This time last year, I had gotten fired for underperformance, and got broken up with after a 2 month relationship. This year, I’m in exactly the same position.

As the title says, I’ve (27f) gotten in a somewhat of a déjà vu situation this year compared to last year. Is this what the rest of adulthood will be like? Last year in my first post grad job I experienced harassment, bullying, racism, and sexism. After six months, as things became unbearably hostile I filed an HR report and was fired two weeks later for under performance. In my personal life, as I started dating someone, this all blew up with an anxiety attack and being told that I was difficult to be with, high maintenance and needy (in terms of seeing each other regularly). Both of these situations really shook me because work performance and emotional regulation in relationships was not something I had struggled with before and I really felt like my life and circumstances had really gotten away from me. I spent a lot of time on self-reflection with both of these situations and looked at what I could’ve done differently. I also started therapy a few months after. In general I have been a very growth oriented person and have taken pride in my behaviour and my work ethic but like I said, I felt like things had gotten very far away from me after graduating. fast forward to this year and my new job, I enjoyed it more than my previous role, and felt like I was performing well and had a good relationship with my coworkers. Six months in, after getting back from PTO, I was put on a PIP and fired 10 days later for under performance. In this case, I was truly blindsided, I struggled with my manager being a bit of a micromanager but felt like I had really good work relationships and received a positive performance review. I’m not sure exactly what happened, what prompted it, what factors were at play, but this was truly shocking to me. At the same time, I started seeing someone and felt quite positive about it, but was recently (a few days ago) told similarly that they didn’t feel like they could provide the commitment that I needed. Where this is challenging and difficult to me, is that I truly felt like my expectations were reasonable, my emotional regulation was better and things were generally, very normal and drama free.

I’m not sure where I’ve gone wrong, but I truly feel like post graduating I have really struggled with having control of my life. I don’t know where things started to go bad for me but I truly feel like I have struggled to find myself as an adult after finishing my masters degree and I am feeling quite beat down and depressed by it. If anyone has any thoughts on these situations or any similar insights to provide that would be great, but I am starting to feel like I’m falling behind my peers and will fail to launch and end up going nowhere in life. This is truly the first time in my life I have struggled this bad; I graduated from a top 10 university, I have two engineering degrees, I had a relatively good upbringing, but I feel like I have legitimately nothing to show for it as my friends and family grow in their professional and personal lives.

If you have any thoughts, words of encouragement or advice please comment. I have reached such a low in how I view myself and have lost all sense of purpose, I don’t want to keep failing backwards.