[ScientiaOmnisEst]

It seems I keep running into articles about how despicable people on welfare are, how entitled my generation is in not wanting any kind of hardship, and it's killing me.

8 months ago I ran away from home. That was my first mistake: I left because I'm too weak to just get over my "mental issues" that aren't real, and take the punishment I deserve for dropping out of college and living at home for free. I should have considered myself lucky to have been treated like a human being; my mother's favorite mantra during those two years was "You have no rights", and it was true. Yet I exploded at the sight of her, I felt trapped by the daily battles for internet, the constant intrusions into my room, and the constant phone calls in the last 8 months which only stopped because I can't pay for a phone anymore. She's right about another thing: I should have just killed myself instead of wasting everyone's time.

But the worst thing is how I tried to "escape" (which I had no right to do). I got myself on welfare. I admit, I thought I would be on for a couple of months, then have a job and could live as cheaply as I could. I live in one of the cheapest cities in the country: my rent has never been more than $350 for a single (poorly) furnished room, and the only reason I have a roommate now is because there was enough space in there for a bed. Living alone is supposed to be a luxury - I don't know if I'd be able to tolerate roommates my own age.

The point is, I'm welfare trash. And I always will be. I'm an evil, entitled, worthless thief ripping off everyone around me just by existing. I deserve to be dead.

What does a person look like after 8 months of no food? Because that's what I should look like. I have no right to be receiving benefits, handouts. If I ever get off, I'm going to beg social services to give me a bill - I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now - so I can pay back everything I stole from them. I've abused my food stamps so badly, I'm surprised they haven't taken them away from me. I almost want them to: let me starve like I deserve. I live on junk food for at least a few days out of each month, and sweets/snacks take up at least half of my food budget. I'm sort of in favor of disallowing FS to be used for junk food, but then I read some good points of "What, a person can't have a treat every now and then because they're poor?" Which makes sense, but for me it's not a "treat", it's a dietary staple.

I'm starting to just accept that I have no self-discipline, no self-control, no willpower, and no character. There's nothing I can do about that.

It's supposed to be extremely common for people my age to have to go days without food because they can't afford it: I don't and I dearly don't want to. I've been researching ways to cut food costs, and I personally want to get my own spending down to about $100/month. I believe this is totally doable for me where I live (cheap, remember), if I could stop snacking and embrace intermittent fasting. But I don't deserve to eat, certainly not in the insidious way I get my food money, yet I can't stop. I can't even control my own body.

My problem is no one will hire me. My mother tells me I don't want to work and just want to suck off the government for the rest of my life. I'll kill myself if this goes on for more than an extra year, I hate it so much. "Anyone can push a broom" she says; tell that to all the janitorial and housekeeping jobs that rejected me. "Anyone can file, you just need to know the alphabet"; no, you need much more than that and they DON'T F-ING HIRE FILE CLERKS ANYMORE. Any job like that will require much more than mindlessly filing and I'm not qualified. "Anyone can throw laundry in an industrial washer"; well, none of them are offering.

No one will even look at me; those that do reject me after the interview. I'm in so much debt, I'm desperate for money: I owe my mother a load of money and I intend to ask her to charge me even more to get those two years of hell off my conscience; my bank account is in the red, I own the phone company a month's bill, and I now owe my landlady money for supplies she lent me (the building where I live is a transition house where we all have chores. We are required to get our own supplies - I know how I can get a little money but not much...no idea how I'm going to pay her back, I don't receive checks like the other residents). People like me, according to articles, are lazy and don't want to work or take extra jobs to make ends meet, or we think we're too good for "embarrassing" jobs like cashiering or cleaning: I'll work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week with no holidays if you want, just give me a f-ing job so I have something that resembles human worth, so I can support myself and start paying my debts. I'll take anything. I don't actually find any jobs embarrassing: work is work. Work is money. Money will keep you alive.

If that's not enough, I've been having a bunch of health problems, but of course can't afford a doctor. I'm still on my parent's insurance (not sure how I feel about that....I'm almost indifferent to whether she keeps me on or kicks me off. I'll die either way), so I only owe copays, unless it's a hospital stay. Then, I plan on paying my mother back for those. I'm actually thinking of making an appointment since my thyroid started hurting, but I don't know what I'm going to do for money.

God, I'm sorry for writing this out. I suppose I needed to confess. I'm utterly wretched and feel like this is all I deserve. And I have no idea how to reconcile all the things I've done. What punishment is appropriate, what do and don't I deserve, and most of all, how the hell and I going to get out of this? And I'm talking subsistence here: self-supporting.

I don't know if anyone out there know what to do, or what kind of answers I need, but thanks for reading if you made it this far.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Sorry to hear you are feeling wretched. I don't really think you deserve punishment. You probably need help though.

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Originally Posted by ManOfConstantSorrow

Sorry to hear you are feeling wretched. I don't really think you deserve punishment. You probably need help though.

Thank you.

For the last three days or so I've been on a kind of productivity semi-autopilot. I think I figured out how to make myself do things.

More importantly, all the stress that came out in this post started getting resolved: yesterday I had an interview and today I'm going in for a drug test. If I get hired I could start as soon as next week. I've also gotten a couple of accepted freelancing offers after nothing but rejection. Things are looking up, though of course I don't trust it. I still feel wretched about my past, but it's at least possible now that my current situation will get better.

[growlycat]

You are not trash. The media loves to bash millenials but all generations have been once called useless (Gen x , we were the "slackers")

I work in a corporate environment and believe me those at the top don't do a whole lot but make more than everyone else. They have time to chitchat and walk around w/ a cup of expensive coffee. They all think they deserve where they are today but all I see are spoiled people whom grew up with advantages no one else has. Those are the people that make me sick, not people like you.

