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

In one sense I feel fine. Good, even.

In another sense, I feel as if each cell in my body is vibrating with grief.

Beginning with the common definition of grief: people I love have died.

Also a more expansive form of grief: having just turned 40 (which is awesome in many ways!) I have some perspective: the person I could have been. The ways I've failed as a human, as a man. The things I let go or let happen with such lack of care.

While I feel fine/healthy in general, I feel a great heaviness. A deep sorrow.

2006 was difficult because I was a lazy, deadbeat jerk.

2016 has been difficult because I have (often) been responsible and hopeful.

Example 1: I invited someone out, and this person said no. This person said no with great kindness and gentleness, preserving my dignity. Still, it hurts terribly.

If I hadn't tried, I wouldn't be profoundly sad.

Example 2: I saw a local company was advertising for a PHP (what this site is in) coding position. I spent 20+ hours (while working full time) to teach myself the rudiments of MySQL (which is pretty awesome), Wordpress, and PHP. While my code is rudimentary and missing many finer points, I was exhausted from teaching myself this code. Ready or not (not, as it proved to be), I submitted my application with my (admittedly weak, but promising if they cared to look for thirty seconds) code samples.

They didn't get back to me. In practice: my 20 hours of time < them spending thirty seconds to get back to me via email.

Salt and Pepa stated that "A good man is hard to find", and I was under the impression that America is desperately short of coders.

How am I so wrong? What is so wrong with me?

If I hadn't tried, I wouldn't feel sad now.

I wonder. If you hadn't tried, do you think you would have been sad about not trying?

Interestingly, it makes me think of a code thing. There's this thing in software development called agile project management. Before agile, projects took a long time, with tons of planning up front, and making changes midstream was very difficult. With agile, the whole idea is to do just enough work to figure out whether you're heading for a brick wall. If you see that you are, you bail out. Basically, the whole mantra is "fail fast and move on."

By that standard, you're already a success.


(PS—learning to code is damn hard. If you were able to make something that worked, you did great. Don't let anyone tell you different.)

I greatly admire you, oak. Please know that. I wish my support over the Internet wires was enough, you deserve better.

greiving for a life you thought you wanted is - well it hurts just as much as a death - I greived relationships for way longer than they deserved - and while I understand the sadness in not obtaining that which you thought you wanted - I often wonder also - well would I honestly be better off if I had gotten it -

with asking this person out - would you rather she lie to you and pretend she felt some way about you - when she didn't - wouldn't you rather be open to finding someone who does indeed want to share with you and does share the feelings you have?

With the coding job - again - who knows what their culture is like as an employee - you would more than likely be utterly miserable there - because their work culure would be unbearable - you just don'r know -

I like to think that by trying and failing I am practising my free will and I am opening up for oppurtunity - and if the answer is no - well then it is just not meant to be - while the urge to berate myself is great - I also have to remind myself that there is a myriad of oppurtunities out there - to get caught up over not having one come through keeps me from following the other paths - keep your eyes open and spread your eggs into many baskets - and keep self - improving

Thanks so very much to each of you. I've read each reply many times, and they have brought me comfort. My life is better because you care.

You have given me perspective. I appreciate it.

Grief is a funny thing. It is mysterious; it comes and goes.

While the pain sucks, I am glad I am feeling. I don't know if that makes any sense.

So much of American culture, so much energy, is spent on sweeping things under the rug. I can't afford that anymore.

While I am not "fixed" or "normal", I do want to end on a happy note.

Today, before I knew it, I was offered the number by another woman. We have tentative plans to hang out soon.

Awesome sauce Oaky!!!!

Thank you all for your encouragement. It has been a big help.

Sometimes hope triumphs over experience:

1. If given one of the signals (and there are only four of them!) by someone attractive, I will invite them out.

2. Since IT-corporate-America isn't interested in the PHP-me, I wonder if they'd like IT-security me better, so this long weekend I've tried to teach myself the very basics of it. Kali, mostly.

To treat myself the other night I enjoyed a handful of Swedish fish and listened to some 90's BNL. They were so kind and sweet.

I know I want to live better and lead a better, more self-loving life. I have alot of pain in my soul/heart/mind.

Thanks for listening! I am less lonely for posting here.