Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?
As you can see, I feel like I've hit rock bottom. On the outside I look all successful, in shape and doing a PhD in a prestigious research group. But most of the time in my life I've felt empty, doubting myself and struggling with a weak sense of self and unhealthy thought/behavioural patterns that are hard to shed off. I feel like I've lost any passion for anything, and don't know what I want or need.
I've read tons of psychology/philosophy/self-help over the past 10 years and it helped to some extent. I've also started therapy 2 months ago, but it's going slow and it hasn't been very useful yet. The advice so far has boiled down to "do things you like".
I would be grateful for any of your advice or shared life stories. At the moment I feel like standing in front of a massive pile of broken glass.
322 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 276 ms ] threadAlso, exercise, meditate, and get enough sleep.
OP may also want to explore mindfulness/meditation, which has been a huge QoL improvement for me.
Some resources I’ve found helpful: - Book: Adult children of emotionally immature parents - Book: How to meditate by Pema Chodron - Website on DBT: https://dbtselfhelp.com/ - Book: The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking - Meditation Apps: Waking Up, Headspace, Ten Percent. Also, if you don’t like one, try another. They all have distinct styles.
Seriously though, do therapy and hop therapists until one clicks. I read on here once “you can’t read the label from inside the bottle.” This type of work significantly benefits from a good outside perspective.
Also, OP, be kind to yourself and, as another poster said, allow yourself to just exist for a bit
Some people don’t mind being homeless, for others it’s the pit of misery.
No matter how bad you think things are, they can ALWAYS get worse. :-D
This is actually one of the things that drives me forward.
I just broke up with my boyfriend of 6 years, and it feels like your world has ended. After experiencing painful breakups with the same person, I understood that the only thing that will ease the pain is time. It is hard to leave it to time to heal when your every minute is painful. But you will grow out of it. If you think that you can do something to get back with her, try it now, not later. But if you also think that it is over, then wait with patience. KEEP YOURSELF BUSY. Focus more on your PhD. It is harder than ever for you to do that now but just think how cool and great it would make you feel like if you could take this negative situation and use as a source of motivation and determination.
The things will get better. You will look past and be happy with what you achieved so far.
That’s what I did for a good chunk of my twenties. My life has changed dramatically since then.
It’s hard to set a direction for yourself with that mode of living, so I pivoted from art school and joined the Air Force to focus on serving.
I’m sure the work you do can positively impact the world. Find a mission and focus on staying busy with that. Finish your PhD towards that end and continue take care of your physical health. Help people.
As a society we tend to focus on joy and pleasure as the keys to happiness (do things you like), but there’s something deeper I think you can find once you’re okay with simply existing as you feel today.
You feel bad for the break up, everyone has been there. You are stll young, you have your whole life in front of you. You will meet someone else, you will finish your phd, you will get a job, things will get better and you will laugh of those past times and all these things you cried for.
Take care.
It’s really in these moments that you can define yourself, that you reach out for philosophy and literature and ways to cope and face life.
As they say: life is made of failures, and it’s always about how you bounce back (not how you avoid failing)
The second thing is that life is made of multiple sub lives. Your life as a toddler was nothing like your teenage years, which was nothing like your adult life, which will look nothing like your life as an old person.
Transitioning is always hard, but growing as a person is also about accepting that we are not meant to live the same little cushy and stable life that we got accustomed to for too many years.
Breaking up is one thing, at some point close people to you will die, you will lose some of your physical abilities, etc.
The best thing you can do is find a strong philosophy of life, and not worry too much about what your life was or what your life will be. Just enjoy the moment.
Enjoy your experience as a human being. All of it.
the world is bullshit only physical exertion makes it good
if those are to challenging try walking far like 10 miles in a day, or if in shape 20.
live!!
I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance.
Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless concern as you’re clearly nearly done with a huge life goal. A life goal that will change the context of your life ever after. Much more than any marriage could even. Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. (Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down.) But a degree is a hurdle you surpass once and get to wave the success of forever after. (Just don’t be a jerk about it, side point.)