Do what you can--it sounds like you are making efforts to get work so don't beat up on yourself. Is there a food pantry near you? You deserve help. You sound tired but motivated--you won't stay where you are for long.

[Onward2wards]

I'm beginning to wonder if some of those people who fume about others' real or apparent lack of success are trying to cover up their own frustration. Anger at having whacked their heads against a brick wall for years and dutifully gone about looking for pats on the head from everyone. Having finally realized how repressed, scared, unfulfilled and narrowminded they actually are, they are now looking for scapegoats and rationalizations for being tools. The only other thing I can think of: they're just being jerks.

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Originally Posted by growlycat

You are not trash. The media loves to bash millenials but all generations have been once called useless (Gen x , we were the "slackers")

I work in a corporate environment and believe me those at the top don't do a whole lot but make more than everyone else. They have time to chitchat and walk around w/ a cup of expensive coffee. They all think they deserve where they are today but all I see are spoiled people whom grew up with advantages no one else has. Those are the people that make me sick, not people like you.

Do what you can--it sounds like you are making efforts to get work so don't beat up on yourself. Is there a food pantry near you? You deserve help. You sound tired but motivated--you won't stay where you are for long.

I hope not. Like I said, I have an offer for a job; and I'd been looking into freelancing and actually have a couple of offers.

I guess what bothers me is...I didn't end up on welfare because of unforseen circumstances. I got myself on here on purpose: my plan was to leave home, get on the dole for my basic needs for a couple of months until I can find a job and support myself from there on. Clearly, it didn't work out that way.

Moreover, is just that we all know welfare is shameful; it's for leeches and lazy people who don't want to work, the scum of society. If I had saved allowances given to me instead of binge-eating them, I would have had at least a little money when I left (not enough though, for anything but a little food...). Or feeling like I'm just weak, just a coward, that I couldn't stand living at home because my internet was always being taken away, because I was expected to work, or whatever else my real motivations were. I mean, yeah, I was breaking down mentally, but only because I'm too weak to deal with my emotions myself. Maybe. I don't know. I feel like I just did a horrible, dishonorable, completely scandalous and scummy thing by leaving when I did, how I did.

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Got the job, absolutely existentially terrified of my life moving forward.

I need to stop making threads to talk to myself.

[growlycat]

Congrats on the job!

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Actually, never mind. I got hired, but the hours make transport impossible. So I'm back to being unemployed and searching.

[ladytiger]

You mentioned freelancing, I was looking into that for a long time still is a idea in my head. I need more skills and experience in order to be fully confident to do the freelancing on my own still struggling on landing any full time job I have had 4 interviews so far. Independent contract sounds great, but not right now for me. I still want full time, I am thinking of sacrificing my open mornings for a 2nd job to supplement my income for the time being so I can implement my own personal goals.

[Strive4health]

You're definitely not trash. I'm unemployed and am receiving unemployment benefits. A lot of the job postings out there are the real trash, and I already know they will not be long term fixes. I've been on unemployment twice, and neither time was my fault. I did my best to keep my jobs but the economy is what it is. A lot of Millennials are ending up in these situations, and it's not because we're all "entitled." I think the bashers come across a handful of entitled people who ruin it for everyone else.

What the bashers need to realize is a lot of people who end up on welfare, unemployment, etc. need to avoid those situations in the future. This means forgoing what THEY see as lost opportunities to get something and go somewhere better.

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Originally Posted by Strive4health

You're definitely not trash. I'm unemployed and am receiving unemployment benefits. A lot of the job postings out there are the real trash, and I already know they will not be long term fixes. I've been on unemployment twice, and neither time was my fault. I did my best to keep my jobs but the economy is what it is. A lot of Millennials are ending up in these situations, and it's not because we're all "entitled." I think the bashers come across a handful of entitled people who ruin it for everyone else.

What the bashers need to realize is a lot of people who end up on welfare, unemployment, etc. need to avoid those situations in the future. This means forgoing what THEY see as lost opportunities to get something and go somewhere better.

It's been almost a month, but I wanted to respond to this and never knew how.

Take stuff like this for example: Are we pretty much screwed once the millenials inherit the country? (employment, Congress) - Politics and Other Controversies -Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President -

I made the mistake of signing up for this site after seeing several threads linked from there about people in situations like mine. This is where I learned that if you're single, able-bodied, and childless, you shouldn't be able to get benefits. I had a thread written in panicky haste about my distress at searching for work for months and not being able to get a job (several close calls, but the one offer I got I couldn't take because transport was impossible. It's not laziness you see - the buses just don't run at 2am and I have no idea how I'm going to stay occupied and safe for 2-4 hours until they start running again...to say nothing of getting 4 hours of sleep before I have to go back and do it again...but that's just my entitlement talking). Half the responders suggested I join the military (LOL, I'd get disqualified from the physical exam alone), others tell me to go join a commune and stop wasting their tax dollars...

Many talk about my "pity party" to stop complaining online and do something about it, about my "negative attitude" probably being the reason no one will hire me.

I keep thinking if I could just get a job now, I could get enough things in order to maybe go back to school, or get training, or something more secure. But I loathe what I am right now, and suddenly find myself remotivated to try to get out of it. I can never erase it; just, hopefully, transcend it. I will always be welfare trash - you know I have no right to welfare? I should have stayed home and killed myself, or whatever else would have happened. I had no business leaving just because I couldn't handle it.

I can self-flagellate for my despicable actions all I want but it won't change. All I can do is somehow try to repay my debt to society. But I need a job first. I feel like I have no right to even think - I'm on welfare, what right do I have to have interests, to read and contemplate! I'm in distress and despair and just want to escape the attacks, however indirect.