I love this post. I can definitely relate to anxiety and panic attacks and getting lost into a fast paced work place/school. It’s scary and trying to remember why it happens terrifies me. So when i see all these hardworking characters in kdramas i feel at comforted that people albeit fictional are struggling like me.

Oof, I relate. I could write a whole post on how MISAENG inspired me to do my best every day even if the future looked bleak.

Thanks for writing this @vemasi! I hope things are better now.

those are all good examples tbh of burnouts, misfits, just exhausted empty people just not connecting with the world or their life and friends. this year has been hard for me as an artist, rejection and burnout rife, and i feel so unheard. i think special labor inspector jo really filled a hole for me at the time which is about being paid for work.

really glad you got to quit. life shouldn't be so empty. hope you're doing much better

let's do our best to keep fighting and live happily

Fight My Way also holds a very special meaning for me. Out of all the female kdrama leads, Choi Aera's personality was the closest to mine. I also related with many of her struggles as I went through several of them as well. I don't cry as much when watching dramas but seeing Aera cry made me cry also on cue. (It also helped that I had a Dongman-like character in my life as well.) I related with her desire to always want to try the hardest and be the best version of herself but just coming up short, not because of a shortage of effort and skill but due to luck and just losing to an unfair system and to certain people that just cheats. Dongman telling her that wherever she is and wants to be can be considered the big league gave me a lot of comfort in the past choices that I've made.

Such a relatable story, thank you!
I could see myself in all the lines about the job and how it can kill the soul!
Everyday I ask myself “what are you doing here marina?”, “Why don’t you run away?”, “faking is not the answer”, ...
Hope you found the job that makes you get up with real smiles every single day♥️🙏🏻 Dramas are capable of saving us☺️

Fighting @vemasi! Thanks for sharing your experiences. Anxiety is real whether one is an adult or not yet, and life is not easy all that often.
Yes, dramas really help us loosen those knots of fear and doubt and someone go back to deal with reality. They can give us hope.

I'd suggest that your experiences can be taken as good learning experiences but otherwise, that they should be let go off (ie no more obsessing). Let not the past overtake your present or future. All the best!

Really liked this❤ and I especially like the dramas where they get support from friends or family and retain that personality to the end, instead of being rescued by a chaebol hero by episode 6 and spend the rest of the series fighting to keep him. Falling in love is great, finding yourself is better...

I can relate to this so much! Thank you @vemasi for writing this and fighting💪💪

Fighting!!! I hope you will find your happiness! ^^

I can relate to this so much even though my situation wasn't as serious (definitely anxiety but not yet at a clinical level, thankfully). I managed to get a dream job - the kind of job that would be a dream job for most people in my field, and thought this was the happily ever after, only to find out that even dream jobs require fit, and this one wasn't a fit for me. I was so afraid of quitting because of the same fears you had: if I quit, did it mean I failed? Thanks to kind words from family and friends, I decided that rather than thinking I failed, I'll think of it as actively making myself happier :) Hope you're finding your own happiness too!

I do love a Show about the struggle-bus that is a working life.
thanks for sharing, dear Vemasi.
here's a beautiful quote from a fellow Beanie:
"May success kiss your feet"
I hope it's all better now.