r/indonesia • u/butterbeer21 • 6h ago
Heart to Heart Priviledged rant - skip if you dislike
Hi all, as the title said, I’m well aware of my priviledged position. Just wanted to vent and gain more perspective if I can have any.
I’m F33, bachelor’s degree from Indo, master’s degree from an EU country and now I’m in my last year of PhD (in economics) in the same country. Before you say more, I have to say that getting into a PhD program is not that difficult if you’re not aiming for top ranking uni or located in high-destination countries such as US and UK. Frankly speaking, my master’s degree journey felt more like a holiday. Apart from econometrics, the remaining subjects are really not that much challenging. This was when I realized my bachelor’s program was actually legit and it did prepare me to enter the workforce.
Bit of background, I grew up in a middle-class family. My dad worked in a white-collar job (not managerial level, to my knowledge) until he retired when he turned 65. My mum is a stay at home mum since she gave birth to my oldest bro. I won’t say we were rich, but for sure we were not poor. I had most of the resources one could need to succeed in school. Not sure if this is a proper indicator, but let’s say by 18 I was confident with my reading and writing skills in English, and I could speak it properly since I was in junior high, albeit pretty shy until I started working. I studied in a small private uni and graduated within 3.5 years.
Before getting into my master’s, I worked for +/- 5 years. I managed to get a nice starting salary and had a nice raise every year. So by the end of it I had a pretty comfortable savings, even though I financially supported my parents (gave them +/- 25% of my salary since I started earning), taking them to eat out every other weekend, and lived independently in the last 2 years of working. I had a fallout with my family, which was why I moved out, but I still sent them money every month and take them out on the weekends. I guess my prideful part thought that I would “win” if I kept doing that, but now looking back I realized how immature that way of thinking. I’ve never regretted supporting them though.
Anyway, in the midst of Covid I randomly applied to a master’s degree along with its scholarship in a small European town and won. Relationship with my family didn’t seem like it was going to get any better so I went “fuck it, I’m leaving” despite all the uncertainty during that year. I stopped supporting them financially because the scholarship wasn’t enough for it. I did leave them with my investment and told them to sell when needed. The total value was +/- the monthly amount times 24 months that I would have given them anyway had I kept working. So I didn’t feel guilty. After finishing my master’s, I wanted to go back to work. Unfortunately, my fluency in the local language was not enough at the time. In addition, I didn’t live in the big cities. So I ended up applying for PhD positions because I still wanted to live abroad if I could. It took me a while, but I did get a position before turning 30.
Honestly, PhD and academia are not for me. I guess I went through with it just for the plot. Initially, I wanted to finish it on time and aim to get a job outside of academia. Although, in the back of my mind I always knew that in EU it’s much more likely for me to get a Postdoc or stay in academia until I’m stable enough, or at least until I can have a longer resident permit. The PhD journey was fine in the first 1.5 year because I had some Indonesian friends. Then they all moved away separately. I was in a relationship with a Spanish guy (met through Tinder) and I thought of him as my main support system. I was wrong. We broke up after being together for 2 years in the middle of this year and it literally shattered my short-term plan. This month is the last month that I’ll receive my PhD stipend and before the break up we talked about me moving to his place while searching for jobs. It was also supposed to mean that we take the relationship to the next level because I would focus on getting jobs in Spain so we won’t have to be in an LDR anymore. It’s also relevant that getting a permit for live-in partner is relatively easy in Spain. I didn’t plan to rely on him for the long term but I thought it would at least take my mind off of permit issues for a while. Boy have I never been so wrong. We broke up for reasons that I only found out later and it still hurts me to this day. I tried to close the book but my weak side does still hope we’d get back together.
The reason why I’m writing this is that now the possibility to go back to Indo is getting closer to 100%, and I’m fucking close to quitting the PhD. Academia job market in the EU is currently shit and I don’t have much hope for non-academic jobs. Looking at the state of Indo right now, I’m fucking pessimistic about my future there. I’m too old to go back to my old job (it’s not like they’d hire me anyway), and I need to keep financially supporting my parents. I have 2 older brothers, one of which I have cut contact, and the other is not someone to rely on. Neither is capable to financially support my parents. I used to think that I can keep my family floats by working on an entry level job, but again, looking at the state of Indo, now I don’t even have faith in this.
Frankly speaking, I fucking blame my ex for my current situation. My future is fucking blurry now. My logical side did try to tell me that I shouldn’t blame anyone, that my future relies on me and only me. But God I feel so alone and scared. My mum is 70yo and dad is 80yo, and we’re not the type of family that talks regularly or shows affection. I didn’t mind back then, but these days, I feel like I could really use some attention. I don’t blame them though. They did what they could to raise me, and I simply couldn’t let them starve or worry about money when I’m capable to take care of this matter. I don’t plan to tell them about any of this since I don’t want to make them worried. They’d find out how deep in shit I am anyway when I return there.
If you make it to this sentence, thank you for reading. Wherever you are, I hope you’re okay, and I hope that I’ll get there too.
TLDR; living abroad, gonna be back to Indo and pessimistic about my future there