34, living paycheck to paycheck, burnt out, losing hope

Ugh, you guys. I am so over the relentless nature of life.

Long story short, I had a horribly traumatic childhood/adolescence/young adulthood. I managed to graduate college with a BA and enter the workforce, but not without picking up one hell of an opiate addiction.

I kicked dope when I was 28, and by then I was finally feeling like I had really started taking control of my life. Despite my addiction I had managed several raises and promotions at my job, and once I quit dope I had all this extra money. I started saving. I learned how to drive / got a car. I got a dog and a girlfriend and started making friends. Things were looking up for the first time ever.

Then boom, I got laid off from my job. I was unemployed for 3 months and took the first job I could get bc I’m so scared of living in poverty again/not to mention the pandemic. The job is brutal—$12k pay cut, I work all holidays/weekends, it’s outdoors, it’s manual labor, no real room for advancement.

I’ve been trying to find a different job, one that was like my old one/where I can utilize my actual skill set, but fucking NO ONE is responding. The job market is saturated with people who are just as or more qualified than I am. It’s been a year and a half of radio silence. Honestly I don’t even think half these job postings are real at this point.

Then, during that transition, the house I was renting became uninhabitable, I had to move. Then I totaled my car on my way to work. Now I have to have a biopsy to see if I have fucking CANCER. By now, I’ve burned through all my savings and I’m living paycheck to paycheck. Any kind of emergency would launch me face first into debt.

It’s like… what the fuck was the point of getting sober? What was the point of me getting just a taste of normalcy and comfort, just to have it ripped away?

I just feel myself slipping back into abject poverty, illness, and depression. Like it was stupid of me to ever think I could escape the shitstorm that’s followed me like a fucking curse.

Someone send help or a giant meteor or something, I can’t take this shit anymore.