I have a continuous flow of bad luck which seems to always come my way. People say I should change my thinking but my thinking isn't the problem, negative things just seem to happen. I'm 24 and have no real reason to believe that I have a nice future ahead of me. My mum's death from ovarian cancer when I was 14 has just made me a shy mess with a severe lack of confidence. Any accomplishment I receive or have achieved in the past; I can't seem to properly enjoy because the only person I want to share my success with is her. I feel awful if I haven’t impressed people. I know this is why I am more self-destructive at times which is silly and counterproductive but the overbearing pain inside my head pushes people and new opportunities away. My relationships with people especially women seem to disintegrate very quickly as I feel I become too much to handle emotionally. I like people don’t get me wrong I just feel they could do better. I think this is because I am absolutely terrified of losing somebody close to me again, so I push them away. I don’t mean to do it and it’s killing my current and potential friendships/relationships off one at a time. My sense of self-worth has been destroyed and I really don’t see a way out. I tend to lose jobs a lot, maybe because of my lack of engagement. I panic due to the high pressure of any working environment regardless of the job, even if it’s easy. I get severe anxiety attacks weekly and feel so low. I know she wouldn’t want me to be this way but I think I’m mentally debilitated. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m not always depressed but I think this intense emotional pain overrides the truth and I tend to always listen. I find it really hard to prove my worth to employers as my anxiety limits all my creative functionality in an office space. I tend to work better on a freelance design basis because I feel studios just don’t accommodate for having a bad day or it’s that I don’t fully know how to express my feelings without seeming incredibly agitated. My grief consumes me and I don’t think my emotional qualities will allow me to last in the fast-paced environments of the design industry. Confidence in design is key and its something I just don’t possess. I also feel the transition from education to the work environment can be a rocky road and things might get better. The thing that gets me down the most is that there is no one time financial or otherwise where I can get a break, take a breather and just think. I’ve been on the go non-stop and I truly think I’m burning out at the ripe age of 24. My friends seem happy but I’m just miserable. I feel like I’m a burden on my family and they’d be better off without me. I'm also a type one Diabetic so FML. My family doesn’t really make me feel good either; they push me in directions I don’t want to go because of their own experiences. My inner voice tells me that If I don’t do what they want me to do I will lose them, this frightens the life out of me and I constantly feel like I disappoint them. I’m an only child and my parents never married so I feel my family can be too pre-concerned with how I live my life that I can’t seem to actually dictate it myself without being a constant disappointment. I’m 24 I should be happy and living and doing all the things 24-year olds are doing but I’m so sad and scared that living has been truly miserable.