Oh no, anyway.

Just don’t try to force it on your pets.

Cats are obligate carnivores.

When I need to sleep and can’t, my go to is a relatively mindless game that I’ve gotten exceedingly good at automating my way through. Something like Sudoku, solitaire (specifically Klondike), or something. Usually on a digital device so I don’t have to move too much to play and I don’t have to worry about physical cards, shuffling, etc.

If it’s a particularly bad night I can pair that with some music. I find either ambient trance or something similar, to be the best for this. One of my favorite “go the fuck to sleep” albums is called “Dreamland” by Robert Miles (may he rest in peace). Alternatively, I find nature/rain/thunderstorm sounds to be particularly calming for me, though YMMV. The calm pitter-patter of raindrops falling seems to really put me in a sleeping mood.

Combining these generally gets me ready to snooze the fastest. The other option I have is mediation, but you need to be practiced at getting into the right headspace for it to be effective. Meditation isn’t really what you’re after since you have said that basically sitting around with nothing going on is when you start to panic, which is generally how mediation begins, so I’m not sure it will be super helpful.

The only additional advice, which is a bit of an offshoot from the mediation thing, is that trying to not think is a contradiction. You can’t try not to do something; unless you have some issues with impulse control, the “act” of not doing something is the antithesis of trying. You can’t try to clear your mind, you clear your mind by not thinking, if you’re thinking about clearing your mind, then that’s a thought which, if present, precludes you having a clear mind.

You have to stop thinking, not just try to put things out of your mind, but stop all active thought and analysis. It is way easier to say, than it is to do, and I wouldn’t pretend it’s easy at all. I learned how to do this through meditation, and it’s a fat departure from how you normally operate mentally, and not an easy thing to achieve. One of the strategies I’ve used is when your brain assaults you with a thought, you recognise it’s existence, but refuse to interact/engage/analyse it at all, and just let that wash over you, and into oblivion. Again, easier said than done. Not allowing your thoughts to latch onto ideas and allowing your mind to be quiet, without commenting on, about, or examining every passing thought, does not come naturally.

I think of it a bit like this: take the example of your mind being a street in a busy city, every individual on the street is an independent thought you might engage with. This idea is a bit like sitting by yourself and watching everything around you without getting involved. Someone walks past screaming about some topic, like how the world is going to end and you just watch them walk by and don’t comment on the matter. You recognise they’re there, you just don’t get involved. Your passive demeanor does not and should not imply you either agree, nor disagree with their statements or viewpoint, you are just present, observing them making a scene. Eventually they move on to yell about it in another location and you give it no further thought.

I hope that makes sense. Of course, modern society with all the social interactions we have, whether online or in person, always gives us the option to engage in discussion about everything and we’re often encouraged to do so. People will outright ask for your opinion when having IRL conversations at times, which is a prime example of this conditioning. If you’re able to break away from the need to have an opinion on everything and anything that crosses your path, and value people’s opinions exactly as much as required, which isn’t much, then you can break free, and you don’t have to bother yourself with everyone’s opinion and making yours heard. IMO, there’s no value in sharing your opinion, especially when the recipient of that opinion has their own opinion which obviously will not change based on what you could say, so why bother even having one? It takes mental effort and time away from what’s important to you to engage in such trivialities, when the outcome is unaffected by anything you think or say. Why invest the time and effort having an opinion when nobody cares what your opinion is enough to for it to have any impact on what happens? This isn’t a value statement about you or your opinion, this is a value statement about any would be recipient of your opinion, they don’t care, that’s a problem, but it’s a problem for them to solve; your opinion is valid, and if they can’t see the validity in your opinion, why waste your time and effort creating one just so they can ignore it.

You cannot control the actions of others. You can’t change what they care about. Both of these things are issues that the opposing individual must address about themselves, that you have no way to change about them. Save yourself the grief, and just don’t bother with it. It sounds like you have enough on your plate, you don’t need to add their crap to your pile.

With all that being said, it’s a radical departure from the accepted social “norm” so it’s a lot of stuff that’s easier said than done. I’m sorry that you are going through this. I don’t know all the details and I don’t have the answers; but I’ve been though some rough shit, and it always sucks. I value you and your opinion, so if you want to reply, I’ll be happy to hear anything you wish to share. IMO, it sucks right now but the fact that you’re reaching out to anyone for help is a positive sign. Do not be afraid to ask for the help you require, it is not a sign of weakness to need help, it is a sign of strength and character to recognise that you require assistance and you are willing to ask for that assistance. It’s brave and demonstrates a strong understanding of when you are unable to handle things alone.

We all need a little help sometimes. If you want to DM me, to inquire further on anything I’ve said, or to simply rant/vent, or if you just want to chat about technology (or literally anything) as a means of distraction, I’m happy to oblige. I believe my matrix account is linked to Lemmy, so that’s also an option.

All the best OP.

AI in the current state of technology will not and cannot replace understanding the system and writing logical and working code.

GenAI should be used to get a start on whatever you’re doing, but shouldn’t be taken beyond that.

