Need some advice, trying to go from NEET to professional...

Aria Janke — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 18:30:39 +0000

[tl; dr] Trying to get my life together with mental illness, looking for guidance without hating myself back into deep depression.

So, I've been trying to get my depression under control. An idea I had was to "play/pretend professional". A sort of "I'll dedicate however long I can each day towards developing project ideas and resume building a day". I'll admit, I've no idea what I'm doing, I only know that I must try something and that something needs to change. I'm attempting to adopt a growth mindset, despite my conditioning.

Goals

So I'd like to put myself in this kind of life where I can:

handle hours and work load
live independently and be myself
become a contributing member, where I can do social good

Present Obstacles

When job seeking (this sound familiar to you?):

hardly get any communication back
there are very few positions which I can both physically reach and possibly have skill for (I can't afford to move!)
my mental health issues can make me physically unsafe in response to some postings
- negative self talk
- toxic attitudes of the posters (even including advice posts!)
may have lost support from insurance after outing myself
enormous gaps on my resume
going from being "do what I'm told" to being proactive

I'm trying not to be a victim or child, or why expose myself with asking for help? Or commit time to work to better myself? What matters to me is not fault or blame. It's what I can actually do right now. I'm not interested in "facing final judgement for my sins", but rather to grow and accept feedback, critique, and to continue that loop of growth.

What I'm Doing

I'm attempting to put together a "resume" website, where I showcase some of my work. Now I know it needs to be presentable. The ideas I've found online are concerning, since I'd like to keep it simple, easy to read, and not distracting.

Resume except here, a work in progress of course:

I'd like to do "exploratory work", and present it on the website, showing that I'm both capable of learning new tech, and skills which an employer may find useful.

My future's rather dark right now. Thanks for any guidance, and please, while I can't stop you, I ask you to consider the impact of your words. So far the community has shown a certain lack of toxicity, which I'm grateful. Thank you for reading!

Completely Lost and Need (General/Career) Advice

Aria Janke — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 03:56:22 +0000

A bit of how I got into this mess...

I've been avoiding writing, or reaching out to any boarder tech community. It's mostly informed out of a fear of toxicity, which I've previously received from such communities. Mental health issues has caused me to become something of a social recluse over the course a short job followed by university.

This is a nerve racking attempt to try and get some idea or direction to eventually get me in a better place.

I've enjoyed doing some web work, but it is a far cry from a real job. The college work I've done in computer science, no surprise was not helpful in the slightest to me. Fun concepts and ideas though. I've had vague musings with games, but I haven't the heart to work in that industry.

I know portfolio/profile building is important, but I've no idea of what projects I should do or what direction I should take it. Many good tutorials abound, but without something to call my own I can't really demonstrate that I know a technology. I seem to lack a necessary creativity, as I've not really anything in my life to use as a basis for projects.

Now for the questions:

Should I do a project per technology?
How can I better foster creative growth while having depression?
How do I navigate the professional space as a trans person? Especially someone who needs to play it quiet around her parents?
How can narrow my focus to more specific web technologies?
I am a bit geographically constrained due to finances, how can I best handle this problem?
Are there other questions I should be asking instead?

Please, if your answer involves "my interests" understand that I really don't have any. Also please refrain from this "culture of awesome" language, it's very demeaning and abrasive.

Thank you for reading, and especially my deep gratitude for any advice you may have.