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Why I have Considered Suicide because of my Student Loans


This may come as a shock to some of you, others may understand. I don’t want pity, I don’t want help. I want to inform. I want people to see what happens when you do what society tells you is the right thing only to have it ruin your life.

For me I went into a the field of interior design. I was just finishing school when the economy went, causing problems with the housing market, we all know this. For me though the problem started just before that. For the next few years employers for an interior designer required that you had gone to a school that was FIDER accredited. The school I attended was a private school accredited by the state, but they did not have this extra accreditation. This meant that I could not even be looked at for these jobs. I did however apply anyway. Eventually I tried my hand at furniture sales as at least I would be able to use my skills, unfortunately it’s a brutal job and I couldn’t keep doing it. I ended up with anxiety that effected my ability to work so I had to quit.

I’m not giving you my backstory to make you feel bad for me I’m telling you this because the field of interior design is one that the experts say is growing. I should be able to walk into a job then right, wrong. I have been out of school far to long I have tried to apply to the few jobs that are available, but nothing. This creates depression and I have many times felt I am worthless, I wasted a lot of money and time on a degree that I will probably never be able to get a job with. I’m talented, all of my teachers said I was very good. Better then a couple of them even, but still I struggle.

The area I am in is hard to get design jobs. I would move, but I don’t have the money to as I can find a job that only pays for me to live, not to save. Rent prices are crazy I pay a private loan every month and if I had to pay the rest it would be over $1000 a month. The stress from this is not something anyone should experience, but thousands are. The days of working though collage are over, it’s too expensive and it’s impossible to work to pay for it. You can take your time but for some people the time it takes to pay as you go makes the first classes they take obsolete.

Watching my friends and family who have not completed college getting married, buying homes and making much more then me has effected my thoughts. I’m a failure. No one wants me, I can never get married or have children. I can’t afford it. I am waiting to die. I have no reason to live, all I have to look forward to is more debt and more no’s. Yet I did what society told me to, so why are the people doing what your not suppose to doing so much better then I am? I am one of five kids. I am the only one with a college degree. All of my siblings have made more then me and hardly have any debt.

These factors all together have made me think about killing myself. I have been diagnosed with depression and am on medication. At this point it doesn’t happen often, once or twice in the last year and it only last a few seconds, but before that it was more often. People tell me to toughen up, and though I know I am very strong. That’s not what I need. I need someone to say, yes it sucks, but I’m here when you need to talk, then I need them to listen. The problem is our society sees depression and anxiety as weak, but really most of us who suffer from all of this are the strong ones, We just need support.

Unfortunately there is really nothing we can do to change the debt for the people who are effected by the crazy increase in college tuition, but we can change it for the future college students. We as a country need to take a hard look at our education system and see that many jobs that require a college degree you don’t need one for. Managers need to start investing in their employees and stop expecting to hire someone who can come in and work right away, well on paper they can anyway.

Companies say that there are not skilled workers in the US. There are, but they don’t have that degree saying they have gone into debt to be skilled. I type 65 wpm, I have great operational and customer service skills. I have run my own business and I do have a degree that focused on not just interior design, but business as well. I can’t get a job as a secretary because I don’t have an administrative degree.

What is wrong with this picture?





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