Trigger Warning: this post contains discussion of sexual abuse.
I'm dealing with a lot of stuff right now, and I think I just need to vent about all of it. Any advice would be welcome, though.
I think the first place to start my venting/rant is with the fact that I haven't been able to do any of the self-help stuff I want to and should be doing. I have been trying to get counseling for my experience with sexual abuse (though not as proactively as I should be), but I keep having telecommunications difficulties with contacting the organization my gynecologist recommended. I only yesterday learned of a second local organization, and I'll try to get in touch with them instead. I also am having trouble joining clubs at my university because most of the clubs I want to join have meeting times when I have class or are 3 or more hours after my last class, which would require that I stay on campus (I'm a commuter student) for that additional amount of time.
So, I've been noticing that my emotions about my recent and past abusive relationships, particularly the one I just got out of, keep fluctuating and shifting and changing and reverting to my original feelings, which I have read is normal. It's just that now my brain is doing this not-so-fun thing where it's making the emotional associations of (male)partner=abuse and sex=rape, and I'm struggling to uncouple them. I'm also having trouble ridding my head of related cultural ideas like "you must have sex in a romantic relationship" and "all partners with penises will be intercourse-focused," as well as some low self-esteem-based ideas like "you won't be able to find a partner who makes a good fit because you aren't talkative or pretty." All of which I know are false, but it's like I don't have enough mental rat poison or the rats keep developing resistance to it.
Simultaneously, I've been feeling extremely lonely now that school has started back up and I'm around people again (which tends to make me feel more lonely than when I'm completely alone). And all I really want right now is to just be held, but I really don't know where or how to get that sort of physical comfort, or any sort of emotional equivalent, right now, and I don't really have anyone in my life, that I know of, where I can go for that sort of comfort. I'm assuming that counseling will help with this stuff, but as I don't have that right now, I'm really just struggling.
Another problem I have to deal with is that my mother recently said that if I don't get a job, she's going to "turn off [my] cellphone," which I need for private communications with doctors, school services, and friends, and it is my main connection to the internet at home, where the wi-fi almost never works. Now, it's entirely possible that she's making an empty threat, because she almost never follows through on her threats, but it's still stressing me out. The problem is that I really don't feel mentally or emotionally capable of taking on another responsibility/obligation at this time, and I know that is not something my mother would understand as she is constantly going and doing and rushing. Plus, just feeling that way about getting a job brings me up against a whole different bunch of cultural norms and ideas, which is another issue entirely, and I won't go into it now.
This last problem may also be unrelated to the topics of this website, but it's causing me a lot of anxiety, so I'm going to vent about it anyway: I don't know what career I want to have after I graduate this spring, but I do know that all the things I'm considering involve more schooling and all of them have applications (and associated financial aid applications) that need to be sent in relatively soon, and I'm also worried because I won't have a "well rounded" application because I chose to focus on school and being with my friends and didn't get a job or do any extracurricular activities for pretty much my entire college career. On top of that, my parents keep yelling at me because I haven't decided (because yelling at me will totally make me decide faster ). I really just don't know what to do about any of that at all, because what I need is more time to make that decision, especially more time when I'm not majorly stressing out and anxious about how very lonely I am or what my [insert your favorite swear word here] ex-boyfriend did to me or how my mother is threatening to cut off my ability to get in touch with people unless I do something I really can't deal with right now or all my upper-division science classes, which is really not something I ever have.
Sorry if any of that was jumbley; it's just how I'm feeling right now.