It's good to meet you as well @StanD.
Yeah, my username is a lot less interesting than you would think. I do admit it's a good number plate and I've always thought if I ever got personalised plates... MJG017 would be it. It's also my online banking password, but don't tell anyone. 😊
However the idea (let's be generous and call it an idea) behind it is that when I signed up I just used my name, then discovered I couldn't use real names so thinking I would just browse the site for little bit and then probably move on in my search for a good support source for me, I just typed in the old standard. Almost 6 months later, i'm still here, writing small novellas for every reply, and stuck with a username that literally makes no sense as a name and people must have no idea what to call me. I keep thinking I should change it to something more 'namey' but that's just what everyone knows me as now. Like Banksy, but in the form of a part number for a manifold junction gear. You're sorry you used the word 'interesting' now aren't you. 🤔
It seems between the both of us we are using the majority of SANE's character allowance. You're definitely giving me a run for my money, but I know I have it in me to type longer. 😁 The funny thing is, I never mean to type so much... it just... happens. Like toast landing butter-side down. I start with a couple of things I want to say, then explain a little, then think of a couple more and it just builds. I like the way you described it as "my turn to talk". In face to face conversation, especially with a group of people, I tend to just stay quiet and listen. So when I get to type what I want to say, it feels free to say what I want and as much as I want. Plus the safety and confidence of being able to take my time and not have to think of that to say on the spot. That's when ideas like MJG017 as a name comes out!
That is the ultimate relief isn't it. Saying something to someone and discovering that all those things you struggled with all your life, all those things you did that seemed strange compared to everyone else, all those things you thought that you had to keep to yourself because people would be horrified if they knew how different you were... that someone just gets it. That they understand. To finally have a conversation and not spend it explaining yourself... or wishing you could. It's nice to know that you can move straight past all that, when its rare to ever get past it at all.
I guess I got in IT because as a kid I, through necessity, had to find things to do by myself. Playing cricket or footy just feels a bit pointless when it's just yourself with a ball or bat in your hand. A brick wall can be a fine play mate, but it never wants to go anywhere else! So I got into building electronic kits and after high school studied electronic servicing. But i then discovered home computers and it was far more exciting than spending hours soldering little parts onto a board in the hope that when you were done, a couple of lights would blink. So I got into computers. It sort of became the only thing I was good at and so that's was the only sort of work I felt I had a chance at.
But I think you're right. I look back now and yes, I still love my PC and upgrading it and filling it with lights and running the cables where you cant see them, but it doesn't feel important to me anymore. Like it was never my 'calling'. Ever since I was diagnosed with prostate cancer 2 years ago, my outlook changed. Things that felt important weren't anymore. I wish that I had had the confidence early on to pursue something more meaningful. When I first had surgery and other treatments and had all these nurses taking care of me, I thought what an amazing job these people do! What amazing people! Is there a more important job than this? I slowly realised that I wished I had done something like that... helping people when they need it the most.
So, like you said, I don't think I was ever really an IT person, I just found it matched my situation for all those years. It kept me company when there was no one else. I thought I'd learned a lot about computers and electronics and that whole area throughout my life, but I've only just realised I've been studying mental health peer support so intensely from the day I was born, having learned all about rejection before I even took a breath. If you discover a passion and it happens to be something you seem to be eminently qualified for... well, that seems like a direction to look in.
Knowing your time left may be a lot more limited that you thought not that long ago, gives you a new outlook. I felt like I wanted someone to remember me as a good, kind and generous person rather than 'that guy who sat alone in the corner, said nothing and ignored everyone.' No one was ever going to know what I was thinking all those many years. How I wanted to reach out but couldn't or didn't know how. The real me that was kept hidden for 50 years. I wanted some people to know that real me, and I had to make some big changes to do that. Otherwise it would just be me and the cat that knew. Funnily enough it was only getting cancer that pushed me hard enough to start to make those changes. Life does seem to like to play it's little pranks on us!
Hope you're doing well Stan. Let's both do our best to do what we can to try and make life a little less exclusionary.
