Image Credit – Omarfaruquepro Lic – CC BY SA-4.0

We’re proud to launch the first book The Underemployed Life has published. It won’t be our last – we have another one coming down the pike from our columnist, Andrea Thompson, but it is our first book, and we want to tell you a little bit about it so you have some background on it.

Previous to the book, I had been working steadily for about 20 years, but then I got fired from AT&T in 2013. They later acknowledged in writing, four months after the fact, that my firing was unjust. (Don’t get me started on that awful fucking corporation.) Anyway, looking online for work and dealing with misleading job ads, never ending online applications, a lack of quality, well paying jobs, and several misleading interviews, I grew frustrated, angry, and depressed. It was a dark time for me.

For whatever reason, most likely to keep me sane, I started writing and sending cover letters for jobs I didn’t want. They were written as a way to lift my spirits. I wrote a lot of these letters too, as weeks of looking for a new job, became months.

Writing these cover letters kept me creatively engaged and were key to keeping me out of a major depression. I never thought about publishing them as a book. I didn’t share them with anybody for quite a long time. Finally, I sent some friends a few of these letters and they kept asking for more. They often suggested I collect the best and put them in a book. After a couple of years of going between terrible jobs, companies, employers, I though there was some value in putting a book of these cover letters together. Especially because the book includes select responses from some of these letters that are pure fucking craziness.

I thought it was important going into the book that you knew these cover letters were never meant to be read by the public. I didn’t write them just to be a smart ass or for other people to see. I wrote these letters when my state of mind was one of confusion and hopelessness in conjunction with looking for a new job. They were a type of therapy for me. I think for those of you that are fed up with our economy and the way looking for work can make even the happiest person depressed, you’ll find a lot to like, and will hopefully laugh and find some of the same catharsis I did when I wrote these letters.

Of note, is that when I was putting the book together a couple of years ago, I started thinking about my chronic underemployment. So I started researching underemployment, just to see if anyone out there was talking about it. The answer was no, even though there were between 20 and 23 million people in this country who fell under the definition of underemployed. So, I thought it was worth starting a blog devoted to the subject. It was just a few short months after that, The Underemployed Life debuted, focusing on the myriad reasons why so many people are wasting away in jobs that don’t pay them well enough or utilize their skills and talents.

It’s now been two years since we debuted, and I’m proud of the writers I’ve hired (and paid – all of them), the work we’ve done, and you, our community of people who read the articles, email us, and discuss them on our Facebook page. If you enjoy and appreciate what we do and want to support our efforts to stay afloat, buying a copy of the book would go along way towards making that a reality. I truly thank you. You can check out the preview and buy a copy, here.

Our Australian readers can check out the preview and buy a copy, here.

Our UK readers can check out the preview and buy a copy, here.

Our Canadian readers can check out the preview and buy a copy, here.

Image credit-Jacob Edward License-CC BY 2.0

On any given day, I have pervading thoughts about my future, but the one that really sticks with me pops up whenever I see a giant advertisement with a celebrity selling watches or jewelry. Those actors and models can make more money on a single endorsement than I will have accrued over my lifetime.

The truth is, I don’t really care that I will never have as much money as Warren Buffett or even a low-level Wall Street type who takes trips to Bermuda every weekend. What bothers me is I will never have enough to own a house without brutally murdering my future because of a mortgage, or be able to take a vacation without being concerned about paying the bills in the following months, or even retire in relative peace.

You heard right. I harbor no illusions about my current financial status. Unless an aneurysm or other act of god cuts my life short, I will be working until my 70s, 80s, 90s, or 100s… medical science might take me that far, but I doubt I can afford the cyberware in the early 22nd century.

I’ve known this was a possibility my entire life. I was born into a relatively privileged lifestyle by American standards. I attended private school and was able to graduate university without being encumbered by student loans. Had I chosen to pursue a career in engineering as my degree dictated, I might be in a position topping six figures annually as we speak, and the only thing that it would have cost me is my sanity and my soul.

I still cannot fathom how we in the middle and lower classes accept such hardship and sacrifice as part of our existence. Some of my classmates, while not necessarily working themselves to death, are still in the pursuit of a magic number that will allow them to live through the end of the century. This number doubles every time they have another child. When money is even a factor in continuing the human race, you know we messed up our priorities down the line.

At the moment, there’s no sense of panic. I’m in good health and don’t require ongoing medical treatment. I’m young and can work a variety of jobs without fear of ageism. I make enough to live comfortably, but to save anything more than a few dollars for the future would mean I would be living just to work: eating, sleeping, trudging to a job. I would have no money for indulgences like vacations, or meeting friends for drinks, or taking a language class… what kind of life is that?

