40 years old. I used to work doing odd jobs, but during the quarantine decided to pick up programming because I was always a gamer and my desktop was where I would spent most of my time. I also have an unidentified health problem, which is to say that the symptoms are obvious to the naked eye but the cause isn't.
So I thought "maybe this will be fun to do, and if I'm good at it perhaps I'll be able to afford healthcare". At this point, I'm not delusional enough to think that this problem has a definitive treatment, but it's better to try than doing nothing.
At first I worked with the pomodoro technique, but nowadays I only use pomodoro to remind myself to take breaks. I ended up getting really addicted to studying and building stuff when initially every little red squiggly line would be an attack to my self-esteem and proof of my incompetence, but now I'm just embracing the chaos and have fun with it!
I've been working as a fullstack developer for a little over a year, and on my free time I focus to build my backend development skills. Unfortunately, my current company has no room for backend at all as they're mostly writing AI solutions, and in spite of the fact that I expressed my passion to dive deeper in API and database design my CTO gave me the cold shoulder. But at least I have some experience which I can market for my next job.
It also helps that I have no desire to have children or even date. Maybe it's my low self-esteem but I cannot imagine ever finding someone who would want me with my disease, so this career is all I love (outside of the usual hobbies).