Poll: How are you doing currently?

You are not failing as a person. Do not define your self-worth as you having a job or money. You are going through hard times. Everyone goes through hard times. That doesn’t mean you are failing as a person.

Take a short break from job hunting and pick it back up again. You tying your self worth to your job may be what’s causing undue stress thsts making it harder on you. It’s a job. It’s not who you are as a person. Understanding that even if you get a shitty job that pays the bills, it doesn’t decrease your value. Get any job you can, just use it as a breather, collect your emotions and thoughts and when you feel better level up to a new job.

Struggling with this also. It's crazy how "dealing with assets" has been the weak spot for Rails so consistently all these years (even though the specifics behind it have changed entirely 3+ times or more now).

• Your written communication, in this comment, and via a quick look at other recent comments, appears excellent. Whatever your other comms/awkwardness concerns, writing can be a channel-for-connection, & for productive-economic interactions, for you even long before other relationships & skills find-their-grounding.

• You're right to prioritize finding employment. The rhythm of doing something useful, with other people, at any scale, can have beneficial spillover effects on mood, self-worth, etc – even after accounting for all the day-to-day frustrations of imperfect/difficult teams/coworkers. Concentration on the work can give the other anxieties/injuries "time to heal".

• Beware over-focusing on any one opportunity, however. The world is very big. The kinds of work/teams/cultures available vary massively, so there is some work/team that's suitably fit to both your talents & weaknesses & future potential – but it may take time, & even many abortive relationships, to find. Give yourself permission-to-"fail" N times, and N+1 times – as long as any new info & practice is acquired each cycle, it's a success at sampling-more-of-the-possibility space. Try to focus on what the world told you about the world, good and bad, rather than primarily self-ruminations.

• Also, we're likely entering a somewhat more-challenging economic time, with more delay/rejection from employers – and you should remember that's nothing to do with you specifically. Don't let outside things not under your control falsely imply any extra negative-self-evaluations.

• Get "out of your head" with things like fishing, physical activity, outdoor activity, etc as much as possible. They inherently remind people of the larger world, of essential human capabilities to move and interact, even when any number of other things aren't working. All exertion helps build background capabilities, in the mind & body, even unconsciously – and even just "stewing-in-thought" usually goes better if you're moving, in nature, with varied (not overly-familiar) surroundings.

You're obviously at a low point, but the fact that you can see that, talk about that, and consider other things that might remix your situation means it needn't last too long.

That sounds grim but I still say "mostly good" because I'm so grateful for the overall conditions of my life: a lovely walkable neighborhood with kind strangers around every turn, robust family and support networks, fast internet, great coffee. The little things.

One tactic I find has been great for avoiding unwanted emotional injury is staying off Twitter. At best it's a catalogue of everyone's successes who isn't you, at worst it's the comments section of a news website where the news is all bad. YMMV, but if you're an emotionally sensitive person navigating an uncertain period in life I can't recommend it highly enough.