24 and feeling like I will never be happy

THERE IS NO SECOND CHANCE An Article by someone who is completely lost and out of hope, I was always told, growing up, that everyone has a shot to be something great in their lives. It is always what I have believed, despite my tragic childhood filled with meth-abusing parents and violence and so much hate. Despite the setbacks, I never stopped believing that one day, if I stayed away from drugs and simply stayed happy, one day I would become something great, live a fulfilling life, full of love, full of happiness, with little struggling financially. It is always what I have wanted. Not to be filthy rich, not to be the leader of the world, not to be a super hero. No, all I have ever wanted is to be happy. I write this article today because I think it is time to stop pretending that I could ever be happy. I have tried so hard, for so long, to be something more than a forgotten soul with a horrific past, but in recent years and months, I have come to face my worst nightmare: Reality. Lets start with my past, a horrific childhood full of violence and drugs, something I wish I could forget forever, but I can not. Full of terror, horrible houses and apartments, run down and almost un-livable. Never any money, the very first time my meth head father gets something good going and he ruins it by getting caught with his drugs while myself and my younger brother go to foster care. My elder sister emancipates herself and takes off. Being the middle child makes things even worse, I never once as a child was I given any sort of real attention by either parent. By the way, its any wonder how we did not incur mental defects considering both parents used throughout all pregnancies, I consider it a miracle, despite the fact I am scientific and believe in science, physical evidence, and logical thinking. We will get to why I do not believe in a higher power later, but I am sure plenty of people understand already. Both parents successfully cleared rehabilitation in record times and got us back in an almost unbelievable six months. Then its back to the usual ways, drug abuse, getting beaten nearly daily. My rage grows, I take it out on all my school peers. At age twelve I can quite literally count zero friends. I would not let anyone get close to me, I would not let anyone get to know who I am. My rage, growing all the time, makes me think one day I would love to see the world, and all the screwed up people in it, burn to the ground, loving the sound of everyone's screams. Luckily for us all, and myself, I turned myself around one day. What I did not know then was because of who I am, that horrible past, the things I have done out of hatred towards my childhood, means I now deal with severe depression constantly. No, not diagnosed, I am simply sad and think nothing of myself all the time. The biggest issue of all being the fact I am right about being nothing. Despite the fact I am the only person in my family to graduate high school with a diploma and on time with no grade repeats, and was the first person to attend college (or try to attend, finances did not play friendly), I sit here jumping from nearly minimum wage job to job, taking any opportunity for more money as they appear, regardless of the consequences, because I have to. I have hated every job I have ever worked, because none of them are in either of my fields of interest, which are computers and cars, computers being a stronger career interest. Nope, I am just a typical salesman as usual, doing nothing but what some other guy tells me to. Now I know what you all must be thinking, “But Josh if you want to succeed all you have to do is do the work to get there”. Yea, what a bunch of crap. Ive worked harder towards making myself something than anyone else in my family, and yet here I sit, at the very bottom of it. I cannot fathom why the world is so cruel, but it is. My brother has somehow, not even finishing his GED, worked his way into a high-class restaurant, and is close to being Su Chef, at age 21. My sister has recently finished attending classes and is soon going to be a paramedic. Me, nope, not going anywhere, as usual. I know I want to work with computers but I cannot afford the school, nor can I take the time for it. I have left my home state of Colorado to live in Utah, where I attended Job Corps for some free schooling, to get away from my past and attempt to begin a new life. What an idiotic idea. I have been here for a year and still... nowhere. I have not even begun searching for a new job since loosing my last one. I have given up hope, entirely. I feel it is my destiny to fail, in whatever I do. It has always been this way. I try so hard only to be shoved down because its my place, to be down. For example, the computer enthusiast thing. I like them, I like taking them apart and screwing with Windows and customizing them, but I know next to nothing about programming, and am not able to type very quickly or remember programming language. I failed quite badly and trying to learn speaking a second language, there just is not enough space in my mind to accommodate two copies of each word, not to mention I can not spell very well, a fact Microsoft Word could tell you all about as I write this article. I suspect not being all that smart is a side effect of maternal mother meth abuse. So while I am extremely interested in the matter, my chances of becoming what I want to be, are slim to none. I have to work, pay bills and keep myself alive and sheltered like everyone else on this planet, so I do what I have to. I have but a few friends out here in Utah and no family, no one who can or is willing to help me succeed. Unfortunately it is in fact a reality that I can not do it on my own. I was once in a car wreck, shattered my right leg entirely. The Femur, Tibia, and Fibia were all in so many pieces, each had to be surgically removed and replaced with metal rods. So extremely physical work is out of the question as well, as its more than hard for me to go on a simple hike. I also cant work out in the Utah heat, being a native of the mountains of Colorado, I have never lived in a summer with these temperatures. I can stand them, I can be outside for quite some time, but I cannot perform physical work in it, it kills me. My last job lasted two weeks because of it. I attended an interview where it seemed like I would be bending and shaping metal for A/C units in buildings under new construction. A prospect that