to feel heartbroken about the way life turned out ;(

[KurtKu]

this is going to be a sad/self pitying post but I don’t know where else to put this

AIBU to feel heartbroken about the way my life turned out

I was always considered the “smart girl” in school, straight A’s in everything.

I thought I was going to grow up and become a doctor or go to Oxford or Cambridge or a university like that … get married to another man similar to what I’d imagined I’d be like, that’s what I thought my life would be like.

A LOT of things went wrong and ten years later I’m in a minimum wage job where I spend my days wiping poo and doing other jobs like that

Sometimes I think, “how did I get here”. I messed up my A-levels and got BBCD, I messed up my degree and got a 2:2. It wasn’t 100% my fault, the thing about A-levels, I became ill during my last year of sixth form and my illness affected me by giving me headaches and making my head feel foggy and cloudy so I couldn’t think straight. This carried on during my undergraduate where my head felt foggy until final year. I should have told my doctor about all this tbh but I chose to suffer in silence and not tell anybody. Anyway I did a masters recently to try to make up for this but I still feel terrible on the inside, almost nauseous at what my life is, especially compared to everyone else I left school with. Sometimes I just wish I could swap my life for theirs. I feel like a loser and embarrassed about who I am and what I’ve become. This isn’t a joke, I honestly just feel very, very awful my life never came to look like what I thought it would look like, when I think about my age and where I am I feel a mixture of sadness that almost makes me feel nauseous at the same time. Once again, don’t come in with jokes because I am 100% not joking I just have no where else to go with this.

@Happyfeet1972

The civil service fast stream opened today... a lot of the schemes accept a 2.2. Might be worth a look

Thanks for telling me this, I’ll take a look

Hi op I’m sorry to hear this. You can make your life how you want it to be, I see you have replied saying you will be more positive. However I’m going to get straight to the point.. reading your post the first thing that’s jumping out at me is depression. Brain fog can be a symptom, although you say an illness was maybe the cause in the past. Just something to think about x

@RincewindsHat

You can turn things around.

I get it...6 years ago I was £8k in debt, had just quit my job because I was severely depressed and barely functioning any more, and for a while ended up cleaning out dog kennels for minimum wage. And I have an Oxbridge degree (so don't think that's some golden ticket to a perfect life). I seriously thought there was a good chance I'd never even earn enough to buy a house.

Now I have my own business, am extremely good at what I do and get to pick and choose my clients, earn well above average, no debts except mortgage, am owner of a growing company, own my own house and bought it exclusively with money I earned myself, and while things are by no means perfect, I have everything I used to wish I could have 6 years ago and more.

There was no magic path I took, it's been hard work and frequently terrifying and stressful (and I rarely take sick days or indeed holidays without working) but I'm very grateful to be where I am now because I remember vividly what it was like 6 years ago.

One of the most helpful things you can do right now is stop spending so much time thinking of all the ways you think you messed up, and comparing yourself to other people. It's not helpful.

Daily journalling and being very focussed on your goals and celebrating even small wins is genuinely helpful and will help shift your mindset over time. If you can listen to YouTube videos or podcasts on the power of mindset and how to shift your thoughts, I also found that very helpful. Energy flows where focus goes as they say, and it's true so your focus has to be on what you want to create, not all the ways you think you messed up or missed out.

Good luck, I believe in you. And have a virtual hug :)

Aww thanks for sharing I feel encouraged now

And everyone else who has given me suggestions

OP, you have my sympathy but I hope that all the advice one here is helping you to see there are many paths forwards and indeed upwards from where you currently are.

I just wanted to add that there are many ways people lose their way. I was an extreme high flyer at school, and to some extent at the start of university. I felt sorry for a girl who was always second to me at school as she would have been top of any other year. She focussed on what she wanted to do, honours dissertation led to PhD led to postdoc led to professorship. Success in that post recently led to a senior national post in the country I grew up in. Our 30 year school reunion keeps having to be postponed but did I really want to go?

I did medicine as well as some other stuff along the way. At 29 I remember doing a double take when a colleague told me I "had it all" - as in, married, house, child on the way; by 33 I was managed out of clinical training. Started research which I thought was what I wanted (two small children), got stuck, couldn't let go for years but ended with nothing.

Eventually started to put my life back together doing something completely unrelated to science or medicine, very part-time.

I feel REALLY bad sometimes at having so thoroughly failed to fulfil my potential. My children are nearly grown up and what example have I really put before them? But the good news is, as of this year, it looks like there is a route back into a small part of clinical medicine for me, and maybe that's going to happen. A big part of me is scared to crash and burn again though.

Very best wishes for the OP and all on this thread who are fighting circumstances or themselves, to achieve what they want for themselves.

Read The Midnight Library x

OP, you seem to view success in only one way. The older I get the more I realise that success is defined by you alone and comes in a million sources. The only success in life that matters is happiness. Whether you get that from a high flying job, good finances, a certain type of lifestyle or from enjoying nature, hugging your family, watching good Netflix or learning yoga in your bedroom is actually irrelevant. So stop focusing on work being the definition of successful you and figure out what makes you happy because doing that will make you successful.

I’ve got a friend who went back to study medicine at almost 40. She trained to be a phlebotomist and started volunteering in anything medical. She then did a 1 year “access to medicine” course. Look into it. It’s never too late

I'm exactly the same as you op, 6A*s,3As at gcse, AABC a-level and then bombed out at uni and worked in basic entry level roles since. I feel like I've massively wasted my potential, but I've got a plan to get back on track as it were.

If you are interested in nhs careers, apart from medicine, but things like speech and language, occupational therapy etc you can get normal student finance funding for this even if you already have a degree.

There's also a 5k a year bursary on top so it's probably comparable to your current job. You may have to do an access course first, but they are available online and again are free if you go on to a degree in one of those areas.

