RYL Forums - This really is my last chance...

Hi,
I’m feeling very stressed with life at themoment, and I’m not sure how to deal with it safely.

Last year, me and my ex split up. I’m over her, she’s married to somebody elsenow and I’m happy that she’s happy. Theproblem is, all the things that happened as a consequence of me spiralling outof control when she left – I know it wasn’t her fault, and I had a choice aboutthe way I behaved, but I chose the wrong path and now I’m paying for it becauseI feel like this is really my last chance at having a happy life again, andseveral people have said so (although not my parents, which is a comfort, theyare both really supportive, as are both my brother and my sister).

The first thing that happened was I couldn’tcope with college whilst going through a break up. I had problems (and still do) concentratingon my work I had to do at home, I didn’t go to lectures, I handed in work late,and I was failing because I wasn’t engaging with the additional support team who,at the start of the year, were seeing me every week to go over the things Ididn’t understand in class and to help me with my work in general – reading itover for poor spelling, grammar mistakes and so forth. This led to my tutor saying to me “you’regoing to fail if you don’t pull your socks up,” which scared me so with a humungousamount of effort, I scraped through the rest of the year and got my first yearcertificate.
However, when it came to applying for secondyear, my college refused to accept me because of the way I had behaved the yearbefore. I only gave a few examplesabove, but my behaviour includes something that I was (and still am) very ashamedof. My tutor for the previous year hadalso (understandably) given me a really bad reference because I wasn’t handingwork in on time, and said that she had concerns that I wasn’t in the rightplace mentally to cope with college as well as with everything else, and thattaking a year out would be a good thing. In the end, I didn’t have any choice but to take a year out, as they refusedto accept me.

The second thing that caused a bit of aproblem was the fact that I had to move back in with my parents when collegerefused to accept me, as my mum said that she didn’t mind paying for my rentand giving me money to live off if I was in education, but if I wasn’t, I hadto come home, get a job and start thinking about what I was going to do with mylife as college hadn’t accepted me. Thisstarted off fine, I applied for Jobseekers Allowance and as I have a learningdisability, applied for an organisation in my area that helps people with learningdisabilities get paid employment at the capacity of the client – so if youcouldn’t manage a full time job, they look for a part time job for you.

This has now presented problems however, as Ihave applied for this organisation twice before – once when I’d just leftschool and was 16, but I decided to stay at school and get my final 2 yearexams – and once when I had finished school. I wasn’t in a place mentally or physically where I could engage with thehelp they were offering me though, and I was discharged from their servicetwice, with them saying “come back when you feel you want our help, and we’lldo our best”. This has presented a problemwith funding, as the funding body have got back to them and basically said “she’stried twice before, why should we give her money to try a third time for thesame thing to happen.” This isn’t allbad though – both my support worker at the organisation and my mum have launchedan appeal, and are both working really hard to get me a place again, as both mymum and my support worker feel I’m in the right place to benefit from theirhelp this time.
As far as college goes, I still want to do myfinal year and work with children in a nursery environment, so I have appliedthis year to a different college and used a different person as a reference inhope of leaving the past behind and trying my hardest to get back on my feetagain.

I guess the point of that big long ramblewas, how do I manage the feelings of fear and stress I have when thinking aboutgetting a job and moving out on my own? Ifthe organisation get me a place, how do I manage the feelings of “this is nevergoing to work, I’m too anxious”? And, ifcollege accept me, how do I manage to keep up with the work and manage my timebetter, so that the same thing doesn’t happen again?