Know that on the other side of your phd is a huge weight off your shoulders regardless of failure or successful defense. This time of strife will end when the phd. Freedom is soon.
You’re looking at a time where the job market remains strongly favorable. I graduated into the Great Recession and would have benefited greatly from this market, high interest rates and other things be damned. The future is still bright - just got to get past this last bit.
Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.
Warren Buffett says the factor which most contributes to your future wealth is who you pick to marry. Do you feel lucky?
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Happily-Ever-After-Enduring/d...
The rate dramatically changes with demographic, for example many of those were married young and did not complete education.
> who you pick to marry
The quote doesn't say whether :) Married men also tend to make more money and work for longer periods of time. There is a cynical view of whether that's good or not, but 40-50 year old single men don't seem to be a particularly successful demographic.
I’m just working back to first principals. You can be happy without the legal Russian Roulette of marriage is my overarching thesis, and I apologize again it took so many words to arrive at my point.
Just to add, here are a few other things that also limit your day to day freedom and add some risk of legal nightmares:
- operating a business
- owning a home or other building
- running for political office
- raising a child
- using a professional license (medical, law, civil engineer, etc)
So OP, a 28 year old male still in the process of completing education?
I agree with ianai and toomuchtodo, marriage can wait (assuming one is even interested in it) until you've made your place in the world and have time and room to think about such things.
IMHO the reality is a marriage os neither something required nor something to avoid, it lies along side professional life and again IMHO, recommending one to get married or not doesnt deserve a place alongside how one should pursue their career goals. They should be equally pursued in a balanced fashion suited to the individual.
I don't know the answer to this massively complex problem, but I don't think it's easy to reduce things to "marriage = dumb", especially with the world so divided and angry.
By all means, forgo marriage but many of us quite like being married. I love it. Most of the time!
in that mythical utopia that all bitter saps long for?
Yes, let's not EVER lay an ounce of blame on other corrupt institutions in the culture or wack government policies designed to debase humans instituted over the past 60 years for the rise in divorce. Let's not blame drugs or pharma or fiat funny money or anything else for the stress and troubles that normal people endure. Marriage is clearly the problemo.
This boring demoralization effort bores me. If I didn't know insufferables IRL that talk just like you (I'm sure you're lovely IRL), I'd say you were astroturfing because this is so lazy and on the nose.
Cheer up, chief. Maybe divorces can be prevented by getting better at setting the terms of marriage. Like pre-marriage counselling.
We did some marriage counselling last year and it was great for us, highly recommended.
You never actually marry. No institutional stuff. No expensive dress to fuss over and never wear again. No huge expensive party for a lot of people that you actually don't like but have to invite. No expensive "honeymoon" vacation that has to be super special and that everyone around you wants to fuss about. No other expensive big party for all those people at 25 years married etc.
Instead you just get the same tax benefits as a married couple for having lived together for a certain amount of time. You stay together as if you were married for however long it lasts. Which in lots of cases is the same 50+ years some people stay married. Or not. No need for a paper. If you guys work out long term you work out long term. If you don't, you don't.
I'm glad this is finally past us in at least some places in the world. Unfortunately not everywhere. Not even in Canada or the US and other such countries.
I think the 50+% divorce rate in itself isn't the bad thing. It's not the root cause. It's just a statistic that shows how unhappy a lot of marriages have always been. But until recently-ish (and still in some places) people couldn't get out of it and endured it all and you can't tell me that they were better off that way.
You can treat "it" as a life-long treatment without all the pressures and the paper and all the other stuff.
This is one of those often misrepresented statistics. The divorce rate for first time marriages is much lower - off the top of my head I think it might be sub-20%?
This statistic gets skewed because some people go through multiple marriages. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s common that people have only been married once or like 3+ times. I’d imagine if you leave when one marriage gets tough you’ve opened the door to that being a viable option.
Still, monasteries didn't produce any children.
If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute? It creates a massive power discrepancy in the relationship. "Do what I want or I'll leave you in the street."
Married people work towards the same goal as a unit. Do whatever you want it's your life but marriage has very much been a net positive in my and my kids lives. I'm the primary earner in my relationship.
