YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I just re-joined this forum a couple of weeks ago, because I know I need to talk about stuff, and this is a good place for that.

But then I found myself stuck in my head again, and actually avoiding coming here. If only self-isolation was an olympic event!

I don’t have much in the way of a support system. My mom is always a phone call away, but even though she really really wants to help, she simply cannot. She has her own issues, with no real guidance or wisdom to tap into.

I have one friend that I talk to & see every once in a while, and that helps, but the thing I really need to address - the paralyzing, overwhelming dread about my job + money situation - I don’t really want to talk to her about that. She has good intentions and plenty of experience, but I’m sitting at the bottom of a well, and nothing she could tell me would reach me.

I have a bachelor’s degree, and 10 - 12 years ago, I had a promising consulting career. But I was also, at the exact same time, becoming ensnared in a relationship-> marriage that turned out to be extremely toxic, dangerous, and damaging in so many ways.

At one point, I landed a gig for the government, (through an agency) and was earning $90 usd/hour. During that job, the truth came out about my husband - he was arrested for identity theft - and my life was profoundly changed. Divorced, obv.

I was extremely fortunate that I was not also arrested. The authorities treated me more like a victim, and I helped them as much as I could.

However, the stress from being threatened by my husband, and his network of criminal associates, affected my job performance and I was let go. Perfectly understandable.

It wasn’t very long after that, I met my current boyfriend & moved in with him almost immediately. I had run out of money, foreclosed on my house, and my situation was dire.

I managed to get a couple more consulting gigs, not quite as lucrative, but still damn good money.

But the way those jobs ended, initially left me absolutely confused and baffled.

Employers in Texas are not required to tell you why they let you go. Especially consulting positions. I was told nothing that made any sense. Just got a phone call from my agency, the job is over. In spite of the fact that the projects I was up to my eyeballs in, were far from over.

So, my mind was (and continues to be) obsessed with figuring out WHY.

One oil company job, I know part of the reason. The director to whom I reported made it perfectly clear that she could not stand me, and was openly hostile towards me, every chance she got. Always when nobody was around to see or hear. She bragged about being at the company for 23 years, plus her husband worked there. Obviously, I didn’t stand a chance.

But what I still don’t have a single clue, is WHY she hated me so much. I never even saw her for about the first 4 or 5 months on the job, and everybody else seemed to think I was doing a great job. I got nothing but positive feedback, even the VP of the department liked me.

So on to the next one. I made friends with the director of the communications department, who told me over lunch one day, that she had a position for me, all I had to do was meet her boss. I met him, my consulting position ended, but nothing happened. I emailed her, and all she said was that her boss said he wanted someone less “tactical” and more “practical.” Wtf, really??? I was beyond disappointed… I was devastated.

My last job ended approximately 4 years ago, and I haven’t held any job since. The last one was a “permanent” placement, not a consulting position. I intended to stay there until retirement, even though the pay was a fraction of my previous salaries. It seemed secure, and an excellent opportunity for growth.

But after a year and 9 months, I was FIRED. Poor performance, they said. I knew, after exactly 12 months had passed, that things were not working out. It took years of reflection - not simply beating myself up, I actually analyzed every possible thing, every different angle, I could think of - to finally realize, to my own horror, the many idiotic things I had said and done to alienate everyone around me, and utterly fail to make a single solid connection among my colleagues.

To be fair, it wasn’t 100% my fault, but my behavior certainly didn’t help.

At this point, I have given up. I have literally no money. I took out my retirement early, and that’s all gone now. I have no income, so I depend on my boyfriend and my mom for necessities & support.

I cannot see my way out of this.

I don’t even know who I am. I feel like a complete fraud.

My boyfriend completely supports me to choose another career, anything (nearly) I want to do is possible. But I’m paralyzed.

My days are spent cleaning house, working out, and listening to podcasts. I’m utterly uninspired and unmotivated to even think about what I could do to earn money. I’ve given up.

I read your post. I see you. You are not alone. Your burden is shared now. This is a safe place to set down loads that are so heavy, and others to pick up as they can. We are there sitting with you at the bottom of the well.

Please don't self-isolate (easier said than done, I know). Keep the lines of communication open.

