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So oversharing but you started it lol. I tried to kill myself back in maybe 2010 with sleeping pills. I'm too much of a wimp to cut or use a gun. I came close again a few years ago because I was going through a mental shift with where my life is and couldn't handle it. I started working on my letter. It was gonna be in three parts. I almost started writing part 2 this morning and was gonna post it on Lemmy but went with this AMA instead in hopes that it would be therapeutic. Which turned out to be the case.

I haven't done AA or anything but I have a friend on a horror movie discord that we shared a few nights together just getting fucking wasted and talking about life. I didn't realize she was as bad about it as she was until she said she was going to meetings to try and fix it. She fell off once but def no judging. She's back on and shares he coins/tokens when she gets a new one. I should check in on her. Last we talked she said she had to learn Java for a school project and she's coming from Assembly 💀

I do go to therapy now but for mental health. I recently got fired from my very well paying job because I suck at programming. I have taken a ton of self eval test online and they all pointed at me being on the spectrum. Those and reading /r/askreddit threads pretty much proved I was probably on it. I told my therapist that I wanted to know. I had asked my doctor a few years back if I could get a diagosis and he said I was "too old" which is the biggest bullshit I've ever heard. In the end, I have severe depression, mild anxiety, ASD, and probably a sprinkling of ADHD. I don't know what I expected from an ASD diag but I told my therapist maybe closure or peace, but now I feel more lost than ever and that if I would have had a diagnosis as a kid, maybe my life would have been different? I donno... I had to learn to be fucking empathetic. Like all my life, I was like "sure sometimes people die" and didn't understand why people were sad about it outside of the fact that maybe that person won't be a static thing in your life anymore? My wife is extremely empathetic and I didn't really consider that was an issue with me until we started dating.

That ramble was maybe me leading to a recent thought that I think my drinking is tied to my ASD as a coping mechanism.

My drinking is mostly under control right now but yeah if it gets 2 bottles ow whiskey a week bad again, I might look into getting proper help. I said in another comment that if weed was legal here I probably wouldn't drink but then I'd just be a pothead, right?

Anyway...

I grew up with video games. Our first system was an NES. We also had a Genesis, SNES, N64, PS1, PS2 and even an Atari 2600 and one point or another. I really latched on to old school JRPGs in the SNES. Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and then Suikoden and Xenogears. Played my share of Residet Evil and Armored Core too. I have 3 handheld emulators with something like 2000 game roms on each. If you like retro gaming, it's pretty fucking sweet. Check Out Anbernic or Miyoo for something affordable.

I promised a friend that I would give Persona a try since Switch got a few of the games ported but haven't gotten around to it.

Right now my fav genres are metroidvania, first person puzzle platformers(think Portal), and factory games. If Dyson Sphere Program or Silksong doesn't get a release because of what Unity pulled I am gonna personally burn the CEO's house down.

Oh, also Antimatter Dimensions and other incremental games in that style just make my brain go burrrrrrr.

Oatmeal: peanut butter, agave, mixed seeds, sliced almonds, granola, and occasionally mixed berries

Sino-Soviet split: I had to look this up lol. I might need to read more on it to give a fuller response.

But also Khrushchev was a putz.

On a real note, when I was a kid, I used to want to draw comic books and would sketch different Marvel characters. A lot of people would accuse me of tracing though. I eventually gave it up because I hit a wall and wasn't improving.

Right now I'm gonna go with pre-k level. Here is my amazing attempt at Karl, using GIMP and my mouse:

furry commissioner

I read that as "furry commissar". That'll be my job after the revolution.

Probably Avatar: LAB. I like One Punch Man and Gurren Lagann but not a really big anime fan. I grew up with DBZ, Simpsons, and old Saturday morning cartoons though.

I really like the sentient tofu one. Idk what it's called. The smug debate guy one always makes me laugh.

One of the first thing I did when you guys federated was steal the PPB drawn one and add it to my discord server lol.

