u/cloudsmemories

I just got home from my advising appointment, and it didn't go as planned. I wanted to attend my old community college to get a degree in accounting and then transfer. I had already graduated from there with an associates degree in psychology, and I went to university to continue it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish it out back then due to financial reasons. I don't really care for business related subjects, but I was willing to try out accounting because of the job stability that comes with it. I didn't realize that I wouldn't get financial aid if I decided to go back to my cc, so that caused me to change my mind on going there.

I spoke with the advisor and we got to talking about things. In the end, she basically told me that I should just go back to university and finish out what I started or switch to social work instead of doing accounting. I'm really interested in psychology, but the path to get to where I want is a long one, and it's competitive. If I wasn't stuck where I live then that wouldn't be such a problem. I know that I would need a masters to get anywhere with it. I have no problem with doing that. For right now though, I just wanted to get a better paying job and get out of retail and then work towards doing what I truly wanted. I was thinking about using my psych degree and go into marketing, but I was discouraged from doing that by some people here on reddit.

But yeah, what would y'all do? Should I stay as a psych major and try to get into marketing afterwards? Should I switch to social work even though I'm not interested in that? Should I do a complete 180 and do accounting even though I'm not interested in that either? I don't know what to do because I know I should be realistic, but I also don't want to do something I hate which is what I'm doing now by working in retail.

I noticed that the majority of the books on my shelves are ones that are considered “popular” or “booktok books”. I don’t see that as bad, but I want to read books that people don’t talk about as much. It’s been 3 years since I started reading, so I also want to read more diversely too. I have a college advising appointment today, so I plan on going to my library and thrift some books while im there. I’m going to try and keep an open mind 😂 Usually, I just go in and hope to find a book I’ve heard of instead of taking the time to read synopsis and find something that seems interesting. The way things are set up at my library makes actually looking so overwhelming, so I just quickly glance over them too. I hope to leave with at least 2 books. But yeah, a goal of mine is to read more diversely. That includes genre too.

A couple weeks ago, I began the process of me going back to college. Tomorrow, I have my advising appointment. I ended up changing my major from psychology to accounting. I am so scared because I have no passions. Psychology is the only subject that I really like, but I have to be realistic. I hope I can tolerate accounting. If not then I don’t know what else to do after that lol I have to take applied calculus. I’m extremely nervous about that. Maybe now that I’m older things will go better.

I just wanted to share what I experience and have experienced that causes me to think I could possibly be AuDHD. I've been listing my symptoms and experiences based on the dsm criteria. A good amount of these I know I've experienced as a child. Some I've began noticing recently. But yeah, here's what I've been experiencing:

• Conversations are one sided and awkward
• Difficulty in initiating and sustaining a conversation. Happens mainly with people I just met but also with family too. I also need to rehearse what needs to be said before engaging, but a lot of the time things don’t go as planned.
• I would rather listen than participate in conversations. I do communicate when needed (ex. at my job or when asked something)
• I don’t give more information or details than I feel is necessary. This is a problem for others. Leads to be getting frustrated because I feel like some things don’t have to be said. I guess I expect people to understand me.
• I don’t talk to be friendly or be social. I don’t desire to converse with others. I dislike small talk and don’t think to ask about others. When I try it end up awkward for me. I end up replying conversations in my head over and over and think about what I could’ve said or done differently. Overall, I just don't like to talk and it makes me hate my job. I’m forced to be someone I'm not and it leaves me drained and irritated. What makes it worse is dealing with hostile and rude customers. I cant handle confrontation.
• I don’t share anything. Sharing isn’t really something I think to do nor do I set out to do either. This goes for objects, feelings, interests, etc. No one knows anything about me that they haven’t picked up on themselves. In some situations, it can be seen as selfish.
• I don’t really respond to people’s emotions properly. I don’t really feel excitement or sadness for others or anything like that irl. I have an aversion to affection. People saying “heartfelt” stuff makes me uncomfortable and awkward.
• I sometimes cannot physically respond to others that speak to me directly.
• Eye contact makes me uncomfortable. I would look into someone’s eyes then constantly look at them and away. At work, I would start out looking at them but over time that becomes less and less. I mainly keep my head down and when it’s time for the customer to leave Ill just turn my head to avoid looking at them.
• Everything I do isn't because I want to do it it's because I'm expected to do it. For example, during a conversation nodding is a common occurrence to show interest. I only nod to avoid complaints.
• My voice is always mocked due to it being ‘deep”. To me, I sound normal.
• Have no desire to socialize with peers or anyone free willingly. I don’t approach people. People approach me and things go from there.
• I have a hard time making and maintaining friendships. Socializing is draining. I’ve only hung out with a friend outside school once or twice. I never put in the effort. It’s too much for me. Socializing with others feels like a chore.
• Would prefer to work alone which is why I hated group activities.
• I take things literally especially through written forms.
• I have too many sensory things and stimming related things to list. I eat food in a certain order. Things have to be done an even amount of times. Hate loud noises. The list goes on.
• I have a hard time following verbal instructions. I need things repeated differently or multiple times in order to understand.
• Get distracted easily. I cant focus for long periods of time. I daydream anywhere and anytime. I also talk to myself in my head. Reading is big challenge because I cant focus for than 3 seconds. I end up have to read sentences over and over again.
• I unconsciously begin stimming. I guess this can be seen as me being kind of restless. I also hate standing in one spot for long periods of time.
• I will find something to do as a new hobby but quickly become uninterested.
• Need background noise to do things but also find it distracting
• Crave a routine but also cant keep up with them.
• Have a hard time putting my thoughts together which is why I feel the need to write what I have to say down.
• Feel like I've experienced meltdowns. One happening recently.

