I just got a new job this week which seemed great because:
1) I desperately need a job so I can stay in this city and pursue my ideal career
2) I recently left an abusive partner and knew I might down spiral into my depression and relapse so I thought a job would be a good distraction

But I think viewing a job as a "distraction" is a luxury for people who don't struggle with mental illness.

It's a good enough job, much better than most that I've had in the past. But I feel like I just can't handle it, every moment of the day is mental torture just to be alive and I am so stressed because I try to hide how I'm feeling so that my coworkers and supervisors don't see that something is wrong with me which just brings me that much closer to a panic attack which always feel imminent. I can't focus, my mind is swirling about my abusive ex and why he treated me the way he did, and why he didn't fight harder to keep me when I dumped him, and how he must be insanely happy right now which is so unfair and he doesn't deserve it and I want him to feel my pain.

Then I come home with so little time (insane long commute) that I don't have any energy to put into my artistic career (which is my ideal career and the whole reason why I came to this city in the first place) and I just want to watch tv and sleep right away to escape the depression and the torturous anxious thoughts. They circle like bats in my head. How he thought I was so stupid and not smart or talented or interesting and so that must be what I am. And why couldn't I make him love me and respect me? And how can I go on knowing that he doesn't even miss me or think about me now? It's hard to describe just how panic-inducing these thoughts are to me.

In the morning, I have to get up crazy early for the long commute, and contrary to how it seems to be for most people, mornings not nights are my most depressed time. I wake up with my heart pounding into an anxiety attack, and I just want to not be here. But I drag myself anyway. But I don't know how long I can keep doing that for.

I've considered going back on the medications but now I can't even find a doctor in this new city to take me on as a patient or prescribe them for me or anything, not to mention I have no money to pay for the drugs.

I want to just quit my job without notice, move back to my parents' place in a small town, and sleep my days away in my childhood room. But EVEN if I did that (which I can't), eventually I would need to pay my student loans off which would mean get a job. And my parents won't always be there to catch me when I fall. What will I do then? How will I ever be a functioning self-sufficient adult?!? Feeling all these crappy things about myself also just reinforces that my abusive ex was "right about me." It's a dark spiral and I'm so frustrated. I think the only reason I'm still going to the job (it started this week) is because I literally don't know what else to do. I've had my depressive episodes where I have to drop out of school, quit all my jobs, move back in with my parents, and just watch movies all day on valium so I can not have panic attacks constantly, waiting for the longterm meds to kick in for the depression. And then I try all over again. With a new job, a new boyfriend, a new city. But it's always the same. I can't handle the job, I choose yet another narcissistic abuser to date, and I can't handle being alone and far from my family. Will my whole life just be a cycle of trying to start life like a teenager and then failing and crashing on my family? What will happen when my parents are too old to take care of me anymore??