Despite all this, I know I’m one of the luckier ones. The ones who can work to live comfortably now, without burdening family members or being dependent on the government. More than two-thirds of American households make less than $126,000/year (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477/the-tipping-point-most-americans-no-longer-are-middle-class), meaning there are hundreds of millions of people living in the richest country on the planet who could easily find themselves indigent after only one accident or misfortune.

How does this fact not keep me up at night, drive me crazy during the day, and keep me from making any kind of retirement plan? Sometimes it does, but what I always cling to is the promise of the unknown. Circumstances may easily get worse for me in twenty years, or even in six months, but I don’t know what tomorrow will bring – no one can know. I can’t know with absolute certainty I’ll never find love, just as I’ll never know if one day my lottery ticket will show the winning numbers, or if my writing will result in a high paying job, a movie deal, or one of those opportunities afforded to the elite.

“I was gonna die… totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something… I had power over nothing. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope… So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing… Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” – Cast Away

Once you accept that something is completely out of your control, there is a certain peace to be found. We have a degree of control in where we choose to work and how we choose to spend our time, but beyond that, the last ten years have proven we can’t rely on any aspect of the economy. The housing market can crash. YouTube can be demonetized. Your boss can fire you because she just doesn’t like you. You can be completely ostracized from the online community – and job searches – because of one insensitive or stupid remark. Even if you make it to the finish line with savings, banks can fail.

I don’t apply this laissez faire attitude to everything. Some aspects of life will benefit from hard work and lots of hustling. I hope to find love, so I keep dating and meeting new people. I hope to find my passion, so I keep working different jobs and don’t let myself become complacent. Still, at the beginning of every day, I proceed with the assumption that one day I will reach a breaking point, and the comfort and security I have enjoyed will be gone. The only thing I can do is put my best self forward and hope the universe will provide.

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Turner Wright is a freelance writer with an engineering background. He is originally from Texas, but usually finds himself in the Bay Area if not some random corner of Asia. He is currently the Digital Media Manager for Airbnbhell.com and TravelVisaPro.com. He enjoys running long distances, eating more than necessary to do said running, and traveling to other countries.

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If you’ve gone through the frustration of looking for a job in the past 20 years, you know it’s depressing, mostly disappointing, and littered with misleading job ads. How Much Do You Fuckers Pay is a collection of real cover letters sent for real jobs and some of the best responses.

These letters weren’t originally written for the purpose of a book. They were written by someone who was frustrated, angry, and depressed with the process of looking for work in today’s screwed up job market.

It’s laugh out loud funny, sharp, at times off-color, and the responses are kind of nuts. If you feel hopeless when searching for jobs, this book will be cathartic and lift your spirits. You can buy the book here.

Working 24/7 is now our culture. Working forty hours a week is the new lazy. I know, because that’s what older people tell me. “You got to pay your dues,” they all said, so I never thought about what was too much to take on, or the potential consequences.

Then, eight years of working 55-65 hours a week left me suffering from severe chest pains at age 30. Doctors were baffled, as I am typically at an ideal weight, eat right, and exercise regularly. I wound up in the emergency room one weekend and endured a heart cath procedure, where they go in through your femoral artery and image your heart to see what’s wrong with it.

But there was nothing wrong with my heart.

Age: 31
Diagnosis: Work stress.
Prescription: Two weeks rest, stop working so much.

My company didn’t like that. “You’re too important to be off. Work from home, or else.” But the plug in my artery came loose, and I nearly had to have a blood transfusion, so I got one day off. Unpaid.

I know I’m not the only one who has experienced something like this, because I’ve seen it happen elsewhere. The next company I worked for purported to have a better culture, but a year in, one of my 30-something teammates suddenly collapsed during a project. Turned out he’d been working 60-70 hours a week for months. They rushed him to the hospital for an emergency heart cath, only to find nothing wrong with his heart.

Age: 39
Diagnosis: Work stress.
Prescription: Two weeks rest, stop working so much.

The company balked. “We can’t make our deadline if you take two weeks off. Work remotely and lie to HR about it, or else.”

I got out of there before they could put me back in a hospital bed, but quickly discovered that overwork is an epidemic. My new employer soon revealed themselves to be severely understaffed. Their desktop support department consisted of just one man.

I overheard him expressing concerns about his hours and workload one day, and management replied that HR didn’t want to see any overtime on his paychecks. He asked how he could possibly do so much work in eight hours and they said, “Figure it out, or we’ll find someone else.”

So he continued working 14 hour days, with 6 hours unpaid. I wasn’t surprised when he collapsed on a business trip a month later and woke up in the hospital following an emergency heart cath.

Age: 38
Diagnosis: Work stress.
Prescription: Two weeks rest, and stop working so much.

Despite the doctor’s orders and the fact that he’d nearly dropped dead, the company ordered him to return to the site and finish his work upon release. “We don’t have anyone else, and times are tough. You should be happy you have a job,” they said.