I very much understand that I sound like a guy that started a business, beat the ods and was wildly successful telling you to open your own business while ignoring the reality that most businesses fail. America stands on the shoulders of those that tried and succeeded though.
I understand that marriages fail and that people get screwed over. I know I have been incredibly lucky with my marriage to my wife. There is really no way to know and I always recommend dating and living together for years before thinking about getting married. We roll the dice when we cross the street. Everything is a risk with no guarantee of a happy ending. For me the gamble was worth it and has paid massive returns far outstripping any financial concerns.
With that said some people get shafted and I really do feel bad for those people. Dedicating your life to someone to discover they are not who you thought must be a devastating experience.
Out of curiosity, why is that particular situation a red line for you?
I am very prone to emotional detachment so could adapt to being alone and be quite happy relatively quickly (probably within days). When my dad died I just flew up to my moms, organized the finances, organized the funeral and handled everything while everyone else mourned. I just moved on. I loved my dad a lot. I just detach. I haven't cried since I was a child. I'm not advocating one way or another for the healthiness of this but its just the way I am and see no need to change. Its allowed me to just trudge through things that should have shaken me up for months or years.
This is not a knock on my wife, she is amazing and I very much prefer her company to that of my own. I very much married up.
If someone does not confess immediately (like within a day) or cheats multiple times (even in the same day) or even worse has a lengthy affair I believe that is one of the worst things you can do to a person short of the obvious things like murder, violence, etc.
For me personally there can be no forgiveness. I'm not the moral police though, everyone is free to forgive as they want. If someone is cheated on and feels that its not a show stopper then that's their choice, I'm not them. This is very much just a personal thing, for which there can be no forgiveness. Divorce and separate lives is the only option. I would of course still co-parent (I would assume 50/50 custody) my kids with them and be civil (similar to how I interact with my kids teachers) but any emotional attachment would die. I would tell the kids why we are divorcing when they are old enough. This may just be a me thing its very easy for me to do the whole "dead to me" thing and just move on.
This is not a moral judgement on anyone else. People are free to forgive, pursue polyamorous relationships or whatever sexual agreements they want with the consent of their partners, etc. They key to all of these is knowing consent. My wife and I both know our rules around infidelity and its one of the pillars of our relationship.
Note: I'm writing very lengthy responses lately, I'm working too many nights and weekends and this is a distraction.
And yes... live together for 3-5 years or so and then get married if you want. I wouldn't rush it.
> When I left software development for 5 years What did you do? Freelancing or left software dev in those years?
Was it easy to get back into it?
It was relatively easy to get another job. It was an entry level job making 55k but I only kept it for a couple years. Which is really a shame because it was the best software job I've ever had but it was a small company and I had kids to provide for.
I’m in a similar position as you, thinking about pivoting to something else for a while, but hesitant to make the jump because of economic uncertainty.
Thanks for the insight.
Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups.
Many countries also have rules around care for a previous partner by means of common law partnership etc…
Married people often don’t work towards the same goals anymore than unmarried couples.
Marriage can also be a form of entrapment for abused individuals, a means for political gain or forced on people. Even in countries that don’t think those issues are common like the USA where child marriage is more common than people think.
Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality.
Marriage can be a societal contract and/or it can be a vow of love. The former is archaic
I appreciate you letting me know about reality as I have led a sheltered life with no real world experience.
I've been alive and married (20+ years) for longer than I was alive and single. Its been pretty ideal.
How long were you married for before you learned these things and formed your real world marriage experience that I am unaware of? If you were married and it failed then I can understand your negative view of it. I'm sorry it did not work out for you, the end of a marriage / relationship can be hard.
"Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups." lets change that to "Divorce is a very real possible outcome of marriage". prenups are a before marriage thing. So is a long happy life together.
My sister is going through a divorce because they married for reasons other than love and it was clear that it was not a marriage of 2 good people in it for the other.
My brother has also been married for longer than he has been single. Been through some incredibly tough family issues (deaths) that if they were not married would have probably broken them up. Years on they are very happy.
