stay positive

1. Repeating positive things to myself whenever I look in the mirror – like when I get up in the morning, as I’m driving to work, and remind myself not to get down at work when I can feel stress building.

2. Remind myself to have patience.

I just turned 24, I’ve been living at home for almost a year and a half, I’ve been at my temp job for five months – obviously I’m worried about my career, but in terms of jobs, five months is still short, and I work hard and I learn a lot, so I shouldn’t feel so hopeless. I know there’s a stigma attached to living at home, but in reality, I’m saving a lot of money – every single cent I earn goes into the bank. I think I’ll know when the times comes to move out, but for now, I just need patience.

So I just called one of those crisis hotlines, because I was feeling terrible about my life. It’s the first time I’ve actually called one of those and they were not that helpful.

After being assured that I wasn’t going to jump out the nearest window, the person on the other end basically said, “I’m sorry you’re feeling so much pressure from all sides. That must be bad. I need to go soon.” I was only on the phone for less than 10 minutes. Unbelievable.

I still feel hopeless. I still feel sad. When there’s no other help to be found, an old remedy will do. I’ll go to sleep tonight and hope I feel better tomorrow.

Suddenly, I just feel like crap. I just want to know why I’m such a fuck-up. I just want to be confident, and happy and strong, but it just seems more often…I’m not.

I’ve tried so hard to find friends at college, but it just hasn’t worked. My family tells me to be open, and just say what you mean, but it hasn’t worked. I asked my roommates last year like 5 times if they wanted to get dinner with me, and they all said no. I tried keeping in touch with my friends that had moved away, and it ended up just being me writing to them every month. I tried talking to random people in the dining hall, and they all seemed to not want me around. At some point, you’ve got to question whether people want to be friends with you.

So I want to know if this all has an end. I want to know what the hell is wrong with me that I just can’t find anyone open who’s willing to talk. I’m tired of it all—tired of living four years of my miserable life in limbo.

I’m doing better. Usually when things are slow I start to get down, but in the span of three days I bumped into 5 people around campus I’ve known before. And I had my birthday. I guess a little bit of human interaction makes a world of difference, because normally I don’t get a chance to talk to anyone—I’m just in class, in my dorm, studying.

It’s funny that it happened that way, that just when I was really sad and lonely—I bump into a bunch of people I’ve seen before.

I’ve got my good times and my bad times, and right now I’m feeling pretty down. I see worse things on the horizon—several exams due in the coming weeks and an essay, and I worry I won’t get an internship and I worry about what I’ll do after I graduate. And I feel so alone.

My life feels so hopeless, like I’m constantly trudging up a steep hill, the boulder perched firmly on my shoulders, with not much end in sight. It’s agonizing, because I just want to break through everything that’s been holding me down. But I constantly feel dragged down.

I’m still holding on to hope. It seems like I’ve played all my cards but one, and I’m still holding onto it as the one to get me out. I just don’t want to let go of it because I want to believe that there is hope for me. It’s all I have left.

I’ve got to really try to stay positive. At this stage in my life, I don’t have any friends, I worried about my future career, but I’ve got to believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And part of that belief is the ability to stay content.

I could definitely be happier, but what if there’s no end to this and I’m stuck in a rut, forever? Then I’ve lost all hope that things will get better.

Things will get better. I have to believe that.