I realize that my latest post was coming from a place that may be hard to understand.

I'm accustomed to working "no status" jobs because that was all I could get with my experience. It was always a vicious cycle, I couldn't get good jobs because I didn't have experience, and I didn't have experience because I couldn't get good jobs.

I'm accustomed to things like my abilities as a writer and researcher being completely irrelevant to the jobs I applied for. I'm accustomed to only having "some college," which is roughly equivalent to having "no college" as far as employers concerned.

I really have no frame of reference whatsoever for what to expect now that I've graduated. None. It's strictly terra incognita from here on out and I've never been so intimidated.

I didn't major in social science with the blind expectation that it would bring me a better life; in fact I balked at a liberal arts degree because I've completely internalized the attitude put forward by most people that these degrees are worthless, and I have no frame of reference to believe any different. I'm struggling to picture my life as anything but the constant defeat of jobs serving mouth-breathing ingrates for minimum wage because that's all I know, as much as I hated living that way.

If I could have stomached a degree in something deemed "useful" by the broader society, like a degree in business or a trade like IT, I would have done it. I actually did try IT, and failed miserably at it which adds to my extreme sense of inadequacy. In fact the last ten years of my life have been plagued by failed attempts to improve my life and I've begun to feel like I'm unfit to survive doing anything but menial tasks.

I don't know where I stand any more, and I'm terrified out of my wits. I hope that a chat with Career Services will help me get my bearings but so far my brief discussions with them haven't made me feel any better.

I'm not expecting fortune and fame, I just want $25K a year and a little bit more job security than a pizza delivery driver or a support rep in a call center. But I've been primed to believe that this is out of my reach and I don't know how to break myself of thinking that way when I've yet to have any reason to believe otherwise.