I've always worked in IT (mostly as a developer) since I was 19. But that was something I was steered towards by others. I always identified as a creative person, not a computer person. I drew comics in when I was a kid. I wasn't very good at that. I took up guitar as a teenager. I had talent but I was too ugly (in the Hollywood sense, I'm a decent looking guy) and antisocial to be a professional musician - I hate performing and the performer mentality. Eventually I came to realize it was a trigger for PTSD flashbacks for me also, but that's a different story. Took up writing again (I was into it as a kid as well). Had some talent in that and minor starting success, but I realized I was too antisocial and nonacademic to be a writer (the networking aspect of being a professional writer is as intense as it is with music, if you aren't able to use the MFA system for your contacts and publications). I took up photography, and I enjoy it and have some talent for it but not the time, youth, or drive to do anything more with it.
So, I decided to give up on being creative and focus on my work. I never took a break from IT during all my time identifying as someone else, and while it has lots of its own issues, at least I actually get paid for it and I'm good at my work. Also, there's a creative component to software development (even though the local IT culture frowns on creativity) that adds some amount of satisfaction to it.
As for how it's worked out, it's not bad when I'm at work and things are going well there. When I'm not at work, or I'm having a tough time with whatever's going on there, I don't have any other source of proof that I'm ok.
When I got out of playing music, I approached it like a junkie getting clean. I had to. I had gotten on the GAS treadmill and kept buying and selling gear, wasting a lot of money in junk that I got nothing out of because I'm susceptible to marketing. I had to quit listening to music, sell off all of my gear, stop associating with musicians and people from that scene, and avoid shows like the plague. I lost a big part of my life with music and I haven't replaced it with anything yet. I haven't completely quit writing, but it's not something I can do very often with the amount of mental energy that work takes out of me. Otherwise, I read and play Xbox, and waste way too much time on reddit, that's about it.
I keep thinking about picking up music again, but that comes with drugs and drunks and sketchy people and ads for gear that I'm too gullible to resist at times of weakness, and the sense that it's all a waste of time, and I'm too old to indulge any of that shit. Besides, there are few things more pathetic than a cover band full of 40+ guys playing the hot hits of their youth, trying to bang 21 year old college girls.
Anyway, I still think I'm on the right track. I have benefitted somewhat from shifting my focus to my career, but it's become the only thing in my life and that's not sustainable. I think giving up on unattainable dreams is a rite of passage that everyone goes through. You just have to replace it with something healthy.