anxiety

Sometimes, like tonight, the anxiety is so overwhelming that I can’t sleep. I literally got up at 3.30am, turned on my laptop, and tried to figure what the fuck I have been doing over the last 4 years.

From the outside, my life seems fine. I have a decent job, family, friends, boyfriend. And I feel so guilty and horrendously ungrateful for feeling so supremely discontented and terrified when there are people with real life-and-death problems, but I can’t help it. I am so directionless. I have zero clue what I really want in life or how to get there. I feel like a fish out of water.

Some days, I manage to convince myself that it’s going to be ok, that even if the worst case scenarios I envisage really materialise, I will still be able to survive at the very least. But on a night like this, it’s so hard to quell the mounting anxiety when I think about how everyone seems to have their shit sorted out and I’m nowhere close. It’s so hard not to think about how my twenties are slipping through my fingers like quicksand. How I’ve squandered so many opportunities away due to fear and insecurity. How I’m piling on weight due to severe emotional eating. How I’m the most underperforming amongst all the people I see on the regular.

We have been discussing careers and the future a lot on my secondary school clique’s group chat and it hit me that I’m in the bottom half in terms of salary in virtually every close group of friends I have. My secondary school best friend, C, has made Registrar and was selected to be Chief Resident at her hospital. Another girl has gotten a couple of early promotions at a large financial institution and is earning more than any of us. And the last girl only earns a little less than I do because she is a bonded government scholar (ie in the civil service). M is my age (thus 2 years behind bc of army), but he already earns more than me right now.

What am I doing??? Yes, I know money and career success aren’t the be all and and all.

But it feels stressful af thinking about what an under-achiever I have become when academically I was probably the strongest.

And it’s not just about the money. A big reason I haven’t been capitalising on the opportunities that have come my way (and that would have catapulted my salary by leagues) is bc I truly dk wtf I want. There was once I ended up bursting into tears at work – luckily I’ve my own room – bc I felt so breathless thinking about the impending future and how I have ZERO idea what I want it to be.

I feel like I’ve become the epitome of the type of person I despise: insecure, cowardly, yet never satisfied.

Sometimes, in moments of sheer desperation, I find myself on the cusp of praying. And then I remember that I don’t really believe in a God who cares about my problems, shallow as they are.

At work, I remain high-functioning. After all, there are still issues to be researched, contracts to be vetted, advice to be rendered. But really, I feel so terribly lost, alone, and down