I imagine that somewhere down the line I'm going to look back at 2016 with some sort of gratitude. I've spent the majority of this year in complete withdrawal from life.

I was stuck in a total institution when I moved out to Pittsburgh to join a new web design company that didn't really know what it was doing. We didn't make enough money to even afford the loft we lived and worked out of. And then the water stopped working in November 2015. I went back to visit family in Alaska in December, and then came back to find one of my coworkers had stayed in the loft all by himself, pissing and shitting in our cookware and jars, rats everywhere. The entire time, the CEO lived with his girlfriend. I stayed in that loft and the company until March, when our last big client fell through probably because I was a piece of shit who couldn't bring myself to work anymore.

I flew back to Alaska to live with my family, and it's obvious that my presence is not welcome here. I am a piece of shit. I stay in my room. I get on my laptop. And I browse shit. I find some freelance work that doesn't really keep me float. I don't know how to sell myself. I don't make enough money and I'm good at something that anyone can use Squarespace to do. I think I can learn front end development but I have no attention span and no drive and the guilt of not doing things stresses me out. I blame my mental health. I blame being on adderall for the last two years. I don't find another therapist in town. I self-medicate with weed and modafinil. I am a genius.

I don't go job searching. I find other things to exercise my talents. Pinball. Chess. Comedy. Lurk Hackernews. Overwatch. Smash Bros. Film theory. Lurk reddit. Art theory. Indie games. Lurk Imzy. Politics. Cooking videos. Lurk Hubski. Self-improvement. Roller coaster tycoon. Podcasts. Lurk Facebook. Drawing. Poetry. Lurk Metafilter. Anime. Music. Talk with friends. Infotainment. Infotainment. Infotainment. I am burntout. I am a genius.

Waking up at 1pm, browsing on my phone for two hours, trying to find something to inspire me to do something with my day. Go into the kitchen at strategic times to avoid my family. Have a circle of old friends to chat with online to balance out the emotional labor required to keep me afloat. Throw in today's helpful thing. Maybe it's listening to a whole album without staring into my laptop screen. Go back to the laptop screen. Fuck, it's 4am already. Work on filling out a resume. Get stuck on cover letters. Freelance work. I am a god of the night. It's 6am. I'm tired. I did some work today, more than I did in the past week. I need to sleep, so I do.

Some nights I don't sleep. Did you know that staying awake is an anti-depressant? It widens the reward centers in the brain, or something like that, the Psych degree that you graduated with is good for sounding smart for the dumbest things. When you are awake for longer than other people, you feel like a superhero. Start new projects. Sign up for coding courses. Learn the basics of chess. Make a commitment to draw every day. If you're lucky, catch up on work.

I have friends, I think. Sometimes I go to the library with them. Sometimes I play video games with them. Sometimes we catch up. My cohort is fucked up. But the difference is that they're taking longer to go through college. They are the ones that sympathize with me. I should select my friends better. I cut the ones that encourage me to do something with my life. They will never understand me. I am a piece of shit. I am a genius. They can't possibly understand me.

Start a literary journal. This project sticks. You want to fall in love with work again. You want to fall in love with yourself again. You want to wake up hard with a raging boner and get back to what you were working on the night before before it goes flaccid.

The same feeling you got when you started working for that startup in Pittsburgh. The same feeling you got when you decided to leave Alaska to travel the US in search of a new place to call home. The same feeling you got when you fell in love with your psychology degree. Before you realized that the startup wasn't working and doubled down on it. Before you realized that traveling alone would make you have nervous breakdowns and you would stay in at airbnbs and watch youtube all day. Before you realized that you didn't love working in psychology, you just loved learning because every avenue was a potential new door to jump through with limitless possibilities.

Get obsessed with your literary journal. Too obsessed. Reiterate it and build new features that no one wants. Post it everywhere you lurk. Hope it catches on. It doesn't? Reiterate it and build new features that no one wants. I have new lifeblood in me. I constantly check google analytics to see how many visitors are on. No one's on? Reiterate it and build new features that no one wants. My life is perfect. I am doing exactly what I want. And am paying no rent. You will always have this project to go back on. I am a piece of shit. I am a genius. Reiterate it and build new features that no one wants.

I have a job interview tomorrow, and have been sending out resumes as fast as I can. I'm so happy to get out of the cycles that have consumed my life. Into new, better cycles that can stabilize me. I'm more cognizant of myself than ever before.