Thank you for this. I broke away from my toxic narcissist family this year to be with my wife and it’s been the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done. I was supposed to graduate and get a job earlier this spring, but all the stress and pain and grief I was going through made me fail a class that I’m currently retaking, and also made me unable to gather the courage/strength to go job hunting this entire summer. It was my time to cope with it since I couldn’t do it while I was in school, or at least that’s what I tell myself...

It’s honestly something I’m still struggling with due to my intense fear of failure that my parents have put into me, and it’s something that makes me feel so goddamn shitty every single day. I know I should be working because I don’t have their support and because I need to save up to repay my financial aid money I’m living off of now and because my wife will need my help, I know that I need to be on top of things now more than ever, but it’s so hard when I start thinking about it and all the other things that play into it - how my parents have brainwashed me into needing them in both conscious and subconscious ways, that I’m nothing without them because I don’t know what I’m doing, and then I shut down :/

Sorry if this sounds dumb to anybody. I’m fully physically able and I have plenty of free time to be job hunting so there’s no real excuse.