I'm getting help: underearning.

[oak]

Hi all.

I am 37, and for the last 9 years I have struggled with underearning.

Along with overspending (which is not so much a problem for me), it is one of the two ways to get into debt.

Underearning is: un- or underemployment, below my desires, skills, and experience... so that I can not afford the basics of taking of myself.

I am living with my parents, who have been very kind and patient, but are tired of seeing their son destroy himself.

Today my battery died a mile or two from home, and my father kindly jumped my car.

I don't want to live like this anymore. I have gotten dozens of warning signs from the universe (car troubles, health scares) over the last 9 years, but I want this to be last warning sign.

I want to get help.

I know Mr. Gilmartin and MIHH are support-group friendly, so I have decided on doing 90 phone meetings in 90 days for Underearners Anonymous, starting tonight. (In person 12 step meetings are not practical at this moment.)

While I have a number of deep problems, I also have a number of resources, which I'll be glad to post about here when my mind clears.

Right now the only thing between me and homelessness is the kindness of my exasperated parents. Fairly enough, they wanted rent paid upfront for June, and here I am July 3, unpaid.

I wasn't supposed to turn out this way. I did everything right, up to about ten years ago. UA says that underearning is a disease; it sure has me beaten up.

Besides not putting my family through this agony, missing out of fun in life, and all the other drawbacks to underearning, I simply don't want to live like this anymore.

I need help.

Thanks for listening.

I welcome advice, and accountability for the 90 in 90.

I dream of a prosperous life.

[manuel_moe_g]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underearners_Anonymous

This is fascinating.

Indeed, members of UA sometimes refer to themselves as “time drunks”, because they have a propensity to fritter away their time in useless activities, rather than pursuing constructive goals.

My advice is to bring out the big guns. Resources for Borderline Personality Disorder sufferers are the way to go. In my life, the only thing keeping me from a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis in that I have access to too many resources and have too many inner capabilities. But ultimately, you are the expert on your own situation.

I am excited for you and for this commitment. All the best, cheers!

[gfyourself]

Good luck, Oak!

I'm a year older than you and in many ways I feel similar. I can totally relate to the "underbeing" (I think this term was mentioned in the Wikipedia article).

Its great this organization is so accessible with many phone times available per day.

[weary]

Good job. That sounds like a really great way to get the support that you need to understand and push through this. Thank you for keeping us informed.

[oak]

I am very grateful for your replies.

I've done the phone meetings for Wednesday and Thursday, and am taking action. If that action will get me results fast enough to avoid homelessness is another question. I will post more about resources I have and actions I am taking.

I've been meaning to post about my job search ups and downs in my other thread, so I'll do that first.

While I still have alot of deep issues and problems, two slightly lighter thoughts:

1. Objectively, a likely dead car battery ($75 ish) is certainly on the low-end of the continuum of consequences of shit that could have gone wrong.

Maybe it is like a little trickle of water dribbling from a dam: a small sign of a larger problem.

Of course $75 is a fortune when someone has $8.

2. I know the way out of my situation, and as you listed above, I am a classic time-drunk. But I want to do better. I've got the tools.

[oak]

Tools, And things going for me. List includes the tool, and how I can apply using it.

1. Aforementioned kind and patient parents. (How much long I dare impose on their patience I shudder to think about.)

2. The ability to walk a few miles.

Application: Tomorrow I can walk a mile each way to the suburban strip mall and seek jobs there. There are two restaurants and two stores I can apply to.

3. A smartphone, paid up for another 21 days.

Though with "unlimited" web (really 2 gb, then they slow it), this is one of my greatest resources.

With it I can call prospective employers, conduct phone interviews, and use the phone as a wifi for my old desktop computer at home (the modem is broken, so I can use my phone, but that sucks up gb very quickly. Ahh, the exquisite torture of underearning: I truly can't afford to be poor.)

I can also call into Underearners Anonymous and my first love, Debtors Anonymous, for phone meetings.

I can also download podcasts to stay informed and entertained.

4. Tools of Underearners Anonymous, especially time-tracking.

I have printed a form for this.

5. Tools from job search books.

This, along with my phone, is my most powerful tool. These books give me a structure.

6. Notecards

I can keep track of jobs, and when to do what, on these.

