What did you want to be when you were little?

I relate to this a lot!!! I didn't think I would finish school, and even if I did manage to finish school (which I did, yay?) I had no plans for my future because I just figured I would be dead by now. I'm not sure what keeps me going, but now I'm faced with trying to figure out a career and I don't know what to do.

 

It's partially living in a small town, that has a big impact even on people who aren't depressed. Most people don't finish high school, because school is dumb and there's no point. The logging and fishing industries are mostly shut down, you're just going to go on to work in a store or travel to work in the oil fields and you don't need high school for that. If you're a girl, you'll work part time in a store, or get married, or both. There's no future, so it's hard to have any ambitions. And I think that contributes to depression, because everything around you is confirming your feeling that there is no future for you and your childish dreams can never come true. Not too many people get out.

@Kitchenyou10sull But yay, you finished school! I hope you find something. It doesn't have to be something huge or glamorous or even the thing you do for the rest of your life, but I hope you find something you can do that lets you get a step up in the world and have a little stability. And makes it seem like there might be some future after all, even if it's a small one.

I went through that career-searching process a few times when I was younger, the province even paid for me to see a career counsellor after I got sick, but I still don't know what I want to do with myself, and I don't really think I ever will. It's just one day at a time.

 

I wanted to be some sort of archaeologist - maybe paleontology or Egyptology. I still wanted that until Highschool in a smallish town crushed those thoughts out of me.

 

when I was "graduating" preschool, (according to my mother) I wanted to be a "cooker" or "just like my mommy" but she cant remember which one I actually said. tbh though, I was watching a lot of Emeril live and Iron Chef when I was younger. Then there was the period of time when I wanted to be a power ranger, then a sailor scout and pokemon trainer... wait no... I wanted to be a pokemon, not a pokemon trainer... I briefly entertained going to C.I.A. (Cooking Institute of America) for a while when I about to transfer from community college to university, but my hobby is baking and cooking, my love is English, so that happened.

 

This is true! thanks for the words of encouragement :3

 

when i was really little (like, 2 or 3), i didn't speak, but i loved to sing. my songs would be 100% nonsense noises, made up on the spot, and i would dance around and sing them ear-splittingly loud at odd hours of the night because i never slept (i had a lot of issues with psychosis as a toddler, which caused the insomnia). i always imagined i was johnny rotten or joey ramone and had millions of adoring fans. i wanted to be a rock star.

when i was slightly older, i took to watching a lot of shows and reading a lot of books about machines. cranes, excavators, cement trucks, motorcycles, you name it. i owned my own hardhat, amd tiny baby toolbox, and i used to run around with a wrench in my hand and "fix" everything. my dad even let me be his "little helper" when he was doing electrical work or fixing one of the antique cars. i wanted to be either a mechanic or a construction worker; i'm still not sure.

now, by the time i had turned 7 i had already memorized the names and classifications of over 150 different dinosaurs. i used to play made-up games with my mom where i was a dinasaur; usually a tyrannosaurus or an ankylosaurus. i stayed up all night watching documentaries about "prehistoric earth", and i was obsessed with the land before time series. my parents took me on a fake fossil dig for little kids, where there were plastic bones hidden in a giant sandbox, and we had to use all kinds of tools to unearth and examine them. i wanted to be a paleontologist.

now i'm becoming a doctor of cognitive neuropsychology instead, and i honestly don't know where i went wrong.