u/Gold_Buffalo_5376

Best = earning potential/growth, work life balance, how rewarding the work feels.

I have a Psych degree and am currently working in business admin. I’m absolutely lost and feeling like a failure! Would really appreciate some inspiration.

Hi all,

For some background, my mother (50F) is Vietnamese-Australian (came from poverty) and her family has no recorded history of genetic illnesses. I am 23F.

My mother had no sleep difficulties growing up, but since she had my older sister at 22 years old she has had severe sleep issues where she only sleeps around 3 hours a night, lightly, and is hypersensitive to any light and sound such that no one in the house is allowed to shower, flush the toilet, use the microwave, or turn on the hallway light outside her room after she goes to bed. This means she’s spent more than half her life barely sleeping, which concerns me greatly that she will eventually develop a memory loss related disease. She has tried doctors, herbal medicines, a tailored diet, an iron infusion, and some other treatments focussed on the physical aspect of her sleep difficulties.

She is sort of addicted to misery, always looking to scold someone for something or complain about everyone and everything, and she recently became addicted to AI generated short-form content that makes her even more emotionally dis-regulated and snappy. I have suggested she see a psychologist as she is clearly stressed and unhappy but she doesn’t believe in one’s mental state as a legitimate domain of health. I have explained that so much of sleep quality is determined by mental health, and she agrees with this yet makes me effort to make herself happier. She has no hobbies, friends, and never goes out or exercises aside from riding her bike to work which is 7 minutes away. I have explained everything to her that I have written here. I have also suggested we do activities together like yoga, going on walks, going out for ice cream, watching a movie, reading a book, but she just won’t budge.

I am very afraid this lifestyle will lead my mother to develop dementia. I have not yet started a stable career and I’m afraid this could be jeopardised by having to care for my mother in future. My older sister is mentally disabled and can’t care for herself let alone anyone else, and my father is effectively useless, so if anything happens it’s all on me.

I really want to save my mother and I don’t want to give up on her. What more can I do?

Thank you to anyone who reads this. I greatly appreciate your time.

Hey all,

To provide some necessary context since this topic concerns culture, I’m a Melbourne born and raised woman in my late-20s.

Lately I’ve noticed, and become increasingly bothered by, what feels like really dry conversations between myself and friends from high school (all Melbourne born women as well). Whenever we get together our conversations mostly revolve around our careers, which I understand is part of adulthood, however it always has this tone of a civilised discussion where we’re taking turns to speak rather than fun, unstructured banter. I find my attempts to inject humour or steer the conversation in a banter-y direction fall flat. For example, one time my friend was talking about her irresponsible colleague whose female cat keeps roaming the streets getting impregnated by different cats. I said “wow, sl*t!” but no one laughed and joined in, but just kept discussing it without cracking any jokes. Another time while having brunch I mentioned I was going to a concert the next day and no one asked who I was seeing. Instead, my friend started telling us all about the errands she was going to run after our brunch which everyone seemed more interested in.

This all makes me wonder if this is the typical friendship dynamic in Australia and friends feel boring, or if it’s normal and I need to adjust my expectations?

Sounds like a stupid question, I know.

I’m 23 currently working for a tech company doing administration for their finance, sales, and purchasing departments but getting paid barely anything for it and have no opportunities for growth unfortunately. I have a psychology degree and would like to leverage that in some way, perhaps government. I just want to join an industry where I can keep growing.

I’d like to dive in and commit to job searching full-time so I can find something better ASAP but it feels incompatible with my full-time work. I can apply to jobs and send emails in the evenings and weekends, but interviews will need to happen during business hours. Given the lousy job market I’d like to maximise my odds of getting a job by attending as many interviews as possible but how would I take that amount of time off and sporadically i.e. whenever any interview is scheduled? Is my only option to resign so I can commit to the search 100%? I would be willing to resign if necessary but without another job lined up I’d be free falling. I do have the safety net of living at home with my parents thankfully and they would allow me to be jobless for a short period of time as long as I’m searching for something else.

Does anyone have any advice or anecdotal experience they can share? How on earth does one job search properly and attend interviews whilst working full-time?

As an aside, I’m currently on leave from a Masters. I was doing well but the course is pricey so I stepped back to reassess what jobs I can get before putting myself in that much HECS debt.