There's more stuff, but this is all I want to include because no ones going to read a super long post lol I'm discovering things about myself everyday, so this may get even longer.

At my job, we’re (cashiers) supposed to clean our areas before leaving. That includes doing go backs and cleaning out the containers with the sensors we’ve removed from items throughout the day. In the beginning, I would leave them and after being told that I had to do that, I made sure to do it before I left unless I was told by a manager that I didn’t have to for whatever reason. People will get hired and not clean up their area, and it seems like nothing gets said to them. I’ll come in the next morning, and there will be a full go back cart along with filled containers of sensors. I’m basically expected to empty both.

The other day when I got into that situation with that customer I didn’t do my go backs because I was ready to leave. I come in the next day was told that “there was a go back cart with my name on it”. Like…WTF?! Where’s this energy for everyone else? Especially those that work late afternoons/night. It’s not fair that they get to leave their stuff that way and put it all on who’s there in the morning.

Also, I’m so tired of not getting off on time. I don’t care how busy the store gets. If I get off at 2:30 pm then I should be walking out the door at that time. I shouldn’t be staying 30-40 minutes over. Why am I staying 30-40 minutes over? Because we have to clean our areas and do go backs before we go. This is one of the reasons why I hate cashiering. I’m stuck there and can’t really leave unless I’m given the okay. It wouldn’t be as annoying if we didn’t have to tag everything. That takes up the majority of my time. 95% of the things in the store have security tags, and people mainly buy apparel and shoes which requires them. I hate it.

I started the process into me going back to college. On Wednesday, I have an advising appointment. I’m anxious about it. I’m not anxious about going back to college. The problem is that I’m going for something I don’t think I’ll necessarily be interested in. Well, I haven’t taken any classes in the subject, but I can feel myself hating it or just not liking it enough to want to pursue a career in it. I wish I could’ve stuck with the major I had, but I can’t because the thing I wanted to do isn’t realistic for me because of how my life is unfortunately is and how I am as a person. I want to go into this with a positive attitude, but it’s hard because if I can’t tolerate this then I have no other options. I can’t push through something I hate. I hate the job I have now and look what happened. I did something I never thought I would do which could’ve been avoided btw. But yeah, I’ve been looking at content pertaining to the subject, and it seems okay for now. I’m ready for a change, so I had to pick something that doesn’t take long to reach. I’m tired of feeling stuck.

Today is Friday which means that I have to deal with a coworker that I dislike and have disliked since starting this job. I don’t understand why she always have to get an attitude with me about something. I didn’t even do anything wrong. The first thing that happened was that I was gathering my go backs to take to the back because there wasn’t a cart up front. As I was walking back I let her know that there was a purse that a customer wanted to buy behind the counter. She was like “well, bring it over here” in a very snarky tone. That was the first thing. The next thing was that a customer left her shopping cart in front of the counter. It had an item in it along with hangers. I left from behind the register to get the stuff out and move the cart out of the way. Here she go asking what I was doing and just being annoying and rude. Those customers in the line could’ve waited a couple seconds for me to move stuff out the way. If I left that cart then people would just put them right behind, and they would pile up in front of the exit. I’m about to quit honestly. I can’t stand her.

