So, here's the thing: i've always been a dreamer. I've always liked to imagine myself in situations that I would like to happen, sometimes my own life, sometimes from tv shows that or books that I liked. I still do that today, and I never thought twice about it, but I'm wondering if it wasn't a way for me to avoid dealing w/ reality. I always struggled w/ anxiety, felt inadequate in social situations, and to a certain point I was never very satisfied w/ my own life, always wanted a little bit
more. and yet my anxiety, mainly, didn't always allowed it. I uncovered in therapy a few things that led me to deal w/ stuff the way I do, so I guess i'm seeing things in a new light. Now I'm finishing college, I'm not sure if I chose the area I want to follow as a career, and tbh I get really scared of both going new ways and staying where I am. Right now I'm having doubts if I was happy w/ my life or if I thought I was cause I avoided dealing w/ it, and I guess I'm scared of facing it now.
So, for starters, I just want to apologize for the fact that this message (along with many others) has sat in the inbox here for so long.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that we haven’t forgotten about this or any of you. Tumblr as a platform has been on its way out, in my opinion, for some time now, and on top of that the majority of us are fully involved in work, school, health, etc. or all of the above. We had some issues with working through questions before, and as more came in and we all got more on our plates, I think it just ended up that we all had to prioritize other areas of our lives for different reasons. For right now, I’m going to try and respond to as many of the backlogged messages as I can. For everyone wondering: don’t worry about continuing to send more in. At this point, I can’t guarantee they’ll get answered very quickly given things have died down so much here. However, sometimes venting is important, and we still have a general policy of never deleting messages (provided they aren’t malicious or spam, of course), so they will be read and hopefully responded to at some point.
Anywho. I imagine you’re probably finished college at this point which is, by the way, fantastic. What I want to stress is just a couple things here:
1. Escapism is absolutely normal and provided it isn’t impeding on your quality of life and functioning, it’s totally fine. To a certain extent, everyone consumes content like books, poetry, movies, games, and so on for the sake of escapism. Our brain likes that kind of thing, it likes immersion, it likes getting to live these other lives for a bit. Totally normal, totally not a weird thing, and also completely okay. The only point when this is an issue is if, kind of like you mentioned, it’s being done so you can avoid dealing with or addressing your issues completely. I think it would be ideal to try and find a balance. It’s great that you’re seeing a counsellor, that’s a huge step in the right direction and good to keep up on. Hopefully you can work things out to the point where this kind of escapism is used appropriately as an adequate coping tool.
2. Many, many people change their career several times in life (I’m even considering applying for a masters in social work although, probably won’t-- but still). My advice? Try out what your intended field was for a while, and if it’s not a good fit it’s not a good fit. There’s a good chance your education will still be applicable to something else, whether that’s other areas of work or furthering a degree. I think a lot of us get cold feet when we start approaching the end of our undergraduate degrees. It’s not uncommon to have spent that time bottling, commiserating, and stumbling through with blinders on toward all of our issues. You’re likely a lot more capable than you think you are. Getting through school with mental health issues in itself is an incredible feat, really. Programs are not often built to be the most accessible.
Approaching the world outside of school can be really intimidating and raise a ton of questions about whether you made the right choices or not, but it sounds like you’re doing the right things to care for yourself. Keep up counselling, keep working on healthy coping techniques, and try to trust that you went to school, you did this degree-- you know your shit, fam. You are valuable in the workforce, you are valuable academically, and you are valuable as a person.
