Its complicated. I'm back at work and I am still trying to find my fit learning their system, processes, and getting a localdev up and running (which I finally did today, week 2 there) and I always have to fight impostor syndrome when confronting a new codebase. On the plus side, I get a long weekend at 4:30pm so I can focus on my personal projects.

If I pay mind to the outside world, my mood changes.

I'm pretty freakin far from okay.

My girlfriend has been mad at me for almost a week now; who knows if she ever even wants to talk to me. She hates me at this point.

And this is my first day of vacation, I have more than 10 days off. I decided to work on one of my hobby projects, and sometimes take a break for gaming. Guess what! My PC broke, Memtest shows more than 3000 RAM errors, so at the moment I'm sitting here testing each module in every slot.

And then once I figure it out whether I have to send the RAM or the motherboard back, I'll have no PC for at least a month (I expect longer than that). So I cannot make any progress with anything, now that I have some free time.

I'm especially pissed off, because it was quite an expensive build, specifically for reliability.

Not ok as I thought I was before anyone asked. It's been a long couple of years.

But my sister is home from college (~1000 miles away) for the holidays, and we're getting together tomorrow. And in a few weeks I'll be back to my regular schedule, at school and a job that I like. (It could be worse, and the last 6 months have been probably the brightest I've ever had, but it's kind of a low bar. I'm pretty confident now that it'll keep getting better from here, but I still feel suicidal sometimes, and isn't that weird?)

But this was a really rad post to make, so thank you. I'm sure somebody else has probably asked already, but just in case, how about you OP? Are you okay?

Yes and no.

Tl:dr I should be dead but I’m not.

My health has become a monkeys paw. False anaphylaxis and seizures I can work around but the medication has made me healthy enough to gain weight and muscle. Then my boss gave me a very physical job. While I put on 35 pounds of muscle the doctors added osteoporosis to the symptoms list of my disease.

So now I’m strong enough to break my own bones if I’m not careful. And have dealt with chronic pain for long enough that twice now I’ve been to the hospital and discovered months old fractures because ‘it doesn’t hurt that much’. Soooo fuck me I guess?

Layer on top of that a bunch of gender identity issues and delayed puberty(second? I dunno I’m 36 with a proceeding hairline and my pecks are visibly bigger than last week) and I feel like im turning into a monster. My wife says a sexy monster which does help a bit. Pro-tip: don’t complain to your overweight wife about your anxiety around becoming physically attractive.

But I have a meeting in January to start a research project and pivot a bunch of my time at work to research and software development. I work at a lumber mill? My boss may be a complete fuckshow when it comes to safety but he’s a pretty nice guy and lets me work how I work. I do make him a buttload of money. I’ve learned to run a planer, filing cnc, front loaders and their kilns. One of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten was this year when after 18 months working the kilns they told me ‘there’s things you can do better but they are matters of diminishing returns for us so we’d like you to focus on something new’. They expected that timeline to be 5 years. I’ve developed spreadsheets and algorithms to track and extrapolate moisture data for my lumber. I led a skunkworks dev team in Turkey to make an OCR app and deployed it at work for the basis of an inventory system. One of my projects this summer is to expand that system to their entire yard from my purview at the kilns. I’ve made and iterated processes for their saw filing and tracking and eliminated about 30k/week of downtime. I’m fucking killing it honestly but still feel like shit about myself. I struggle a lot with whether I’m actually smart or just good at reading. There may not be a practical difference. I would like to be paid more. Im considering the startup route and founding my own company but having access and resources of the mill would be a huge help for development so subsidiary company? I don’t know. My boss is the kind of stupid where he gives a former apple employee a computer but no IPA so I’ve got some cards to play.

My wifes grandfather passed away last week. We moved in with him and gramma 7 years ago when I went on disability and they needed home care. Gramma is in a long term care facility with PSP(super-Parkinson’s) now. My wife is an absolute saint. He gave us a place to live when I was sick and I owe him a lot of who I am. I also knew him longer than any but 1 of my own grandparents. It’s really hard. Also the 6th person to die around Christmas since 2016 so we are pretty well done with the whole month. We don’t even know if her dad committed suicide on the 26th or 27th. Fuck Christmas.

