Originally Posted by
beeb
Thank you. I'll try and respond to all three posts together if you don't mind. I've just been for a run so I'm feeling slightly more human and gibbering less (or at least at a lower frequency).
Bear with me as it won't sound like a proper problem. Which is probably why I feel such a failure for not dealing with it properly. I've just withdrawn from my PhD after four years. I've lost my job as a result. I gave up just about everything to do my phd and worked my socks off to support myself. Walking away means that everything I've done since I left school (study and employment) is basically pointless and I have to start entirely again at the bottom of a job market that isn't exactly welcoming. All that time and effort and sacrifice and I have nothing to show for it except proof that I'm rubbish. I can't tell any of my friends or family because I dont want them to know I've failed and I don't want them to worry about me.
It must sound ridiculous but I feel like I've just watched my whole future vanish before my eyes. I've just failed at the one thing that I value about myself and the one thing that I thought I was capable of doing. I've lost a baby and a partner over the past ten years and have worked/studied my way through those periods (much better than anti-depressants) and got through them ok. But this is the one thing that I can't get through by throwing myself into work. I don't have a partner (work has always come first), I'm not very good at anything (crap runner) and I'm not good enough for my career. I don't know where to begin.
It's a middle class luxury crisis but it doesn't make it any less real. I'm lucky to have my health but I don't know what I can do with it that would mean I can contribute anything to the world. I feel completely pointless now.