I ruined it all

There will be ample time.

@indigoOrange9898

Very recently I've been feeling similarly ...like I've made all the wrong choices like I've screwed things up...been feeling a lot of regret, and I have tended towards catastrophizing thought spirals. I'm also a undergrad college student (22) double-majoring in physics/engineering, I work full time, I volunteer, I am a lot of things to a lot of people, but I too very often feel like I'm failing in every area of my life. I say this all to say that you're in a bit of a different spot than me, on the outside if you compare directly it might look like I have things together, but I haven't quite read a post on this site where I felt as seen as yours. I don't respond to things if they don't speak to me and your situation spoke to me.

I want you to know that we all feel completely unsatisfied with ourselves sometimes, unsatisfied with the circumstances we're in, and those situations we put ourselves in sometimes and that's okay. When things go wrong, or when we cause things to go wrong it's natural to be very frustrated and not know where to direct it; we should start to realize though that the frustration stems from our misguided assumption that we're completely knowledgeable of the outcomes of our decisions and that we're usually gonna make good decisions for ourselves. It's just not true, sometimes even when we know what we should do we don't do that thing and we gotta live with the consequences. We assume that things will work out so long as we prepare and we're disappointed when reality doesn't live up to that expectation. It's hard to hear and it's never what I personally wanted to hear, but I'd always think it and get annoyed...because it's true. Try to accept that part of living a full and well-rounded life is to live difficulties, especially us being 20 somethings, we gotta accept that we're gonna make horrendous mistakes...but we're gonna live through it. We're gonna try difficult things, we might fail...it's still gonna be okay. We're gonna get rejected by employers, coworkers, peers, lovers and we're also gonna reject a fair amount of people...and that's okay. We're gonna walk our own path and find 5 years down the line it would've been easier another way...and that is okay. You know why it's okay? Because it's the unique story of your existence honey, it wouldn't be yours if it happened in this perfect linear, cookie-cutter way.

While it's natural to compare individual aspects of life/ourselves to others we should learn to see that our life journey isn't comparable to anyone else and it's pointless really to say "I've screwed everything up" because you're not at the end of your story. As long as you know it's not the end, take some time to self-care...really if I was in your position I'd say you should take some time to really heal/forgive yourself, identify who you want to become, where you'd like to head in life, what you want to make your life mean, and start being consistent with working and meeting smaller goals for the next year. Really invest time to build skills that will put you in a better spot for internships next year, invest time in yourself and you'll feel yourself come back. Be patient as always and allow yourself time to be sad/down in the beginning but don't wallow in it, you're too good for that and you have so much to offer in the world. You had the courage to drop out and pursue something different, and now I'm telling you, you have the courage to see this part of your journey through. True courage is that which we give ourselves in our loneliest moments, and I believe every single person has it, whether you believe you do is up to you.
I tell myself all the same things I've written out, I'm learning to accept the darkness and I see that life is still beautiful and perhaps more so because of it.

TLDR: You are valuable beyond measure, life doesn't end here and you must forgive yourself in order to move forward. But let it happen in the moments between self-care and self-improvement. It'll take time but you will find your way through this.

Hi!

I don't want to say that I totally get what you're going through because I never sat with nothing, but I did experience some form of it in the past as well.

I've decided to drop out of law school summer last year (after already investing 3 whole years into it) and I had no plan on what else to do, but I knew what I was doing wouldn't bring me happiness so it was dropping out or breaking down.

I managed to pretty quickly decide that I want to study public health instead and thankfully got in. And I quit my part time job directly when I got in.

But while I know that I feel good about this field, I don't know what I actually want to do with it afterwards (I'm going to turn 24 soon and I have 0 clue what my future might end up looking like). It's always scary to not know what might work out or won't work out, but I also know that a lot of opportunities will open themselves up once you're free to take them.

All family members of mine found their dream jobs only by accident and luck. So even if you have to wait a year and do some part time jobs in between, that doesn't mean you have to wait things out.

There's always something to learn.

What helped me in the past was that I filled a gap time with volunteering! Suddenly my resume was more interesting because I did volunteer work in my free time.

You're still young, and while it sometimes doesn't feel that way, you still have a long time to figure things out and find something that works for your living situation. Don't beat yourself up over it and try to find something that will bring you forward instead!

(And in my opinion: being a college drop out at 22 is better than being unhappy with 45, in a job you don't like and with a life you don't want!)