i guess you can call this financial regrets

I guess I'm going to have to admit that life itself is taking a toll on me.

Okay fine, everyone has their hardship and life takes a toll on everyone in whichever ways. But I feel like I'm getting to my wit's end at this point.

And that's not a safe space to be.

Especially when I'm alone in my head in the middle of the night with no one to talk to. And it's not like I can just unload any of this onto someone just because it's heavy af and I don't see the need to trouble others when they're already having their own.

But.

I feel... useless.

Maybe in terms of finance and in terms of... filial piety?

Back when I was working an office job and juggling freelance, my income was more than comfortable for me to take care of the rent and utilities and savings and still have a decent amount to splurge on life. But I was so tied up at work and it eventually turned into a hostile environment later on (we'll open that can of worms another day) and after weighing my options I quit and became a full-time freelancer.

I thought it was the right choice to make. I was sick of forcing myself to wake up at the crack of dawn when I really only do function well lunchtime and onwards and maybe deep into the night. So going freelance felt like the right call because my hours were flexible and I could make however much I wanted as long as I was hardworking enough.

I forgot that my time was limited, and that I was very very very easily prone to burnout.

But this time, I didn't have a safety net. If I got burnout at the office, I'd just try to complete all the minimal tasks and use the rest of the time to try and pull myself together. And I'd still get paid the same amount despite working very minimally.

But now, if I burned out, I had no place to go and nothing else to do because if I didn't work, I wouldn't be able to afford rent the next month.

I also forgot that I was only able to live a cushy life at home because I had two incomes. Basically the office job covered all of my essentials and savings, and anything I earned through freelance on top of that was bonus spending money.

Guess which account my rent and utilities are coming from now.

And then, just 2 months after quitting my job and immersing myself into the freelance world, the freelancing company hit some financial issues and everyone got a pay cut.

That's a loss of like RM500-600 per month based on my total output volume.

I guess I tried making up for it by working myself to the bone and trying to take in as much work as I could to get the same figure again each month, but now, I was literally burned out every day of the month and dreading turning on my laptop at all because of the terror and procrastination.

And I never really gave myself a strict timetable in the past because I wanted to do things only when I wanted to do them.

Big mistake.

I finally got myself out of the slop and set myself a boundary of how much output maximum I could do in a day. But when I set that boundary up, the work suddenly dried up, and for some time I had to fight with all my life to even land a job for the month.

I was used to filling my calendar with at least 2 jobs a day in the past, but a while ago I was staring at my empty calendar and pm-ing the project manager begging for work.

Anyways it's gotten a little bit better now but I don't know how much longer this is going to last and if things are ever going to continue improving at all.

I don't want to put all my eggs in this basket because I know it's unsafe but at this point I'm too exhausted battling the jobs and the thoughts in my head that I don't have the time to think about anything else.

I used to pride myself on being able to put away at least RM1k-2k per month in savings and seeing my bank balance go up every single month when I was still in my office job. I thought it would be the same after quitting because my expenses would also drop massively because I wouldn't have to pay for toll and petrol and all of the other obligatory stuff and paying upfront for the company etc. etc.

But it's now the 5th month of 2026 and I've saved approximately -RM1000+.

And right after taxes?

Suddenly my finances don't look too good.

It's bad enough that Mom and Dad would sometimes transfer some money to me to help with the rental and stuff, but it's not obligatory. I'm thankful if they do, but if they don't then I don't say anything because it was never their duty in the first place.

If anything, I should be the one giving them the money instead. But I'm barely keeping myself afloat and I'm going to have to admit that I'm possibly quite a wreck at this moment.

Dad's half-retired. Mom's retired. And that other person isn't making any money either but instead spending it all. I'm trying to keep my fire separate from them because I don't want to burn their fields up but I can't help feeling that I should be giving them some of my firefighting water despite it only coming from a leaky garden hose.

I feel so helpless.

Maybe things would improve if only I'd just get a damn corporate job. Idk why I feel so responsible for everyone's fire. I don't want to compare myself to other people and other families because our circumstances are all different. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if I was the one who caused my own downfall.

And my family's.

Mom and Dad should be retiring in peace. But they can't. Coz all their money is being bled out and I'm barely holding down my own fort.

They probably need more troops.

And I can't afford to send any.

I feel terrible.

Yet I also don't know if I'm ready to go back to a corporate job and work with people yet.

Idk there's just this fear in me that I don't really amount to anything. I know a thing or two about this or that but that's about it. I don't dare to call myself an expert in anything. And yet I also know that there's only this much of a gap a company could tolerate before marking off my prior experience as unnecessary. Or obsolete.

But my mental health is also worrying... I guess.

Doesn't help that the gigs I'm working now are always very negative. And I'm a super emotional person despite being so T to a T and I can't stop myself from immersing myself into the stories or just get so involved that it affects my mood for the entire day.

I mean, I found a way to distance myself from all the negativity by putting on a playlist on an infinite loop, but also, I'm the kind who needs absolute silence when I'm using a lot of my brain. So at this point it's also kinda backfiring on me coz whatever's keeping me sane is also slowing me down.

Did I even make the right choice at all?

Everything's telling me... that I didn't.

My mental health improved a bit after I got out of that toxic and gaslighting environment, and so did my sinuses because, surprise surprise, it was caused by their carpeting that hadn't been changed out since 2008. So I guess that's a good thing. And the place was running amuck with rats when I left so I'm glad I'm out. And meeting up with some ex-colleagues also told me that I made the right choice to leave.

I'm glad I left.

But also, I'm not happy I left.

Idk.

I literally don't know what I want until life serves me with just about anything, and then I know what I don't want.

But I still don't know what I want.

Oh wait.

I do.

I just want to break down and cry.

But adulting doesn't allow for that. That's just time and energy wasted on something that could have been more productive.

Like... gigs.

Idek anymore.

I feel so alone.

I can't load this onto my family. I can't load this onto my friends. I can't load this onto anyone.

Sure I guess I could load this onto God, and then what? I'd still have to do something about it later on anyway. Isn't that how it works?

I'm just so, so, so exhausted at this point.

God help me.