Chereads / A Screen Is Safe / Chapter 3 - A Shut In

Chapter 3 - A Shut In

After my dad died I almost completely shut down, I wasn't able to go to his funeral because I was scared, I was ashamed of myself, I hated myself, I hated that other knew I didn't go. I would cry regularly, I stopped eating well for well over a month, 3 meals with vegetables a day turned into 2 meals, turned into 1 meals, turned into a ramen pack a day. I stopped exercising regularly because I didn't have the energy, I stopped playing card games, I wouldn't showers for days at a time. I was killing myself because the only person that didn't judge anyone was dead. In my eyes, there was no good anymore, the last good man was gone. This went on for months and months with no improvement.

My online friends took notice as well as I became cold and distant, I ignored messages, I talked less and less, discussions because arguments and rants, I shut them out entirely and didn't know why. "you've changed bro, what's wrong with you lately" I didn't know what they meant, why did they care suddenly, why are they judging me, they can't see me, how can they judge me from behind a screen? The stress didn't help any of it until I shut them out completely. It was just me and insurance money to survive on, I knew I couldn't live off insurance for ever either, I stopped playing chess and reading as many books so I could try to find a job. Everyone turned me down though, I explained in every interview that I can't leave my house. "are you sick?" no, I never said that, is that what they think of me? "Do you have some form of agoraphobia?" I've never had it said to me, why would I have it, why do they keep judging me, why ae the judging that I can't leave, why can't they just accept it.

Interview after interview went by 1 turned into 5, 5 turned into 15, I went through business after business. I spent weeks looking online, I got lucky finally after what felt like a thousand attempts, one company emailed me back, "Hello, I'm sorry to hear about your situation be you don't need to leave your home for our company, we can send information on our websites over and get you signed in to our software. As long as you check in on projects and finish any coding work in a reasonable, you should be a perfect fit." I was so happy that I cried, I sat in my chair with my legs to my chest crying that I got an opportunity. It wasn't amazing work, I would be sitting in one place coding and emailing for 10 hours a day, I'd only be making 62k a year, a solid 10k less than my dad but I didn't have a car or anything so I should be saving some money. I was doing something and that's all that mattered.