When I start to feel panicky and hopeless, I shuffle through the cards, and see what I can *do* today.

7. My inner qualities.

My best thinking got me here, so determined, structured action will get me out. This action will probably be a little fun, too!

8. Support of the folks on this forum.

I cannot afford therapy, so this is my main place to vent, think out loud, and hear sanity. Forum love.

9. "Oh God"

I say this not to be blasphemous, but to be cognizant that there is some (lower "h") higher power out there, even if it is my job search books.

I have been emotionally abused by organized religion, and "praying" is a super big word for me.

Theologically I guess right now I believe in a deist form of evolution: something may have created (another big, ugly word) something billions of years ago, but I have learned the hard way not to rely on this deist being.

(ie if there is a personal God, now would be a fine time for such a being to show up.)

If I am going to believe in anything, it will be this:

If I am looking for a helping hand, I won't look any further than the end of my own arm.

I am sick of religion being used to hit people over the head, to shame them, and right now I need all my energy to not get homeless. Discussing the finer points of theology is one of the finer things in life, and a luxury I cannot afford at this moment*.

Someday, when I have food, housing, insurance, and money in the bank I'll be scooting up Maslow's heirarchy of needs, and can have a sincere conversation about God.

Right now I am looking at my helping hand, and wondering how I will get out of this mess.



*And yet I am discussing the finer points of theology right there!

lol, as the kids say



Thanks for listening.

[weary]

I can't help but comment on how remarkable it is that you consistently retain such a positive attitude. For those of us who are not good at that, and who struggle not just with feeling bad about things, but feeling bad about feeling bad, it is a powerful example. We can't control our situations 100%, we can't really control our feelings, but we can control the way that we react to things, the way we deal with our emotions, and the way that we frame things, and you, my friend, have a remarkable way of framing things in a way that does not minimize the real struggles you have but also does not make them into more than they need to be. I hope to be more like you in that regard someday.

[oak]

Thanks weary!

I really appreciated your encouragement: I had fucked up a phone interview earlier today, and was incapacitated by a tension headache most of the rest of the day, so you helped me get out of my head.

Such a hellish week. But maybe I can make chicken salad out of this chicken poop of an experience. Updates to follow.

[oak]

Update!

I am doing, however imperfectly, what I stated I'd do above.

I am still in alot of crisis, lack, and poverty.

But for a total of about ten seconds this week, I had two moments of five seconds each of peace, and a "clean" feeling. These moments of pride followed action, structured action.

Though I am of course one man, I have several selves:

1. The organized me that plans what he wants to accomplish that day. He even makes notecards of specific ways to follow up on for each task

2. The scared, frantic man who can't focus

3. The exhausted, beat up, beat down, soul-crushed man

The #1 me has a genius about him! When the #2 man starts to get panicky, I am okay if I get out my notecards.

#3 me hits at about 4 pm. In some ways he is the most-real me.

I've also found healing reaching out to people regularly, including folks on this forum.

I am still hurting. I am also terrified that I my behavior-improvements won't take effect before homelessness.

I am taking action.

It is almost like I forgot how to be happy, to be generous, to feel something other than pain.

On the other hand, I am living the cliche: I am finding my strength at my weakest time.

Much forum love.

I am in pain.

[weary]

Though I am of course one man, I have several selves:

1. The organized me that plans what he wants to accomplish that day. He even makes notecards of specific ways to follow up on for each task

2. The scared, frantic man who can't focus

3. The exhausted, beat up, beat down, soul-crushed man

That's a perfect description. It applies to me as well, and I am trying to figure out the various things that trigger the transformation from one to the other. Do you feel like you have much insight into that process for yourself?

Oak #1 is a wise man. I wonder if he feels a little constrained, but he is realizing that the structure that he provides for himself is working. Oaks #2 and 3 are just as important and just as valid, but those are the parts of yourself that Oak #1 is there to comfort and care for and provide for... Those are your scared inner child that is replaying out patterns of fear and rejection from earlier in life in response to trying circumstances. You have developed the capacity in #1 to not only be competent but be compassionate and responsible to those other sides of yourself, acknowledging your own struggles and being patient and forgiving to yourself. Well played, sir.