Coming from the wild west (ie. being freelance) to a fairly large organisation it's comforting to learn that they only have a *slightly* more organised work flow than I did when I was on my own.

It seems they're only human too, after all! 😃

First day at the new job! Feeling good. 😊

Was approached by a (serious) recruiter and the project they're looking to hire for is a 3 year contract, remote and actually sounds really interesting and right up my alley.

Cue the self doubt.

Scared shitless I won't pass the bog standard PHP skill assessment test.

SHUT UP BRAIN.

Stress made me fall into old habits of instead of saying stop and letting my team now that I was falling apart (not realising it myself even) I just kept saying "Yes, I fix that." to every single request that was made in the project.

The closer we got to the deadline, the more I hyperfocused and ignored the signs. I just kept working. The last two days I didn't even sleep.

Of course the launch botched. I finally broke down and both my mind and my body have given up, since yesterday I'm in a mental feedback loop causing continuous anxiety attacks and migraines. I literally CAN'T do anything but trying to not go back into fight- or flight mode and remember to breathe.

I FINALLY made my project manager aware (something I should have done days ago) that I am incapacitated and now I am waiting for medication (Oxazepam) to be picked up at the pharmacy by my husband.

I almost literally worked myself into the ground.

I've been here before. Never again.

This is what happens if you don't listen to your mind and body and put up a white flag in time.

Not consistently git comitting (and pushing to repo). Sometimes I wonder if I'm in fact a masochist.

My first experience with a computer was inhereting my older brothers Amiga 500. The rest is history!

Spent an entire workday yesterday getting a project out of (unnecessary) dependency hell. Today it's actually still working. Imagine that.

Yes I do find myself quite funny, how so?

Oh, there's a "clear"-button for the notifications.

Thank goodness, I thought I'd have to actually *read* all your posts. Phew, close one.

Is it a domino board? Is it code? It's both!

I'm a freelance web developer and I normally work on small to medium sized websites, 9 out 10 times based on WordPress and 10 out 10 times with a limited budget.

8 out of 10 times the sites content will be updated by someone with at best casual knowledge in website management.

Say what you will about WP but it's my bread and butter and it works great for just these kinds of websites; where the cost is a dealbreaker and the end product should be as user friendly as a standard word processor.

No, you probably wouldn't build a control panel for the next space shuttle or an online bank in WordPress, but I rarely need to concern myself with those kinds of projects so that really doesn't affect me.

Pretty much the same reason I have a Kia car even though I wouldn't win a Formula 1 race with it.

I for one am grateful that there's an open source tool available to my clients that more than adequately meets their needs (that's also fun to work with and build custom solutions on for me as a developer).

Thank goodness I put on my adulting cap and had a talk with my project manager today. He's such a kind and understanding person, truly underestimated qualities.

I'm basically a sub-contractor; a freelance consultant who get jobs from another company (ie my PM) and I messed up the estimate for this project we're working on and I did so in a rather spectacular manner.

60-80 estimated hours are now in the 300:s... I've missed more deadlines in this project alone than I have done in all my career (+10 years) combined. It's bad. It's a complete clusterfuck.

Problem is because of this never-ending project I haven't been able to work on things I can debit since May and I didn't have those margins. I'm fucked financially and I've been so stressed out about that I've literally been loosing sleep over it, found myself ugly-crying in the middle of the night more than once, worrying about how the fuck I'm gonna get on.

In my mind it was a real thing that they wouldn't want to keep working with me after this. Even though the failures in this project isn't _only_ on me, I'm not one to make excuses for myself and I would completely understand if that had been the outcome.

But it wasn't.

Instead he just said he was sorry he wouldn't be able to get all my hours billed by the client (of course not; we've left an estimate and by at least Swedish business law you can't deviate from those simply because you made an incorrect estimation).

But he has no intentions of letting me go as a consultant and assured me there will be other jobs (planned since before this whole ordeal). He's even going to try and get some hours in for me in other projects, small things here and there so I can get some billable hours quickly to help me out.

He knows me and he knows this isn't who I am as a professional. I'm so relieved I could god damn cry.

Roughly 240 hours since May (of which I'm able to bill for 80) and it's still shit. A layer of shit upon a base layer of utter shit topped off with some complete bullshit.

I could really use some encouragement, maybe a cheer or a pad on the back. Anyone?

I hate private API:s. With a vengeance.

Feeling good about myself today because I'm commenting my code.

Not exactly why I bought a split keyboard but ok, whatever works buddy.

Took me way too long to realise what the (annoyingly simple) solution to the problem I was having was.

This is the problem with derailed projects that just feels never ending, you get stupid after a while.

God I hope I can finish this shit up this weekend. I'm so done with this project.

Finally made some progress with the project that has been kicking my ass the past three or so months.

Also finally free from the migraines I've been having the last couple of days. First time in a week I'm not either nauseous, in pain or both.

Now I'm going to make grilled cheese sandwiches and watch some true crime youtube.

It's made it possible for me to be self-employed and work from home, which for an introvert with bipolar disorder is the difference between working for a living or being on disability.

I'm telling you, the spider on the door frame to my office just now was THIS BIG.

I'm not ok. Not at all.

When the anxiety has made your brain stop working and the procrastination has been going strong for three days already. Yeehaw, motherfuckers.

Thinking of getting one of those keyboards that are split in two. (Yes, I will get both pieces. Harr harr.)

I so deeply wish I was able to stick to a (not unhealthy) routine in my everyday life.

Today my therapist suggested I work towards one day getting back the will and energy to start coding side projects, just for the fun of it.

That was a long, long time since I had the ability to do. Maybe I can get back to feeling that much in control that I can let work go for a day or two each week and just... Have fun coding. What a mind-boggling thought.

I really need to go back to school and brush up on the basics this summer. The problem with being self-taught is that you have glaring big gaps in just that, the basics, and as the projects get more complicated it really starts to show.

Sure I get The Thing done but... I'd die if anyone saw the code behind it.

Getting one of those posture correcting vests was a stroke of genius.

I have decided that today is going to be a good day.

git merge master && deploy

Today's the day, I'm learning how to use Docker for local web development. It only took ~4 years to get the gumption.

Is it mysequel or my sql?