I'm a mid-30s programmer. I have a wife I used to love very much. I might still love her, I'm not sure. She's blind, and doesn't work, so naturally I have to be a caretaker. I have a almost 2 year old daughter who I do love very much and would do anything for. She may also go blind...it' a genetic condition, but she sees fine now. We're doing everything we can to prevent it. Time will tell. I have friends. I don't have a hard time getting along with people. I'm doing just fine financially. So why am I posting on a lonely board I happened to google?
Honestly, I'm the complete opposite of many of the posts I just glanced at, but not necessarily in a good way.
I have a lot of what everyone else wants, but I don't appreciate any of it. I am completely going through the motions. I feel no different than the applications I program. I provide for my family. I tell my wife I love her. I hang out with my friends every now and then. I'm trying to raise my daughter to be happy and successful. I just do what I'm supposed to do.
But I don't -want- any of it. I -want- to be alone. I am so overwhelmed with stress. I've moved up the employment chain to get the most money I can, and I try hard to chase my passions, and I try to spend time with my family but there's so little time in the day and I already sleep only 5-6 hours a day at most. I'm always tired, and counter-act it with caffeine (about 500-700 mg a day in various forms). I can't take a vacation because all my vacation time is spent taking my wife and daughter to a specialist relatively far away for checkups and operations to minimize the damage to my wife and minimize the chances of my daughter losing her sight. I am completely burnt out and have been for a very very long time.
I fantasize about my family dying in a car crash. It would tear me apart because I really do love my daughter more than anything. But I'd be free...free to drop my current career path, and free to live off much less. Free to take a vacation. Free to just take some time every day and relax.
Right now I feel like I'm trapped. I can't get out. I can't even kill myself because I can't do that to my daughter. She needs a dad to raise her and to provide for her financially.
As a programmer, I take complex problems and try to solve them. I can't seem to find any solution to fix my situation. I would do anything to get this stress to stop, but I can't want to let my daughter down. I don't know what to do. | |
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