teaching is an option too, and something I might enjoy, either on the high school or college level. But sometimes, I get so afraid I won’t have time to write because of the nature of it—grading, paperwork—and even worse, I get afraid I’ll be disillusioned by the job—nasty kids, low pay, no due respect. Still, sometimes, I think I’d be a great teacher, but I’m still afraid of it. I’m afraid of not being able to manage that and writing.
Sometimes, I wish I had a different passion, a passion for something that led to a more stable, accessible job. I interned at a law office and a vet’s office, but I found that I would hate doing law, and that being a vet or a doctor would definitely not allow for any time to write. They just don’t seem to be my path.

I don’t know how I managed a 3.9 GPA and finishing a year early with these in the undercurrents of my thoughts and feelings, but I did. I’m proud of it to a point, but I’d be more proud if I could figure this despair about writing and career out. I’d feel more proud if I could feel like I know myself and my goals again…

And then my friend died, last November. She wanted to write, too. She had a hard family life, too. She was a History major. She was very much like me. And she had faith in me. She told me I listened to too many people. She wished I had more faith in myself and in my happiness in the future, and in my writing. And when she died, I lost it.
So now I’m here. I’m graduating next spring, a year ahead. I will be twenty one with a bachelors in English, concentration in creative writing and a minor in mass communication. My literature professors are more than impressed with my essay writing skills, my creative writing professors less with my fiction skills. I’m applying for an MFA program in creative writing, where the odds of getting into any, much less the good ones, are slim.
I cry everyday. I feel like I have betrayed myself, even though I did nothing against myself or my writing. I can’t bring myself to write now, though. I feel afraid. I miss my friend. I don’t know where my life is going. I wish I could have wanted something else in the place of writing, something easier, something friendlier, something more social, something more gratifying—outwardly, inwardly too—I wish I could have fallen in love with something less painful.
My friends and family are fed up with me. I am depressed. I’m afraid I’ll never get published. I want to face these odds anyways, and I want to enjoy the process of writing in the face of them. I want to discover myself again, as a person and a writer. I want to let go. I want to forgive myself for the times I let myself slide with writing. I want to be free of the stress of trying to impress others with it. I want to be strong for myself again. But every day, I feel less and less accomplished. I feel less and less helpful to others or myself with what I do. I feel less and less hopeful to come out of this with a clear head and an open heart. I am utterly afraid, to an inappropriate degree, a childish embracing of it. I cannot help myself, sometimes. I give in and cry. I sometimes wish I could have died with my friend. The time after her death has been overwhelmingly uncomfortable and jarring.

I want more than anything to know myself again. I can feel myself inside of me, almost like a miniature person. I feel like I am unfit for adulthood, because the older I get, the more lost and unlike my true self I feel. I want so desperately to become the person I am meant to be. But with so many choices and decisions, I feel all I will do is betray myself. I am so afraid of money, even though I don’t spend much of it. I am afraid to see my family die. I am afraid to feel alone. I am struggling with a depression I never thought I was capable of. And the whole while, all I cling to is honesty. Honesty and the vision of my lost friend, who once told me to write, before she died. I lost the only person who had true faith in my destiny to do so, and it hurts. I need help.

This open post was written 2 months, 2 weeks ago | V/U/S: 161, 17, 5 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

college, Literature, Love, life, Family, writing, faith, Head, Person, Year, depression, fear of failure (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

A logged in and verified Help.com member has the ability to setup a Friends List and invite others to help with posts.