But our time spent caring for the grandparents and various other circumstances means that we might be able to buy/inherit the house! We might own a house! Ahhh the millennial dream! Start work at 11 years old, work in 9 different industries, have 6 years of disability off work and save up just enough of a down payment to inherit a house! It’s pretty fraught. Just the whole melancholy and juxtaposition of moving upstairs and having windows again because an amazing person died is a bit too much.

And like…my dad tried to start a cult so I’m glad they’re getting divorced but having been the person to ‘not cause it, but you did open my eyes a bit’ is all sorts of fun to process. Sorry/Thanks mom. She is doing a lot better now so that’s nice. My dad not so much. Not sure if I have it in me to see him at Christmas. But as mentioned previously and statistics I worry about suicide at this time of year.

But hey! I’m autistic, high school diploma, post-traumatic and non-specific traumatic stress disorders, cycle food and environmental allergies on a weekly basis, 25+ fractures through my body, had fucking scurvy twice, 6 years off work in total and I make my national median wage, I’ve got a job that I can keep for as long as I want it, a boss who actually accommodates my disabilities and weirdness, an amazing wife, two dogs and too many cats, I look better than I ever have and my doctor told me to write my will at 21. I’m 36 now so fuck all y’all.

If anyone read all that thank you! If not it still feels good to just put it down in words.

I posted this in another comment in this thread. This poem always comes back to me when I hit these moments or these threads. Any suggestions on how to get ‘thissus offeroede thissus swae maeg’ as a tattoo without looking like a Viking fascist nutjob?

http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Deor

No, on multiple fronts.

Thank you for asking! As a matter of fact, no, not really.

My partner has post traumatic stress and is an alcoholic but has been trying to give up for years (“That trick never works! This time, for sure”). The next day, she doesn’t remember all the stupid things she said and did the day before.

Her adult son is living with us; he’s autistic but refuses to acknowledge it. He’s rude, selfish, disrespectful, and inconsiderate to others. If he was “normal” (whatever the hell that even means) then I could discuss his behaviour, but he also barely talks.

Her daughter has moved out because she can’t stand the drinking, we hardly ever hear from her any more.

My ex-wife kicked out our adult son a week ago because our youngest is mentally unstable (bipolar? schizophrenic? refuses to see any kind of specialist for help) and violent, so it’s better if he’s not there “so he doesn’t trigger her” (Actually not “her”, incidentally they has come out as gender-fluid non-binary). Now he doesn’t want to see anyone, hiding in our spare room. He doesn’t have any furniture because we haven’t been able to move his stuff yet. He stays up until all hours playing computer games and only comes out for food. Doesn’t want to do Xmas, he’s going away camping with friends.

Although I’m in remission from cancer, I’m extremely physically fatigued all the time, but doing all the housework because otherwise it won’t get done. At least I can’t work, I don’t have the energy for that as well.

Merry fucking Christmas!

This is a very very bold question to ask, OP.

I wish all of you the best.

Fuck no. Probably the worst year yet and always declining.

I'd kill myself if it wasn't for the fact it'd destroy my mother.

Buster wolf!

My girlfriend sees her family every Christmas.
I'll be longing to see her in the meanwhile (I visit my own elsewhere), but otherwise I'm OK.

Bustah-Woof!

Er, anyway. I'm holding it together. Just worried about the damn election mostly.

I just got myself very sick by forgetting to turn the heat off while sleeping, so no

Haven't felt okay in years, I'm just trying to survive.

Mostly okay! I've been through a decade of infertility in the past and both of my (historically) happily childfree siblings announced they want kids now. I've experienced every emotion I can name about that but I've also had some good chats with other loved ones about it!

Seems a bit trivial compared to what some other people are going through but it took me by surprise.

I'm not about to kill myself or anything but no I'm not ok. I just keep breathing and waiting for the sweet relief that death will bring.

Not really. Money's tighter than usual, and work has been more stressful than usual. I'm burnt out and just need a little reprieve from everything right now, y'know.

Personally I'm doing well, I hope you are to for being concerned with others wellbeing. May you enjoy your holidays kind stranger.

Rambo thumbs up meme

No :(