I’d already posted a new resume by the time he told me. Meetings there featured jokes about “living” in the airport, spouses threatening divorce over the hours, and now employees collapsing from overwork.
Not very funny to me.

A small business is like a family, people said, so I sought to join one. I was hired and found that sentiment to be true, but I quickly found one coworker getting frequent shout-outs for responding to email at two or three in the morning. She’d give out her cell phone number and tell clients to call whenever. She often skipped lunch and talked about how she worked every evening, and every weekend.

You can probably guess where she ended up.

Age: 37
Diagnosis: Malnutrition, work stress
Prescription: Two weeks rest, eat better, stop working so much.

But this time, I couldn’t fault the company. I rarely worked overtime there. She did that to herself, and kept trying to work despite doctor’s orders. The company eventually had to step in and temporarily take away her access.
So why include her? Or the helpdesk guy who willingly worked unpaid overtime?

Because we often choose to overwork ourselves. We don’t say no, and we don’t set boundaries to protect our work-life balance. Know the difference between working hard and being taken advantage of, and take it from someone who’s been to the edge – when you’re staring death in the face, you aren’t thinking, “I wish I’d spent more time working.”

You’re thinking about all the time you could’ve spent doing something else.

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John Spencer is a technology professional located in a blue city somewhere in deep red TX.  He himself is best described as “purple”.  He has a bachelor’s degree in English but works in technology and is best described as a jack of all IT trades but a master of none.  He is currently working to correct the latter and is studying for a Master’s degree in technology while working full time.

Image credit -Mad Wraith Lic-CC By 2.0

I’m contacted daily by IT recruiters; I have a pretty versatile skill set and there are a lot of jobs open in my area. Lately, I’ve noticed an uptick of what I call “super jobs” hitting my inbox. These are positions where employers try to cram multiple roles into one in order to save money. Here’s a good example of a super job I recently received. After the example, I’m going to break down for you what it really means. It is an altered version, as I removed all of the company’s identifying information:

Specific tasks may include but are not limited to the following:

• Managing development and assessment of inventory for machine connected locations
• Reporting on planned demand against projections for machine connected locations
• Capturing product metrics and reconciling by region and by data plan
• Regularly connecting with appropriate Telecommunication contacts to determine if there is back billing, Client status of payments, billing information corrections
• Examination and reconciliation of billing and financials related to application
• Understanding of application fees charged by the vendor that are related to signal strength or quality, develop reporting
• Execute audits of orders and disconnects
• Examination of data usage, and development of reporting
• Examination of connections and gateway alignment, and development of reporting
SharePoint:
• Developing dashboards and reporting
• Enhancements to work trackers
• Addition of workflow to reporting pages
• Automating metrics capture and reporting from trackers
• Integration with Excel for dash boarding
WLAN:
• Monthly metrics and status reporting which includes: tracking of deployments across the Enterprise, capacity of critical infrastructure (Controllers and licenses, PI hardware and license, MSE hardware and license), demand forecast across the Enterprise
• Development and publishing, updating information for monthly operational updates
Skills & Capabilities:
• Advanced Excel expertise pivot tables, formulas, charting
• PowerPoint expertise
• SharePoint Developer
• Data Collection, Data Analytics, Data Manipulation, Metrics Generation
• Highly self-organized and works without constant supervision
• Network background and experience.

Could I do it? Sure, I have experience in all of those areas and I have the skills listed. But for you non-IT people, this is what they’re really looking for:

• A Sharepoint admin/developer (often two roles, but we’ll be nice and say one),
• A BI developer/report designer
• A data analyst
• An application support analyst
• A billing/collections analyst
• A server/network admin
• A level 2 (or 3) help desk analyst
• An inventory asset manager

Count those: that’s a minimum of eight roles for one person. EIGHT. Each would be a full-time responsibility at a reasonably staffed company, requiring a seasoned asset manager and IT professionals with advanced skills or certifications in these very separate areas: Networking, Databases, Business Intelligence, Sharepoint, Excel, and Programming. I know IT people who are advanced and/or certified in one of these areas. Maybe even two or three.

But I don’t know any who are at this level in six, let alone eight. They contacted me because it’s on my resume, and I do have a level of proficiency in those particular IT disciplines. I’ve been forced into doing this “super job” thing before, and I know exactly what it means: 10-12 hour days at the office, logging in every day when you get home from work, working all weekend every weekend. You get to be awakened in the middle of the night for emergencies, and no real time off because “you’re too important to be out of contact,” so they bother you the whole time you’re away.

I had one company give me an airtime USB with the expectation that I would carry it always and pull over to work on the side of the road if called while driving around on the weekend. I wish I was kidding. That amount of work for one person is neither reasonable nor sustainable. I think companies know this, and they don’t care. It’s not like the days of yore, where they would bring in talented people and groom them for the future. In today’s workplace, they want to bring you in, load you down, and burn you out. And once you’re gone, or dead, they shrug and bring in the next one.

