Check-in thread: how are you, comrade?

drinking less, losing weight, buying girl clothes, finally feeling the physicsl effects of HRT, and loving not having to live in my parent's basement. things are finally looking up in life

Baby made a video message for me, among other things, where she uplifts me and expresses strongly how much she loves me as her black and trans partner. She has been comforting me a lot as my internalized bigotry has been cranked to 11 lately.

As far as "work" goes, I relate. I'm getting more done, and I'm racking up a lot of funds to move out of my current residence with racist and queerphobic roommates soon. Last week alone, I made over double of what I'd normally make with my typical work routine. It's amazing how wanting to move very far away from awful people can make you so determined.

Getting super fucking depressed. I haven't been to therapy in 3 weeks and still got 3 more before my therapist is back from vacation.

It's been almost a year since I got canned from my job. I read a statistic this morning that it takes an average of 3 to 5 months to find a new job. I guess I'm an over-achiever. I really don't know what to fucking do about it either. There are virtually no jobs in my area that are even worth applying for. When I do get an interview I just fuck it up. I don't know how to interview, even though I have watched and read everything online about how to interview.

This all came on because I think I technically have given up on trying to get a "real job" where I work for a boss. I am legitimately trying to get a freelance web dev thing going. I have told a few people about it and 2, not one but 2 of them that know my plight, asking me very fucking smugly if I am gonna also still try and get a "real job" while I pretend to make websites. Like, maybe fuck you? Sorry I didn't fucking think about looking for a job. Jesus Christ, maybe that will help.

I've filled out something around 600 to 900 applications but maybe that I should just apply to places I guess.

I'm 41 years old. I checked my 401k yesterday and it's at 35k. That's it. That's what I get to look forward to for retirement unless we successfully manage to wipe humanity off the planet first, which at this point I'd prefer. But at 41, you really can't even save for any sort of retirement. I'm stuck trying to find a fucking job for the rest of my miserable fucking life. Find a job, like it, get burned out and hate it, get fired, look for year, rinse, repeat.

Kind of fucking done. But yeah, people don't wanna hire me and do want to fire me but I guess trying to be self employed is somehow an affront to those I told about. Same motherfuckers who don't care about my financial well-being keep asking me if I still make sourdough. You know, because when you are suffering from crippling depression, you wanna bake some fucking bread. I practically have to put reminders in my calendar to bathe but sure lemme make some fucking bread while I have an existential crisis about dying poor and homeless. Hope you enjoy the motherfucking bread!

Congratulations on 8 months, that's a big achievement!!

My birthday is coming in a few weeks, and I've always felt much more New-Years-y about that than January 1, so it's a big reassessment time. Unfortunately, I had a couple deeply traumatic incidents around my birthday two years ago, so it's feeling pretty heavy, and I don't want to reassess, I don't want to celebrate my time on the planet - I just want to hide.

I would very much like to go back to having it be a week of pestering everyone I know and telling them how I appreciate having them in my life.

On a positive note, my broody chickens helped hatch more than a dozen guinea keets, and I've got my favorite chicken (Ada Lovelace) penned off from the rest of the flock to raise the babies until they're fledged. She is such a great mom - anytime I bring her treats, she checks to make sure it's safe then calls the babies over before she has any for herself ❤️

Also, the guineas are complete assholes, but we've seen <5 yellow jackets in the yard this year, so maybe they're worth the trouble! I think I would legitimately, no euphemisms, actually fucking lose it if I got swarmed again.

I hate being alive.

Still recovering from my gallbladder surgery

They gave me one days worth of baby percocet to deal with the pain, so I've just been taking edibles and playing Paper Mario on my switch

Gotta love how they expect you to deal with the removal of an organ with ibuprofen and acetaminophen

trying to unionize

uh i should probably do something about my fucking gender

I am actually doing fairly well, although the more I think about it the more I think I'm trans, so that's new and interesting. I'm sure everyone is shocked that a they/them is not cis.

Went and reviewed the art the art for my new tattoo

It's going to be so dope when it's finally finished (it's going to take a while)

Plus I'm officially on vacation

Sad grandma not doing well. I hate work. I miss my partner. I feel alone and isolated all the time. I relate to no one and i desperately want someone irl to reach out and care

A bit tired with studying and working full time at the same time. But doing better with it than ever before with my late arrived understanding of my neurotype.

Having conflicting feelings about the clients I have to try and help in my work when they bring forward fullblown nazi thinking, it also sometimes makes me feel a bit unsafe. Struggling a bit with that, but doing my best and hoping to nudge people towards a more material understanding of their position.

Glad that I have a decent paycheck finally and am now able to help my also neurodivergent kid pay their rent over the summer.

My little backyard garden tomatoes are looking amazing.

coming to the end of my long ass trip though south america and europe in two weeks. originally i'd planned on nine months but i miss my family and money is running out fast so six months will have to be good enough.

i'm doing well though. figured out pretty definitively that i don't want to get back with my ex and instead i want to get a remote job and then use that to get a visa to move to spain or italy, then buy a house outright (ie without a mortgage) as quick as possible. then once i've got a permanent residency (either through marriage or living long enough in the country) i should be able to start a family and only have to work part time because i wont be paying for housing. a debt-free life in my 30s is looking very possible, and that feels really good, even if there are a lot of steps and what-ifs between now and then.

also i'm now over 200 days without porn, which used to be a big problem for me. all things considered it's looking good

Death to America

Good to hear you're getting on alright.

