I feel so hopeless and aimless and at my wits end. :(
(TW) suicidal ideation / suicide . open to/wanting advice
throwaway because I'm worried I could be narrowed down with my usual username and I'm so ashamed of all of this. thank you so much to anyone who reads and gives any advice...
I've been sure that I have autism and it's been confirmed to me, and suspect I also have ADHD which may be making my adult life especially difficult... but let me get into what's troubling me.
I'm 21 and have been in community college for about 3 and a half years now. I completed general education requirements to work toward a bachelor's degree later on, and am completing a paralegal A.S. after I meet internship requirements, and objectively, I should be at least somewhat happy, and feel at least somewhat proud... but I'm not. I've actually never been this unhappy in my entire life. I'm struggling so much with suicidal ideation and I'm trying so hard not to give weight to it; not to write out a plan, but it feels impossible not to. I've fantasized about this all just being over because I already feel like I've failed and can't come back from this. I feel so trapped. I've come to the realization that office work doesn't work for me, at all. even having to socialize a bit while under a mask is so suffocating, and horrible, and isolating. even when I try so, so hard to mask and be digestible, I still fail so terribly and can't even make a bit of small talk like a normal person. I'm still given weird looks by people or I can just tell I've made them uncomfortable. I feel so sick when I'm even perceived by a client that I hide and let my boss take care of it knowing that they're disappointed in me for doing so... Every moment of work feels unbearable and like complete torture. All I can do in my free time is lay around and stress about going back into the office, but if I quit I won't be able to finish my degree. I feel like a failure for doing this instead of being certain enough of my path to get a bachelor's. I have a second job in food service that isn't nearly as unbearable because I'm more valued for the physical, tangible work I do, and don't have to appeal to a professional setting/office politics, but the social aspects are still very hard. EVERYTHING is SO hard and unbearable.
I have a long distance partner who is my age and is so, so gifted and smart and amazing and has been working toward an engineering degree while I flailed and he's going to graduate with honors only a year after I complete this. We both suspect that he's ND as well and he has his own struggles he's overcome and sometimes I can't help but compare myself to him and feel like such a loser and a failure and I fail to understand why he even loves me. When I've visited him at university it's made so clear to me how behind him I am in every aspect and I am so proud of him and love him so dearly but at the same time I feel so ashamed for even being with him. it's even been pointed out to me that I'm pretty childish and that it's jarring/uncomfortable to him. I feel like I have nothing and I feel like I am nothing. No one would ever truly be proud of or look up to what I've done. I feel so empty and hopeless. I've loved and had interest in so many things that I could never settle on anything and took the path of least resistance to make something of myself, but I feel like nothing. I'm on antidepressants but they haven't helped me much and I'm scared to put more money that I don't have into psychiatry appointments and medication. I truly feel like I have potential and I performed well in all of my classes, but I'm a chronic procrastinator and feel like I retained nothing. I was initially so passionate about law and so excited but now I feel like a failure and feel embarrassed even saying I'm a paralegal and it makes me feel absolutely nothing; I don't take pride in it...
I've considered trying something the exact opposite, like a trade for example, but I've been trying so hard to work toward closing the gap between my partner and I and moving across the country to finally be with him, and further schooling would delay this. I've tried to confide in my partner about this but he's very much an over achiever type of person and has been sure of what he wanted to do his entire life and he's been trying to understand what I've been going through, but just can't understand at all no matter what I say and I feel so much shame and so alone. He asks me if I just don't want to work, he says he's worried for my ability to hold a job if I can't handle this job, and that makes me spiral and think that I'll just never succeed in this world. I'm trying to close the gap between my partner and I by the end of this year and I'm so worried about it because I don't believe in myself at all and know I want to just completely start over career wise. I'm so worried about even being able to find a job because I feel so incompetent and on top of that I'm so socially inept it's ridiculous. I really try so hard to be a kind, good person, I am passionate about so many things, I like so many things about being alive, but I feel like all I've done is go through the motions trying to survive and I disappoint myself over and over. my family has all struggled financially and academically and praise me for being so smart and gifted but I feel like I've failed them and that at the end of the day, I have the same struggles and setbacks they do and that they've been shamed for by everyone else in their lives. my accomplishments mean absolutely nothing to me because I've realized I don't even want to do this work and I feel so terrible.
I just feel so aimless and horrible. All I want is to be with my partner and be happy but I haven't set myself up for success at all in a field that won't make me miserable and I feel so hopeless I just want to give up. 😞 I have savings and am building my savings more to move but I don't even know what awaits me when I don't have much going for me at all as an applicant unless I want to keep crushing my soul at an office... just my degree and some food service experience and legal experience. My goal in the far future is to get a food science bachelor's, or maybe elementary education, but I feel so terrible for wasting so much of my lifetime pell grant when no one can help me afford further schooling except myself. I want so badly to be able to live off of a small baking/art business but I know that isn't reliable or feasible, at least not for me for now... I guess I want advice... what anyone else would do in this situation, if anyone else has felt this way and gotten out of it (or not), I just need some shimmer of hope because I want to go on and be happier than this... if there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel I don't know what to do.