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Hey so. Here is my current situation. It's kind of a big text dump.
I have a lot of social anxiety and depression. I’m fortunate enough to have very caring and non-judgmental boyfriend and friends/housemates so my living space is generally a place where I feel loved and accepted. But I’m not there right now. I’m roughly halfway across the world from them and have been since mid-August.
The country I’m in is more-or-less back to ‘normal’ / has COVID under control, so it’s actually safe to go out and do things (whereas it does NOT feel safe to do so where I am from / my boyfriends and housemates are). I came here more-or-less for work.
I am here working (for free) for my older sibling, Q. Also with us is Q’s cofounder and ex, J. We are here for an accelerator (a program that helps ramp up a startup into a full-fledged business). There are basically two halves of the product we’re making; a web part and a mobile part. The web part Q has made, and the mobile part J and I were working on. However, since J has had several mysterious illness incidents since we’ve arrived, J is now off of the project and it’s just me on the mobile app.
Why I came here:
- Career development. I want something I can put on my resume, and/or maybe to lead to a paying job down the line. Becoming financially independent is super, super important to me because I have a nontrivial amount of money-related anxieties.
- Improving my programming skills (though I can work on that from home).
- Getting more used to working / professional life (this is something that tends to give me anxiety and that I struggle massively with)
- Experience a new country & culture
- Networking. This is a perfect opportunity for me to try to make friends and push myself socially.
- Opportunities to try new foods (something else that gives me anxiety and that I struggle with)
- Help Q (although Q can be abusive, so I am less concerned with that right now).
There’s pressure on me to get the app working, but I have never done something like this before and am figuring a lot of it out on my own without help.
J and I have been sharing a hotel room since we arrived. When we were working together, J would wait for me so we could go into the office together. I had trouble getting out of the door at a reasonable hour to get to work. I found out that they were complaining to Q secretly about my inability to get into the office early enough, so they couldn’t get much work done because we would only be at the office for a few hours and they’d be tired by the time we got there. Now that I know this, I feel anxious being in our hotel room when they are there, like they will be judging me or something. I often play games to unwind, and I feel like they will be judging me for any time spent doing that too, which makes it very difficult to relax.
Q and my dad recently called me to say that they think I have been playing video games too much. This might be the case, but playing games is something I do to unwind, which I have had trouble doing (esp with the aformentioned feelings of judgement). I am planning to cut down on the games a bit once the halloween seasonal are over.
I am missing most of my usual coping mechanisms. When I was back home, everyone took a lunch break at noon, so one thing that helped me get out of bed was getting to see them. I don’t have anything like that here. Additionally, snuggling with my boyfriend is a big comfort to me, and really helps calm my anxiety. He is not here with me so I’ve been more or less without physical contact for several months. Even talking with my boyfriend or housemates can help, but often when I have the most trouble with my anxiety it’s afternoon or evening, and they are asleep. So I don’t really have anyone to reach out to.
It stinks because I want to be someone who can be independent. I want to be able to exist on my own and be okay. But the idea of being *alone* (not moment-to-moment, but in a more existential way) fills me with a lot of dread. It makes me sad.
I have managed to make friends with people here, but a lot of them are mostly into drinking, whereas I don’t drink and mostly connect to people through playing games together. I am afraid to organize social things that I’m interested in, partially because I am not sure anyone will respond, but mostly because other people will then *see* that no one responded and pity me, and that’s worse. I want to make more and better friends with everyone though. I’m somewhat less excited about all of the cool things there are to do here because I think I more than likely would be doing them on my own.
It’s getting harder to function and leave the hotel room every day. I’m trying to take time for self-care but it’s hard because I feel guilty for either ‘wasting’ my limited time abroad, or not working enough. I also think that if I took a day off, J would question me and Q might get mad at me. It’s tough because there is a lot more I want to do here, but at the same time I find that the things I’m looking forward to are going home, and being with my chosen family again. I don't want to waste this opportunity for self-growth and challenging myself. x.x