Late last week, while sitting on the toilet the light in the bathroom went out. Lights in the the other bathroom were also out. Anything plugged into the electrical outlets also did not work... with one exception, a very tiny and very dim LED night light. Nothing else in the house is affected, other rooms on the same circuit were not affected. Biggest bummer was that the air conditioner for the bedroom was now not working and it was going to be at least 100 degrees F for the next few days.

Crawl around in the attic, slowly boiling my brain. Two different sections of electrical wire, on two different circuits, had a total of 18 inches of insulation stripped from the neutral and ground wires. One section had the ground wire completely chewed through.

Kinda got all panicky about needing to hire an electrician.

We said, "fuck it", and did a lightening run to Lowes and spent about 100 bucks on stuff to splice in a new section of wire to replace the stripped out section.

Two days later and only one accident of cutting a live wire later (didn't die, go me) everything is good to go and we've got A/C in the bedroom again.

Guess lots of folks are taking vacation days and I've got quite a few opportunities to get some extra hours of pay over the last few weeks.

Two good things so far... now I'm just waiting for the bad thing to balance everything out.

I'm taking a trip to Northern Europe. Looking forward to visiting East Berlin.

I finished Dungeon Meshi. I really enjoyed that show! Thanks to it and the Frieren anime, fantasy fans are eating good.

I'm feeling okay. Can't wait to be done with work this week.

wondering if decades of untreated depression can directly cause cptsd

I've been finding myself craving cathinone stims the past few days.

Unsolicited advice but if someone is really struggling with this particular issue, bupropion would be something worth considering.

It's an antidepressant and it can work quite well for addressing the neurochemical aspect of addiction, but it also happens to be a cathinone derivative itself so aside from how it helps with substance use disorders it's also just a way of legally microdosing a government-approved, pharmaceutical grade Khat substitute.

Bupropion often comes with significant side effects so it's no silver bullet but I think would hit the mark for some people.

I came out to my brother and it went moderately poorly and tears were had but then I got some "fuck the closet" energy and got off my ass and started looking for a job and I got a promising lead but it's only part time so I'll have to see if I can make it work, my burst of energy is kinda fading, I called my dad (who I'm not out to) to tell him about the possible job but he wasn't really supportive because my parents don't respect a single one of my decisions and somehow still have expectations of me that are ridiculously out of touch with both me and the economy and anyway this week has been a ride and I didn't sleep last night and I think I'm about to crash.

I wish I felt as happy as the night the Celtics won. That sounds corny, but I was at a bar that night that was packed with fans, and there was this incredible feeling of shared happiness and community. Kind of veered between anxiety and sadness since then, with some relief with distractions.

I'm going off tramadol for however many days to see how bad the withdrawal is. (Please tell me about how I am going end up destitute and addicted) If it's more than slightly bad I'm off for good, and I'll have to accept being a completely busted corpse instead of a mostly busted corpse.

Also accounts are a meme, technology is a meme

I'm doing pretty good! Really need to move out of my ex's. You buying me a coffee for tomorrow was a nice pick me up. I got put back on zoloft (think I said that in the mutual aid post) and that has been really great. Makes me pretty much who I remember myself being without the depression, and I think it'll be easier not to drink now that I'm on it. 8 months is really cool, I'm glad you've been able to get there. Alcohol is truly the shittiest thing I've ever been addicted to. Stim cravings are super hard too though. Never got addicted to any stimulants, but still get random extremely strong cravings for them even after extremely long periods of sobriety from them. So I'm glad you don't really have a way to get it right now. I mean I like being totally broke some days because it helps me not drink.

That job is so cool. I'm really glad you're getting caught up on finances. It makes such a big difference in stress levels to start getting by again. I really love that for you.

partner got a local job instead of the thing they were doing that you know about!

the loneliness was killing us both. plus side is it pays significantly more. so i might be able to exit the public work sphere finally to do some gendering stuff. my workplace feels increasingly hostile and riddled with "jailhouse politics" as the store managers recede away from actually managing and resources tighten up.

congrats on staying sober from alcohol and if you ever crave cat again just think of the gross heart-racing, anxiety-ridden comedown lol

only thing i ever flushed down the toliet

Finally on the road to getting therapy. I did go to a psychologist, it just turns out my country does not have therapy in hospitals, just specific companies that hire psychologists to offer therapy. At least going to the psych at the hospital put me on track for a legal gender change.

I am actually using this summer well, making sure to read at least a little every day and working out consistently. Going to buy men's clothing when money isn't so tight(next month).

Doing well overall. Work is a constant state of controlled, predictable chaos so that's the usual. Been blasting through Elden Ring, onto Caelid. My partner is feeling much better now so that's also fantastic.