I have always been somewhat afraid of dying and in the past I’ve had dreams of either me dying because of someone else or me almost committing some suicide act but failing to go through with it. Is that normal? I kind of just always thought everyone has dreams like this once or twice. I never had them often enough to think that something maybe wrong with me. However, my recent dream was really worrisome and conflicting.
It starts out with me sleeping in the position I am sleeping in while dreaming this dream. I am in the fetal position with my hand over my face. I normally sleep in very strange and awkward positions. So while I’m laying there, I’m not really sleeping, I’m thinking about my life now and what to do. I end up coming with these possible activities like traveling, running away to live in the wilderness, and the other option was killing myself. I ended up choosing to kill myself. Then, while still in the fetal position with my hand over my face, I think about how I want to kill myself. I thought of running in front of a car, but there’s a chance I could still live through that. I thought of running away to a scary neighborhood and getting shot by a gang-member or thief, but still, there’s a chance I could live through that if shot in a non-fatal area. And all of the sudden in the dream, I get up, get dressed, grab my laptop and phone and purposely get lost in a forest. In the forest I destroy my computer and cellphone and continue wondering around the forest experiencing nature. Then I finally sit against the tree in an area with a lot of vegetation. I don’t know how, but in the dream a gun is in the bag I had. I, without hesitation put the gun in my mouth and kill myself. And that was the end of the dream.
Now many describe me as eccentric but this dream is even usual for my wild imagination. It makes sense that I would destroy my phone and computer since I’m overly protective about my data files and my pictures, blogs and everything is an important part of me that I would prefer to keep private for as long as I could. However, killing myself without hesitation is another thing that I never thought I would do.
I think my dream all comes down to my mounting financial situation. I have way too many bills and expenses that are overwhelming my life. I can’t get unemployment benefits from Illinois because of some quarterly rule, I’m not getting my tax refunds fast enough because of what happened in Congress, on top of that, self-employment tax went up so I’m paying more this year even though I made $3,000 less than last year. Even though I have a lot of research experience coming out of my undergraduate career, excellent letters of recommendations from professors and employers, I even submitted two major research proposals for highly competitive grants (which should prove my commitment), yet no professor seems willing to take me on as a graduate student because they only care about students who got good grades and can help universities rank high. The system fails individuals who don’t agree with or perform to an already flawed and non-creative education process. On top of that, I get back home to Michigan and can’t even find a part time job willing to hire me. Either I’m overly qualified and they think with my science background that it’s weird I’m even applying for ‘that’ job, or I don’t have the proper skills or certifications for jobs that can clearly be done without certifications. During my research projects I handled large complex data-sets and calculations in excel, yet because I don’t have 2 years of experience in an office setting doing data entry, putting client names and numbers into excel, I am not qualified.
The mere thought that I even have to think about giving up my dreams to do research because I can’t get into graduate school is heartbreaking. I’m even willing to conform to what the university systems want to do it. I couldn’t even think of what else I would do. I could run my own vintage store, which was always a side-dream of mine…but you need money for that. I basically have no purpose in life if I can’t contribute to society or to the world in some way. I do know this may take some time. Honestly I’m giving myself til May until I feel completely useless and like my life isn’t going anywhere. I’m 26 yrs old, I’m getting old!
