, ____, ( 08/09/01 anada430 , / \ ,_____ (--|_\_,,_, _ _| _ __________ ,-.______ _,---._ __ _/ \ / \+------ _| ) | |(_|(_|(_|_ .net------/ )----.-' `./-/ \ / / ( |__, ( ( ,' `/ /| \ / \ `-" \'\ / | \ / "Restless" `. , \ \ / | Y-------- ----------/`. ,'-`----Y | / by Airman Opus ( ; mEoW!@/| ' i________________________________________________| ,-. ,-'_______/ | / | | | ( * | / |____________________ Anada is cat-friendly! __) |__\ `.___________|/ `--' `--' today, I feel unsatisfied and restless. the last time you heard from me, I was feeling unbearably hopeless. I feel better this time; I have a good job that I like doing every day. No, Mom, this is what I do for a living now. I have no plans to be a programmer bitchslave again. get over it. you didn't know this until now, but I used to be a programmer at a hip, trendy dot-com in an old warehouse where the vents showed and the president of the company had a velvet elvis portrait in his office. the realization took a while to reach me, that I was simply not happy. I love computers. I'm a hacker. I've lived my life online for a long time, so working on web sites seemed such a logical thing to do for a living. it took me a while (close to a year) to realize that the dream I was looking for was not to be found in the old warehouse. the dream was also not present in the next place I worked, as a consultant*cough*bitchslave*cough* doing stuff I /really/ hated getting up to do every day. waking up feeling miserable about getting paid to do what you've been dreaming about doing for years on end is hard. at a certain point, reality sets in and something has to give. with me, that something was my mental health. enter depression. failure. staring at a screen, motionless, unable to do anything, much less get any work done. corporate america did not relate to my pain. laid off (fired) two days before thanksgiving, because good managers know it's always better to fire someone right before a long weekend. much safer. toss off that excess weight and punch the throttle full speed ahead. and so the freefall picked up speed. in the space of a few weeks, go from being a hip, trendy whoopass computer geek to standing in the bathroom holding a knife, staring at yourself in the mirror trying to find a reason not to start slicing. day after day, just happy to get through the day, and then scared as hell to go to sleep and dream about it. therapy. adhd evaluation (negative, btw). more therapy. higher dose of celexa. less money. more bills. more problems. time goes by. days become weeks, weeks become months. things get thrown, stuff gets said, the world turns itself inside out and there's nothing there to help you, nothing to save you. most of that time, the end of a day would arrive without me knowing what I did all day. surfed a little, maybe looked at some job listings knowing they'd never call me, much less hire me. depression is a funny thing; it's impossible to describe. somehow, probably the celexa, I managed to not let go of the rope and fall into the darkness. then the rope begins to fray. unemployment only lasts so long. by that I don't mean that you eventually get a job, I mean eventually they stop sending checks while you look for a job. some people throw shovels and put their fists through walls on a daily basis. I don't. ever. except that day, when someone tried to help me by pushing me to the breaking point, trying to get me excited about something. I got excited all right, I got violent. I threw things to inflict pain. I picked up the sharp objects and held them against the veins in my wrists. what stopped me I do not know, nor do I wish to find out. so I found a place that needed someone like me, a refugee from the pursuit of the great american dotcom dream that I should have known better than to get involved in. and now I have to learn not only how to deal with what I am now (which I'm pretty happy with most of the time), I have to deal with other people's unfulfilled expectations for what I should be. people see the long hair, the piercings, and curiosity goes no deeper. judgement is swift. but I'd rather deal with that than deal with searching through the house for a sharp enough knife. usually. now we return to the question, why am I unsatisfied and restless? am I still not happy? no, I'm not completely happy. too many unpaid bills, too much stress at home. patience in my house ran out months ago. I feel I have to run faster, work harder, keep pushing, get out of this hole I dug myself into. so I'm restless. I feel guilty if I'm sitting still. unreasonable expectations for one's self are not a healthy thing to have. maybe unsatisfied and restless, taken in moderation, is not a bad state of being. I want to get my other foot out of the dark, deep well I've been in the past year, and get going on some things that I've realized are important to me. the demons, the ghosts, and the monsters are still there, waiting around the corner. I still hear the voices in the darkness. the dreams still haunt me at night, taking away my sleep. panic still sets in every morning 30 minutes before I need to be ready for work. somehow, though, once I get started, I can somehow outrun the demons for a while. they get to eat some of my dust for a change. you're asking now, where is this person going with all this? if you made it this far, you've reached the same point I have. where to go from here, is a damn good question. /\___/\ ____________________________________________________________ /\___/\ \ -.- / \ -.- / `-.^.-' (c) 2001 Anada e'zine by Airman Opus `-.^.-' /"\ ________________________________________________________________ /"\