seemed somewhat interesting. Pay was a bit low for the work, but better than my job at AutoZone, so be it. I accepted, not knowing he also deals with the instillation, and guess where I was sent, on my very first day, with no experience with labor in the heat, no experience with how to install these components or how they even worked? Thats right, to a construction site, sent up into the attic trusses to install and run heating flex lines and equipment, and the attic was a blistering 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus with my leg, I could not move quickly. Even with proper instruction and honest help from my team, we fell way behind schedule. I then one day stepped on a nail. I could not walk for three days, so why stay? For $10/hr, that job was way too much, not to mention dangerous. While I was in the attic, roofers shot nails into the plywood just a foot or so above my head, and yes they do go all the way through and then some, I could have been killed at any point. So now, with all the bad out in the open, it is time for me to ask for help. Please do not ask me to find a god. There is a good reason I do not believe in higher powers. During those horrible moments of my childhood I prayed for guidance, prayed for help. When no guidance turned up and no help ever came, I realized the truth. That faith is something for people to believe in to help them answer the unexplained, that deep down inside 99% of human beings are smart enough to know there really is no God, that they just want something to believe in, and something they believe is good to teach to their children. So while I have no problems with people of faith, while I even have good friends who are believers, please, just don't. Most of you are probably wondering what I am going to ask for you to help with. Well, I need help finding where I should go next. At this point I am beginning to wonder if life is worth it at all, I am contemplating suicide, who knows, I could always be reborn as someone who has a much better life, why not see? And no, you can not help that, I am not mentally ill, and it is my life and my body. It is my right as a human being to be able to do with my life what I want. Believe me, in my position, and with some of the things that have happened to me, if you all truly knew the pain, I bet more then half of you would feel the same. I just need, now more than ever, to give my life meaning again. I need a career, does not have to make me rich, just pay me enough to not be worried about money 24/7. $15/hr would be a significant improvement to anything I have ever made, and would make me quite happy in the economy of Salt Lake City. I want to do something I am interested in, where I wont have to wake up every day dreading the idea of another day doing a job I hate. And no, I do not care if I have to leave Utah. This place is not all that bad but really, it is not that great either. I feel like I have not been given my chance, I feel like here and now, at 24 years old, my life is just as bad as it has ever been. I live in a crap, run down house with broken windows and doors with a roomate from Chicago with brain damage from a serious accident and as a result, a serious anger issue with outbursts where he goes breaking down doors and smashing in walls. I know him well, he is a good man inside, but his Chicago bad boy attitude and severe brain damage means he is a serious risk to himself and those around him. He just got us a dog, he loves him to death, but very poor judgment on his side. I do not have a job and I just feel like things are never going to get any better for me. I am hoping with some proper help and guidance, I can turn my crap life around... again.

If you were abused then you in fact have a GREATER chance at making something of yourself, not less. You, as opposed to the norm with the normal, contented, smooth-running childhood, had your psyche forced to exercise itself day-in-day-out in the life gym until it came out as ripped as Arnie. So, yes, you're right in what you believed. But who or what do you think chose that 'commando-style base camp' for you to begin with? Don't believe in a higher power? It's staring you in the face! But at merely 24 years YOUNG, you're quitting far too soon when what you should be doing is continuing to develop those OTHER mental muscles, called unshakeable faith and determination. You clearly *don't* think nothing of yourself. If you did, you wouldn't have come on here and written that entire 'soliloquy'. So actions speak louder than what you merely THINK you think...so loudly, it's a case of Case Closed on that score. You're simply stuck at the hurdle marked, 'No man is an island, time to dare to reach out'. Hence you've come on here rather than gone to your GP to get prescribed a springboard to getting yourself more together. You'd rather not. Unless it's FACELESS people thus ones you believe you can't grow attached to (because you see it that attachment equals disappointment/being let down). You're just knackered and wishing you could be granted Leave. Well, that's where visiting your GP comes in ('a change is as good as a rest'). Get that springboard under your belt (so to speak) and, with those ripped muscles at the ready, there'll be no stopping you. Ideally, you need a course of counselling (life coaching + CBT) as well as anti-Ds - to know which are life lessons and which are fallacies thus which to throw off, which to keep, which to tweak before keeping. 'Baggage'. You have excess baggage, that's all. And it's weighing you down thus slowing you down (- think about the word de-pressing). But for now, for inspiration and a 're-fuelling', I highly rec-, actually, no, I don't - I absolutely *compell* you to read 'A Child Called 'It', by Dave Peltzer. And you'll be very glad I did and even gladder you did. It's counselling, Jim, just not as we know it. Late developers laugh last and longest. Trust me on that. After all, it's the FIVE-STAR restaurant meal that requires the lengthier and more complicated preparation time, is it not. Read the book and then report back. **** PS: "So while I have no problems with people of faith, while I even have good friends who are believers, please, just don't." Oopth..., too late. ;-p I'm not religious, though, just spiritual...once wholly atheist/scientific, like yourself, forced by life to finally wake up and smell the damn coffee. PPS: Famous Chinese proverb: To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.