The past months at work have been absolutely great and fun. With a bit of a slowdown in projects for customers, I have had plenty of opportunity to work with a couple of colleagues on an internal 'Internet of Targets' (IoT) project originally aimed at measuring temperature and humidity using basic sensors and ESP8266 WiFi-enabled micro-controller boards.
Meanwhile the project has grown a bit, from the initial setup to a system of nodes which communicate via the MQTT protocol, receive firmware updates via Over-the-Air (OTA) updates and obtain their configuration and settings from a central command and control (C&C) server. In addition we stuck a couple of nodes on the coffee machines in the office in order to read out coffee use statistics.
The coming time we'll be refining this system. The past days I have mostly spent on building out the C&C side, making the server more configurable and full-featured and adding a GUI to monitor and control nodes. There are also plans to further automate and control the coffee machines and LED lighting. Last week I wrote a blog post about it on the company blog [1].
I like how this project gives me every chance and motivation to further develop my embedded C++ skills, as well as my electronics and soldering skills. There at the office is the perfect environment for me to develop myself further as I feel comfortable, safe and motivated. Quite in contrast with what's supposed to be my home.
I have let over two weeks worth of paid vacation days from last year lapse this month, simply because I did not want to be stuck at 'home'. I much preferred it to be at work, doing something I like and from which I can learn, to show off at a big event for one of our customers. Every day I loathe or feel terrified of having to head 'home'.
The noises, the rundown parts and the terrible memories make the apartment a place where I go to because it's where my belongings are and have not found anything else yet. I'm terrified of checking the mailbox because it may contain more horrible letters. I had to turn off the speaker on the doorbell because having the delivery guy spam all apartments would freak me out each time.
Meanwhile the hearing in the eviction case draws near. Just a few days to go. Then I have to face the accusation of withholding rent without cause, despite it having been agreed upon right from the beginning without any reason provided why it would have changed. Yet it likely means having to face the accusation of not doing enough to find something better.
If I hate this apartment so much, then why am I still living in it? Cue flashbacks of me spending an entire weekend crying, trying to distract myself with a video and games and cooking while resisting the urge to just use the knife to cut up this worthless body of mine and get it all over with because it hurts so incredibly much inside. Basically how I respond to a disappointing viewing of a new place. Happened twice in the last few months so far. I'm not eager to try that again.
A lot depends on whether the court can understand and accept that a) I did do nothing wrong, and b) I'm not staying in this place because it's in any way a voluntary choice, but for the stupid reality of finding something else being practically impossible.
Talking to others about either renting or buying a place - be it an apartment or house - the response is invariably that it's the wrong choice and even if I picked the 'right' choice, it's still going to be incredibly hard and I just have to keep trying and trying and trying until I get lucky.
Did I mention yet the effect searching for a home has on me, especially the disappointments? 'Stable bad' is what I called my current condition.
Add to this that for the past weeks the normal monthly pains have been ramped up with a severe pain in my right leg as if the bone has been fractured (pretty sure it's not) and a general sensation of pain and numbness in the entire right side of my body. Probably psychosomatic. Oh, and I'll soon be dealing with that new intersex specialist, I think, which would mean digging through my entire medical file, confront many traumas and likely having to undergo multiple medical examinations, whilst travelling around Germany.
It's easy to just think that the entire problem with my life is this body, as it's being stupid, all intersex and such, and it makes me require finding a home, which doesn't exist, just like how there is no medical help to be found for this stupid intersex body. It makes one think that punishing this body, even killing it is an acceptable way to solve the problem, or at least take out my frustration in the form of punching, cutting and otherwise hurting it.
It also makes me hate and distrust people around me. All people want is to hurt me. Ignore me. Abuse me. Profit off me. And whatever the hell it is that doctors want from me. To die, maybe. It feels like some kind of sick psychological experiment that I was born into.
I wish that I could have an actual home. Being a place I'd love to return to without feeling as if I'm headed towards my own execution. I want to feel safe. Not persecuted, hunted and scorned. Yet the past months I have had to honestly question whether such a thing is realistic; whether it's at all possible to get something better than this rundown place within the next years. Part of me just wants to give up on Germany. Move to a place that's less densely populated, somewhere where I may find a home more easily. Somewhere where people aren't making me feel as if I have to die.
Another part of me realises that things cannot possibly that bad, that it's quite unlikely that people are actively trying to kill me. Not directly at all. Ignore my PTSD and push me until something snaps again and I attempt to commit suicide again, sure. I guess that's my main fear with next week's hearing.
I do love it when people seem certain about things. Over the past twelve years I have learned that nothing is certain. I never was a boy despite it supposedly having been a 'fact'. Doctors rarely help people, despite what I learned about them. And so on. What are life's certainties? Just science and technology. The moment you add people to the mix is where things get ugly and unpredictable.
I don't know what I can do with my life to make me feel better. I feel as if I'm completely dependent on others with the medical stuff. Ditto with finding a home. Yet also that both are basically pointless as things simply won't get any better. And I don't know why.
Maybe this is all that I deserve? I really did try for the past twelve years to make things work, but it just didn't.
Just watch me being forced to find a new place within half a year or so or get kicked out of this horrible apartment to live my days out on the streets. That'd really be a fitting ending to a completely screwed up life which exemplifies why it doesn't pay to 'do things the right way'.
Just... meh.
Maya
[1] https://blog.synyx.de/2017/03/visualising-sensors-and-coffee-machines-with-esp8266-mqtt-influxdb-and-grafana/
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