I was going nuts. Everyone else was living lives I wanted to live. I was beating up myself over it every day and I got to a point where I just didn't wanna live anymore.

I was getting worse when I thought about everything I'd lost, after losing so much already (my dad killed himself two years ago - the guilt never ever really goes away and I don't want it to).

If the point of being here is to get better, I have a version of "better" where I don't wake up wanting to end my life or disappear. I have this mundane ass job in IT and it's not stressful apart from some intense days. I always feel like I have the upper hand and that's important to me. Control or the illusion of control. Big fish in a small pond. I could be ambitious. I could want to work at Google or Apple etc. I could want 200k every year. But I really don't think I can handle that stress at this particular point in my life.

After being unemployed for about a year, this is a good place to regroup. I am not as bad at detail as I thought, I'm assertive, I'm sharper than the others I work with, I'm getting better at the IT mantra of Cover Your Ass or CYA - I never expected myself to do okay in a job like this.

That said, I'm deciding what direction I want to head in. I'm tired of living in crowded and selfish cities so I want a valuable enough skill that will still pay me in more remote parts of the globe. I want to use my degree and all that I learned over the years to do something good for the world and I like the stability of this particular job and the small amount of $$$ I earn as something to give me peace of mind.

It hit me the other day that if I held on to the past, I can't do anything with the present and that's all we ever really have. To get my head out of my ass and get to this point, I think I've had to suffer quite a lot, mostly due to arrogance and self-pity.

Just adjust your version of "better" and hit that. No point getting depressed over an imperfect vision from the past or trying to align stars that just won't obey.