The trouble with misery

I've never done anything successful in my life. Most people have. They've got a degree or found a job they love (or can at least cheerfully tolerate). They've found someone to spend their life with, maybe had a kid or two. Bought a house or a car or have a nice holiday every year. It depends how you measure success, I suppose. But by any measure other than "Breathed in and out every day", my life is just a long string of failure.

I am so unhappy just now. So angry and frustrated and annoyed with myself. Why can't I just go and do something good, something worthwhile, instead of lying in bed all day crying because my electricity's about to run out and I haven't eaten properly for a week? The worst part is there's no end in sight. I can't even get an interview let alone a job. Most of the time I can't even get an acknowledgement of my application. I dread Mondays, when the jobhunting starts again and I throw my CV down the internet job black hole, to semi-literate agency workers looking for "administartors" with good attention to detail, and presumably some idea of how to work a fucking spellcheck. To say nothing of the ones illegally demanding a car (against the Disability Discrimination Act because they're saying "We don't want anyone blind, epileptic, diabetic or with some heart conditions") or the agencies so financially precarious (or trying to exclude the unemployed) they want me to pay for my own criminal record check. It's "only" £25 they say. Might as well be £250 for all I can afford it.

Between bank charges, trying to keep my lights on, waiting for my internet and mobile phone to be cut off, and wondering if I'm ever going to have any kind of financial freedom ever again I am exhausted. Completely worn out. So demoralised that I go to sleep hoping I'll wake up with another life. Or maybe there'll be a job offer, or maybe I'll find £20 in the street. Then in the morning it takes me half an hour to talk myself into opening my eyes to the same old shit, because those things never happen. I just wake up as me again. In the same place. With nothing there.

I go along cheerily enough and most of the time no one can tell anything's wrong but inside I am screaming. I am so terrified - I can't survive many months of this. Most of the time I just want to go under quietly, just turn into an unthinking unfeeling shell who drifts through life with no idea what's happening. I try to be grateful for the things I have - my wee flat, my bed, my friends, but I understand why people end up addicted to stuff. I'm most grateful I can't afford to get addicted to stuff. I'll have to give up smoking which is just about my only pleasure in life. All because some faceless employer doesn't want me. But who does when someone's as miserable as I am? That's where the vicious circle kicks in.

I do try so hard to be positive. But right now I can't do it. I'm going to bed hungry again and the money I'm getting on Tuesday is all gone before I even see it. But maybe something will happen. Maybe one single good thing will happen. Or maybe I'll find out things can get worse.