A while back I made a post here and someone basically said that the interactions with people in a mental health setting is different than interacting with people in customer service (retail). I’m very skeptical about that because of my personality. I’m very quiet and reserved. I don’t consider myself to be a people person but not in a “I hate people” kind of way. It’s more of a “I’m awkward and don’t necessarily have a desire to speak” kind of way. Something happened last week which resulted in me surprisingly snapping at a customer. After leaving for the day and bringing up how I’m going back to college, my mom asked me why I wouldn’t just continue on with being a psych major and become a counselor or therapist to help people with whatever that’s bothering them. I feel like that would be odd to do considering what happened. I don’t have a lot of patience. I mean I do, but it all depends on how the other person is speaking to me. I can’t deal with people being aggressive and rude.

So yeah, I’m asking this here because I’m sure there’s someone here that’s maybe shadowed or worked in a mental health setting before. Is the way interactions go generally different than interactions in retail?

I went to this mental health place to start seeing a therapist. It’s been 2 weeks, and I haven’t received a call back from a therapist, and my anxiety has gotten bad. I don’t know what to do in order to help with that. One bad situation has caused me to be anxious everyday and it’s been almost a week since it happened. I wake up anxious too. I try not to think about it, but I can’t stop replaying things in my head.

What’s everyone most anticipated read(s) for the rest of the year? This can also include books that came out in previous years since I know there’s people who don’t really keep up with book releases like that. I don’t for the most part myself tbh lol

Mine are Harvest Season by Brynne Weaver, The Mirror of Infinite Endings by Stephanie Garber, The Keeper by Ana Huang, Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang, and the next book in the Fourth Wing series (doesn’t have a title yet) by Rebecca Yarros. These are just the ones that come out this year.

I also want to read more of Freida McFadden’s books. I really am interested in Dear Debbie. A youtuber I like watching says it’s really good. I also want to read Into The Blue by Emma Brodie and The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke.

I made a post here telling what happened, but for those who haven’t seen it, I blew up at a customer last Saturday after he was being extremely rude to me. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but it most definitely was a sign that I’ve had enough. I want to have a serious conversation with my manager about me not cashiering anymore or as much anymore. I was hired as a stocker anyways, so this was supposed to be temporary. It’s been a year and nothing has really changed. But yeah, I decided to write out what I wanted to say and this is what I came up with:

“Would it be okay for me to go back to stocking? The role of being a cashier isn’t for me. I’ve spent the majority of my time here on the registers instead of stocking and being out on the floor like I originally was doing. I’m burned out from all the customer interaction, and I feel like that’s what contributed to what happened last week. I would like to avoid that happening again.”

Does that sound okay? I don’t want to seem like I’m demanding anything. I just want to express how being a cashier has been affecting me this entire time. Ever since Saturday, I’ve been feeling anxious. I can’t eat. I feel like I’m lucky to even get a good amount of sleep. I need a break from this. I don’t have the personality to be a cashier. That’s what got me switched to being a stocker at my previous job. I started out as a cashier, and they switched me to being a stocker because a customer complained. The manager that hired me at my current job was the same manager at my last job, but he doesn’t work at my current job anymore. But yeah, I’m still deciding on whether to text him this or tell him face to face. Face to face would be ideal, but whenever I speak to someone face to face, what I want to say ends up not getting said. It’s like I completely forget everything.

It bothers me when people ask that. What’s wrong with seeking out a diagnosis? You never see people ask that when it comes to anxiety or depression or anything else. You only see people ask that when it comes to autism and adhd. It makes me wonder if the people that ask that has either or both because there’s no way that people don’t understand why a person would seek out a diagnosis. Does things depend on severity to them or something? I even feel like people whose condition is less severe could benefit from a diagnosis. It just seems like a very neurotypical thing to ask ngl. I could be wrong though.

I thought about something recently which made me want to ask this. I purchased a kindle around 2-3 years ago. I used it a lot. I thought it was the best things I’ve ever bought. Now, I can’t even get through a book on it. I prefer physical books or I prefer doing immersive reading. I guess my kindle era was kind of a phase 😂 I only use it when I’m doing immersive reading because I use Libby for books as well.

But yeah, what about y’all?

I still haven't gotten a call back to see a therapist. I know they said it would take like 2-3 weeks, but something happened the other day and is just troubling me. I wonder if what happened relates to me being possibly audhd in a way or maybe I just lack patience and is easily frustrated.

