I know of a structural steel contractor in my area, and their ironworkers have shirts that say “erection specialist”

Sometimes the jokes write themselves

I think something I’ve learned over the years from several harsh breakups and big time abandonment issues, is that the pain you’re feeling is an actual physiological response to the loss of someone you are chemically bonded to. This is old biology at play, older than civilization, older than our species, because apes and various other animals exhibit grief.

There is no easy way out of it. Your brain has to unravel connections that once provided positive happy chemicals from your proximity to that person. It makes sense, oxytocin and other hormones reinforcing pair and family bonding, as they were once critical to survival. You just have to let it hurt, until it doesn’t anymore. It could take a long time, but one day you’ll be at peace with it.

Thanks for this, I’ll definitely dig in further

My solution? Run Linux. If the game won’t run on Linux because of kernel level anticheat bullshit, DRM, or lack of proton support, refund that shit and never purchase a game from that developer again. If they do data collection, and it still runs on Linux, it is my understanding that all they can gather is what the proton compatibility layer feeds them, which is basically fiction. Proton is already tricking the software into thinking it’s running on windows, and is sandboxed from your bare metal system. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The games I already owned before my time with Linux? Whatever. I’ll take the loss. I’ll probably never play PUBG again and I’m fine with that.

I really agree with you about immutables. Not only are they awkward to use as far as managing and installing software, I feel like they prevent people from learning how a traditional Linux system works by keeping them in the padded cell of read only root.

As far as arch, it only really took me a year of fiddling and learning on Fedora and mint before I managed to get arch running. Yes there were hurdles and growing pain, but it made me a better user.

I commented elsewhere about endeavourOS, but I have some other wisdom to pass along.

Keep good backups of your personal files, stuff you don’t want to lose, and don’t be afraid to try something new. You dont like something about how your system is running? Nuke it and install something else. Installing Linux is a cakewalk in most distros and rarely takes longer than half an hour (your mileage may vary with the low specs on the laptop)

I’ve learned a ton about Linux by trying many different distros, breaking things, fixing things, and occasionally distro hopping to see how I like a different offering.

There’s a lot of great content on YouTube that can help you learn, and reviews of various distros so you can get an idea of how things work without having to install it yourself. Have fun and don’t be afraid to fiddle with things.

Absolutely. The desktop environment you go with will be the biggest factor for ram usage. Check out endeavourOS, it’s basically Arch with an easy installer with some basics preinstalled that vanilla arch doesn’t come with. It has a great community and runs like a champ for me. You’ll have to learn how to install software from the command line but a brief YouTube video can help with that. It also has one of the widest selection of desktop environments I’ve seen in a distro. XFCE would likely be your best bet for low ram usage.

Install your software from official repositories and flatpak and you shouldnt have any issues. My latest install has been going strong for about 6 months without issue. Linux in general is quite stable unless you’re mucking about with things you don’t understand, and if you do like to live dangerously in that regard, it’s a great way to learn a lot.

If you’re worried about stability, keep good backups. Back up your important personal files, as well as your config files so you can reapply any customizations you had in place.

If anything happens that’s too tedious to troubleshoot, reinstall, it takes like 20 minutes tops and gets you back to square one.

You could also use time shift to create system snapshots.

I highly recommend Hyprland if you want a truly infinitely customizable UI. But, there’s a big learning curve to even using it, let alone installing it and setting it up.

You could use endeavourOS as your operating system, which is Arch based yet easy to install. I can’t speak to setting up Hyprland on other distros as I haven’t done it, but I’m sure if you look around you’ll find out what you need to know.

This is pretty normal performance, especially for off the shelf range ammunition. Even if you got an 18 or 20 inch bull barrel in a 1:7 twist you likely wouldn’t see better accuracy without running heavier projectiles like 77gr OTM which cost twice as much as 55gr ammo. You’ll also make the rifle way heavier and more difficult to maneuver and manipulate.

The AR platform can be pushed to a lot of interesting extremes, but that was never the point of the platform. It’s a fighting rifle that groups “minute of bad guy”. Treat it as such. You wanna score hits at 800 yards? Get a bolt action chambered in a real rifle chambering and slap some decent glass on it. 308 is an excellent choice because NATO standard, plentiful, cheaper than newer boutique rounds.

I think you can overcome it. It won’t be overnight, but if you give up the drugs and find a community of people living intentionally and trying to improve themselves, you’ll have a lot more tools to live better than you’d have on your own.

I wish you the best of luck. I don’t have much more advice, because it’s all so personal to each individual. If you’re young, sometimes I think it gets easier with age and experience. Therapy, and groups like NA/AA can be really helpful.

A lot of people think NA/AA are just about putting down the booze and drugs, but there’s a lot more to it than that. You’re taking inventory of yourself, and actively trying to be a better and more whole person. Everyone’s walk is different, but it can put you into contact with people that have had the same struggles, people that have seen the same dark places you’ve seen. There’s hope out there and I hope you can find some of it.

For me? It was consequences. Having friends and lovers give up on me because I was a trainwreck. Losing jobs. My life kept getting worse, and I knew I had to stop eventually.

One day I just said enough is enough. I was tired of being mentally and emotionally weak and decided to fight for a better life for myself. I’ve done therapy, but therapy is just supplemental. If you haven’t made the decision to take action and responsibility for your own life, therapy is useless.

The part about preferring mania? Super accurate. During the year or so of dialing in the meds, my wife alternated between numbness and depression, and eventually climbed her way up to “Normal”

She hated normal. I had to explain that this is how life is for everyone else. Sure there’s highs and lows, but not every day is an explosive rollercoaster of emotions, and that’s a good thing. Stay here with me a while and see if you can learn to love it. Well, she did. And life is good. But there really has to be a lightbulb moment where it clicks that life without the meds is chaotic, destructive, and unsustainable.

My wife of 3 years, together 6, I could basically copy and paste your explanation here and it would be 100% true.

We work together making sure the meds are on track, therapy and psych appointments are regular, and she’s a lovely, bustling, fun individual and our relationship couldn’t be better. We have contingency plans in case things go off the rails. I have phone numbers to her care providers for worst case scenarios.

My greatest fear is economic or political turmoil limiting access to meds, because the meds are key.

As someone who lived through depression and abused drugs, in the same way you have been, in the past, I have an important message for you.

The drugs compound and reinforce your depression. The pit gets deeper and darker the longer you languish in it. You won’t have the tools to climb out until you put down the intoxicants.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel. It took me until my mid 30s to stop drinking and drugging myself to death. Plenty of mornings where I probably shouldn’t have woken up from the cocktail I consumed the night before. Six years of sobriety later, and I have a wonderful partner, friends that actually care about me. A career that is stable because I am stable.

I’m not going to beg you not to hurt yourself, it’s your life and you can do what you want with it. But you can choose to be better than this. it is equal parts self-determination, and relying on supportive communities that will help you. If you would like help finding a narcotics anonymous or alcoholics anonymous chapter near you, DM me and I’ll do what I can.

Big 2nd for Fedora. Fedora isn’t Debian stable but isn’t exactly unstable either, and I think having fresher packages in your main repo is worth it.

Is it 2006? I had no idea Abercrombie & Fitch was even remotely relevant anymore.

K

For me, it was always just a good excuse to distro hop and find something new to explore. There have been plenty of problems that I’ve fixed, but when I failed to find the culprit a reinstall only takes about 20 minutes.