Ask HN: How are you holding up?

For nearly half of the last 12 months, because of a severely broken foot, I learned life in a wheelchair. It was confirmed I would need a second surgery, and within a week I was fired. That was Sept. of last year. My doctors expected me to be fully walking in January - that unfortunately didn't turn out to be the case - it took a few more months.

Just as I was finally able to drive again, and seriously look at work again, this pandemic struck. All events and interviews canceled.

I decided to do health assessment and triage volunteering at our local homeless shelter for over 2 months, which was quite helpful for the time I could tolerate it.

Living alone in a metro area feels almost more suffocating than being in a less populated area. When everything shut down, I was actually happy to be able to volunteer and help those without a home to go to. When things opened up in my state, and some people's sentiment's changed about the seriousness of this virus, I've sort of sunk into a bit of a hole.

I'm continuing to be positive when I can, and it is a struggle. Plenty of financial woes exist, but I'm still here. Depression is an absolute for me lately, although I've been working to lift myself out in part trying to indirectly help others, and by focusing more on my own mental health.

So, I'm holding up, but not well. Being alone is one of the biggest factors (no pets, no family in area, few friends), but so is the situation we all find ourselves in constantly changing in terms of the right/wrong. I focus on data quite a bit and it's hard to reconcile.

Hope this didn't seem too much of a ramble.

I think Switzerland checks all your points.

IMO you're way over dramatic about the climate. But even if you're right, why worry for something you can't change ?

Now I just kind of roll out of bed, slump over to the computer desk in the corner of my bedroom and sit there all day, wondering why I feel so "meh". I realized I'm missing the in-office collaboration more than I thought but I also started looking at the work with a predominantly more negative outlook, thinking thoughts like, "Isn't this all kind of pointless anyway? We just churn code and go around in circles endlessly." I've also started drinking almost nightly to the point of excess. Also, the world is going to hell in a hand-basket and apparently most of my family and friends from my home-town turned out to be a lot more racists than I ever knew.

On the positive side:

- I still have a good paying job that has allowed me to work remote through out all of this and even gives me an extra $200 per month allowance for WFH costs.

- I bought a treadmill and finally started to excercise.

- When I feel a lack of motivation I often turn on some course or tutorial and I actually started learning a lot of new stuff as a result.

- I started saving a lot more money since I don't eat out and cancelled all my vacation plans.

For me it's the fact that all our normal stress relief outlets are shut that is the big issue. The children can't go to scouts, my daughter can't do her ballet classes and my son can't see his friends. My wife leads a few choirs which were very social, but now she has to run rehearsals over Zoom which is a pain. I'd love to go fishing or camping, but I can't. I am a radio ham, but having just one hobby available to you can get a bit dull after a while.

The biggest issue for us is our work schedules. For a few months before it all went a bit weird I had been gradually setting up my own business. A mixed bag of IT consultancy jobs and app development. I was happy with it and I had to the time to put in to it when the kids were at school. The lockdown messed all that up as my wife is a speech therapist and now has to do teletherapy from home. Unfortunately that is something she has to do during the day - thus I have to look after the children during the day. That includes homeschooling, cooking cleaning etc.

My wife has to put in a full 9 to 5 shift. It's not just a few Zoom meetings, but also note and report writing. So after she finishes work, we have dinner, a bit of family time and then if I'm lucky I might have an hour or two to work on my own things - I'm not a great evening coder.

When it all kicked off I had some plans to learn and achieve new things that I thought the lockdown would give me time to do. Stuff like learn welding, do some redecorating and learning Unity. In reality this has been the busiest period I've had since having children. Plus I've put on a fair bit of weight so that is one more thing to deal with.

That being said, we still have a good income. My wife's work is secure, in fact she is earning more with the teletherapy model. But, her employer has given up the lease on their office as they can't see a return to face-to-face working for quite some time. I have a few passive income streams. We have good family whom we can keep in tough with via Zoom etc. Putting it all into perspective we are Okay compared to some others who must really be struggling.

Edit: Plus our children's sleep schedules have gone completely bonkers.