Warning: This one will be more of a personal vent. I don't really like to post personal things, but I got no one. I apologize for the long text ahead. I also apologize for the excessive amounts of quoting marks...
~ Bartender, I'm having vodka.
7 months ago, I became unemployed (again). I used to work as DevOps since I started my career 12 yrs. ago (time flies).
I used to really like it, my career... I liked it so badly that I "developed" (pun intended) burnout just after 1½ yrs. of unresting routine. Burnout led me to the psychiatrist, which led me to anxiolytics, which rendered me "unproductive" just after a few weeks, which led to my "layoff". It took me 3 yrs until I could find an established job again, which was my most recent job that lasted for 5 yrs.
Yeah, the above paragraph is probably messy, and there are four reasons why:
1. I'm neurodivergent so it's hard for me to put my chaotic thoughts into more succinct words
2. Those anxiolytics made me lose the pace of time
3. My memories are somewhat fragmented due to several traumatic experiences regarding things that concomitantly happened at that time
4. And I'm under a pseudonym so I can't be more descriptive about my personal life without leading to the real me (even though it's not too hard these days to find a person through their pseudonym).
All I can say is that a lot happened. And time often sounds repetitive and cyclical, as similar things happened again. Different contexts, but it kinda happened again.
Back in 2023, I finally went to the psychiatrist again, this time due to depression (COVID-19 pandemics destroyed lots of people's plans for life, not just mine). I was diagnosed with StPD and I became a guinea pig of several different antipsychotic medicines hoping that one of them would fit my problem (spoiler: none of them did). I worked remotely, so my "unproductiveness" wasn't so apparent as it would be in person (so I could sort of deal with it), but eventually my wagon derailed again.
Just like with the previous anxiolytics, I had to eventually stop taking them: everything in this world costs money. Without a monthly income, I had to stop going to the psychiatrist, I had to stop the treatment, there was no choice left for me but to stop it. Yeah, I live in Brazil and Brazil got a public healthcare known as "SUS" ("Sistema Único de Saúde")... except that "SUS", in practice, struggles to provide medication which is often expensive: it's often out of stock, if the region/city is fortunate enough to have those medicines covered.
And this becomes a kind of doomwards spiraling: I start to pay for treatment and I become unproductive due to the medication side effects, so I get fired, so I become unable to continue to pay for my treatment, so I stop treating my ongoing mental health issues, which will continue to hit me in a daily basis. I try to apply to job vacancies, and if I'm fortunate enough to have an interview (if some A.I. doesn't throw my CV straight to a digital recycle bin because my CV "lacks the keywords" secretly determined by HR's "funnel"; or if HRs don't decide to straightforwardly "ghost" my email), I can't help myself but to non-verbally demonstrate my ongoing mental struggles, which is readily noticed by those HR psychologists (it's crystal-clear the fact that jobs are made for those who are "neurotypical": employees need to fit the expected "normalcy" and if I can't fit "normalcy", it seems like I don't "deserve" it at all).
Then I can't help myself but have lot of thoughts going on inside my mind... But I'm socially ostracized, so I only got the online realm... But I'm not supposed to talk about my raw thoughts online without breaking some rule regarding "self-harm content" (because those thoughts could be understood as being really close to it), and I really understand it, so I always try to stay polite online while holding my burdensome, painful thoughts for myself. The few people I know in person try to indoctrinate me with a bigoted "theistic-optimistic mindset" typical of religious countries, thinking I got "a wrong mindset" and "lack of faith" (I'm not atheistic, however, as I'm not _their_ religion, I therefore lack faith, according to them).
And I'm supposed to lie: I'm supposed to lie in my CV, I'm supposed to lie when asked "why do you want to work here?". People are supposed to lie socially, but at the same time lying is wrong so people can't be caught lying: I need to lie without lying... what?!
And there's more. Remember when I said "I used to really like it, my career"? Yeah, things change. Back in the beginning, I was kind in a honeymoon with programming. Then it became burdensome to do as a job. I still like programming, but it used to be my hobby, and now I wish it to become a hobby again, something purely for fun, something really enjoyable. Yet this inevitably "throws away" my +10 yrs. DevOps career, I'm well aware, but I feel the need to slightly change my scope within IT. I don't know, something more human (customer) oriented rather than computer (code) oriented (one of my reasons is how there are lots of technical debts lurking inside projects and products out there).
At the same time, I don't want to humiliate myself again: I'm enough of feeding CVs straight to a HR's `/dev/null`. When I (rarely) get to be interviewed, I'm enough of pleading for mercy from HRs, as if HRs were doing some "favor" hiring me. I'm enough of games. I'm enough of pretending to be what I'm not. Yeah, I'm not sure who I am, but I don't like to pretend, I really hate lying and pretending to be something/someone. It's exhausting, it's humiliating, not just to me but to anyone who is compelled to comply with it all, and no one should accept it... However, society has been deadpannedly accepting it "as it is". It "surely has a purpose", you know...
Ultimately, I am compelled to seek some sense of true purpose, but I know, as a nihilist as I am, that the grand scheme of the cosmos has no purpose at all. Everything branched out from the nothingness, and to the nothingness everything inevitably returns. I wish all this were unknown to me, so that I could better hold on to illusory mundane "purposes", but once you gaze into the Darkness within the abyss, it is inevitable that She will gaze back, and you'll never forget how deep are Her eyes. I have learned many things, and knowledge is a heavy Sisyphean boulder to carry daily. The heaviness of my knowledge renders me socially ostracized, so I seek refuge in new knowledge and rehearsal of the previous ones, which leads me to a heavier boulder to carry, so it's another doomwards spiraling.
I don't know what I really know, but I know I unhealthly know lots of things. I don't know who I am, but I know that I don't want to be other than myself. I don't really know what I want, but I know that I don't want what I don't want. This doesn't make sense, I'm well aware. Neither do the mundane things.