Difference between who I want to be and who I am

When I'm off work, I spend gallons of time obsessing about interactions at work or in any social situation, and what kind of person I want to be and how I want to be seen by others. I get into work thinking "Today I will have this or that attitude". For example thinking about witty things to say, or how to deal with certain people. Group dynamics are very tiresome for me, and a lot of people have interesting lifes, while mine is very dull and I have little to talk about or in common with them. This feeds into insecurity and very mechanical stiffled behavior. Feeling like I have to act in order to come across as a somewhat normal cool person, and not as an awkward (sorry to use this word) retard. There's already been some gossip about me being autistic, and what not. People probably know I'm somewhat different and there's this obsession of me to prove them wrong.

Then when I'm there the "Who I want to be" gets totally lost and I get absorbed in the overload of sensory impulses and stimulations of the daily goings and social play, not expressing myself like I want to, and I start obsessing again when I come home. Rinse repeat. I guess I'm just totally at loss with who I am and unaccepting of my real self. There may also be a matter of perfectionism and comparison. It's getting really frustrating and makes me want to quit the job and start a job where there's little people so that I can get my life together quietly. Sadly these jobs are few. This daily battle is very hard.

As a little background, I'm 30 years old, working a menial job to pay the bills. Thanks to my neglective avoidant ways with finances in my twenties, I'm basically in severe debt and my income goes to a receiver who sorts it out with the debtors. It will take 3 years before I can get a clean slate, and then there's college debt, which can't be clean slated (although you only have to pay based on your income, so that's less severe). So whilst I don't have to worry about debt agencies knocking on my door again, thanks to the limited amount I can spend I have zero social life, and spend all nights at home behind the computer. I'd rather not tell this to people. In the meanwhile I'll have to soldier on somehow and get through it with all the anxiety issues at work. This makes it extra hard, because my life feels stagnant with little hope of getting better. Even in downtime, when I -should- work on getting out of the situation (like working on finding a better job and improving myself), the obsessive thoughts are in the foreground of my mind, sucking up energy and making me too tired.

Is your icon Michael Keaton from Birdman? If so, that was such a great movie-man!

Sorry for your work troubles. I can only say myself, that being my own boss and working from home is my salvation from too much human interaction. I have suffered through a lot of what you are talking about and it is absolutely exhausting for people like us who have issues with human interactions. The only way I can deal is if I isolate myself and associate with very few people. Then I find some semblance of sanity while struggling to make a buck. I rarely get lonely so that helps.

Hi MollybeGood, glad to hear you are succesfully self-employed. It seems perfect for people like us.

It's also been a long kept dream of mine, but somehow I haven't managed to succeed or catch a break. I studied a creative field (animation, illustration), and depression and my financial issues have basically sucked all the creativity and energy out of me. I try to use my downtime to draw again, and build up a portfolio, but it's not really coming out the way I want to. But I keep trying.

And yes, it's Birdman. I love that movie! I can really relate to the guy, his nervous breakdowns and struggles. It's also just really funny, in a wacky painful way.

I like the title of your thread. That goes straight to the heart of so much of what is wrong with how we are forced to live in this world.

I know exactly how you feel about loosing your creative spirit due to depression. It's sucks it right out of you, every precious drop.

You have a portfolio? That is a great start. I try to draw and have spent a lot of my life doing so also but I have never put anything together like a portfolio for yrs. When I got excepted to art college I had one, but ever since I have not organized my work in any way, shape or form. I never even get my art framed. It is always loose and just hanging about the shelves or closet. I hope to change this someday soon.

About my portfolio, it's pretty scattered and non-existent right now. I have old work, but I am not satisfied and confident enough with it to send it out to the world, and I don't feel it's up to par to compete. I feel I have to rebuild it completely, and reinvent my style, if I am to find work. It's kind of a headache, lol. Often I wonder if I am even cut for creative work and should have just pursued a different career. Creativity can be a b**ch and is unreliable. It's hard to stay in that "flow" and I really admire people who managed to make their career out of their art, or whatever sort of self-employment. But the promise of being able to do it, also in mind how it can potentially liberate me somewhat from the social struggles of most jobs, is what keeps me going, perhaps stubbornly so. Kind of the cliche of a struggling artist.

What kind of field are you currently self-employed in if I may ask, if not a creative field?