But maybe you’re up for the challenge, if the price is right. I mean, they must be offering a six-figure salary to put up with all of that, right?

Nope. Try $40 an hour (83.2k yearly) as a contract to hire (so no benefits or PTO). It says three months, but in my experience, that always gets extended to between 12 and 18 months. If you’re lucky enough to survive that, and they eventually bring you into their company, expect that pay rate to drop to under 80k yearly. Oh, and you’ll be salaried, so kiss all that time and a half you were getting for the insane overtime hours, goodbye. In fact, now that they don’t have to pay for it, expect the demands to increase.

“Thanks, but no thanks”, I replied to the recruiter. Y’all ain’t killing me.

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John Spencer is a technology professional located in a blue city somewhere in deep red TX.  He himself is best described as “purple”.  He has a bachelor’s degree in English but works in technology and is best described as a jack of all IT trades but a master of none.  He is currently working to correct the latter and is studying for a Master’s degree in technology while working full time.

A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy

is a clandestine market or transaction that has some aspect of

illegality or is characterized by some form of noncompliant

behavior with an institutional set of rules.

 Whenever the black market is mentioned, most people have different ideas about what it’s actually like; especially those who have never contributed to the sales or consumption of illegal goods or services. As a kid, I imagined the black market was an open-air market-type setting with lots of vendors in ski masks, selling military grade weaponry and explosives from fruit stands inside an enormous warehouse crawling with armed guards – perhaps in the middle of an otherwise empty desert in a foreign country.

I also saw Jim and Nancy (a middle-aged Caucasian couple from the suburbs I’d made up for imaginary scenarios such as this) walking down the aisles, loading their shopping cart with sniper rifles and landmines, chatting about the great deal Fred and Amy (their imaginary suburban neighbors) got on their rocket launchers last week. I was a kid, okay? I had a very active imagination. I had to draw my own conclusion of what this “place” was like since no one actually knew, and it was rarely discussed.

Naturally, most adults would be uncomfortable explaining human trafficking and organ sales to an 8 year old, and they likely have no idea how or where to begin. One might be inclined to tell a child that the black market is a bad place where bad people go to buy bad things, and that explanation may or may not be far from the truth. I’d never put a lot of thought into it, assuming that nothing like this could possibly exist in the happy and wholesome USA , so I’d never even have to worry about it.

As I got older and began observing how the world actually worked, I realized two things about the black market: it was not just a place, but many small places, and these places were everywhere, including all over my benevolent and utopian country.

The black market was at my friends houses, at the neighborhood bar, and in my sophomore math class. Eventually, it made its way into my own home. It became apparent that the black market wasn’t necessarily bad, it was just illegal. I believe that one of the main reasons it’s perceived as such a horrible thing is because of the illegality. Human trafficking and all of the other blatantly terrible fuckery aside, you can actually buy the same shit you can get at Walmart. I’m not kidding. Among the items that are most frequently purchased on the black market: baby formula, human hair, and of course near the top of the list – drugs, all kinds.

Most of these things are perfectly legal on their own; even the drugs. Baby formula? Supermarket.  Human hair? Beauty supply retailer. Drugs? Pharmacy. To clarify, some of the drugs available on the black market are actually pharmacological substances that are legal to purchase with a legitimate and valid prescription, some of which are necessary for some individuals to maintain their quality of life, or to simply just not fucking die. Medications for the treatment of diabetes, arthritis, HIV/AIDS, congestive heart failure, cancer, and any other disease, dysfunction, and disorder can be purchased on the black market.

[[It is at this point, I realize how incredibly incriminating my browser history must seem. I risked my IP address getting flagged and my computers getting seized for this research so you don’t have to.  #Sacrifice.]]

So why the hell would someone risk incarceration for buying something illegally if they could buy it legally, and likely, much easier somewhere else? Simply put, this shit is fucking expensive. Those of you with children – without any sort of welfare or financial assistance, will understand that baby formula alone can drain your bank account.

One newborn can run through $50-$200 of formula per week depending on brand, size, and frequency of feedings and special dietary needs. Those who choose to opt for all natural human hair in lieu of animal or synthetic hair for their wigs and extensions can expect to spend a cool $200 and up for just the hair itself. It’s a lot more when you include the salon charges for application and styling they’ll receive later.

Necessary drugs required to sustain life can run thousands and thousands of dollars monthly, if not weekly. I can’t think of a single fucking person that thinks this is okay; I’m sure Bill Gates himself would be astounded with the prices that these drug companies are charging.

What exactly am I getting at here? Well, I suppose it would boil down to this: living life by the books and obtaining necessary goods and services legally – money, food, utilities, clothes, repairs, plus living within a justifiable, barely comfortable means, costs more than an average millennial can afford on their own. My rent, utilities, and other bare necessities are cheap, relative to most people I know, and I still can’t fucking afford it.