Marriage if done right and again entered into by people that care about each other is an incredible bond and one I feel has contributed strongly to society.
There are negatives to everything but again if its a good match the positives far out weigh it.
Marriage can be a wonderful thing, If its not for you then more power to you, there is no reason to knock the institution that has worked for so many others. Its been around and working for many people for tens of thousands of years. Maybe be open to the fact that there may be some good things that you are missing rather than that through all of human history people have been dumb.
Saying that marriage is not as important to society has no bearing on what value marriage should mean to you. I also never said that marriage is bad, or not for me. I’m married myself, but like I said, i saw it as a vow of love not a societal contract, unlike your statements that were all matters of societal contract that are neither solved by marriage but are also provided for by common law partnerships.
You inferred something because you took things too personally and saw things in the argument that weren’t there because you clearly took it as a personal attack.
In fact, your marriage is largely irrelevant to the discussion altogether since it’s purely anecdotal and doesn’t expand to the entirety of the human population, let alone the population of a single country like the USA where 1/5 of first time wed couples end in divorce, and who knows what percent of the remaining 4/5 include forced marriage or abuse.
Like I said, I’m married and I don’t think marriage is bad. But I’m also not so arrogant or narcissistic to extend my own life choices and extrapolate them to being integral to society.
I’m also not so narcissistic as to ascribe the success of marriage to the value of the people in the marriage. People change with time. Circumstances change. Marriage shouldn’t be a chain holding people together for eternity to the detriment of each person.
Also to be clear, I’m not saying you’re being a narcissist, though I do think your world view is clearly projected from your life choices based on your response but that’s not enough to judge someone online. Im saying that if I extrapolated my choices to others I’d consider myself a narcissist. Before you reply saying that I’m calling people names.
Marriage as a societal contract is archaic. I didn’t say it was dumb historically (marriage has a long and varied history, where love was often never a factor but made sense for the time), but it is archaic. Those aren’t synonyms.
So you like to force your spouse to stay in an otherwise unhappy marriage by putting a ring on their finger and have them sign a paper? So romantic!
Kidding aside, among the many reasons people like to marry, this is one of the worse ones.
You might as well be telling someone to just be very lucky.
Too early to say. It is possible (though by no means certain) that by 2200, the Earth will be inhabited by a mix of the Amish, the Haredim and various Salafist creeds which, while distinctly non-modern, never stopped reproducing themselves, while all the modernized groups did.
Edit: interesting that this comment attracted two downvotes but no rebuttal. I would say that the process is at the very least visible in Israel, at its conception in 1948 a very secular state whose demographics has since then changed a lot due to high TFR of the Haredim. And the Israeli politics seems to be following its demography.
OP is perfectly fine to just focus on the degree and know the world will continue on while OP works.
Your framing this as something more than it is is abhorrent.
Framing marriage as something more than "a societal complication of a relationship" is abhorrent? Do you think maybe that's a little harsh?
Also, you said "OP is perfectly fine to just focus on the degree and know the world will continue on while OP works." but the post you're responding to never said anything to the contrary. They were just speaking about marriage in general - at literally no point did they tell OP not to focus on their degree.
What if that's the correct selfish viewpoint on an individual level, but the wrong decision for overall society?
These are certainly some complex and nuanced issues, but just as a counterpoint, what if having a family is arguably the most important thing that somebody capable of completing a PHD likely does? Unless a PHD invents some important new technology that transforms humanity (and most PHDs probably don't get anywhere close to that level of contribution), the most likely valuable contribution they could make to the world comes with having large families, being a pillar for the community, and helping guide their children well. Successful families are the foundation for a stable and prosperous long-term future.
Idiocracy presented a very satirical look at the future that emerged from the smart people being too focused on education and careers over actually maintaining the society they were given. We all see the news stories coming out where there's the claim that average IQ rates are dropping, right? OP might not be able to solve that problem on his own, but if every PHD candidate made the same decision to put off family, maybe society eventually gets into some trouble.
Marriage isn’t integral to all societies, so much as monogamous partnership is (excluding some rare poly societies).
