Mental Health

I've had times when I've felt exactly the same. And the conclusion that I've come to, and the mantra that I repeat to myself is:

"Who you are, What you do, and how you pay your bills" don't need to be the same thing. And in fact you don't want them to be.

Two out of the three is fine. But all three being the same should be avoided like the plague.

After 9/11 completely tanked my planned career in Near Eastern Classical Archaeology, I floated around for a bit. Got some IT certs, but mostly have worked a series of crappy retail management gigs. And yeah...for a long time, it bothered the fuck out of me. It didn't help that I suffered from depression. But I get that same "what's the point feeling".

But I've also written for my entire life, and I have a number of things that I'm become decent to good at over the years that I've used for passion projects. I was bored so I learned video editing and use those skills on other people's low budget projects. I have a decent level of Blender knowledge and I enjoy flight simming, so I spend a lot of time creating aircraft for X-Plane. Both of those have netted me very minor amounts of money through paypal donations, etc... But that's secondary to doing something that I love because I don't need them to pay my bills for me.

So while retail management is how I pay my bills, it's not who I am and it's not what I do. In fact I tried doing the freelance writing thing for a bit and I ended up miserable because What I do and How I pay the bills became the same thing and it stopped being fun.

Retail management pays my bills, and allows me the free-time necessary to pursue my passions in my free time.

Long story short, and I apologize if you don't find this helpful at all, but you're biggest disservice to yourself is thinking that "working at Walmart" is who you are. It's not. It's just how you pay the bills so that you can pursue your actual talents on a full belly.

It's rough out there.

Can I offer some insight? You probably don't want a game dev job. You probably want to develop games. They're... Wildly different day-to-days.

I felt the "if my parents go I have nothing left" all through my adolescence.

Maybe you're looking advice. Maybe not. If you are, I'd say just develop games. Get lost in it in your free time. Not as a resume builder. Because it makes you not miserable.

In the mean time, keep looking for any cs gig. Good entry point advice: state tech support. Most states are almost always hiring IT at some level. The DMV, the school district, the library, the local police dept (acab, it's a job), local hospital, courthouses, post offices, etc. sometimes the repeat fail on getting interviews is because you're applying the same way (indeed, LinkedIn). Find jobs offered directly on websites. Etc.

I know when I was at my depths, I'd have hated and disagreed with this part, but if you're stuck in your head hating yourself and feeling depressed... Go for a walk. An hour or two a day. Exercise is more reliable for treating depression than any antidepressant on the market. I know people reading this are saying "it won't help" because I was reading it and saying it too.

I'll ramble. I used an app to track my mood for years. I live in a wintery state. I used to force myself to hike a small hill in my area every day in April. If I go back and look at my mood log over the last 8 years, every April I actually tried has by far the biggest concentration of smiley faces and lowest concentration of frowny faces. Exercise isn't a physical challenge. It's a logistical challenge. It's about getting off your ass and completing a goal, getting your heart rate elevated, and hydrating. It forces you to meditate while you breathe during your exercise, you can't ruminate and spiral. You can only breathe.

Idk sorry, got a bit rambly. Good luck out there. Download Godot and code up a simple game. Share it with your friends, Lemmy, idk. Make it available to download from a website you host for a few bucks a year. Keep adding games. Throw them up on steam. You got this.

Oh sweetheart, you sound so angry and so sad and so exhausted. I really feel for you - grieving your optimism and your hope. It's so so hard when you feel so worn out.

There is some chance you will work at Walmart for some time but it is not definite.

Things change and they've been so absolutely shit for a while now that they have to soon. I can't tell if you already work full-time or not but having a stable wage makes life much easier. There is a silver lining.

Game dev is not simple to get into. This doesn't mean you'll never develop games, I promise.

Having to accept the nature of being working class and having to work forever is really painful and it's okay to find it really painful and why wouldn't you. It is complete bullshit. It is easier when you have a job you don't hate though or at least get to feel like you're expressing your values through.

I'm here for advice if you want practical advice but I think what you need right now is just mainly sympathy.

It is really hard, anyone would find it sad, and is extremely scary to find suicide an attractive option. I'm so sorry you feel so scared at the moment. What you need is to just get through the day at the moment.

Don't focus too much on the future, just focus on looking after yourself. It won't fix everything but it will get you through the bad days until you can problem solve again. Eating, washing, clean clothes, fresh air, getting some rest (ideally sleep but if you can't sleep, dark room, stay warm, nature sounds, that kind of thing).

Sometimes you have to go through waves of these feelings so just try and hunker down and get through it. Our brains suggest lots of ideas to try and problem solve in difficult scenarios and sometimes they suggest really bad ones which can be really scary. Sometimes you have to just kind of be like " okay brain, I know that's what you think is a good idea right now but we're just going to do something else for a bit". And then you get the control back.

I spent a lot of years fucking miserable making shit for money, and yeah, it’s demoralizing.

You wanna be useful to society and make a decent middle class income? Join the union construction trades. Specifically, join an apprenticeship. You’ll likely start around 20 an hour, maybe a tad more. You’ll get an education that costs you nothing and depending on your chosen trade you’ll probably be making between $40-50 an hour when you graduate. You’ll never need to submit a resume again, because your union hiring hall finds work for you and assigns you to jobs.

You’ll wake up early. You’ll pull some long hours. But you’ll also make six figures and live with a sense of accomplishment when you drive past the roads, bridges, hospitals and schools you helped build. Many of the unions have old school pensions. Most have stellar healthcare and other benefits.

Look up “union electricians (insert city or region)” to find a website for the local near you. Operating Engineers, pipefitters, and Millwrights are also great choices. Start with the electricians though. Trust me. It can take a while to actually get in a program, but it’s worth a little patience.

It’s not a perfect life, but it’s a good one. Good enough to stay alive for.

Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. Now, get those people who tell you to suck it up out of your life - they aren't good for you.

Next, realize you are not alone. I, for example, was a software engineer my entire career, and have been unemployed for over a year now. I have no prospects. I'm looking for other things to do, spending time outside, biking, etc.

I, too, am despairing, but I'm not going to check out, and neither should you.

Don't hate yourself. It isn't your failure. Don't hate at all. I don't know what to do either, but there are many of us and we need to find each other and band together for survival and community. If AI pans out as these greedy bastards want, everybody will be out here in the same place as us real soon, and that's how revolutions gain momentum.

Revolutions need leaders and visionaries. Maybe that can be people like us. It's not like we have anything to lose, is it?