I don’t have the time, energy, or patience to get another-other-other job. So I found a simple, practical, illicit money-making solution in what little spare time I have and became a Black Market vendor. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. I’m a Jack-of-all-trades. I’m your local stylist, mechanic, computer technician, teacher, taxi, and all around favor-doer.

The only difference between what I do, and what black market crime lords do, is my business model and methodology. My “business(es)” is/are illegal because of the laws surrounding certifications and taxes. I try to avoid causing harm to anyone at any point for any reason – I’m trying to help those who can’t afford to go the legal route. The only real reasons what I do is illegal are because I’m unlicensed and uninsured, so if I fuck your shit up, I can decide whether or not I want to fix it or make it your problem, and 2.) I’m not reporting my income for taxation purposes, because everything I do is under the table, and Uncle Sam isn’t reaping his fair share of my work.

I charge what I feel is a fair amount, depending on the person I’m dealing with, and what type of work I’m actually doing. Ladies, try going into your local salon and asking for a wash, cut, color and style, with nourishing conditioning treatment for $100 flat, no tip. Gentlemen, call up the garage across town and tell them you need a fuel pump replaced and an A/C charge, but you absolutely cannot spend more than $250 out the door.

On the grander scale of the black market, people get hurt all the time. Common, legal goods (such as the baby formula and prescription drugs) are typically stolen en masse, or manufactured by a 3^rd party, which means they may or may not be the real thing, and then sold for pennies on the dollar. What you’re putting in your body – or your baby’s, for that matter, could be straight off the shelf you buy it from every day: Vendor steals $30 container of formula from Walmart, sells it to Mom for $15 – Vendor makes a clean, clear $15, Mom saves a few bucks, Baby gets fed. On the flip side, Vendor obtains protein powder, or mixes up their own concoction of something passable for formula, raids local recycling center for formula containers, fills the containers and sells them cheap – Baby gets hella buff, but Baby also gets sick.

Also awful about the black market in the big picture: people – living beings – are purchased, sold, and used like any other common object. The buyer can do with them as they so please, because they now own that person. Adults and children are kidnapped and sold to be used as sex slaves or indentured servants; women are attacked and subdued by a group of assailants, while one cuts their hair off at the scalp to sell for big money.

There are no doubt many terrible things about the black market: movies make jokes about people waking up in a bathtub of ice: sick, battered, and missing a kidney, but that’s actually a thing that happens. Exotic animals are another hot commodity. They’re subjected to horrible treatment and living conditions, often starved, abused, and killed in the most inhumane ways imaginable. All for the sake of someone using their parts for decoration, clothing, or medicines. Even those kept alive and purchased as pets will endure hell on earth until they die, or are killed by animal control.

Yes, I risk arrest and incarceration on a regular basis in the name of making ends meet. I don’t have crates of pygmy marmosets in my closet, nor pounds of methamphetamine buried in my yard; I’m not going to sell you a human liver in an Igloo cooler. I will, however, freshen up your ‘do and fix your brakes for much less than you’ll pay mostly anywhere else. While most judges won’t so much as bat an eye at someone working on their buddy’s car, it’s still technically criminal activity. The size of the crime and number of victims doesn’t matter to Johnny Law, or to future employers who can see your criminal records. A crime is a crime, regardless of whether or not you were just trying to feed your family, or can’t afford to have your car repaired. Big Guy or Little Guy, I’m still a Bad Guy.

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Riley is a writer, and an epitome of a paradox- You can read her exclusively at The Underemployed Life.

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Tastefully Shameless

I am many things. I’m 25, I’m white, I’m a female-identified human. I’m from Texas, I’ll eat Pad Thai any time of day. I write, I act, I am heterosexual. I have two siblings, I don’t watch Game of Thrones. I do watch Outlander (and I am unashamed).

My eyes are green, I played left midfield on my high school soccer team. I don’t know how to write code, but I do know how to drive stick shift. I’m a Unitarian Universalist, my parents are still married, I wear a size 8 ½ shoe. I was sexually assaulted when I was a kid, my birthday is in the summer.

My Unitarian Universalist-ness means I go to church on Sundays, but feel the need to let people know I’m not Christian, though I have great respect for Rabbi Jesus (as my minister says). My shoe size is such that strappy sandals are not my thing. I’m a heterosexual woman, so I have a male partner. My parents are still married, which means I go to one house on holidays.

I have two siblings, and one of these siblings gives me shit for not watching Game of Thrones. The other was my inspiration for playing soccer. I drive a Mazda with a standard transmission, and I wear green to bring out my eyes. My birthday is often the hottest day of the year. I don’t engage in casual romance or sex, because I was sexually assaulted as a kid. Many people are adverse to casual sex/relationships. Childhood sexual trauma is not the only reason, but I’ve identified it as mine.