You also don’t need marriage to procreate , and several societies are built around the concept of children raised by the community.
That said, marriage is certainly the most persistent form of long term bond in history, but it’s not always borne out of mutual desire. It’s often been as much a means of politics as it has been of love.
Should we continue by saying “no it isn’t/yes it is, you’re wrong” repeatedly at each other then?
1. What is a successful society? You may have a different definition but imho it’s one that hasn’t torn itself apart or causing active harm to itself.
2. I never said they didn’t have a concept of marriage, just that it’s not integral.
Both those points however are dramatically affected by colonization. Particularly Christian colonization, but not restricted to it.
Colonization both destroyed many otherwise successful societies and forced their own concepts onto the ones that remained.
As such I don’t think there’s any society that does have absolutely no concept of marriage, but there are some where marriage is not integral.
Various indigenous groups did not have a formal marriage, but did sometimes have a vow. Even within the US, you’d have the ancient traditions of hand fasting among settlers, which wasn’t a marriage but an informal vow.
The Mosuo/Na people of China famously do not marry.
Hence why I disambiguate between marriage and monogamous binding. heck, monogamous bindings for life are present in a lot of non human social norms too.
But marriage is different in that it’s a formalized procedure to do the binding, and in many cultures was tied to the religious or governmental authority figure as a form of bookkeeping and control, or to show political bindings.
And back to the point of causation/correlation, is marriage integral to success? I’d argue not since hand fasting continued into very relatively (to human history) recent times.
Marriage is societal cancer.
Also:
>All of them.
All of whom? Surely you can give us specific examples. Your certainty must based on solid archaeological and anthropological evidence, right?
All of this is to say that marriage is a fraught societal construct, not a societal neccessity.
This thread took a bit of a wild turn, but I felt I had to respond :)
Am curious, as the Saudi's seems to be "going ok" (for the males) with their harem approach. Not so much for the females I guess (no idea). That being said, their society seems to have lasted that way for a fair while now.
Meaning, the "validity" of marriage is built into the power hierarchy. The same power hierarchy that determines whether a couple should stay together. People are going to get together. Wouldn't it be better if they could just be together without the need for an authority?
I think I agree with 1 year out, but I would be surprised if this hasn't been going on for longer.
"[I am a] broken pile of glass" != "[I need to hear about the] job market" kind of situation.
As I read their posting, it's more of a "help me develop my emotional intelligence."
Deep psychological work is going to take longer than a year, cost $$$$, could be fleeting, and clearly not going to finish the degree in a year.
Or quit the program and start a new life. But I’d strongly advise OP first honestly discuss that with their mentors.
Life absolutely will go on and the market will find a place for OPs work in either direction.
And for me it's sad for me to see a person, the OP, being / complaining of overwhelmed by the tall wave of their goals competing with their significant emotional trauma .. their psyche is pretty unhappy.
With empathy to the OP, this sentence > Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down
Is also kind of fucked up. There's no particular reason to suggest their partner left because they were unwilling to support a partner through a tough time. Maybe it is the case. But that's a very aggressive assumption that implicitly strips the lost partner of any individual autonomy.
Excellent observations.
Depending on how you see the marriage. Did people or God[1] invent it? TBH, I'm wondering if you are / were married or just talking.
- Marriage is not about finding the right person, but rather BE the right person.
- Don't expect a not perfect person to fulfill your desires, but rather try to be there to support the other.
- Don't try to change the person. You fell in love in the end with that person. Why change her/him?
[1] I know that this might not be popular on HN. I can accept that.
Ungenerous translation: That thing that's been really important to you for four years -- just forget about it. If you stop feeling bad about it that you'll stop feeling bad about it. Also marriage is objectively a silly institution. Sounds like you'd like to get married. Maybe that makes you silly. Getting a PhD though -- that's going to change your life forever! You'll be proud! If you're not proud because you don't like your sub-field, well ... maybe that also makes you silly!
To the OP: Sounds like stuff's really hard right now. I'm sorry for that. Grad school is damn hard some times and relationships are too. If find the above advice reassuring or helpful, great! If not, try to brush it off and read other more supportive comments. I hope things get better for you soon.
