Whats happenin Wrong Planet

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Hey everybody, Ive been on here for awhile as a lurker, always hiding in the shadows until now that I am coming into the light. For some reason I started to get these urges to get on Wrong Planet or another forum but I would always just ignore it. Well...Here I am and hopefully all will be well.

My Names David. I’m 28 years old, I live in Littleton Colorado which is just south of Denver, I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome about 14 years or so ago and have really struggled with, for good part of the past 3 years I have been in and out of hospitals because of severe depression or sometimes because of manic symptoms. After at least a year of hospitalizations and more med changes that I can count, I was finally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 27 years old. I’m sure that a lot of you on here know just how much it sucks to start a medication and have it changed or substituted or you have adverse side effects. For me those adverse side effects were from a few antidepressants which cause severe suicidal depression. I guess that in the end, when hopefully your meds are adjusted and tweaked and nudged enough all of the side effects and handfulls of pills was worth it. I have to say, right now I think I’m nearly at that point. I think there is always going to be some tweaking to do but I feel amazing, better than I have in a long time. I’ve been so stagnant and apathetic for the past 6 months with most days consisting of sitting in front of my computers all day with hardly any breaks. For the past 3 weeks or so I’ve started to come out of that apathetic stupor and have been getting more active. I started out small with walking my parents dog around the neighborhood, after a couple weeks of that I decided to take it to the next level and go out for a hike. That was amazing, being outside in the hardly spoiled nature and all together hiked 3.5 miles. Surprisingly the next day I went to that same hiking spot again except this time I went 4.3 miles. I’m not done yet though cause yesterday I went to the gym and did 40 minutes on the treadmill. And now again today, 4 days in a row, I went back to that spot I like so much and hiked around for 4 miles. Life is looking pretty good lately and its a nice change from the completely negative outlook that I’ve had for so long.

To be completely honest I don’t think that I could truly say that my meds are completely the reason for my change in outlook on life and my newly rekindled interest in hiking and gym time. The medications I’m on I know are having a very positive effect which I have witnessed slowly over time. The past 3 weeks that I have been feeling free of depression and started to have a marked increase in motivation and increase in things other than what is on my desk. I have been a heavy pot smoker for the past 7 years and have always noticed that I felt a little bit better when I was feeling down or depressed. Compared to now though that feeling of feeling good has increased by many many times. I’m sure that I’m gonna get people saying how you shouldn’t mix medications with "drugs" or your gonna have side effects and some other s**t. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all just a bunch of bull s**t, misinformation fed to healthcare professionals and to everyone in any school, f**k, you even get misinformation on TV. Rant aside, as far as I’m concerned, taking my medications as prescribed combined with smoking or vaping my good friend Mary Jane throughout the day works together and makes everything work better. Its one of the things that’s on my list to do but I would like to research into medical studies or trials on mental illness and medications and see what the actual true facts really are cause all I have right now is self observed and not at all factual but opinion.

I think I may have said that one of my interests is computers and lately I have really been getting into the openSUSE linux operating system. I get completely fixated with it that hours or a day goes by and I hardly notice. I really like to hike, I’m not in the shape I used to be so I’m taking it a little slower but I’ve been going about 4 - 4.5 miles and am working towards the 7 or 8 miles I used to be able to do in a day. I think I could possibly do that at this venture in time but Im not sure that I would be able to push myself hard enough. Slow and steady they say. Actually I have no idea at the moment of what that actually relates to or means but it fits cause its been much easier taking it slow and working my way further and further every day or couple days. Totally awesome being outside, for a good majority of the time I’m on my preferred trail I hardly see anyone passing by in either direction. Its nice being alone, Just you and your thoughts and if you choose, its quite nice to just take in the nature and clear your mind of any thoughts that have been bothering you or even better to clear your head completely of thoughts. I never saw it that way until now but I guess its kinda like getting a good workout but also feeling very relaxed and calm.

s**t...That’s enough ranting. Im sure I could go on and on and on but if you want to know anything about me or talk or whatever feel free to hit me up.

welcome to WP.

Thanks for the warm welcome cathylynn. I’m already cruising around the forums and making some posts.

Hello David nice to meet my name is Annette and welcome to wrongplanet.

G'day David n' welcome to Wrong Planet.

Nice to get that natural endorphin hit from exercise

Is the Mary Carter Greenway Trail a bikepath/way?

Hey David, rock on with your Linux progression. If you can get more focused on Redhat / CentOS, you can be paid a small fortune in being an admin. So many places (especially in financial services and in big cities) are begging to find people who are experts in it. This is a perfect example of how a special interest can reward youself, many times over...

Im not familiar with that one, there are so many awesome trails and bike paths here

I had no idea you could get paid for doing something you love. That kind of stuff is what I would like to be getting into more but Im not sure how employable I am in a business like that with a felony record.

Hi David,

I am an ex lurker turned newbie too Nice to read your thread and hear about your experiences.

Re the Linux, what do you do with your linux box / system. It's something I always wanted to get to know.

Not sure if I have bopolar but I am pretty sure I have some form of aspergers and sometimes get bouts of depression and feel apathetic.

Good luck and hope to be more in touch

Well, that's the key in harnessing the power we have. We need to use our special interests as a career, and with that, typically can blow most NTs away at what we do.

Anyway, if you have a felony record, the key thing is to be upfront and open about it, with some sort of explanation about it. Most every company will find out from a simple background check, and if you "slip in", they will get rid of you immediately because you deceived them, even if they would have been ok with it, otherwise. I personally have seen people with records (like a DUI) be hired, then fired as a result, while a different person who had a record, admitted from the start, and was hired, no problem. Each company has it's own attitude on things, but what they have in common is pretty much a zero tolerance for deception, when it comes to things like records.

So, keep on working with your special interest. And, just do a search for "linux admin" or "redhat admin" on dice.com or indeed.com.

There are tons and tons of jobs out there, new ones, every day.