Originally Posted by
LetsGo
That all makes sense; I was just thinking I could enjoy sliced apples with almond butter, but the almond butter could still have industrial BS in it. It’s at least in a glass jar, for what that’s worth. It has a lot of nostalgia value for me because I used to eat that a lot as a kid (except with peanut butter.) I wonder if I can have unsweetened almond milk, maybe not…
I agree about glass being better than plastic; it took me a long time to find a water filter that is mostly glass and not plastic. (The water in my area tastes off, and I won’t drink it without it being filtered.) I do have whole almonds as well, they just don’t go as well with apples but of course that’s not essential, and I need to eat for my goals, not enjoyment. If I ate for enjoyment, I’d be 800 lbs, scooping handfuls of chocolate cake into my mouth as I ordered my second pizza of the day.
I don’t know if I’ll get to a place emotionally where I won’t feel like everything was a waste, and that I’m just too late. I don’t feel too old, but all of my hopes are on this idea that I can turn things around and be successful and meet someone a bit younger than me and that things will work out, and it’ll be basically the same as if I’d met her when I was ten years younger. (Some women like guys who are a bit older than them, and 2 years ago there was a woman at my old gym who was very interested in me and she didn’t even know about my income potential. The women I’ve dated up here who wanted to be with me, reading between the lines, they were into me thinking that I’d transition to my actual career and then be successful.)
I desperately need to get out of my current living situation (alone in a city I hate) and job. My self esteem was so battered, and I was in an abusive situation at home when PFS hit and it took me many years to get out of there. I was suffering badly from PFS, or else I would’ve been emotionally strong enough to have gotten out in a better way. (My free testosterone was at chemical castration levels.)
I ended up taking a very shitty entry-level job that would be okay for a 23 year old, but I was 11 years older than that, with a graduate degree in an unrelated profession. So now I answer phonecalls and make a pathetic salary. And I potentially had a job in my field I could have gotten in 2017, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to the interview and embarass myself. Now it’s 3 years later and I’m still in this horrible job, I've made zero friends here (although I did date a bit here and there when I had flashes of libido,) and I’m long overdue for leaving. Some months ago I stupidly reached out to my dad, who got enraged at the mention of leaving because it’s "a secure job," and he views me as a colossal fuckup and failure who needs to stay within the state system and prioritize job safety over everything else, period. But there are no quality jobs I can lateral to, and especially not down in NYC where I want to live. So I have to leave, it just feels impossible. It felt like a crazy miracle leaving my folks and I feel like it’ll take another miracle to get out of here. When things are open again in NYC, I want to go join a photography meetup and do improv comedy (even though I know I’m too old, at least I won’t have the burden of dreaming of SNL or something,) and hang out with my friends, and make new ones. My world right now is so dark and small.
So I’m working on leaving, for real this time. I'm getting everything ready, and once I get my malpractice insurance and find someone to help me with the retainer agreements and disengagement letters I’ll need for clients, and a few other things, I’ll start running my ads. I already have a temporary shared office that I go to on the weekends, got professional photos, made an okayish website (that I’ll need to keep tweaking,) studied an enormous 500+ page treatise that explains 90% of everything I didn’t know, have 2 people I can ask if I really get stuck, and I know how to do all the substantive work from extensive volunteering, doing the exact things I’d be doing for money. I do not need “at least five years of experience” like my father (who knows nothing about this) insists. Hopefully I can start testing my ads in a week or two. There’s just a ton of small roadblocks that continually pop up, and I know the ads and website are going to need tweaking. (I will eventually hire someone to make a better website.)
In theory, when the ads are working, I should be able to adjust my workflow just by dialing my ad spending. (But if it was this easy, why are so many people doing this work as employees, or quitting the profession, instead of making a good living doing it for themselves?) Once all of that is sorted out and I have some clients lined up, I would like to gear up to leave sooner rather than later, and look for out of state real estate to finally invest in (I’ve been reading books and whatnot on that for 2 years, plus more when I was a teenager.) Then I will also need to learn how to do some consumer advocacy stuff, which should be able to more than double my income over time - it’s somewhat harder and most people in this field don’t bother to learn it. Anyway, if I can do that, theoretically, I can make bank. But launching the ads is going to be like jumping out of a plane, and I know they’re not going to work without tweaks, and that I’ll have to fight the urge to declare it all a failure and quit instead of tweaking the ads.
I have a therapist appointment lined up on Monday, but I had just picked someone at random and I’m not sure he’s going to be a good fit for me after talking to him on the phone. Not sure if I’ll go see him anyway or cancel and try to find someone else ASAP. Also I know they all demand that I go on SSRIs when I’m feeling down, and I don’t like paying and taking time out of my week to argue with someone for 60 minutes about why I won’t take SSRIs. I’m just going to ask him for help dealing with the stuff I need to deal with to get out of this job and back to NYC (which I saw a different thereapist for 2 years ago, but back then I had a shittier plan that I wish people had talked me out of.)
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Thanks for the kind words. I have a therapist appointment on Monday, but I always get into arguments with them when they start telling me to take SSRIs. Most of the time I’m not low like I am now, but sometimes I am, and at that point they always go “yep, you need to be on SSRIs” and they ultimately end up dumping me when I refuse. I’d like to find a good therapist who won’t do that.