Staying the Course: Choosing between career and cash now.

Dear Abby,
I'm extremely frustrated. Continuing my career advancement means giving up my car and living with practically nothing, or I could take a part-time unrelated job to pay the bills, but stifle my career growth. For who knows how long.
I can't do this.
I can't face the fear of losing myself in another thankless dead-end job that barely pays the bills and doesn't help me in the long run, just because I need something now.
If I lived in a bigger city this wouldn't be a problem.

Actually, this Career Vs Job dilemma is a large part of why I can't keep a regular job for longer than a year or so, and another reason why I feel so endlessly frustrated and overwhelmed. It's definitely counterproductive to managing my depression.

The sort of overwhelming guilt I have with my depression means I feel crazy unbalanced over the slightest thing... which makes wage slave jobs extremely difficult for me. I've only ever felt truly suicidal twice in my life, and a majority of what made me feel so wrapped up in the guilt and inadequacy was the wage slave job I had the second time. The first was due to a really messed up relationship with someone I loved who rekindled a lot of my rape trauma. I left because it felt the same as a wage slave job and I finally realized it was okay to want to be happy. What the hell was I doing cleaning houses, anyway?

I have a great work ethic. I'm more than just skilled in plenty of areas that would be useful for many positions related to my career. I'm not into drugs, I have a squeaky clean record. Professionally, I'm reliable, motivated, and I want more out of my work than just pay.

So why the fuck do I have to choose between surviving and making a living?

And why do I have to put my mental health at risk?

Rude Awakenings

This morning was a rather rude awakening for me. Lately, my live-in boyfriend's alarm wakes me up at 6 and I spend the next hour and a half trying to convince him to get up because I'm the only one stressing out about it. Typically, I'm so tired afterwards that I fall back asleep for another 4 hours (I haven't been sleeping very well lately).

Well, my mother has obsessive go-get-em tendencies that at times leans heavily towards being Meritocratic. This is endlessly frustrating on my bad days, because her shaming me over my depressive habits feed back into the cycle. I told someone the other day, Depression doesn't make me act a certain way, it just takes away most of my choices and tells me that collapsing into myself is the most meaningful option.

Without getting much more off-track, this morning my mother decided to noisily clean the storeroom I've been neglecting. The store room is of course next to my bedroom, therefore it is utterly necessary for her to get after me for being in bed at 9:30 in the morning on her way up, and then again about something else on her way down.
I always feel that arguing with my mother is pointless and bad for one's health, but she is utterly amazing at driving me up the wall. I realize I probably shouldn't have argued, and will probably hug her and apologize when she gets back from the dog park with Lucy.
In any case, my rude awakening this morning was that I'm not fooling anyone, not even myself. I have to get these things done because I want to get them done (and I have). Finding my impetus is an endlessly frustrating struggle, but I guess I have to find one thing that makes me mad to get out of bed every day (yesterday I didn't).
Here are my goals for today: finish laundry and de-skankify my living quarters, put in an application at the print shop down the street, sit and write for at least 2 hours no matter who I have to kill to get it done.

Internet Addiction and Writers Block: Symptoms or Enablers of Depression?

I've spent a lot of time lately within 50 yards on my laptop. After some hard problems in late January, I had to reevaluate my goals, and had to dump some classes and quit my job due to overwhelming stress and depression. But I haven't really been doing anything. I'm horrifically blocked, having a difficult time writing anything at all. It seems rather pointless.
I'm spending a lot of time justifying my internet time, also. I've been saying how much I've been doing to improve my "followers" for "when I get published". It's really rather lame.
I joined the D20 Girls Project, and I'm waiting on an interview. I don't know what's going to come of it, but hopefully I'll at least have some interesting diversions and con time. I've already met a lot of great people there.
I also started posting vlogs on Youtube, but I only have 2 subscribers there (and one follower here). So I'm not sure how that counts. I need to advertise, but have no disposable cash with which to do so.
I tried googling the topics of one of my own blog entries just to see where it would be on the list and it turns out that it's somewhere among the 21,000 other web pages that may or may not be related.

Besides that, I actually have put 3 or so applications (one for the Examiner), but we'll see how that turns out. I added AdSense on this blog here, but I accidentally clicked on one of the ads so they'll probably ban me. I hope not, since it was an accident, but whatever.
It's such a nice day out, but instead I'm chained at the waist to this damn thing, thinking all sorts of bad things, and feeling artistically paralytic.
What the fuck is wrong with me?