I'm starting my access course this year and will hopefully start uni again at the grand old age of 35!

Wiping poo? Are you working in Care? Can you do apprenticeship with NHS as healthcare assistant and become trainee nurse associate? Is there any element of the jobs you do you can train up in? Can you train as a senior carer and get into management? Even if you had your dream job, life throws curve balks and you could need a change.. Also remember no ones life is perfect, they might have plenty turmoil you can’t see… to me you sound a bit depressed .. is that possible perhaps?

Also no matter what job you have, mothering, in my view is the very very important…. Many women work long long hours and may have the work life balance guilt .. forever needing to be in two places at once.. every silver lining has a cloud too..

OP I had a friend who pursued becoming a Doctor at 28, he's a GP now. I totally get where you're coming from, I often feel this way too but you really are not too old to do anything, I'm not saying it would be easy but you can definitely change your life, I'm 35 and trying to do it at the minute too, but from an even worse starting position than you.

I think you need to stop looking back and start looking forwards. Yes your life so far hasn’t been how you expected and hoped, but you’ve got decades ahead of you, and you have a lot of choice about what you do in the future. Carpe diem OP.

It's a tough job market at the moment. Keep at it, I've just got a job in a new field and I was looking for ages.

It isn’t a particularly difficult job market at the moment in many professions, it really does depend on what the OP is qualified for.

@RincewindsHat can you recommend any specific You Tube videos or podcasts on the subjects you mentioned.

The last 10-15 years have been shit in terms of employment. Loads of people with degrees unable to get graduate jobs. A degree isn’t enough, you also have to be massively lucky to get into a company where they progress and promote you. I have great qualifications but jobs were hard to come by. It depends heavily on where you live and what’s available. Also on whether your face and personality fits. Employers hire people they like even if they’re not the best qualified candidate. In the end I became self employed, I decided that money was more important than being academic or professional. If the gate keepers won’t let you in then you go round them.

4 A’levels, a Degree and a Masters in your late 20s, I’d say that shows tenacity and capability. Yes you’re in a minimum wage job now but you probably won’t be in a couple of years. You’re gaining experience of working right now and it may not feel great but you’ll move on to a better situation. What interests you? What are your strengths? I read a few days ago that there’s a lot of competition for graduate roles so keep applying, be patient and don’t give up!

That was good advice from @Beancounter1. I don't think your qualifications are the problem - it's your attitude.

Many people would feel proud to have those qualifications, but your post smacks of "I was a really bright kid at school, so I deserve better than this". It's actually pretty disrespectful to people who perhaps weren't as bright as you at school, but who worked very hard to get similar qualifications.

Also, the shops and care homes are packed with people who have degrees, but are working NMW jobs because there are simply too many people with degrees competing for the better paid jobs. The days when a degree automatically led to a well paid career are long gone. You're probably around 30 years old but you're talking like a bitter old person whose life is nearly over. Maybe if you watch a few documentaries about third world countries and the dire living conditions that many poor people endure you might gain a different perspective and realise that your life has actually been pretty good by comparison.

@Pollythecat15 There are no words... I'm so sorry for what you and your son have to endure on a daily basis. You have every reason to feel sad, but somehow you keep soldiering on. I hope that somehow things will improve for you both.

I used to compare myself a lot to my peers and spent most of my twenties feeling like a failure because, due to anxiety and panic attacks, I had failed to reach my full potential despite good grades. I think that your twenties are brutal. You expect, because school tells you this, that if you get good grades and go to uni, you will waltz straight into a graduate position, whatever one of those is. Very few 'graduate' positions exist. There are just jobs out there that, if you stick at, you can work your way up over the course of many years. You need to stop comparing yourself to others, especially the artificial perception of success perpetrated by social media. You also need to reassess your notion of success. Put simply, success is achieving your own goals. If you don't want a stressful job with a long commute, but want to finish work at 5.30pm, go home and watch crap TV and you achieve this, then you have been successful. I actually consider myself to be more successful than most of my friends in that respect. Many of them work long hours in stressful jobs, but seem incapable of letting go of their own warped definition of success - namely having achieved an impressive sounding job that they don't enjoy. They frequently tell me how lucky I am. And I am. When I had children my aim was to be there for them in the holidays etc and sit around eating biscuits and drinking tea. I am highly successful at that! Also, as you get older several things happen. Firstly you are no longer the newbie at the bottom of the pile. You suddenly have average experience within the workforce. Secondly, you no longer care what others think. You realise that a job is just work to get paid for. Thirdly, if you have kids, work seems unimportant by comparison. In fact,any mums that I know have now abandoned their 'careers' in favour of a low paid part time family friendly hobby job. Priorities change as you get older and get more experience in life and realise that actually, it's not all about grades, degrees, university choice etc after all and that those aspects of work have been completely over sold to you by teachers, whose job is to get you to work hard and get good grades, but not to prepare you for real life.

Bloody hell I'm 39 and attempting to start a new career journey! It's never to late for self improvement.. I'm shocked at how negative a clearly well educated person can be!

@hamstersarse
What a catty thing to assume based on no evidence.

@GoWalkabout

Read The Midnight Library x

Cringe.

Honestly OP, don't. It's dire. Predictable cod- philosophy for the hard of thinking.

First off...nowt wrong with a 2:2. Grades are not the be all and end all.

Can someone please explain why a 2.2 degree is seen as so bad and barely enough to get a minimum wage job when some kids can't even pass their Maths & English GSCE??

Nothing wrong with your academic record but you'd benefit hugely from working on emotional growth. All your focus is on extrinsic value when only intrinsic value will pay off. Nurture your well-being as though it is a small child, keep a routine around sleep, good food and exercise, commit to steering clear of negative influences and focus on what you do have. For starters.