Treat it like a psychopathic boiler plate.

Got a pretty bad case of food poisoning last month. Didn’t really eat anything for a couple of days.

My SO had it worse. She was throwing up almost everything she ate for over a week. After about 4-5 days, I was like. I’ll drive you to the emergency myself, but I can’t force you to go.

She ended up waiting like three more days after that and calling her primary care physician.

She’s mostly better now but it was the worst I’ve ever seen her.

For better or worse, she did lose a decent amount of weight during that week+ of being sick.

I have a problem with the cold. Mainly that I never know how much I need to wear.

Like a good Northerner, I layer my clothes, and if I wear too many, I end up sweating. It’s terrible to have a sweaty body while my hands, feet, and face freeze. If I wear too few clothes, then I’m just cold all over.

I can’t seem to regulate adequately. I’m always either too hot or too cold.

If it’s hot out, then I’m just hot all over. It seems worse, but it’s actually much easier to cope with.

I just want to be a consistent temperature.

Cool weather, like between freezing and like 20C/68F, I’m pretty golden. On the low end, a light jacket with a sweater, and on the higher end, just a light sweater or something and I’m fine. Anything below zero… I’m generally uncomfortable.

Oh yeah, I’ve seen that. People hit the most minor roadblock and just stop working until someone else fixes their shit.

It’s an attitude of “we’ve tried nothing and we’re out of ideas!”

I don’t like those people either.

They share one brain cell.

Exactly. It will be genocide by unemployment.

I dunno about OP, but I am, and I have definitely prioritized tickets based on how interesting they sound.

User setup for a new hire that is already here and waiting? Meh. Weird network problem with no apparent solution which will likely require days of investigation? Sounds good.

I find that when a user continually makes a stink to get their ticket dealt with first, I gently try to correct them, and when that inevitably doesn’t sink in, and they call during a critical issue, I tell them quite firmly that things are down and nobody at x site can work, so your printer will have to wait. Log a ticket and I’ll address it when I’m done Brenda.

… They usually back off when you make it clear to them that they’re not the most important thing you’re dealing with at any given moment.

I fucking hate this.

Most days I spend more time accounting for my work than I do actually working.

I’m pretty sure I’ve done most of these at some point or another.

It really depends whether I like you or not.

Liking my users is entirely dependent on how much work you make me do, and how difficult that work becomes because of your personality.

I’ve gotten tickets that were literally “$thing is broken”, or “help! Call me!” With no information given, not even a callback number. I’ve also gotten a rambling voicemail, in which a user describes an issue with a piece of software and doesn’t identify themselves, not provide any callback information. The CID on the voicemail wasn’t available either, and since I work with several companies doing support, I couldn’t even identify the client, nevermind the specific user.

There’s also the needy users that create tickets for every prompt, dialog, message, delay… Pretty much anything that could happen at all ever, whether it affects their ability to do their work or not.

There’s also the unavailable users, they are not available ever, at any time, for any reason. I have literally gotten critical tickets which require me to access the users workstation to fix, while it is logged in as the user, and I could call less than 5 minutes after they create the ticket, and they’re busy. Email them and they have an out of the office message, or reply with something about them being in a meeting (with no information about when they will be free), or simply don’t reply at all. After a few weeks of trying to contact them to connect and resolve their very simple (but “critical”) issue and getting nowhere, close the ticket, only to be met with a flurry of emails from them about how the problem isn’t solved. Immediately call or reply and you get voicemail and silence.

Most of my users do fine, and it’s usually a minority that are troublemakers, and I want to make that clear… But the troublemakers are the driving force for me to find ways to fix pretty much every problem without ever opening their system though remote control. I can do all kinds of things from registry edits and hacks, to writing and scheduling PowerShell scripts to fix their shit every time they log in, and deploy that by a remote PowerShell command prompt, and nothing more.

Yeah William, you might be the c-whatever bullshit, but if the issue is sooo fucking critical, make five goddamned minutes for me to fix your shit or it’s not getting fixed. I don’t care if you own the goddamned planet, I can’t fix your shit without access.

Can we call this out on terminal text editors too? Some just color lines based on their content, and frequently comments end up being blue on black and it’s impossible to read.

This comment describes the options for the next parameter in this config file, but I have no idea what it says, so I guess I’m fucked?

Something we agree on.

Arby’s is great! I need some beef and cheddar all up in here.

No, it’s not top notch. Is anyone else?

Does McDonald’s or burger king make the best burgers? No! Not even close.

You buy that shit because it’s there, not because it’s good. It’s just there and not something you hate. Good enough for Tuesday night I guess.

Always has been

Thanks? I think?

At most, the difference between your experience and mine was that the support I recieved at least understood what IPv6 was, which is likely a function of most of my stories being from business support, rather than residential support.

Almost every time I call I get nowhere. Which is why I’ve given up. Obviously, someone high up in the technical teams is trying to implement IPv6 with very limited success. So I’m just trying to be patient, as they navigate the hellscape of corporate approvals and get things working.

It’s slow going, but at least it’s going.