On Tuesday I started my first ever job at 18. I never had a job before because of personal issues. I am a Plumbing Apprentice. I feel like I’ve got a lot of free passes in my life and they are going to catch up with me soon. Because I was finishing high school as COVID started, I didn’t have to do the 40 hours of community service and I essentially got a free pass on all of my classes of the last semester. Then I took a Plumbing pre-apprenticeship course and all of the online work was essentially copy and paste from the text book. It didn’t really test your knowledge. When it came to the hands on stuff, though my workmanship was good I was always one of the slowest if not the slowest workers. I somehow managed to get on the honour roll but it always felt hallow to me, like I didn’t really deserve it. 

Then I went and took my G2 test, I was so sure I was screwed and somehow I passed, I didn’t think I deserved that either because I messed up on several very basic things. Now I’m in a position where starting Monday I’m gonna have to drive myself to the job sites. That means waking up super early and fighting the urge to sleep while driving on the highway (which I’ve never done) to go to different cities for work. These trips have so far been as long as an hour. I was lucky enough to be able to carpool for the first week because my car insurance hadn’t gone through yet. 

The work is stressful and honestly I have no idea why I picked this, maybe it was the money but my mental health is just declining. Even before all this I would have trouble sleeping and I’d just lay there thinking about how I hate myself and just want to die. I want help desperately, I need to talk to a mental health professional of some kind. I called my family doctor’s office to schedule an appointment so that I could get a referral for a therapist and she works essentially the same shift as me and the soonest that I can get a hold of her is a month from now. 

I feel so drained. This all happened at the same time as some other personal stuff so I’m taking it from all angles. I can’t last a month like this. My anxiety is out of control and for the past few days I’ve been in a constant state of what I perceive to be an anxiety attack. I’ve been trying to build up the courage to call a suicide hotline but haven’t been able to yet. Any tips or helpful advice is much appreciated.