Saturday, I had to deal with a hostile customer. I kept trying to explain things to him nicely but as time went on i just became more and more irritated. I was being accused of doing something I didn't do. I've never snapped at a customer before. I unconsciously told that man to shut up. I still have my job though. I know I shouldn't have said that but it just came out. I feel like this happened because of built up feelings. I cant handle confrontation or people being rude to me. Also, the job itself is stressful because of the high volume of customers I have to deal with. I didn't mean to just explode at him, but I feel like this happened for a reason. This sort of thing has happened outside of my job too but not all the time. Idk. I just know that I get frustrated quickly, but I never explode like I did especially towards strangers. Usually, I just keep things to myself and cry later. This time was different for some reason. Now, I've been experiencing anxiety for the last 2 days.

After what happened the other day, I want to be more vocal about not being a cashier. I was hired to stock and be a back up cashier if needed. I didn’t agree to anything else. I’ve been at this job for over a year. I was primarily a stocker for the first 3 months and then things began to happen with other coworkers, and I was put on the registers. It was supposed to be a temporary thing. I feel like I should be doing what I was hired to do. More people have been hired since then.

Where I work, we get trucks just about everyday, so there’s never a lack of work in regard to stocking. Like, right now there’s at least 30+ boxes of apparel that needs to be tagged, separated, and hung. I could be in the back doing that instead. It’s Monday, so that number is definitely higher now because they get apparel on every truck.

If there’s no stocking to be done then I could just be out on the floor straightening things up. That’s also what I was doing before. At my store, customers will often leave items everywhere and clothes on the floor. The store stays messy, and it’s a safety hazard. They need someone to do it because this is an everyday problem.

But yeah, all I want is to go back to doing what I was doing and was hired to do. I think the fact that I’ve been pretty much forced to do this for as long as I have with the kind of personality I have has contributed to things spiraling. I shouldn’t feel anxious everyday I got to work. Yes, I should just quit, but I have nothing to fall back on at the moment. The best thing I can do while I still have my job is to try to make things more tolerable. Stocking and being in the stockroom was something I actually enjoyed.

A customer made me very irritated yesterday and I ended up blowing up at him. I could feel myself getting more and irritated as the interaction went on. I tried getting my manager to take care of it but he was on break. Basically the guy was trying to get over on me and was making it seem like I was doing something wrong. I ended up telling him to shut up because he kept talking very rudely. He was doing too much. I know I shouldn’t have done that. It just happened. I usually keep what I’m thinking to myself, but something was triggered in me that caused me to say that unconsciously.

I felt anxious ever since yesterday. People have been telling me to just “relax”, but I can’t relax because it literally happened yesterday. It’s still fresh on my mind. I also told my family about what went on which was a mistake because they have to tell everyone everything. Maybe the feeling will go away tomorrow. I don’t know. It just sucks because I can’t eat much while I’m feeling like this. Situations make me feel like I need to be put on medication. I try to think of other things to calm my nerves, but nothing is working.

I’m still waiting on a call from a therapist. I wish I could talk to someone about this now.

Customers will use the restroom and wash their hands and leave the water running instead of turning it off. I just don’t understand why. If you don’t want to touch it then use paper towels to dry your hands and use that. It’s weird. This happens a lot, but this is the first time I saw someone do it with my own eyes. Do people this at your job?

I did something that I never thought I'd do. A customer pushed me too far, and I lost it. I still have my job though. Anyways, I had my mind set up to back to school to become an accountant, but what happened today made me realize that I don't need to be dealing with people. I want to be left alone. I can't do it this anymore. I guess you can say I'm a misanthrope. I may be dramatic to some of you, but I just can't do it anymore. I want to be alone and in silence.

I don't know what is out there for me. Googling this sort of information isn't helpful. Every time I find something, people come along and say that the career isn't for someone like me. I need get out of customer service, but I don't know what to work towards. I would like to just stay at home, but I understand that it's hard to get a remote job. I need some advice or suggestions.

After an incident at my job today, I realized that I need a job that allows me to be alone in silence. I would like to work towards becoming an MLT or MLS. My college doesn’t offer the actual majors for either so I’ll have to do a post bacc. I need to know what my options are as for online programs afterwards. Would I need to see a career counselor or my advisor for that? Dumb question I know. I just want to make sure I’m seeing the right person.