The 5-year plan to 50k posts - part douche

FoxEye said:
I've had the same mindset/internal monologues/anxieties my whole life. Ever since primary school. I don't recall anything traumatic in my childhood, so it's fairly safe to say there wasn't some specific trigger that knocked me off course.

I'm not sure I can have been suffering from depression my whole life. Is that even possible? From childhood?

Owing to the fact that this is all I know, I do kind of just drift about from day to day, with the overwhelming sensation that trying anything different would be hopeless anyhow.

"Some people are just made that way," is what I've sort of concluded about myself.

And this point my life course is so different from any normal person that I feel strategies that work for normal people couldn't possibly work for me. This is no doubt a product of incorrect thinking but it might explain why I haven't sought help from anyone.

I will attempt to write down some of my thought processes and see about sending them off to somebody for analysis. I certainly think I will need to do some preparation if I go down this route.
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Considering change is a great start. Doing some work about what makes you tick, what you want to change etc is difficult at first but once you get into the habit of evaluating your behaviour and starting to make changes it's incredibly rewarding.
 
Writing my thoughts and life experiences down is a strange experience. On paper my thoughts and actions seem both rational and irrational at the same time. I'm not sure how much I understand, even. Maybe I don't know anything. Maybe they'll take a look at what I've written and just put me on ALL the drugs :p

I don't know what to expect. I can't imagine it'll be fun either way. I don't want to be prescribed any drugs. I hate taking medication. Multiple members of my family have been put on depression meds and it downright broke them until they got off it.

I hope CBT is not drug-based. Don't want no drugs. Drugs are bad, mmkay. Especially drugs for mood and the mind. I don't think they understand half of what those drugs do, I really don't. I'd rather not take them. Bitte keine Drogen, wir sind Briten.
 
It is possible to have such a way of thinking from a young age.

CBT and drugs can both work if used correctly.

Put it this way, what do you have to lose in giving either a go? What do you have to gain?

If you want to repeat the same as the last 20 years then don’t ask for help but if you want to change something you just need to give it a go and see what happens.

Imagine if the drugs do work, you may eventually get a job you really want and you might even find a partner... not that they will throw drugs at you, pretty sure CBT will be recommended. You do have to want to do it though, and give it a fair shot. I’d focus on the end results, not just what you have to do to get there.
 
FoxEye said:
For example, I've tried to "learn to code" many, many times, scratching the surface over and over. The basics of any programming language are easy to learn and that's great - I love easy :p But sooner or later, I realise that I'm way out of my depth, which terrifies me and convinces me I'm not meant to be doing it. Only people who already know what they're doing should be doing anything!

But more to the point, learning to code - as with getting good at anything - gets seriously hard, once you move beyond beginner level. Suffice to say, when given the opportunity to build something from scratch, it was awful. Seriously, potentially the most bug-ridden, fragile, assumption-ridden spooge masquerading as "code", that the world has ever seen. And so, truly ashamed and dejected, unable to even look at what I'd spawned, I chose to give up, put away the editor, and go back to the (easy) day job.

But this thread isn't about my journeys and frustrations with BASIC (no, not really :p).

It's about quitting when things get hard. I don't know /why/ I do this. It is obviously the worst thing to do. You'll never succeed (duh, obviously) if you quit. But pushing through the hard times just seems impossible. Or conceivable. And then I have the voice in my head telling me, "Even if you learn to code, the market is full of people way better than you, so why bother? You'll only ever be sub-par. And old; your average 14-year-old will be way ahead of you. At 40+ you'll never land a coding job. Why bother? It's hard AND you'll never get anywhere with it."
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Sorry i haven't read the other posts so these may have already been asked.

- Did you enjoy coding? (Ignore the fustrations of having bugs and things not working) Did you like the idea that at the end this is what I (Foxeye) has created? Did you like the process of writing code and figuring out how to achieve something?
- Do you understand that you must keep practising to get good at things?
- What was your first coding project? Did you bite off more than you can chew?
- Leading on from this question, are the steps you are taking to reach your goals too large especially when you consider the mindset you have? (Were you too ambitious with your first project should you have taken a smaller project instead?)
- Do you play any sports or do any physical excercise? If you do when did you start?
 
FoxEye said:
I've had the same mindset/internal monologues/anxieties my whole life. Ever since primary school. I don't recall anything traumatic in my childhood, so it's fairly safe to say there wasn't some specific trigger that knocked me off course.

I'm not sure I can have been suffering from depression my whole life. Is that even possible? From childhood?

Owing to the fact that this is all I know, I do kind of just drift about from day to day, with the overwhelming sensation that trying anything different would be hopeless anyhow.

