Ask Lemmy

After working several months at a grocery store that was supposed to 'just keep me busy for a time' while I looked for a better job and allowed me time to study digital marketing, I soon found myself in a dark place.

I was working at a grocery chain, making only the state minimum wage at the age of 29. I had no intention of keeping it more than three months, and intended to obtain a handful of digital marketing certifications and finish a course I had just purchased, all while working there. But depression, my ADHD-I, self-worth issues, hopelessness, loneliness, and anxiety... all got in my way. I found myself dreading going to work. I dreaded this becoming my long term future. Just over a month in (is my best guess,) is when I started to get suicidal ideations. I knew I needed to change things, but nearly all of the things that would help seemed unreachable for me. I fought myself for weeks, as to whether I was being unreasonable about my situation, or was there really a valid reason to quit and go back to working some temp jobs, while I pieced things together more. Unfortunately, my self-esteem had suffered some hits from my job before. And now I just felt stuck in a crappy life, all over again. Just working dead end jobs, and just to make that 'all mighty dollar.' My soul was in rough shape, and I felt like I was losing my mind as the days passed. I started to experience a higher and more pressing suicidal ideation, while at work and at home. I wanted out so badly, and was so ashamed of where I was in my life that I was considering death over any other alternatives. I bought into a lot of the falsehoods that my depression spoke. And I just never seemed to be able to stay afloat long enough to get out.

I ended up being fired after working there for 7 months and having been switched twice to other job positions, then working as a cashier. I had a lot of mixed feelings about it. Glad that I could move on, but knew that I personally didn't have anything to fall back on right away. I learned a lot about myself from that whole experience, but the majority only came to me years later. Such as, it takes a lot for me to find a job, and once I have it, I won't easily move on. Even if it's heavily wearing on my mental health. It kinda broke something inside of me, and it would take almost a year before I started working again.

Many other things happened after that, but the main thing was, I started taking my mental health level very seriously. I wasn't going to allow for a paycheck, to destroy what I had been building up for years and years to have. I wasn't going to allow myself to sink so deep ever again!