I am almost at the bottom. About 20 minutes ago I booked an appointment to see a doctor about getting depression medication because I feel increasingly close to 'the edge'.

I got 'moved out' of an insanely competitive, fast paced job at a 'scale up' 5 months ago, and I've taken the time out hoping to recover. I started looking for a job recently, but I don't really know what I want to do. I mean, I do, but no-one hires someone who just 'helps solve problems'. I don't want my job to be dragging JIRA tickets across the board. I want to coach. I want to stop management doing stupid things. I want to solve business-like problems that alter the way the world functions for the better, MAYBE with software. But I don't want to make software that I don't believe in anymore. But that means fighting for the right solutions.

My career has slowly been simultaneously disintegrating and advancing over the past 5 years. I keep getting better 'roles' or more pay, but I just fail harder each time. I'm coding less which means my saleable skills are atrophying. I've intentionally avoided becoming a manager, hoping I can keep one foot on the ground, and the other in senior management land and make things better for everyone. But I'm not really sure I'm succeeding at that.

I get really invested in the happenings at work - courtesy of a mantra I've carried my whole life - "If you're going to spend 8 hours of each weekday doing something, you might as well do it fully" - so I do. Let's do it well enough that we can all go do something better like, chill out on the beach, right?

In reality, I end up treading on peoples toes and end up in the firing line. Some people love me, some people hate me but I always get nailed on the cross eventually. I can't do a job where I keep my head down. I can't imagine anything more soul destroying than spending 8 hours of my day doing something that I don't fully believe in. So then I fight for what I believe in, and then I get shot. It's like a repeating cycle that I can't escape. Purgatory.

And now this time I'm alienating myself. I'm casting off friends and friends are casting me off. I can't see my future anymore. I don't know what job I would enjoy. I can't bring myself to take a 'lesser' role where I mindlessly code software I don't believe in. I don't know what to chase. I don't know what's supposed to motivate me. I don't know what the point of it is, if I'm not enjoying it.

And here it is: I wish I didn't think that way. But I do. I wish I could just "it's just a job/life, just do the crap they ask you to do", but I can't. I always look for a better way. I'm always finding problems with the current way it works. And I always think I can help people find a better way. And then I drain myself and others trying to convince people it should be a different way. And then people get annoyed with me. And then I become jaded and depressed.

Or maybe I'm depressed, which then causes the other things. I don't really know anymore. And I'm not sure I really care.

I've got a long term therapist. I've tried hypnosis, meditation, leadership coaching and psychedelics. I've listened to every self help book under the sun. "Fixing myself" is a full time job. But I'm really running out of options. I don't know what else to do except commit myself to a psych ward, get a lobotomy, become homeless, take up heroin or disappear.

And the worst part is that I have the wherewithal to see that I'm (somehow) doing all of this to myself, whilst crying for help. But I don't understand how to escape my own clutches - so that I can better those around me and lead a fulfilling life, where I'm understood and liked for the good nature, spirit and bravery that paradoxically lead to all of my troubles.