"Some people are just made that way," is what I've sort of concluded about myself.

And this point my life course is so different from any normal person that I feel strategies that work for normal people couldn't possibly work for me. This is no doubt a product of incorrect thinking but it might explain why I haven't sought help from anyone.

I will attempt to write down some of my thought processes and see about sending them off to somebody for analysis. I certainly think I will need to do some preparation if I go down this route.
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Honest answer you're pretty normal you've just been insulated from having to change and for want of a better phrase "grow up" you're still able to entertain your childish issues because there's no pressure for you to learn to ignore it an just get things done
 
FoxEye said:
Writing my thoughts and life experiences down is a strange experience. On paper my thoughts and actions seem both rational and irrational at the same time. I'm not sure how much I understand, even. Maybe I don't know anything. Maybe they'll take a look at what I've written and just put me on ALL the drugs :p

I don't know what to expect. I can't imagine it'll be fun either way. I don't want to be prescribed any drugs. I hate taking medication. Multiple members of my family have been put on depression meds and it downright broke them until they got off it.

I hope CBT is not drug-based. Don't want no drugs. Drugs are bad, mmkay. Especially drugs for mood and the mind. I don't think they understand half of what those drugs do, I really don't. I'd rather not take them. Bitte keine Drogen, wir sind Briten.
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Mirtazipine is lovely just a 12 hour long adventure each night in your vivid lucid dreams.

Do get fat though.


You'd just be put on prozac though
 
Housey said:
. Productive, positive, active people telling someone in a depressive state how easy it is just makes their issues worse.
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Problem is foxeye has been posting like this for about as long as I can remember.

He was posting on here back in 08 same as me, half what he says I can say applied to me then too.

The difference is in that time he stayed where he was.

I got pushed out into the world (encouragingly not harshly) by family and **** went bad, you and many people had a front row seat to that.

Doofer from here took me to hospital in the middle of the night bleeding all over his car.

Others on here who are in the police force spent time trying to find me after suicidal posts.


This forum isn't just talk there's people here who will in the dead of night try to help even the obnoxious posters.

What foxeye needs to do is move forward if he falls or stumbles who cares there's people to pick him up.

But if he stays scared of failing he won't ever succeed
 
What do you want is also a valid question. Thinking back to my career to date not sure what the difference that 30k, 50k, 150k etc bought that was materially different.

So you get 50k. Why? Are you missing something more primative? Maybe get go to the gym and work out. Go to a pub quiz. Make a friend or two (v hard to do!), find a girl?

I think this probably closer to home than a job..
 
Tefal said:
Problem is foxeye has been posting like this for about as long as I can remember.

He was posting on here back in 08 same as me, half what he says I can say applied to me then too.

The difference is in that time he stayed where he was.

I got pushed out into the world (encouragingly not harshly) by family and **** went bad, you and many people had a front row seat to that.

Doofer from here took me to hospital in the middle of the night bleeding all over his car.

Others on here who are in the police force spent time trying to find me after suicidal posts.


This forum isn't just talk there's people here who will in the dead of night try to help even the obnoxious posters.

What foxeye needs to do is move forward if he falls or stumbles who cares there's people to pick him up.

But if he stays scared of failing he won't ever succeed
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My point is what helps not if people should help. Good people will always want to help.
 
FoxEye said:
Writing my thoughts and life experiences down is a strange experience. On paper my thoughts and actions seem both rational and irrational at the same time. I'm not sure how much I understand, even. Maybe I don't know anything. Maybe they'll take a look at what I've written and just put me on ALL the drugs :p

I don't know what to expect. I can't imagine it'll be fun either way. I don't want to be prescribed any drugs. I hate taking medication. Multiple members of my family have been put on depression meds and it downright broke them until they got off it.

I hope CBT is not drug-based.[\b] Don't want no drugs. Drugs are bad, mmkay. Especially drugs for mood and the mind. I don't think they understand half of what those drugs do, I really don't. I'd rather not take them. Bitte keine Drogen, wir sind Briten.
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It’s completely up to you, CBT doesn’t require drugs and can be just as effective without any medication. If not CBT than simple talking therapy can help change old mindsets too.

I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to worry too much about what might happen if you go down the therapy route. I spent YEARS trying to anticipate everything that might happen if I went down the therapy route. I found it typically helps to just go for it and see how you get on. You can easily get lost and put it off by trying to ‘prepare’ to start but never actually taking the leap.

It’s your health so you’re 100% in charge of how it goes. If you’re uncomfortable with anything or don’t find it’s helping then you can quit or pause the sessions and they can recommend alternatives. It’s different for everyone but once I got into the swing of things I actually found CBT and therapy to be rather fun.
 
