Maybe its the psych nurse in me who already likes watching people come out of a depression but that’s what it most looks like with (most) of the people I’ve known, especially those that need hormones / surgery to improve their mental health. Like the ones that look bony or bloated or ashy or greasy with circles under their eyes and matted beadhead and uncontrolled acne everywhere from not wanting to look at themselves in the mirror or touch their own naked body in the shower. It’s not everyone’s story but watching the ones who do come out of that is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever seen! How do you watch that and not be hyped by it? Like I get that not everybody is willing to wash another person’s butt to get there but you can’t even admire the result?

wait until they find out about the p-spot!

trans people who want to update their sex in their passport, birth certificate drivers license etc are wild to me!

…that’s an exaggeration; it’s a much more complex issue that often involves public safety in ways that don’t affect me as a FtNB. If I go into a women’s bathroom people mostly just squint at me and if I went into a men’s people would probably mostly do the same. And if they did accost me in the ladies’ my plan is to show them my vagina then cry and ask how many women with their breasts surgically removed and no hair do they plan to do this to?

but somewhere deep down I can’t help but to think gender markers should never have been on government documents to begin with. the government doesn’t need to know what genitals I had when I was born or anything about how that may or may not have to do with the life I’m living now. massive governmental overreach if you ask me (and the bathrooms wouldn’t be an issue if Americans had real bathroom walls and doors where you can’t access others peeing like that anyway.

Lol you’re not even old I went to nursing school at 25 and my career still feels like I’m only starting and the only reason I’m getting this far this early is that the field I chose is so in demand. Try the values assessment, see if maybe that just didn’t align with who you are.

It’s possible the psychiatrist alone wasn’t the best plan. If you can afford neuropsychiatric testing they may be able to give you more specific answers, but honestly even just a therapist who specializes in learning disabilities and stuff like adhd and autism could be a good fit and do some good skill building. You may even be able to find some free support groups in your area or online as well.

Your parents might be right about the video games fucking up your attention. They can, like you say, mess with your dopamine levels. There are AA style groups for video games but really for behavioral addictions I tend to prefer recommending Self management and recovery training (SMART) which also has free groups, many over video chat / online. You can Google it its pretty great.

In the meantime see if you can leverage the video game addiction for some good and pick up a few educational ones to see if you can gain some other useful skills. Maybe try duolingo to pick up a useful second language or some of the ones that build math / logic or English language skills. They also have ones for mental health skill building and adhd management that will try to help you form a routine. They won’t be as engaging as the ones really designed to be a time suck but think of them less as a replacement drug and more of as a taper to move away from the video games.

Worst case scenario you could actually try an impatient style treatment program or rehab to force yourself cold turkey.

Ultimately though you will have to decide you want to be happier and know that it might take up to a year or more to really see results, which can be a hard thing to hear and even harder to actually do. Best of luck!

Oh no like, as opposed to university for some vague degree in art or political science or some super high level degree like engineering or medicine you go to a community college or technical school for a more blue collar “trades” job like plumbing or to be an electrician or welder, or to do a low-level Healthcare job like nursing assistant or x-ray technician, or to be like a teachers aid or to learn how to set up phone / tv / internet cable and radio towers and stuff. Something you need school for so it’s a little more interesting and pays more, but it’s not as much school and it’s a lot more working with your hands on practical stuff than like four years of theory or whatever. And they’re usually jobs in much higher demand to the extent that your local trade school may actually have government subsidized classes for the jobs your area really needs the most.

I tried but the UI was being bitchy and I gave up.

It’s one more click, why fix what ain’t broke?

Idek what that is I learned ctrl-alt-del 20 years ago and haven’t needed to learn anything else since.

try in c/healthcareworkers

University is bullshit, do trade school (if you bother with school at all). I’ve met some brilliant doctors, but I’ve also met some that are dumb as a bag of rocks and just memorized everything they needed for the USMLE. On the other hand I’ve met more brilliant roofers, car mechanics, and cooks than I can count.

My recommendation is that you start with a “values assessment.” Here’s a few different versions: Quiz Version - Sortable Cards - Balanced Worksheet

Try to narrow it down to three core values that define the person you would be if you were your best self. Once you’ve got those three, try to come up with 2 goals for each value:

1. What this would look like in 5 years: try to keep it broad so that it’s something more achievable like instead of “I want to be a veterinarian” you might say “I want to work with animals” or instead of “I want to have a million dollars” you might say “I want to be financially stable / independent”

2. Something you can do this week that would be the first step on that path: helps to keep it super super simple so that it’s real easy to get started, like you might plan to start looking at vet tech schools or call the SPCA to find out how to volunteer, or you might start figuring out how to start a savings account.

A great tip for staying on track is also to create a “vision board” either just with pictures as your phone background, a literal magazine cutting collage, or something on an app like pinterest. Hope this helps!

It gives “where’s mine?”

☝️

It was simpler using Linux to just kill things unceremoniously, but my coworkers are also consistently amazed when Epic throws a temper tantrum (rare, but it happens) and I walk over and ctrl-alt-delete and tell it to sit down and shut the fuck up until it’s ready to reboot and act right.

When can I get an official diagnosis? It’s pretty funny when my coworkers hear I have a strong family history of it and are like “oh that makes sense you seem super autistic” and I’m like “LOL NOPE, nice try but my primary diagnosis is waaay worse.”

Once I’ve established myself somewhere and have at least a full year of people complimenting me as a nurse I’ll tell a few people it’s a personality disorder as an advocacy thing. Like they’ll be asking how I pull off x or y thing then an hour later shit talk a PD patient (especially something like ‘they never get better’) and I’ll just be like “so funny thing about that-”

I actually took a 72h class in Peer Recovery therapies and one of the key teaching points is how to advocate for your mental health condition. In it we actually learned specific techniques for doing so (a big one is waiting that year so that my known competency colors their perception of the disorder rather than the reverse).

The cognitive dissonance is great to watch you can practically see their brain rebooting.

This is why nurses have shadow shifts now. You do the initial interview to get permission then just randomly show up one day that week in scrubs and follow a current employee around not even touching anything just watching for a few hours and talking to everybody to see if they’re sketchy because nurse recruiters literally have no idea what you actually do they just get paid to find you on linkedin.

And even among nurses I have the dubious honor of being extremely good at a specialty literally no one wants.

Right like I have a nursing license I’ll get offers even if I don’t want 'em. As an nursing assistant getting jobs could be a bit tricky but as a licensed RN with ten years of experience in high acuity psychiatry? I’ve gotten callbacks on applications I hadn’t even finished filling out, within twelve hours. The message I’m sending isn’t desperate, it’s a warning.

Same with writing and image generation. It can give you ideas or handle little details like making sure all your commas are in the right place, the formatting is cohesive, and that you used the right your / you’re, or filling in grass or sky textures in the background or putting a bit of polish on a finished image but it definitely requires some editing to get a truly cohesive final result.

I feel like it was in the first 3rd or so? To me that counts more as setup than anything else. The rest of it has been more of the implications, how it works, and what to do about it, which I would consider more to be spoilers.

Oh thank you! I couldn’t find a sub for it but that makes sense now that I see it.