Rock bottom is a complete dismantling of your life. Failed relationships (romantic, friendly, professional, etc), lost job, bills piling up, apartment a disaster, inability to build a mental model that can cope with your current situation.
It looks more like you're in a relative minimum. From what I understand about psychology a healthy balanced life generally follows a pattern of building yourself up to a relative maximum, getting something completely wrong that challenges the framework you've built to orient yourself in the world, hitting a relative minimum, and learning to build yourself back up to a new relative maximum.
Consider the alternative, where there are no relative minimums. That would imply you either know everything, in which case your trajectory would be completely flat or ascending indefinitely. Well, that certainly can't be the case because not even the most brilliant people in history knew everything.
There is no advice or shortcut we can give that your therapist hasn't given you. These things take time. There is something about life that you've gotten wrong. This is your opportunity to learn what it is, fix it, build a new mental model, and prepare yourself to not make the same mistakes again.
You're in the fortunate position to have a lot of opportunity. More people are in the dysfunctional family history boat than you think. Sounds like you've done well, despite that.
Keep going.
“Rock bottom” is whatever negative experience is sufficient to get you to volubtarily rethink and commit to changing the life choices that produced that experience. It's where you personally decide to draw the line, not some objective maximum acheivable misery.
However, I disagree and would agree that rock bottom in essence is where where the maximum achievable misery has been met. If life is a ladder, your still on that ladder, you can still progress. All you've done is fallen and experienced life in reality; you can grow from and continue.
If your not attached to the bottom peg, your at the bottom of the ladder with nothing but yourself, you've reached rock bottom. Being homeless is rock bottom.
There IS no bottom so long as you're able to dig. There is no such thing as maximum achievable misery. It's just a question of whether OP is able to go on, and whether that is the lowest he could go is NOT at all an interesting question. I would say by definition you can always go lower, so it's a moot point.
I'd look into stoicism, in the sense of 'identifying something that counts as virtue, or rightness, or goodness', and I'd ask whether there's anything you can do today that would count toward that.
If you can do that, it doesn't matter how big the pile of broken glass is. Only whether you're able to do something good about it, however small, today.
Change is hard, to throw away everything and start from the beginning when it really isn't your fault is a path not many choose. I walked the wrong path, ended up in the wrong puddle which eventually lead down the wrong rabbit hole.
I am extremely grateful for the window of opportunity that exposed itself to me, for what I was given, the support I was given. And now all I want to do is return the such. I do what I can, when I can, how I can. I volenteer regularly, not to gloat, donate. It's hard. Its hard for everyone. I feel more balanced then how I was and now do feel I now seem to have a sense of urgency to fight for others who don't get such luck. Especially the animals.
We are in control of our destiny but are restricted from the freedoms we should have, with the world in dismay is concerning but it only takes one to start the shift back in to motion and change everything for everyone. Whether my dream becomes a reality, I better get back to coding.
From wiki: “A period of extreme mental stress, often characterized by being homeless and being rejected by all friends and family.”
To me rock bottom is a storytelling term. So it’s relative to the story that is being told.
I've realized this is kind of what my mental model has lead to, the worst part is I don't really know how to fix it or change. Fortunately I have years of living expenses if needed, have insurance and a number of close friends. However, WFH has gotten me to a point where it's a struggle to even do a few leetcode problems a day, work on contracting or even make a youtube video. Insurance doesn't cover mental healthcare and it never really helped before.
Like, "Really? Criticize them?" That is why I'd avoid it.
Everything else written about "takes time" @prhn is great and healthy IMO.
In general-- go on a trip
Could it be contagious/inherited? Sorry to be a jerk but you are not at rock bottom, only at "Bwawawa I look/feel like a loser!".
And I really don't think that you're truly sorry - plenty of other people tried to convey the same idea (eg, "not rock bottom") with empathy rather than the nastiness you've employed here. Try and be better to others and have a nice weekend.
And there is no trick.
