Tell HN: Getting Ready for Unemployment

Also, I would consider contacting https://www.latterdaysaintjobs.org/ers/ct/?lang=eng (you do not have to be a Church member) and follow their program for employment, very diligently. I gather that they are good at it.

And you are needed and valuable! Nothing you can do can change that.

There is no simple solution.

I hope this few advices will help:

* Do not bury yourself in loneliness: you are caught in a vicious circle where you have a negative vision of yourself, try things and fail which strenghten this negative vision. This circle cannot be escaped by yourself alone: you need people to talk about it, who will help have a lighter saw of the situation. Talk about this with the people you know.

* Meet new people (easier said than done, but definitely a good way to break out of the spiral). If you really don't have any idea, you could always offer a beer to strangers in bars.

* As suggested elsewhere in this thread: get help from a doctor. Take anxiolytics to soft the pain and help you forget about your shitty situation.

* Ban the "news": it will only confirm you that the world is not worth living in. Definitely not what you need.

* Get pleasure: make a list of ten things that you like and try to do at least three a day. Everything that brings you joy will help.

* Getting a job has really little to do with the skills needed for the job, most of it is selling yourself as the best match for the job. Nobody can evaluate your skills in an interview. Being in a bad mood plays against you in this game. Even if you don't believe it, lie and tell that you're the best fit for the job.

* Learn to love yourself: simple tricks like saying "i'm the best" in front of a mirror are dumb, but they work.

* Do not focus on doing "useful" things, everything will pay off in its due time. Nothing is useless by itself, everything you learn could be useful later.

* Walk and see. Take some time to walk around your neighbourhood, watch what happens around you, talk to strangers. Take some photos of the things you find beautiful. It will help you to feel being part of a greater whole and will avoid to focus on your own problems.

* Write. About anything, you don't even need to make a public blog or that kind of thing, a simple text file somewhere on your computer is enough. Just tidying your thoughts to be able to write them down is a useful exercice to understand yourself, and understanding yourself is key to get out of this ball of darkness.

* Laugh. Watch funny movies, etc. Laughing will decrease your sadness, it's kind of mechanical.

* If you are not able to believe in yourself, believe in me, who believes in you.

I know this kind of situation is very hard to live, and you must feel as there is no ending to it, but eventually you will find your way out.

Good luck and keep hope.

> every single company I applied for, rejected my job application. (Told me that they found a person better qualified than me.)

Don't lose hope. The better-qualified candidates you lost out to don't always stay. Sometimes they stick around for a few weeks and bail, having accepted a better offer.

> Quit a low-paying C++ job (which was a horrible mistake)

You quit for a reason. This was an exploitative situation you were never going to transcend otherwise.

Now you have an opportunity to use this time to add value to your existing skillset. Developers still tend to respond with blank stares when anybody mentions software security. Brush up on best practices and remarket yourself as a security-specialized C++ developer, which creates a niche for yourself in which only you are the best candidate.

One thing I've learned is that there are never really any "better qualified" people than yourself. Everybody acts like they know what they're talking about, but they are often utterly-incompetent con-artists and degenerates with a knack for showmanship who were able to put on a better performance than you. Don't try to compete on merit or competence alone-- you will always be left in the dust.

The expectation that it’s easy to find work is not the norm, and the belief that if you can’t work as a c++ developer you might as well end it all is unreasonable.

Plenty of people are plenty happy and live rich fulfilling lives outside of tech. Go get a job in a grocery store or starbucks or restaurant or something and keep applying to engineering jobs on the side.

Problem solved.