It’s taken a lot of work to integrate what happened to me into my larger identity. It’s as much a part of me as my eye color or how many siblings I have. It still takes work to remember that, and to stay standing some days, especially when sexual assault is in the public conversation, as it is right now.

What happened completely shaped how I see sex, romance, objectification, men, the patriarchy, and how I fit in to all of that. I was five. My brain didn’t have enough in it to contextualize my experience, so upon it I built a series of very unhealthy assumptions about myself/my sexuality, and how to relate to the world, which led to more negative and non-consensual experiences throughout my childhood and teenage years. When I think about my assault, I often don’t think of the actual event—I think of the series of patterns and thoughts and choices it set off in my life. I could go on, but I won’t. It’s a lot. It’s depressing. The anxiety is rising in my stomach as I write this.

Dating/sex has and will always be fraught for me, though I’m just now realizing to what extent. It’s fraught for everyone—romance and sex are parts of our lives that are affected by our most fundamental formations of identity, which are often unexamined and problematic. I have spent innumerable hours of my life talking to friends of all different stripes about these problems. Tinder, Bumble, etc. It all sucks. Breakups are hard. Ghosting is shitty. Fraught! It’s all fraught. And it’s fraught in different and interesting ways for everyone.

This is a little bit of how it’s fraught for me: boundaries are incredibly difficult for me to implement. The concept of boundaries is something I didn’t really learn about or start to work on until I was about 23. Boundaries are something that most kids learn in elementary school. When I was in elementary school, I was coping with the aftermath of being assaulted. Boundaries didn’t mean anything to me. I learned that speaking my needs and desires got me nowhere and nothing, so it’s better to fit my needs and desires to the people around me so as not to create conflict or a scenario in which my needs will, once again, be denied. And if those people’s needs and desires are different than my own, it’s best not to interact with them at all.

So I retreated into myself, only to come out when I felt like it was safe, only sharing what was agreeable, and then not understanding why others would sometimes keep me at arm’s length when I did. I’m learning how to healthily protect myself while not cutting myself off from experiences and other people. I’m trying to connect with others while both setting and respecting boundaries. I’m expressing my needs and desires more and more. I’m doing the best I can.

This has meant, that for me, casual sex and dating has largely been impossible. It’s deeply unappealing on many levels, both superficial and fundamental. Due to boundaries not being secondhand for me, and also because I’m a sensitive person in general, I’ve developed a way of relating to people that is very intense. I’m sort of all in or all out. Going on a date with a stranger from the internet to just “see” if they’d be a fun diversion is something I physically cannot do. Whenever I think that’s what I’m doing, it develops into something deeper. This has ultimately been an incredible blessing, as hardships often turn out to be. My relationships, both platonic and romantic, are what I am most grateful for, and my willingness to “go in” with people is why I have them.

After every breakup, my peers have encouraged me to try and be casual. They’ve extolled the idea of our teens/twenties being the “time to go nuts” and “we shouldn’t settle.” I went along with this for a while, feeling increasingly shitty about myself because I couldn’t seem to ever do this. I thought maybe I just wasn’t cute. I thought, maybe I’m a coward and I have to push myself to come out of my shell. I thought there was some kind of collective joke that I was missing. I thought a lot of things, and none of it was ever productive or positive.

What I’m here to say is that there is no right way to do sex and romance as a survivor. For other survivors it may look very different. For other survivors, emotional intimacy may be impossible. Physical intimacy may be a language that is easier to speak.

I’m also here to say that survivors, especially survivors of childhood sexual trauma, are often erased in all these conversations about modern dating. Millennials and their online dating! Millennials and their casual relationships! Millennials are just eating avocado toast and getting wasted and DOING IT! Hashtag hashtag. Just go on the Tinder date, they said. It will be fun, they said. My friends, it’s not fun for me. And it’s not fun for you either, most of the time. Who are these pronouncers of what we are like? Who decides? The copywriters at Buzzfeed or Brother or Cosmo?

You are only wasting your youth if you think you are. And I am not. I’m taking control of my life for the first time in 20 years by fully accepting myself and the world in which I exist. I’m not forcing myself to live our cultural idea of a “healed life.” I am healing, and my life looks like what it looks like. I “get out there” and “come out of my shell” in many ways.

You are never too young to take care of your heart. The time to “go wild” is whenever the hell you want, however the hell you want.

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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.

Image credit-Lisandro M. Enrique License-(CC BY 2.0)

My parents raised me to be one of the most caring people on the planet. They raised me to be a nurturer and to care about the feelings of every person I encounter. From a very young age I perfected the skill of anticipating the needs, wishes, and desires of my boyfriends, siblings, friends, and family— and it was fuckin exhausting.

