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How do I break the cycle of doing and thinking the same things over and over again whenever I come across certain things?
Abridged background:
>be me
>29 years old
>used to work as a programmer
>NEET for the past 3 years, due to clinical depression
>lost my previous programming job because I could not focus AT ALL
I've been trying to get back into programming so I can finally start doing something besides bagging groceries, but I can't get over this problem: every time I sit down in front of a terminal or IDE (for non-programmers reading this: software tools that programmers use to make stuff), I'm paralyzed by the same thoughts that cost me my last job. My brain just slows to a crawl. I look at the shell prompt and am instantly reminded of the MONTHS I (unsuccessfully) spent trying to force my brain to write code despite being incapacitated by depression. I open the 'man' page (i.e. manual) for 'awk' or whatever (more programming tools) and my eyes just glaze over. It's just a bunch of otherwise comprehensible English words that my brain can't make sense of. I can understand the meaning of each word in isolation, but understanding the sentence they comprise is another matter entirely. Just like the previous 9001 times I've tried to do this. And then I'm utterly demoralized, thinking "what's the fucking point of trying this? The next time will be the same."
It's the same with other things too. For example, it takes an inhuman amount of willpower to not fall into the same routine every day, to not mindlessly do the same actions in the same sequence as the last 364 consecutive days. A 4-day vacation last month helped me get out of this rut - but only for about three days after I got back. I eventually fell back into the same rut.
How do I break these thought patterns? How do I destroy my conditioned responses to certain stimuli (e.g. my home's layout, the sight of a *nix terminal, etc.)?
Abridged background:
>be me
>29 years old
>used to work as a programmer
>NEET for the past 3 years, due to clinical depression
>lost my previous programming job because I could not focus AT ALL
I've been trying to get back into programming so I can finally start doing something besides bagging groceries, but I can't get over this problem: every time I sit down in front of a terminal or IDE (for non-programmers reading this: software tools that programmers use to make stuff), I'm paralyzed by the same thoughts that cost me my last job. My brain just slows to a crawl. I look at the shell prompt and am instantly reminded of the MONTHS I (unsuccessfully) spent trying to force my brain to write code despite being incapacitated by depression. I open the 'man' page (i.e. manual) for 'awk' or whatever (more programming tools) and my eyes just glaze over. It's just a bunch of otherwise comprehensible English words that my brain can't make sense of. I can understand the meaning of each word in isolation, but understanding the sentence they comprise is another matter entirely. Just like the previous 9001 times I've tried to do this. And then I'm utterly demoralized, thinking "what's the fucking point of trying this? The next time will be the same."
It's the same with other things too. For example, it takes an inhuman amount of willpower to not fall into the same routine every day, to not mindlessly do the same actions in the same sequence as the last 364 consecutive days. A 4-day vacation last month helped me get out of this rut - but only for about three days after I got back. I eventually fell back into the same rut.
How do I break these thought patterns? How do I destroy my conditioned responses to certain stimuli (e.g. my home's layout, the sight of a *nix terminal, etc.)?