Life is an arse for everyone, and don’t assume golden boys who are always laughing aren’t hiding absolute misery. I’ve seen one of them dying alone of cancer. I know, I was the one there.
After a break-up, spend time just making friends repeatedly and relentlessly if you want to bounce back. CouchSurfing, Yap’n’go, nothing too much job-oriented, games nights or game bars... What people like is people who entertain them with light subjects. Make yourself apolitical, refuse that topic.
The girlfriend and the career aren’t for everyone, and it’s ok not to succeed. Try to give, from time to time, that’s what makes men happy, and the inability to give is often what makes them unhappy.
The words "where were you, when I was burnt and broken?" never rang closer.
It allowed me to pull myself together slowly.
EDIT: here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYh1O3NIU7Q
You’re lucky this happened to you right now and not after marriage and with kids.
If you don’t have your own self, there’s no point in holding on to relationships. They will eventually decay. Go to the gym, walk, run, play, meditate. Get your own house in order before worrying about relationships. Get a therapist.
Btw this ain’t nothing from rock bottom. I’m assuming you aren’t a burn out. I’m assuming your SO didn’t try to have you thrown off the stairs and kill you.
Tell yourself that you are lucky this happened now and you survived
I bet you have a larger social circle than you think. I recently got invited to the wedding of a friend I hadn't heard from in years. We all have these friend-seeds, people whose name we know but whose bio is somewhat unknown, apart from whatever gave you their name. People who've been in the same boat as you at some stage in your life, but you didn't find the time to talk for whatever reason.
Like plant seeds, they can last for years and still be viable.
My advice is, watch the episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza does the opposite. If every instinct he has is wrong, then the opposite must be right.
As others have mentioned, you are arguably not as close to rock bottom as one can be. I hit rock bottom when I lost my home, my job, my ability to walk, was on assistance and bought my groceries with food stamps. How I got to rock bottom is a story for a meeting.
I found solace in recovery. Recovery is different for everyone as is rock bottom. Therefore if you feel you've lost more than you were willing to and you're at a precipice of a major life change that will bring you up out from the bottom, or you'll find rock bottom can even be lower than your realize. Again, what that means is going to be different for everyone, but if you have a need that you must change something in order to be better, then you already know what to do. Obviously if you're addicted to heroin, that change would be sobriety and recovery.
I'm not trying to give you answers as those are things you're going to have to figure out for yourself.
You've been around for three decades and been adulting for less than one. You've got at least 4 more decades to define yourself and your life. The best part is, you are the director, producer and actor in how that future pans out.
This is what I did: 1. I got a new hobby involving regular workouts and which was somewhat social with new people. Never really did sports before that, but this really helped me from getting isolated from society. I found new friends and got in shape. There is many of those, kayaking, rowing, soccer, ultimate, ... pick any one. Even running groups could work. Many evenings I came home tired after training, sometimes crying from heartburn, but that eventually passed. And 2. I finished the phd and then got a job in a different country, awesome place, new surroundings, own apartment, new colleagues, new life. This is rather easy with a phd. I didn't really click with my field either, but the decision to power through the last 1-2 years and just wrap it up and then move on was gold. That's what a phd signifies to a new employerand also yourself: You can finish something and power through, even if in tough moments. Every phd has those. Finally, after moving and new job and gotten in shape, got friends and a new relationship and it's great. I didn't have to fight for the latter, it just came autotomatically with new self confidence and casting a wide net. (I'm not really the social type.)
So, let your future self in 15 years tell you: this will all pass, you have a great future ahead!
P.S.: I also read self-help stuff and relationship advice and psychology. The moment I stopped, I started to feel so much better. It just reminded me how crappy I felt. Constantly. Once I threw this out I could embrace my new hobby and new beginnings. There will be throwbacks and evenings where you don't do anything but cry and eat chips. That's ok. Just don't let it consume you and steadily move on.
Been applying to jobs for about five weeks and other than a few interviews nothing has kicked back. Either no response or flat out denied, contemplating just re-learning a bunch of leetcode stuff I hate. All of my friends make north of $200k and I've just been floundering.
Future does not seem bright - clearly my track record is a black mark of some kind.