While I believe my parents intentions were good; they simply wanted to make sure that they were raising a well-rounded, well liked, and well respected young woman, and not a bratty little psychopath, I feel on some level they did me a great disservice. They didn’t teach me how to care for myself as well as I did other people. They did not teach me how to give to others without giving every part of myself away. I don’t blame them. They can only teach what they know. I constantly watch my mother give herself away to everyone around her, and I’m often her sounding board and confidant when she’s reached her emotional breaking point.

A few years ago I decided to make a change. I decided I would no longer give myself away, piece by piece. It was a good decision, but it wasn’t easy. When you’re in the habit of giving yourself away to others, those others come to expect that behavior from you constantly, and when you attempt to make a change, you are met with great opposition, and often, anger.

When you are a sensitive person or an empath, having someone angry at you feels unreasonably upsetting. You feel guilty. Your mind wants to give in just so you can feel better. You reason with yourself that if you just do what they want, it will be quicker and easier than enduring the discomfort of their upset. Their upset feels to you like standing in the sun in the summer, sans sunblock for five hundred hours.

It took me several years of constant practice to get to the point where I feel like I can help my fellow sensitive ones learn how to care and still not give a fuck. So here are my tips, which I hope offer you much needed relief, comfort, and solace as you go forth on your own human journey.

1. Define self love for yourself.

Self-love is a relatively new topic a lot of blogs and magazines write about. You cannot scroll through your Instagram feed without seeing someone’s post about it. But do we even truly know what it means? If we listen to magazines, it often involves a hot bath and an ad for some kind of new fragrance, leg shaving cream, or body lotion. And while all of those things are nice and have their place, each of us must define what real self-love is in more concrete terms.

For me, self-love meant saying no to people who took more than they gave. It meant walking away from toxic friendships, no matter how long we’ve known each other. It also meant not forming new ones. Sometimes it’s hard to let go. Sometimes you will feel lonely, but it’s worth it to have 100% of you.

2. When to say fuck you

Sometimes in life, simply walking away accomplishes the self-love you need. And sometimes you need a little extra Oomph to make it stick. I’ve had people in my life who say they mean well, but their actions didn’t align with what they said. When asked to change, they never do. I have decided that good intentions don’t count for shit. Your actions and words must be completely congruent for you to play in my world, and I won’t accept anything less.

It’s amazing to me how many people put up with people who are unkind. Kind Friends, if we stop putting up with that shit, the world will be a much better place. I promise you. Demand that people who claim to love you or want to be your friend raise their standards. We owe it to ourselves.

3. When to say fuck No aka No piggy back rides.

I can’t take credit for this one. I stole it from YouTuber Superwoman, Lily Singh, who is for all intents and purposes my spirit animal.

In her book, “How to be a Bawse,” Lily discusses how to deal with people who are your friends and want your “help” with their projects or their careers. Lilly is very successful, so it’s no surprise people around her want to benefit from her success. People are constantly asking her to share their videos with her 11 million subscribers. Lilly has a simple way of dealing with that. She says, no. Now this may seem mean on the surface, but she explains that you really don’t do your friend any service by giving them the elevator to success when you yourself took the stairs.  I’m relieved that Lilly addressed this in her book. I’m not nearly as successful as she is, but one day I may be, and now I know how to handle it, and you do too .

4. Dealing with the guilt and judgment

After you’ve drawn the line and you’ve made your boundaries clear, you will undoubtedly encounter people who will make you feel guilty or judge you for your choices. For a sensitive person this can be hard. But stay strong my friend. Understand that guilt is a useless emotion designed to manipulate your behavior. Understand that judgment is often unwarranted.

Instead of dwelling in those unproductive feelings, reassure yourself that you’ve made the right choice. Go for a walk, take that bath, watch your favorite show or movie, and just say fuck it.

That’s what I’m gonna do, because somebody somewhere is going to be mad at me about this article. Guess what?

I already don’t care.

I’m self loving over here!

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Jessi Jordan is a dog lover, cat lover, cheeseburger & pizza lover, optimistic multi-potentialite originally from New York City spending her LA days as a Freelance Writer/Photographer/Content Creator waiting to hear from Adele that she is ready to duet with her. She is constantly trying to cure her obsession with run-on sentences.

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I remember when I lost my first job. It was due to downsizing. I was frightened, but at the same time I was relieved. I was a good executive assistant, but it wasn’t my passion. It was a job to pay bills and keep a roof over my head in NYC, and baby, that ain’t cheap. I was offered a one month severance package, which included salary for a month, and health care till the end of the year. Don’t get excited. It was December.

Once that was done, I could apply and receive an unemployment check to cover some expenses until I found a new job. I heard somewhere, I think it was from Oprah actually, that one should celebrate when something financially and potentially life decimating happens. I remember Oprah telling the story of some blonde lady who popped open a bottle of expensive champagne to celebrate the loss of her husband’s job, and several months later they got rich or something. I don’t really remember the exact details, but the general idea of that story stayed with me.

