Ask HN: How are you holding up?

The last few weeks have been pretty tough though. I understand myself to be prone to becoming over-stimulated from following the news too closely and so generally heavily moderate my intake of it. The last few weeks really de-railed that though, a severe escalation in craziness in what has already been a crazy year, and I've found myself glued to keeping up with what's going on and what's being said by both sides of the current argument.

The hit to my personal, non-work productivity has been one area affected but I'm not too concerned as I can play catch-up on some of that. The larger hit the past few weeks has taken is that it has essentially confirmed my concerns that America is not, and will not ever be, home for me.

Watching Marxism grip America by the throat, after seeing the damage it has wrought in the past, and the sheer level of support for it now, has been incredibly demoralizing. Consequentially I'm now placed in the position whereby I've to start looking at packing up and moving my family's entire life yet again which is... not great.

It can only be satisfying if you are alive to experience that emotion, however.

I can't say that I have anything personally invested in your choice in this regard, but I will observe that suicide is a fairly permanent solution to what is most likely a temporary problem. And that eternity is an awful long time, so why go there any sooner than necessary.

I just lost my drivers license due to a medical issue (my "controlled" epilepsy ain't so much any more). My partner left for a six-week trip recently. I'm working from home because my office still can't open up. Most of the stuff near me is still shut down. I'm effectively restricted to a relatively small radius around my house.

I'm trying to get out as much as I can, and go as far as I can. I'm taking the opportunity to get more cycling in-- which is my hobby anyway, but it feels odd in light of the fact that now it's my ONLY reasonable option for, say, getting to the grocery store.

I think if my partner were home, I'd be okay. I think if I had my license and could just go around and take a drive somewhere, I'd be okay. I think if work were back to normal and I could spend the days working with people in close proximity, I'd be okay.

But it's everything together that's just screwing me up. I feel isolated. I feel trapped. I'm losing weight because I'm not bothering to cook or eat beyond the occasional slice of toast or handful of trail mix. I'm not sleeping well, which is making my seizures worse, which is going to make the wait for my license reinstatement take that much longer. All the stuff reinforces all the other stuff, which makes it difficult to break out of it.

I don't know. I'm lucky that my seizure are not, comparatively speaking, all that bad. I'm lucky that I have a job, and that I can work from home-- plenty of my neighbors and friends are out of work. I'm SUPREMELY lucky to have the love of an incredible woman whom I love dearly, and who makes me want to be a better person. I'm lucky to be able-bodied enough to go cycling, and I'm definitely lucky to have the money to afford my groceries.

All in all, I don't have it bad at all. But everything just feels like shit right now.