lonely burnout: it's dangerous to go alone

#beginners #mentalhealth #discuss #career

solo sucks

I feel so lost every time I sit down to do anything productive. Work, school, personal, it doesn't matter. My brain gets fuzzy, my eyelids get heavy, and I just want to lay down with my cat.

I know I'm dealing with burnout. I know I need to rest. I know that doing this all on my own has done nothing but exhaust me.

So here's the short version, up front: I'm looking for community. People to code with or alongside, to build cool projects with, to ask the really, really dumb questions I have. I don't even know exactly what to ask for, just that I want this.

If you want the longer version of why, keep reading.

I log onto Twitter, Bluesky, even here, and I see wonderful people working together, building each other up, building genuinely cool software. And I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Like I'm alone in my dev journey.

Some of that is just me. I'm awkward reaching out to people I don't know, and I'm not the most social creature by nature.

But it's also that I feel like I started my dev journey too late in life. I'm almost 35 and just started my Computer Science degree. I'm not upset about how long it took me to find what I actually want to do. I'm grateful for the life I've lived.

What does upset me is that in taking so long, I forgot how to build community. I settled into my life and just kept my head down (sound familiar?). Now I freeze every time the idea of reaching out crosses my mind.

At the same time, I'm terrified to actually ask for help. To ask someone to teach me like I'm five. That feels like far too large an ask to put out there. That's what I've been struggling with for the last year.

Frozen with terror, I exist as a deer in headlights, until it gets so overwhelming that I close my computer, put down my phone, and go find my cat to annoy.

But this can't continue. I can't keep burning out because I'm too afraid to try and build some community.

So here it is, me trying to step out of the headlights and ask for help. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. And if any of this felt familiar, let me know. I genuinely can't be the only person out here who feels lost and alone in it all.

I'm most active on Discord (DnD nerd, surprise), so if you know of any cool, active communities looking to recruit a slightly weird enby, hit me up.