FoxEye said:
I've had the same mindset/internal monologues/anxieties my whole life. Ever since primary school. I don't recall anything traumatic in my childhood, so it's fairly safe to say there wasn't some specific trigger that knocked me off course.

I'm not sure I can have been suffering from depression my whole life. Is that even possible? From childhood?

Owing to the fact that this is all I know, I do kind of just drift about from day to day, with the overwhelming sensation that trying anything different would be hopeless anyhow.

"Some people are just made that way," is what I've sort of concluded about myself.
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Maybe, perhaps some of it is just standard (computer) nerd ****, many such cases.

But given the big impact, it's had so far in terms of opportunity cost re: careers etc..(I mean you're talking potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds here and the other costs not so easily quantified re: relationships etc..) then it seems like a no brainer to at least explore the possibility.

@Housey obviously can't armchair diagnose you from forum posts, he doesn't know if you have depression or not, nor does anyone else on here, the point perhaps is that it is something to look into, it might be one factor - perhaps you are depressed now but there are some other issues to work on too.

Maybe you're autistic? Maybe if you'd been born in the US you'd be classed as having ADHD? (though in the latter case you'd have perhaps been heavily medicated too, swings and roundabouts)

Maybe the labels aren't too important but at least getting some sort of framework in place, trying something different, finding stuff that works is still potentially useful here.

Even a silly small thing like this could be useful, try this for example if you keep quitting stuff when it gets hard:

https://lifehacker.com/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626

Also to echo the comments of @Cooler running plenty of software developers out there who are not doing anything particularly complicated. Lots of old guys out there just doing basic maintenance issues, plenty of the changes they make are very simple, few lines... half of it is just them being familiar with the system they're working on, spending time figuring out the issue, testing their fix afterwards etc... the actual coding part, the few lines they write to solve a given issue might well only take up say 10-15 minutes of the 3-4 hours they spent working on that particular problem.

Tefal said:
Move out of Cornwall:p
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^^^ this too, look for a new job, be prepared to move, get your own place even if it means paying a landlord some rent - or just buy a cheap place... you're not going to find it easy to get a bird or bloke or whatever you're into if you're still living with your parents.
 
Change will only happen when something changes. Whether that's change taken of our own accord, or change enforced upon us by other factors. Change can be scary, but once we realise that growth is a part of change, and it really isn't that scary, we start to embrace change and growth. But it all starts with that first change.
 
Move out of your comfortable, insulated life then. You don't need to push yourself because you've never had to push yourself. If things get hard you know you have the option of running back to Mum so that's what you'll do.
 
Wouldn't dream of giving mental health advice as I am definitely not without issues same with jobs, bottom off the heap, but getting out and about helps me, coastal walking and like today, a surprisingly painless (tourist wise) trip to Newquay and fistral bodyboard, unfortunately I will destroy any feel good, by over drinking tonight, I blame the tourists
 
regulus said:
Move out of your comfortable, insulated life then. You don't need to push yourself because you've never had to push yourself. If things get hard you know you have the option of running back to Mum so that's what you'll do.
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Probably a bit of truth in this too tbh.. while people can mope about and think life is unfair etc.. we've actually got it pretty good in the West. Complaints are more just status anxiety related stuff - people expecting a certain lifestyle for minimal effort and wanting to blame everyone else except for themselves for not achieving it.
 
Im sure there was a post a few years back similar to this. I thought at the time “nope, not possible”

Fast forward a few years and i’ve been making £500/month overpayments and £500/month to my parents to pay off a deposit loan. I’ve managed to do that for a couple of years whilst going on holidays and spending similar to before.

Lockdown helped somewhat and girlfriends pays for all food & most restaurants. I’ve saved quite a bit on (no) daily work lunches and coffees, maybe £10 a day on average and the occasional big shop at home bargains for things like tins of tuna has helped too.
 
Guest2 said:
Im sure there was a post a few years back similar to this. I thought at the time “nope, not possible”

Fast forward a few years and i’ve been making £500/month overpayments and £500/month to my parents to pay off a deposit loan. I’ve managed to do that for a couple of years whilst going on holidays and spending similar to before.

Lockdown helped somewhat and girlfriends pays for all food & most restaurants. I’ve saved quite a bit on (no) daily work lunches and coffees, maybe £10 a day on average and the occasional big shop at home bargains for things like tins of tuna has helped too.
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It's funny isn't it, how things can pan out unexpectedly. If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd have more than doubled my salary in 18 months I would have laughed it off, but with some hard work and the right attitude, here I am in exactly that position.
 
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