Stress - It's all getting a bit much

[Enchilada81]

Ok I've not been happy for a long time. I know that and don't try to deny it from myself (although I don't admit it to others). After years of unsuccessfully trying to get a job, I realised the only way I can get anywhere in life is by going to uni and getting a degree. So I've set the wheels in motion for that and I'm really excited about it but ...

4 years. 4 Years I have to wait before I see the benefits. I know I'm being inpatient and can't expect a professional career in 6 months but the thought of living like this for 4 years depresses me intensly. I hate living with DH but I have no choice until I have an income of my own. I just hate it here, so much.

Apart from that, I'm just so fed up and pissed off. There is a person I know who I have gone out of my way to help in the past two years. I've lost out time-wise and finantially to help this person (who to be fair, has a shit load more money than I do) and I'm really put myself out to help him. Then last week I text him and asked if he'd give me a character reference for college and he didn't even have the decency to reply. A fucking reference, that's all I wanted. I had to go crawling to my ex in the end.

It just seems that nobody wants to help me. My mum was saying yesterday how, although my younger sister has thousands in the bank (I never had a penny when I was chucked out at 16, but hey ) she will still help her with books and equiptment etc for college because "we've all had help, havn't we?" err ... no! I've not had an ounce of help from anyone, they wouldn't even act as a guarantor for a house for me when I was homeless.

I just feel like everyone looks down on me, takes pity or laughs. Like last week I was at a relatives and they were all discussing holidays. Then one of them turned to me with a big grin and said "so ... where are YOU going this year, Enchilada?" and they all started laughing.

Yes I know I'm a nobody with no money and no life, thanks for reminding me! Glad you find it all so ammusing ...

I'm just so fed up of everything. I have a constant headache, a severe lack of appetite and stomach cramps ... stress?

I'm scared of going to the doc incase I get diagnosed with depression because it could screw up my uni application if they think I can't cope. And don't you need a health check before you become a nurse? A mentally ill woman applying for mental health nursing ... it's almost laughable until it manages to mess up yet another attempt at sorting my life out.

Grrr .... feel like killing someone! (not really - but talk about bear with a sore head)

I don't think you need to worry too much about a GP visit affecting your nursing application. They will only contact GP if they are unduley concerned.
I am sorry you find yourself in this difficult situation but you are making the right moves for your future happiness.
Why don't you see your GP for a chat and tell him your concerns about how you are feeling and your application, I am sure they could put your mind at rest.

You sound mostly very angry. That can be a sign of depression but it doesn't have to be.

You sound angry at the people who don't do what you want them to do and who don't give you what you feel you deserve.

I am not at all saying you are unreasonable in what you want but life often doesn't work like that and at some point you need to take things in your own hand. You have done that by enrolling for nursing (for what it's worth I'm considering the same move - and I have PTSD. I think you will be a better one for really understanding mental health).

I do wonder whether you would benefit from counselling to help you find a way of taking more control and responsibility for your own life and not be so affected if others don't meet your needs.

Thanks topsi, I will consider going to the GP. I wonder if I'll feel differently once I'm actually on the course ... at the moment I kind of feel in limbo, stuck between the old and the new.

Willsurivethis, I agree with you but it's not that I want people to do as I ask, it's just that I put myself out to help other people and when ever I need anything nobody wants to know. I mean, how much time would it have taken to do a quick reference? Yet I've invested hours and £s into this person, often adding to my own stress levels.

I do want to take responsibility for myself, I just sometimes feel like it's a losing battle. Right, left and centre I see people being helped one way or another and I just don't get any of that. Not that I'm entitled to it, just that it kind of upsets me a bit that even my own mother won't show an interest. I suppose I am bitter about the past too. The fact that she chose her partner over me and allowed me to be thrown out at 16. I felt everything went down hill after that and I suppose I blame that for the situation I'm in now.

In reality, I know that everything is my own doing. I just wish I could change it without it being such a struggle all time whilst the people around me watch and laugh.

Being turfed out at 16 is not a good experience and definitely one that can shape you for life I think.

One lesson I learned a long time ago and it really helped: People do not spend half as much time thinking/laughing/talking about you as you think. You assume they are because of the way you feel about yourself.

Will, I totally agree with you on that. I am ultra paranoid and convince myself that everyone hates me which, as you say is a reflection on how I feel about myself.

I spend a lot of time in my head. Probably far too much and I over think things I suppose. This has always been my problem. I have spent over 5 years "thinking" about becomming a nurse. It took 5 minutes to actually fill in the forms.

I would have been qualified and working by now if I hadn't messed around for so long "thinking" about doing it.