I don’t know if this sub is the right place for this but I’m feeling pretty awful and need to vent.
For some context I’m 45, am a creative lead at a AAA game studio, make about $200k in salary and bonuses annually and have great benefits. On top of it all I have a beautiful family with a lovely wife, and two awesome kids.
And I’m miserable.
I know lots of you are really hurting and I hope this post doesn’t come off as patronizing or diminishing the very real pain you all feel. I don’t know your exact struggle, but I grew up pretty poor so I know what it feels like to go to bed hungry. I also deeply appreciate you and this sub and I wanted to express my solidarity with you all – life is fucking hard. Even if you get out of poverty, it’s still a grind.
My life, all I’ve built up, is one misstep, one accident from destruction. I live in fear of losing my job, game development being both volatile and cutthroat. In my line of work, it’s very easy to make enemies. No matter what I do I always seem to.
My closest friend at the company applied for a job I was the hiring manager for, didn’t get the position, and is now out to hurt me. He is well trusted and liked and had previously led another department, which he’s successfully turned against me. An entire fucking department, people whom I’d previously considered friends no longer make eye contact with me.
Maybe I deserve it, for sure I’m flawed, but god dammit, I’m just trying treat others respectfully and with empathy and to do my best to support the team I lead. I sincerely want them to thrive and feel fulfilled with their work. Even my fucking friend – I just want him to be successful and happy, but I didn’t support that in the way he wanted so fuck me and my family I guess.
After almost 20 years making games I can’t do any of it well enough, this rat race shit. No matter how much I attempt to do right by the people around me I fail. After 4 years at my current job, I feel like the walls are closing in on me and it’s only a matter of time before I’m forced out or sidelined into obscurity.
This all must seem pretty petty. But what it comes down to is that we’re all on the knifes edge. The garrote of homelessness, starvation, mental & emotional breakdown, and death is around my neck too, tho more loosely than most folks. But ultimately as an American It’s inescapable. There’s no safety net in this fucking country. I can’t even afford a studio apartment on unemployment and cobra would absolutely shred my savings.
As I get older my options diminish and I’m getting so fucking tired. I’m tired all the time. The faux kindness and friendship, the dog-eat-dog, day in and day out, pushing, striving, strategizing, is too much for me. I don’t want to fight with people or have control over them. I just want to be alive and to enjoy my family. For the life of me I have no clue how to achieve that.