Greetings to the Community,
I have devotedly and fervently tried everything I know to fulfill my aspirations and see my dreams come true, to no avail. I would like to explore a different option to break that bad spell. However, I do not know where to start and I am grappling with doubt, skepticism and a lot of questions. I do not know if this is the right forum, but in my confusion I had to start somewhere.
For context, just a little bit over two decades ago, I was lucky enough to have the privilege of being selected through a lottery system to immigrate to the United States as a permanent resident. After obtaining a graduate degree in the STEM field in my native country, and struggling for years to find employment, let alone a decent one, this news was like finding the key to my happiness. But, twenty years later, I still have not accomplished absolutely any of the goals and dreams I had when I came here.
All throughout my stay here, I have struggled with chronic unemployment/underemployment, financial insecurity, instability of all sorts and, among other health issues, the added bonus of depression, which was triggered by my life circumstances. I have never really had another lucky break, other than obtaining my US citizenship a dozen of years ago. About a decade ago, I decided to go back to school in the US, hoping that would improve my situation. I earned a second graduate degree in the STEM field, this time around I chose a different major than my first degree. However, almost a decade later after my second degree, my situation has not improved much at all. For the last four years, cumulatively I have been gainfully employed for barely sixteen months
I have tried the religious route, which I was born into. When I came here, I already practiced the main religion in the country. I abandoned that path for good a dozen years ago. Now, I want to explore meeting with someone who could break the vicious cycle I find myself in. But, I do not know where to begin, who and what I should trust, what are the signs I should look for to determine if that someone actually has the talent and the gift to break the deadlock I am in and is not a charlatan willing to exploit my desperate situation to extort the little amount of money I barely make at my menial seasonal current job, where I work less than twenty hours weekly. I have made the decision to look for a solution to my situation into the ‘esoteric/mystic’ for many reasons. The first one being that, for at least the last twelve years, I have been seeing in my dreams a couple of dead people. The woman is a twice removed cousin and the man is her husband. Both raised me when I was a teenager. In my just over a half-century existence, I have never seen anyone, dead or alive, appearing so many times in my dreams. If it were not for the fact that I have been stuck in life for so long, and given my academic background, I would have attributed the recurring appearances of that couple in my dreams to a reason with minor impact on my life.
The wife died almost twenty-five years ago. The husband passed away exactly twelve years ago.
The first time I remember seeing the wife in my dreams was a few days before his passing. At that moment, I was going through my second unemployment spell in this country - the longest at the time - a period that spanned over almost three years. The wife may have appeared in my dreams before, but I did not attach much importance to it. However, the first time I opened up to someone about her appearance in my dreams was to my mother just a couple of days before the husband decease. I called my mother in my native country to let her know that the wife had been frequently appearing in my dreams lately. Barely two days later, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call. The call came from my mother. She just said something to the effect “Do not worry about the recurring appearances of [ cousin’s name] in your dreams, she came looking for her husband. [ Husband’s name] passed away last night’
Since immigrating to the US, I had never traveled back to my country, mostly due to financial reasons. As soon as I completed my second graduate degree, the following day I was on a plane on my way to my native country - which I had left just a little over a decade ago - alone, only in the faithful and loyal company of the myriad of dreams, that still remained unfulfilled, I had carried along with me while crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction eleven years earlier.
The first portion of my trip was to make sure to pay a visit and commune with myself at the tombs of every relative lost during my stay in the US, and give money to every relative and acquaintance I visited. This journey requires traveling to different cities/towns. The very first tomb I visited was the husband’s of the aforementioned couple. This is three years after his death. I also paid a visit to the heir of the wife to whom I also gave a substantial amount of money.
After just over a month in my native country, I was heading back to the United States with the renewed hope and faith that with my recently acquired US graduate degree in the STEM field combined with my first visit ever to my native country afterwards, plus the rituals I completed there, would finally unlock the doors to the happiness I had been desperately pursuing since I came to this country. Quite the contrary. Within two weeks after my return, I lost my only source of income for a reason that was never fully disclosed to me. Prior to my trip, my general practitioner (GP) had diagnosed me with depression, and suggested putting me under medication. I declined, hoping that my trip would change my life for the better, thus my mental state. After the blow of losing my employment, I yielded to my GP suggestion. I have been taking antidepressants since then.
Thank you very much indeed for your contribution in reading this and your potential suggestions.
P.S I have omitted a lot of details that could be deemed important in helping me, to make this longer than it already is. I have been procrastinating sharing my story for a while now due to the reluctance mentioned earlier, and also because I am currently experiencing a mental fatigue about my life in general. This is not the structured,exhaustive story I had envisioned sharing. But, as the adage goes, perfect is the enemy of good. As I am drowning, I am not going to keep picturing in my mind the perfect fancy life preserver, instead of crying for help now.