past me would laugh at present me’s woes

a bachelor’s from MIT? a doctorate in CS? a whole bathroom to myself? a stable relationship? a job with coworkers who care about me?

past me would have desperately wanted these things and assumed i would be blissfully happy and grateful to have these things, that once i had them i would be set for life.

(i suspect future me will laugh at my present woes too! my parents are healthy, my friends are healthy, i’m healthy)

i guess there are two ways to tell my story,

one where my illness

sent me down a path of compounding opportunity losses. because the trauma of not just the hospitalization but also my interaction with harvard administration, followed by my advisor telling me to apply elsewhere when i did return, set me up for defensiveness and anxiety around interacting with professors (or generally people in positions of power), which made it hard for me to communicate well with others, which meant i stumbled through grad school, which meant i was always in a state of emergency, and on top of covid meant i never had a chance to really learn from other people and have technical mentors and network, which leads to the current situation, where half my friends have no problem with income stability and have people chasing them down and here i struggle to find employment.

and it is almost impossible for me to make up this compounded gap now. i can sense the gulf between my friends and i.

(i’m scared even to type these words out. it still haunts me, the feeling that i need to prove myself to some future manager or else. some nightmare that i never quite emerged from and probably will not until years of stable income of pass.)

and the other story of triumph

the other story is i dragged myself out of the terrifying 24/7 nightmare of psychosis, out of the locked psych ward where my goals were to earn points to go on supervised walks outside, through graduate school,

and now have a doctorate from Harvard in computer science.

the misc. thoughts

that i should take ownership of that story and what role *i* played in it.

take ownership of the things i did right and not just what i did wrong. acknowledge that i was born into privileges others do not, but I personally did also have to put in the work to accomplish my degrees and get my jobs

it’s not just the uncontrollable whims of fate that led me to where i am, but that i did have agency in it. fate is a disempowering feeling, but preparing for luck is an empowering feeling.

it’s always anxiety about why present me isn’t where i want to be.

but now that i’m not mired in fear (will i never be independent?), it is a little easier to ask where i could be in a few months. then assuming whether i will still exist and be okay in a few months, what would i do to get there? and then check my assumption, will i still exist and be okay in a few months?

and yes, some sense now that my job struggles do not have to mean something irrevocably wrong with me or what i’m doing or how loss compounds. that one day there could be a job where i feel valued and valuable and respected and mentored and encouraged to thrive, where i can think beyond whether i will ever make enough money to have kids and focus instead on making a difference and excelling in my work.

yes, it was a fantasy that if only i wrote a paper — if only i passed quals — if only i graduated — if only i had steady income — i would be happy. but it was not a fantasy that i’m less miserable now. so. i’ll work hard to become employed and have a year where i’m not stressed about money. and i look forward to having the problems of too much work and too many people demanding my time and when my problem is how i want to make a difference.

if the income over time curve is an S, if you draw the line at any given timepoint then yes, i’m permanently behind. if you look at societal averages then yes, i’m permanently below average.

but there is some trick, to looking just at my own journey. now that it’s less painful to look at. i can say perhaps my curve is just shifted. that in five years, in ten years, i will have income like my friends do now. it’s not impossible.

but in the meantime i’ll be 34 and unemployed and sailing the ocean 😭🤣