Completely overwhelmed by external and self-inflicted stress

[Purrsona]

I've been unemployed since March and have tried to keep busy giving lessons and submitting fiction here and there. I haven't made any real money since May. Nonetheless, my state seems bent on taking away my unemployment, so now I have virtually no income and may potentially lose half my savings. I should be okay for a few months regardless, but this--coming on top of everything else--is just the last straw. It's just so stupid and oh my god bureaucracy makes me so utterly furious.

I can't face this or the other obligations I've set up for myself. The thought of even logging on to the unemployment website makes me panic. I lost three days of work on a creative and potentially worthwhile project because I'm dreading basically every interaction, apart from those with my family and best friends. Which just makes me feel so much worse about myself because I'm used to being productive and hard-working and a serious multi-tasker.

I was about to apply for a grocery store job. Please understand that I'm not a classist jerk: some of the brightest, funniest, most creative people I know work retail by day and do awesome stuff in their free time. But looking over my resume and seeing my two degrees made me feel like absolute garbage. The first degree cost me thousands, of course. The second was cheap because it was in France but I worked myself close to insanity trying to write a thesis in a second language. For what? Did I need to have spent thousands of hours enduring immigration bullshit and mean professors and poverty and snotty Parisians in order to get a job ringing up tomatoes?

(If any Parisians are reading this: no offense. J'habitais parmi les bobos insupportables, c'est tout.)

Oh well. I didn't finish the application because I realized I don't want COVID-19, and also it'd be an hour's commute. But I don't know what to do. I'm useless.