Hope things get better for you my friend.
Your track record is not a black mark, it's just a busy market out there. You have to pitch it just right to get it. Mangle the Tech Product Manager skills with your dev stuff. Interviews are tough and practice beforehand.
Ignore what your friends make because that will sour your mood.
Fortunately, my friends who are better off are very supportive - in some of these interviews I can't help but think I sound desperate or maybe just annoying.
Thanks for your kind words
You've got given experience and an opportunity, you recognise that TPM isn't your thing and that if dev is; move your focus and promote that energy. Code a local project, demonstrate that within an interview. The secret to interviews is blagging.
"I was a TPM, Giving it my best effort I gained the ability to XYZ
But after the year, I found that this wasn't the career path I wished to follow. Dev is more my attitude and recently in my spare time I coded this super-cool time diary using x-lang to brush up my skills. I feel that I can mix both to give the best to the company".
That itself will turn more heads then someone with a piece of paper with FANG stamped on it. It shows you learnt, tried, wanting to learn and move on. Double the knowledge more the experience. There are plenty of jobs outside who will happily hire for the dev.
It won't be the big-bucks as FANG gets you, but money is overrated. Find something that keeps you just less than comfortable. Flushed with cash is nice dream, but the pressure, intensity of it all are all not worth it. With lower paid jobs you'd get you a more laid back environment, control of your destiny and closer experience to real life which you then use as your bargaining chip later on.
I've never wanted to be a corporate cog that when it looses it's teeth is thrown out the back door. The stress isn't worth it.
I know this will sound wildly out of order, but do start working out. It's been crazy how much of my self esteem and idea about myself changed. Like transforming your body will legit give you confidence about other stuff.
Next is try to move into research that's very 'employable', employable likely means that the research holds a huge amount of value to society, internalizing that will prevent you from questioning how meaningful it all is (academia often isn't but by building skills, you derive meaning in a sort of preparatory way)
Lastly get off twitter and stuff. Even HN if you can.
All the best! Keep in mind rooting for strangers is a common human impulse and a bunch of ppl are doing it for you.
So what you need to do is work on and develop your sense of self and self esteem.
The rest of life is about accepting uncertainty of everything else. For example, when you get older you realize that you can't even make your kids like you, you certainly can't control them.
So whatever you do, choosing or not choosing is your choice.
Some things that have helped me:
Listen to the audiobook "I don't want to talk about it" by Terrence Real. Keep doing the therapy and maybe find another therapist if the one you have isn't helping. It sounds like you are cerebral so you may need to read a lot of self-help books and understand the theory behind psychotherapy to get some relief. You might even be smarter than your therapist. Ask your therapist what books they recommend. Here you are using them as a professional resource.
You might not be able to think yourself out of depression. Thinking your way out is what CBT is all about. You might need to retrain your body and nervous system too. This is what breath work, meditation, cold exposure, exercise, volunteering and sports are all about.
Give your body a break and stop drinking alcohol and doing any drugs. Get good sleep and most importantly eat well.
Learn breath work, meditation and cold water exposure (this is an ongoing thing, not necessarily a cure all but part of the process). It helps you regulate anxiety.
Journal your thoughts, write in the 3rd person about yourself, ask a friend what they like about you. Write about your accomplishments.
Take a vacation, go visit some of your international friends. Remember that it is ok to take a break. Sometimes you need that break to harness the vast meta-cognitive properties our brain has to reason about things. People always say they had great insight in the shower, or on the beach. Give yourself the space to disconnect.
Help others volunteering, join a men's group, play a sport, exercise. It helps to get outside of your head. Maybe your school has group therapy for PhDs, see what your therapist says.
As you do all of these things your perspective will shift.
When I was in rehab for drug addiction, after I hit my bottom (or what I hope was my rock bottom), something I learned was to try and approach something in the smallest increments possible and to acknowledge / celebrate wins (no matter how small).
Maybe this doesn’t apply to your situation, as my primary goal was to stop my substance abuse but if you can try to tackle your problem(s) in small increments, it might feel more manageable.
Best of luck!