To whomever takes the time to read this. THANK YOU. I’m going to try to make this quick and to the point. I can’t remember a time when anxiety wasn’t part of my life. Depression is different, it’s not a constant like anxiety. They still play their parts of equally destroying my happiness and chances to be happy. Since I’m desperate for some advice, I’ll save the stories from growing up for another blog post. For now, I’m just going give the basics. I grew up with an overbearing father whom, til this day is in denial he has a gay son whom has different interests. I’m not the son he expected. My dads a hardworking man who’s always been a foreman and architect and building skyscrapers. Growing up he didn’t accept my aspirations. Becoming a writer was always something I wanted to be. He didn’t approve and made it known. “You’ll be living in a shack” I remember him telling me at dinner in a restaurant. It’s crystal clear as I think back on it now, so are the feelings that well up. It’s difficult because I actually do love my father and he loves me. Giving me everything that I wanted, besides accepting who I am and what I wanted for myself. I would give everything back if I just had that. As a result, I stagnated. I didn’t go to college after high school. I hopped from job to job aimlessly, took some community college classes but I never committed fully. I never committed because I just wanted approval. I was too scared to make a decision or committing because I wanted to make my dad happy, so I just wandered and wandered. I wandered into a job that is in the environmental business. I worked there for five years, but towards the end I was becoming unhappy. Unhappy with my boss and unhappy with the lack of growth. This was when my dad heard from a friend that somewhere was hiring for apprentices in a certain field. I’m going to keep some info vague as in to not give away where I’m working for privacy reasons. Anyway, this field was looking for apprentices and my dad had an in so it could help me with chances of getting accepted. A mixture of my passiveness, unhappiness, and the constant pushing of my father I started the admission process. I didn’t want to do this from the beginning and I tried relating that to him without making him angry. I was told I’m not going anywhere with this job and this is a great field to be in. So I let him believe I wanted it. I ended up getting into the apprentice program. I put on a fake smile and told everyone what they wanted to hear. My dad wanted this so bad for me he paid The required fees since I didn’t have them. At the beginning of September I started class and was told to quit my old job since I would start working for them. This is when my soul began to die. I didn’t begin working til the end of December. I didn’t make a check for four whole months. Within this time I was never more depressed. I was anxious about starting a new job, waiting for the call that I would be called in for work for those for those four months. Thank god for my family helping me through it but it didn’t feel good. So feeling like this, we’re to go to class one day every two weeks. I missed a few days because I was sick with anxiety of having to go in. The thought of going to this class made me throw up. I had doctors notes for some of the days I missed so I thought I was okay. I finally got the call for work and found I was very lucky with the people I got placed with and things began looking up. I didn’t miss any classes, I was making money. Then came the end of the job. I was laid off last week. Luckily I’m getting unemployment checks every week. Now here’s the catalyst of why I decided to register to this forum. My brother is having a destination wedding in July. I found out that I’ll be away and missing a day of school. I decided to sit down and speak to my instructor about it. Well, it turned out all my absences weren’t covered by my doctors notes for whatever reason they weren’t good enough. I’ve exceeded the permissible absences. So that leaves me with having to retake the year or getting kicked out. My thoughts are in a mixer. If I get kicked out, that leaves me nowhere with nothing. 28 years old Without a backup plan. The thought of me explaining that I was kicked out is a thought I can’t even think without losing my mind. I didn’t want it in the first place though, right? Correct but I’ll still be stranded in some in between. A committee of higher ups will be meeting at the end of June to determine all if the apprentices are moving on and on paper it doesn’t look great for me. The instructor says it’s out of their hands at this point and I can only speak to one person who may or may not be able to speak on my behalf for having a very rough year. I don’t know what I’m expecting to hear from anyone on this subject. I guess I just needed to vent. Thank you.