Another update! Doing okay lately. I feel like starting to come up out of a pretty heavy dip into depression land once again. My personal space is a wreck because self care is always the very first thing to go when I start getting depressed. I'll try to clean up once my back starts feeling better. You read that right. I'm now old enough to have back problems. Fun. I never asked for this, but I guess since I grew up watching the lion king on VHS (and using NuTang during my teenage years) that it's just time for that kind of thing.

I guess I've been struggling with mental health a lot lately. My sister says she worries about me and how I'll react when I just can't take the stress and depression anymore. To me it doesn't feel like depression all the time though. It's just kind of numbness, like I can't react emotionally to anything. I should probably try to get in to see a therapist or psychologist, but that would require me to not be absolutely terrified at both leaving the house and being seen by the general public.

Most times I'm noticed by anyone, it's been a negative reaction. For instance, a person with roadrage noticed me and bumped my car from behind because they couldn't pass me before we reached an intersection. Or getting yelled at by a random stranger after getting my hair cut because I was standing at my car door, getting distracted by a horn honking in the parking lot, but inadvertently blocking a person from parking right next to me. Sometimes it feels like any time someone notices me (in reality) that they're angry and taking it out on me. It's not (much) better online. Most friend requests that I get on any of the apps I'm on (fb, tiktok, twitter, mastodon, whatsapp, any dating site ever) have been from scammers looking to make a buck off of me. I've kinda sworn it all off tbh.

Anyways. Things are hopefully going to get better soon. I've been asked by my boss to go ahead and start coming back into the office instead of working remotely. As much as I don't really want to do it, I know that's just my depression and agoraphobia talking. He constantly reassures me that I'm doing a good job at work, and that my performance is great, but that this is actually for my mental health and that he's worried about me. I understand where he's coming from and agreed that I'd start coming in. Then I did whatever I did to cause my back to hurt, so that'll start next week.

I'm hoping this'll result in a raise at the end of the year (for the first time in 3 years). I'm the lowest paid member of my team, despite being there for 5 years, longer than all but my boss and another dev who started on the same day as me. I'm being paid $35k less than anyone else on the team, and I'm the only non-senior developer on the team. Once I start returning to the office, I'll ask what I can do to step up to a senior role which will hopefully result in a pay raise.

Well, back to procrastinating my Friday away. I should be working and learning devops stuff to be worthy of the raise I'm hoping for, but sometimes that's just really hard. I feel good writing all this down though. Thanks for reading if you made it this far :)

Take care, all

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