Low Self-Esteem Week

I'm a recent graduate, looking for work and simultaneously studying to prepare for an alternative career path (I'm not in love with my field... why I stuck with through the entire degree is a long story...). Being unemployed can be depressing, but I've been doing well for a few months - working hard every day towards my goals, staying positive and taking joy in little bits of life... but this past week this has somehow all flew to pieces.

It all started when my roommates began waking me up again. I live with a guy and a girl who are a couple. The girl gets up for work at 5am, and while she doesn't do anything especially noisy, my bedroom is only separated by a flimsy wall from the bathroom, and just the noise of taps and shower is enough to wake me up. When it's just the girl up, her morning preparations are sometimes enough to wake me up and sometimes not. However, sometimes they both get up - the guy is self-employed and occasionally gets the idea that he could get more done by starting earlier in the AM. With both of them stomping around and turning taps on and off, it's that much worse, especially when they decide to keep the bathroom door open the whole time. This goes on for about 30 minutes, and I end up just lying in my bed feeling angry and powerless, and unable to go back to sleep after. I can't afford my own place, and probably won't for at least another year. I can't even sleep with earplugs anymore because I overused them during my university years and now get bad itchy-ear allergic reactions. Yesterday I was so tired that I collapsed into my bed for a long nap in the afternoon. An hour later, a man came to our house - he kept ringing the doorbell and banging on the door until I got up to answer. It turned out that he was looking for our neighbours, and only to buy some crap. It made me so angry to see how smug and happy he looked about obviously waking me up.

Then other problems piled up on this lack of sleep. I drank too much coffee throught the week to stay awake - enough to trigger mood swings and more sleep problems. I didn't have the energy to cook healthy meals. I got much less work done than normal, which triggered guilt and the emotional eating of chocolate. Bad feelings and damaged attention span made me "get stuck" in browsing the Internet. I was too tired to go to the gym, and when I went once, I hurt my knee, which has an old injury that comes and goes, but limits my activities more and more over time, making me very anxious. All these are problems I had in the past, but was able to keep under control with some effort. On top of that, someone just insulted me for being unemployed - sort of implying that I'm not good enough to deserve a decent job.

Now I just feel like a useless, fat, lazy slug - so powerless and out of control. How can I climb out of this state?

Well, I'm really sorry to hear what's happening to you lately. You've got to find a new place to live on your own. I know you mentioned that you couldn't afford a place right now, but there must an alternative: do you have any relatives over there??? you could stay with them, right???

What type of job are you looking for??? If it's difficult, try some other options (not necessarily your field).

I also believe you have to change your diet, especially the caffeine stuff (yeah, I repeat this thing about the food ad nauseam, but your lifestyle and moods improve when you're healthier). Physical activity is absolutely necessary to feel better and have a better self-image, what if you go to see a doctor and find an alternative??? there could be a special type of exercise for those ones with knee problems.

I'm giving you a crappy advice, but it's what I'd do. I just hope it was useful.

EDIT: Ignore the person who insulted you for being unemployed.
Good luck and all the best to you.

Thank you for the kind words and advice, Gondwanaland! I will try to do my best to work this out... not easy when I'm running on no energy, but one must not give up Why did you unregister though? Come back!

There's always something or many things that bother us, don't you think? I've not find a time in my life where everything was peaceful. It's gotta be one thing or another. I guess that's life and part and parcels of it. Hang in there, try to get your bad habits sorted and maybe get ear plugs for yourself so you won't be bothered by your roommates. I understand this totally as I'm a very light sleeper, sometimes even the sound of a light switch wakes me up!

Also, don't be bothered by what others say about your unemployment. So many people are unemployed because it is so hard to get a job. Just do your thing at your best, and don't worry about the unnecessary.

Good luck.

That sounds terrible! It doesn't take much to wake me up either. I need it to be that way so I'll hear my girls if they need me, but I've been woken up by the strangest and most unnecessary things!

Could you try sleeping tablets? A doctor might be reluctant to prescribe them, but if it's affecting your mental health, they might be more likely to consider it. They might help you to sleep through the noise in the morning. I have some sleeping tablets I very occasionally take for bad headaches. I don't really like taking them because of the girls, but they do make a difference and I'm on the lowest dose.

As earplugs aren't an option, how about earmuffs? I know they won't block out the sound to the same extent, but they might do something. There might also be other options - I'm sure a lot of people have had that difficulty with ear plugs.

Also, this is probably a very annoying suggestion - I know often it's just not possible, for all kinds of reasons, and it is a bit unfair when it's not your fault. But could you go to bed earlier?

It's horrible when people make judgements about you based on your employment status. It's very unfair - they can't possibly understand what you're going through, physically and emotionally, and having a job or not has no bearing on your value as a person. There's so much more to a person than their employment status, and it's hardly your fault there are more people than there are jobs! Try not to take it to heart, that person's opinions don't matter. But it's easy for me to say something like that, much harder to believe it.

it sounds terrible indeed, personally I think that without sleep life isn't worth living, and if you get some good sleep everything will seem fine again and you will get out of the kind of rut you feel you are in.
As a long time user of earplugs (forgive me if you tried that already) do you know there are very soft ones available?
like this (this brand, but the colourful ones)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ohropax-Soft-Earplugs-10/dp/B000V3PZB0
my secret trick is to put that inside the ear and on top of it outside one of the malleable silicon one so that it really sticks to the year, once I woke up thinking that someone was tapping a bit annoyingly on the wall and instead they were drilling the wall right behind my bed with a pneumatic hammer. Did you also consider moving, or is that out of the question?

Anyway, you are not useless, not a slug, if you think you are fat something can be done on that for sure (whoever is the a---e who insults people for being unemployed?) - wishing you lots of sleep