[orionblastar]

I've been disabled since 2003 and out of work. I got too sick to work and ended up on disability. Been trying to get better so I can return to work one day.

Almost everything I know is out of date, new stuff keeps being invented. I can't afford college anymore and try to learn online but MOOCs aren't the same as having a professor you can ask questions when you get stuck, because of the honor code. Even worse a lot of the AI/ML MOOCs need MATLAB or Octave and MATLAB has a 120 day trial and then you can't do anything with it, and Octave doesn't seem to work with Windows 10 and runs slow in a VM with Linux at least on the computer that I can afford to own that isn't as fast as I'd like it to be.

So I have problems trying to keep up with the latest stuff, no one to work with me and help me. My friends and family left me when I became disabled.

I've gotten so depressed over it I sleep most of the day, and my medicine makes me drowsy so sleeping is how I deal with it. There are no groups that can help me, my mental illness I developed with stress schizoaffective disorder is rare and misunderstood.

I can still write code in older programming languages and I've been able to pass a MOOC on Ruby on Rails. I can still write HTML code by hand. I'm trying to write some books and self-publish them, but most of the day have to get around writer's block.

I'd much rather be working and I'd still be working if I never got sick.