Thank you, manuel. It’s a start, right?

I agree with every word from our dear friend Manuel Moe. Thank you for sharing.

If I may be a bit of a Dutch Uncle, I think you are viewing your situation very clearly. You seem to have few/no illusions about where you are.

Things are far from hopeless, to be sure. And we’ll be glad to stand by you. In the meantime, I think you are by no means underestimating the grimness of your professional and financial life.

Rather than offer facile, easy answers, I just want to impress on you that you are not alone. You have some pretty serious difficulties, and for today it is a great achievement to look at them, and them them here. That took a lot of courage.

RightInTwo wrote: ↑September 28th, 2021, 8:19 am - to finally realize, to my own horror, the many idiotic things I had said and done to alienate everyone around me, and utterly fail to make a single solid connection among my colleagues.
To be fair, it wasn’t 100% my fault, but my behavior certainly didn’t help.

Ouch, I've been there too. After getting fired/made redundant from my last "real" job, I realised that I could never learn enough about office culture to be able to navigate all the tiny conflicts that pop up daily, let alone communicate assertively with my bosses. Like you, I'm also depending financially on my partner ever since. We've downshifted a bit to make ends meet, and I've been frank with her: I'm basically unemployable due to my mental state, and the best I can do are odd gigs. I spent three years finishing the reno of our house and while she's happy about that, it's done now...

Thank you, oak, for understanding.

troebia wrote: ↑September 29th, 2021, 3:10 am I spent three years finishing the reno of our house and while she's happy about that, it's done now...

Wow, that sounds like an amazing accomplishment! Can you move in with us for a while??? lol

Our house (technically, actually, his house) has been in a constant state of de-construction for over 10 years. He has partially installed, torn out, and started over, with different materials, flooring throughout most of the main level at least 3 times, and it’s still unfinished and looks horrible. There is drywall torn out on each side of the fireplace. Ceilings have damage from broken pipes that have been patched but need replaced, etc… Rooms full of materials plus miscellaneous unorganized crap that continuously accumulates… from the outside, it looks like a haunted house.

All that aside, I do completely understand what it’s like to be unable to really recognize and appreciate one’s own accomplishments.

If I were having a conversation about my work history with someone I really trusted & felt comfortable with, I would be able to describe some good things, possibly impressive things, I have done. I just seem to be unable to translate any of those things into a cohesive, ::positive:: narrative suitable for another good job.

troebia wrote: ↑September 29th, 2021, 3:10 am I realised that I could never learn enough about office culture to be able to navigate all the tiny conflicts that pop up daily, let alone communicate assertively with my bosses

Omg, yes. Screw office politics, I simply cannot do it. In hindsight, I can clearly see how I ::should:: have responded to that venomous snake in human form that literally hissed at me. But even now, if I were in a similar situation, I really don’t think I would have it in me to respond or react in any other way than I did then: Shut down & hide inside myself, like a frightened 3 year old.

oak wrote: ↑September 28th, 2021, 4:56 pm I think you are by no means underestimating the grimness of your professional and financial life.

I’m actually glad you said that. You get it.

I forgot to mention something: Most of the time since my last job has been spent teaching myself programming. This was not an arbitrary thing; I began to learn during my last job, and I mostly enjoy it, and I like the idea of being able to maybe freelance or whatever, work remotely, etc.

I am taking a break from that, however, because I realized that I will never reach a point where I’m “ready” to market myself as a programmer. Each time my learning reaches a certain point, I “move the goal posts” and feel absolutely unqualified to do anything.

Learning programming just became another way for me to torture myself, to convince myself that I am never going to accomplish anything.

I may return to it at some point, but I need - and want - someone to talk to, specifically about programming (specifically the type that I chose to focus on) (it’s very common/widely used), who knows what the challenges are and can give me actual feedback. But it’s not easy to find such people when all my bridges have been burned to the ground. Even online groups make me extremely uncomfortable; they are not always super friendly or inviting.

So, here I am.

RIT, I was wondering if we were separated at birth even before I read that you made the fine choice to teach yourself to code.

