Hello ladies. I need your professional option/advise.

Here's the situation:

I'm a young boomer, full of will and ambition. It seems as though the two would be enough to figure my own problem out, right? No. I'm stuck and getting very sad, depressed and scared as my short days go by in search of the professional me.

Many of my 40 years had been dedicated to healing from a traumatic childhood past. I never eally went full throttle with the education or experience because I was in the throes of self-destructive thought patterns; 'the depression is going to come back anyway', avoiding 'situations' that could trigger flashbacks, comfort within the confines of home knowing that no one could harm me...' Just ill.

I'm ready now though. Throughout those healing years, I worked on and off, kept in contact with the professional world of folk that I know. I have lots of experience in some fairly impressionable lines of work. The problem is that I don't have enough time in either field to say that I've honed one skill or another.

Last evening I accepted an invitation to a networking function. I had lots of self-doubt and unworthy types of feelings as I dressed to attend. I managed those feelings and attended.

Once there, the person that invited me (ceo/president) introduced me to several people that he believed I should connect with. Great, right? I couldn't have gotten a higher recommendation, other than from God himself. That made me feel so much better.

Well, during the event of networking, I was approached by many. Most of which introduced themselves by stating what company they were affiliated with or owned and then it was my turn to introduce me and what I have to offer to this experience.

My self-doubt and esteem dropped a few more notches because most of the 'concepts'or profitable financial endeavors those folk introduced, I had just a bit of experience in but nothing to call my own, nothing that I was successful at, nothing really worthy of sharing due to my lack of time spent in either of the fields.

I found myself sad and angry that I'd spent so much time healing and not much making a financial contribution to my future. As we've discussed in other forum here, PTSD, depression and other mental illnesses are real, I do know this. But what do you do after the healing is over and it's time to pay the piper.

My self-worth felt like zero even though, like I stated, I had one of the highest recommendations there as a 'visionaire' or 'great person to connect with'. I felt like I was letting this high recommendation go to waste. Of course the ceo/president that spoke so highly of me doesn't know the troubles I've seen. Niether of those gracious titles yielded me enough power to confidently state that I'm worthy of going into business with.

I met the CEO of this company at the university he attends for his second master's degree. I've never told him that I don't have even one master's degree. I think he's just assumed this because of the work I do at the university. Not to clear of why he thinks so highly of me.

I'm too old to start trying to think about getting into a field for 20+ years then retiring. This is what saddens me most. If I hadn't had to spend so much time 'healing' I would have at least working for a company under my belt. Now I'm stuck with the healed me, sort of a 'jack of all trades' and no honed skills, with a fresh degree.

Panic time!?!

[ February 02, 2005, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Sugaree ]