Are You Stuck In A Craptrap?
Here are some signs you are stuck in a craptrap:
You hate your job.
You hate your boss.
You frequently daydream while at your job and have trouble focusing on your work.
You wish you were doing something meaningful with your life instead of the 9–5.
You feel like you have a giant letter ‘L’ for ‘Loser’ imprinted on your forehead.
You’re living paycheck to paycheck.
You drink or smoke to drown your misery.
You experience blackouts when you drink alcohol.
You’re checking your smartphone notifications every two minutes.
You think someone is going to discover your talent or save you.
You’re angry at the world because you feel cursed.
You feel that you’re too old and worn-out to change.
You feel that no one truly understands you.
You’re aware of your issues and feel that you’re unable to change them in any way.
When you get up in the morning, you are filled with unspeakable dread.
When you try to breathe, fear fills your lungs instead of oxygen and you only take super shallow half-breaths.
When you remember the person you were in the past, you feel disconnected from him/her.
You cannot remember your childhood dreams.
Your goals seem like distant memories.
Your energies are being sucked into other people’s dreams and your own dreams are withering in a corner.
You feel exhausted, powerless and hopeless.
You’re afraid to stand up for yourself at work or home.
Your energies are scattered in too many directions.
You’re just going through the motions in life and have lost passion.
You are frequently paralyzed by fear.
When you think about your future, you visualize a vast gray field full of flightless, colorless birds who have lost their voices.
You’re scared that you will never create a legacy and your existence will be unknown to future generations.
I have been all of these statements at different times in my life.
If someone had told me years ago one day I’d be a stressed-out, middle-aged, single mother selling cars at a dealership, I’d have told them they were fucking crazy. At age 16, I was a John Casablanca’s Elite teen fashion model who made it all the way to Tokyo, Japan. Then later on in college, I fancied myself part of a select group of highly creative and intelligent people. It never crossed my mind I would someday be poor. And I certainly never thought I would someday find myself poor, working at a shitty job and raising a child alone. But that is exactly what happened.
Three years ago I was completely broke. I had a bank balance of zero and no assets other than a 1999 Toyota Corolla, which was more of a liability than an asset. I was scared to spend $3 for a stick of deodorant. I sold what few valuable possessions I had on eBay. During this time of being broke, I was searching for a good job. I sent out over 200 resumes and no one wanted to hire me. After two years of solid rejections I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave up my search. I stopped talking to my friends who had money, including my brother. I was filled with envy and self-loathing. I woke up with fear every morning. Rejection filled my every pore and I hated being alive. I considered various methods of suicide, including driving head-on into a cement wall.
It was at this time I asked a friend what I should do to get out of poverty. His suggestion? Sell cars at a dealership. The idea of working at a car dealership didn’t sound good, but I was desperately in need of money, so I decided to try it out. I was hired instantly at the first place I applied. I had deliberately avoided a sales career because I considered it beneath me. I assumed car sales was a field for people who were greedy and lacked integrity. I was mostly correct. Car dealership culture attracts losers who are in search of easy, fast money. This was the case for 60% of the sales people at my dealership.
Selling cars at a dealership turned out to be a good move financially. I was happy for a little while because I could afford luxuries like easily paying bills, eating out and buying my daughter expensive gifts. However, the shut-the-fuck-up-and-sell-some-more-cars environment took its toll both on my mental and physical health. I started to feel like a prostitute for soulless, psychopathic pimps who only cared about one thing: how much money I was bringing into their pockets. In order to function in this environment, I had to completely disconnect the emotional side of my brain to protect it from daily verbal abuse. After nearly two years of this environment, I went into work numb and dead. I was recently talking with a friend and I told her about some of the experiences I went through. She simply stated, “Oh, so you were verbally abused on a daily basis.” When it comes out of someone else’s mouth, it seems worse because I have a tendency just to diminish bad shit that happens to me.
I ended up looking like this afterwards:
This story is from a chapter of my book, Un-Crap Your Life. You can buy my book here on Amazon. I’m still trying to figure out how to embed buyable content, but I think I have to set up a freaking Gumroad account first. I’m tired of setting up accounts. I’m the account monster. Amazon needs to marry Medium, um……….
Thanks for reading my stories. I just applied for a Beta Advertising account with Medium, but I’m still pretty small fry, so I doubt they will be accepting me into their “premium” accounts, but just wait, just wait Medium! I’m getting bigger, I’ll bigger my factory! Biggering and biggering…….
My favorite writer this second is Sean Howard and his posts are killing me. He recently used the metaphor of “baby elephants in leggings” to describe his unworked-out thighs. He’s killing me.
My biggest fan to date from my Un-Crap Your Life book is a gay man, and recently, I’ve become aware that I share a lot of similarities with gay men. My sexuality is twisted, and I’ve tried all my life to dissociate myself from it. I guess I’m a closeted heterosexual female. It’s weird. There have been many times lesbians confuse me as one of them because I don’t wear make up and I dress in bland, ratty clothes. They think it’s a fashion statement, but I’m just cheap and very utilitarian. I’d rather buy stuff for my computer than my wardrobe, but I’d rather not spend any money at all, because I fear going broke again.
The photo above is a fake version of me. I dress like that when I’m feeling good, which is about once per year. It’s an artistic exercise, not my true identity. I’m not even sure what my current identity is. I was high on Paxil when I dressed like that with paint all over my body. I used paints instead of jewelry. I still don’t own much jewelry. I don’t like wearing it because it bothers my ears, neck and wrists and creates an annoying sensation on my skin. I have hypersensitivity issues. Earrings are out of the question.
Straight women don’t get me, and lesbians think I’m gay. It’s gay men who understand me best because I do want a tall, handsome man to just lay on top of my back. I wish there was a service for germaphobic, solitary women like me: I’d like to call a center and order a tall man who is stronger than me to just lie on top of me, without any sexual stuff involved. I just kind of miss that sometimes. I don’t want to be hugged, just smothered a little bit with male weight. Yes, I know I’m ill, but I’d like to see what you’d be like if you hadn’t been interacted with for 6 years. Oh well, I’m fine, just fine, actually!
Good day for today!
Your Partner In Mad Ideas,
Leah
ps- send me your wacky articles so they will appear in the Medium Publication du jour, INTO THE RAW!!!!!!!!