Also I don't care if they are broken and super large on Lemmy for whatever reason, I love that they are in everyone's faces.

Great driving snack! Salt and vinegar or cracked pepper are probs my favorite. I used to not be able to correctly crack them with my front teeth because I used to have my labret pierced and developed a stim/habit of chewing on the post and gradually filed one of my front teeth down to a slanted point. I got it capped a few years ago and can eat seeds again.

I have a book of poetry published, and a tiny Android app published but those weren't hard to get out there really.

Uh...

Ok, I go with this since it's a hobby, but I build keyboards for fun. I am typing on a keyboard that I built from almost scratch. It's a Ferris Sweep. I use a custom firmware for it that let's me program it however I want. I write code and can play games on a keyboard with only 34 keys. Not only that but my "programming layer" is a custom project that I developed over a span of maybe 4 months through trial and error. My keymap uses Colemak-DH, and the board uses a column stagger format that I objectively feel like is the more correct format that humans should type on. I took a 3 month time period to relearn to type all over again so I could use a column staggered Colemak keyboard. It's been one of the best thinkgs I think I've done to improve myself too. I could never touch type and now I can't type by looking at my hands. It wouldn't even matter because I use blank keycaps lol.

Around that age is when I started playing with Legos. We grew up poor so had to use our imaginations a lot and I think I really learned to use it as a form of escapism from building stuff and making my own stories up since we didn't have like cable tv and had to rent VHS tapes from the video store in town for real entertainment. The stories I made up would be super involved and they would evolve over the years. It's probably the last real good memories I have of my brother before he turned into a total chud.

I can also remember my first suicidal thoughts around that time. Maybe closer to 8 years old I guess but I remember riding in the car and looking out the window and having thoughts that I could open the door and just jump. I figured those thought would eventually go away and didn't realize until later that it's probably tied to my depression. Like I just don't want to be here anymore but I'm too afraid or weak to end it all I guess. I kept those intrusive thought memories with me all my life. They still come but I have a wife and 2 kids now and they love me and I love them back and donno if I can do that now. Now I feel like I am just suffering through but here for them.

I guess the impact of all that is that it probably played a major roll with me becoming a nihilist or absurdist(not sure which, maybe it's a bit fluid) but even though I have severe depression, they have become my purpose. The thoughts are not gonna go away.

~~Joe Biden~~

I actually don't really have a favorite dinosaur. I didn't know this until very recently but part of being on the spectrum is having a hard time answering what your favorite xyz is. I've spent way too long trying to come up with a canned response for favorite horror movie or metal band and realized people aren't actually wanting an essay as a response.

I guess my generic response is the baby from the tv show "Dinosaurs" because he was there for slapstick and I dig that.

If I had to pick an actual real dino, maybe T-Rex?

I haven't done AA but if I get bad again I might consider it. For now I'm actually going through a lighter phase because I have a vape pen and would rather weed be legal here because it would let me cut way down on drinking as a release/crutch. I can get stoned off my balls and wake up and be fine but alcohol hangovers are another story.

In the befortimes(I'm vegan btw) I really dug milk stouts but now my main focus is on any craft beer that doesn't use lactose or other animal parts in their brewing. IPA from across the hop spectrum are good. I like more fruity and juicy hops now and less metallic/pine-y. So the current trend is great.

Outside of beer, vegan friendly red wines are awesome. Ménage à Trois Merlot and Cabs have been my go-to over the last few years. Apothic makes some great wines in the same price range but sadly not vegan. The best I've had was a $70 bottle from my MiL's cousin's vineyard out in CA. It was aged post purchase for like 12 years and they were gonna just throw it out. I was like "hell nah, gimme that" lol.

I Also like whiskeys, bourbons, and scotches but am not super knowledgable. I guess I like peaty stuff? That's what my whiskey nerd friends have deduced at least.

Does the pope shit in the woods?