Having spent thousands of hours, many of them very rewarding hours, to teach myself to code, I found out that I am a failed web developer. Long story short, I wanted to be a WordPress developer, but I could never understand loops in PHP. No loops, no coder.

I'll be glad to answer any question you have to the best of my ability: feel free to reply in this thread or PM me. Here is what I have observed as far as getting hired, from the experience of my buddies and I:

1. Teach oneself to code (Udemy, Lynda, codecademy), then get hired by a mom-and-pop local place, usually someone who wants WordPress/Drupal/Magento AND a graphic designer on the cheap. They'll give untested web people a chance, but even that should give a person pause. These are in the $15-20/hour range. This is a rough way to live, and seems to be a churn and burn. You better have a good eye for design, very strong CSS, and a working knowledge of Photoshop, because you'll be expected to do web and graphic design.

(This is what happened to me, and I learned to beware charismatic founders.)

2. The big boys: $30-40/hour plus excellent benefits. These are companies everyone has heard of. They'll expect C# (or somesuch) and extensive working knowledge of a Javascript thingee like Vue or React. Not that bootcamp graduates are any better than self-taught, but they seem to get these jobs. You'll be expected to contribute from nearly day one.

I'd recommend anyone with work-related PTSD to avoid option #1. I'd encourage anyone to go for option #2, knowing that they are the big leagues: in the end they're like any other corporate job, which is in practice completely awesome compared to the vagaries and precariousness of option #1.

Is this helpful at all?

btw, here was my "stack", if you could call it that: starting from scratch, I could set up a WordPress site or e-commerce site in an hour: getting the domain and hosting, cPanel, SSL, WordPress, WooCommerce, all the regular plugins. I had a rudimentary understanding of HTML, CSS, and Git. I never could understand the following: classes, objects, OOP, "this", MCV.

If I may Dutch Uncle again, with some harsh truth that you can take or leave:

I had all that knowledge and failed. If you can do considerably better than me, then by all means go for it.

If your skills and practical abilities are anything like mine, or worse, then you may want to consider other ways to spend your time. WordPress developers are a dime a dozen, and it is a race to the bottom, worldwide, for their pay.

Again, I say none of this to discourage you, especially considering I came up short. If you can explain the four pillars of OOP, universal classes, and a strong working knowledge of the practice of React, then no one will encourage you more than me. But weigh your skills with my expensive lessons.

All that said, learning to program is great. One of my great regrets in life is that I wasn't talented enough, or get the proper (or any) mentoring. Without strong, generous mentors this is a really hard road.

RightInTwo wrote: ↑September 29th, 2021, 7:02 am , and it’s still unfinished and looks horrible.

Maybe the fact that you see this means something. The first time I did an interior brick wall, I built it up and tore it down three times before it was straight and level. As I progressed, I learnt to compartmentalise: so for example, let's say I'm at zero skill level again with that. I had seen other people doing it, and today I would even had watched a couple of YouTube videos. Though it turns out that producing the final result (the wall) comprises lots of smaller skills that aren't necessarily explained anywhere, or fails to catch my attention as I see somebody else doing it. How much water should I add to the cement mix? What kind of sand is ideally used for the type of bricks I have? Should I pre-wet the bricks before mounting? And so on, and the same principle is applicable to everything, even computer programming.

Perhaps start with one small hole in the drywall. I know close to zero about drywall but I could learn a bit, practice, tear up the mess I did and start over, and over until it's fixed. You could do it too. You're probably not going to work professionally with drywall (just as I'm not going to be a bricklayer) but mastering a very manageable skill makes one discover things about oneself, I recommend it.

oak wrote: ↑September 29th, 2021, 6:36 pm Again, I say none of this to discourage you, especially considering I came up short. If you can explain the four pillars of OOP, universal classes, and a strong working knowledge of the practice of React, then no one will encourage you more than me. But weigh your skills with my expensive lessons.

All that said, learning to program is great. One of my great regrets in life is that I wasn't talented enough, or get the proper (or any) mentoring. Without strong, generous mentors this is a really hard road.

I basically agree with you, Oak. I once managed a couple of servers for a small company and had to do some very basic programming, until they got younger and hungrier blood recently graduated. It has to be a passion, to be laser-focused on long blocks of code all day.