I decided to try it, and I sipped on sparkling apple cider.( I know, I know. It’s not champagne, but it’s still celebratory. I just lost my job, cut me some slack people. I’m being responsible here.)

I decided losing my job wasn’t a curse, but an opportunity to follow my heart and try freelancing as a music producer, writer, and photographer; three things I love, and damn it, I know I’m pretty good at. It was time for me to try to actually make a living at it.

I made the mistake of telling my sister, thinking I could confide in her and gain some moral support, but instead, she unleashed a world of judgment on me I didn’t expect. She said, “unemployment is like welfare.” Her point of view was that I should rush out and get another executive assistant job right away.

I was shocked. “What the fuck did she just say to me?”

We argued. I said, “No, unemployment is not like welfare. I’ve paid into this money. I’ve been working since I was 15. I’ve earned this.”

I felt strongly that I had earned the right to choose a different direction for my career. “I’m not married and I don’t have children. If I don’t do it now I may never do it, and I just couldn’t live with that.”

I choose to pause. I just knew this was my fork in the road. One of many to come.

Her judgment wasn’t a new thing. I just didn’t expect it from her. She’s my little sister. Not that she ever looked up to me in the way some little sisters look up to their big sisters. We have a more “Marsha vs Jan Brady” thing going on. (Yea, It’s on Hulu! Enjoy)

But it hurt to have her looking down on me and talking down to …me. She was still in college and had not yet stepped into the real world. The real world of working a corporate job designed to eat tiny bits of your soul until you die of boredom; also known as dying of “natural causes.”

Her judgmental points of view weren’t really even her own. It’s a running theme in my family. You are only valued if you have a job. Being a freelancer doesn’t count. Building your own creative business doesn’t count.

As the black sheep of the family, I took the path less traveled. I stumbled along the way, but I’m not sorry I chose for me. I watched my aunt, who gave everything as an assistant at Lehman Brothers, lose everything. If she hadn’t still lived in my grandparents’ fully paid for house, she would have been homeless. She was luckier than most. Looking at that, I knew, even if I did take the road paved – the “so called” safe and secure road, even if I did everything that my family thought I should do, I could still end up with next to nothing. There are no guarantees in life!

Now, I’m still the girl that wasted all her potential in their eyes.

Never mind that my rent is twice their mortgages and I pay it, and all my bills, on time.

Never mind that I have published articles on super legit media outlets.

Never mind that I have music production credits published in billboard magazine.

Never mind I’ve interviewed Moby, met and hugged Will Smith and Kanye West, been hand fed by top chefs like Tyler Florence and  Elizabeth Faulkner.

Never mind that I’ve been interviewed on TV and featured in the NY Times about something I created.

Nothing I do matters. I don’t matter, because I don’t have an “actual job” with an office I go to daily.
When someone loses their job, they are met with sympathy, well wishes, prayers for blessings, and encouraging comments. When I’ve suffered a setback, I receive the “well you chose this life” attitude. No empathy whatsoever.

I’m not bitching. I’m merely pointing out the hypocrisy.

I used to try to get them to see a different point of view. I would remind them that companies like Amazon are built every day, by people like me who step out of the box and create something new, and then grow that into companies that then hire people like them, and how that is actually a good thing for our society. I ask them, “What about the Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerbergs, and Steve Jobs of the world?” They answer, “That’s them. That’s not you!”

My answer, “How the fuck would you know?” Steve Jobs was not “the Steve Jobs” in the minds of those who saw him sleeping illegally on his friends dorm sofa. I admire the fuck out of Steve Jobs, who lived his life on his own terms. And its a good thing too. He died so young, at just 56 years old. Steve did not die with his dreams still inside him. Neither will I.

I’ve learned to live with my family’s judgment, though it isn’t always easy to be an outsider in the one place you are supposed to feel safe and loved in the world. But I don’t regret my choices, because I wouldn’t trade my life for theirs.

I thrive off this sense of adventure and creativity. It is what makes me feel alive. It would be amazing if there weren’t people who really thought their way of life was the only way to live, but hey that’s life right? They have the freedom to judge and I have the freedom to not give a shit as I sip on my champagne that I can now afford… occasionally.

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Jessi Jordan is a dog lover, cat lover, cheeseburger & pizza lover, optimistic multi-potentialite originally from New York City spending her LA days as a Freelance Writer/Photographer/Content Creator waiting to hear from Adele that she is ready to duet with her. She is constantly trying to cure her obsession with run-on sentences.

Follow her on:

INSTAGRAM: http://www.instagram.com/jessijordanstar
SNAPCHAT: https://www.snapchat.com/add/jessijordanstar
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/jessijordantv