Sorry, this is a big vent and probably going to escalate into a huge wall of text about the last few years but I'm having an identity meltdown or something and feel really hopeless about trying again:

I've struggled my whole life jumping between different passions, letting it take over my life to the point of obsession, and then hitting a brick wall and losing all hope only to pick something else up to replace my identity with. For the first time in my life, I don't know how to pick myself up from this again. I guess what it's always boiled down to is that I never really felt like I had a "solid foundation" for who I "am", I was more of a "human doing" over a "human being" - it's like I felt that there was so little "substance" to myself other than neurosis, it's just better to be a conduit of action towards whatever I felt the most passionate about. 

I had different stages, when I was in my early teens I was really heavily involved in academics and didn't have a lot of time to put towards myself - so with what little time I had I really wanted it to be with other people. I learned a couple instruments because I wanted that "group/band" experience - and for the most part succeeded, I played guitar in a small local band and we got to play a few gigs before life got too busy for all of us. Even years later, I would try to go to local meet-ups or music nights but never found another group to jam with - now when I play alone I feel empty, like I can't enjoy it unless I'm collaborating and getting feedback/criticism. I figured my issue was because I was isolated in a small town, so in my late teens and early twenties I shifted my efforts to graphic design/programming - that way, I could collaborate online and still do something "social". I used to enjoy GameJams, and worked for a dev studio outside of my country for a while - probably the most fulfilling job I've ever had. I was homeless for a little while and lost access to my computer/internet, and since then have had little success getting back into the scene - probably just bad luck, but a streak of signing up for GameJams that got abandoned or with really confusing team dynamics sucked out a lot of passion. I tried to apply the skills I gained towards a solo project, but it just felt empty when I had such a great team experience before. Like a nostalgic feeling, but gutting because I know I can't find it again.

Since then I tried to only focus on "solo" passions, that way if I couldn't find others to cooperate with I didn't feel like I was missing out. I don't have much money since losing my ability to function in a workplace, so I made sure that whatever I poured my resources into would be something that I had a spark for. I decided on biohacking, since it was the closest to what I was going to pursue had my university career worked out. I got burned early on when my supplies were held back at the border for review (someone found them "suspicious"), and by the time I received them the cooling packs wore off and most of the biological materials had expired inside the packaging. Hundreds of dollars, non-refundable, wasted because someone at the Canadian border got a little too uppity over what was essentially harmless protein samples and DNA powder. When I finally picked myself up after the slump that resulted from that, it turned out to be impossible to reorder some of the most necessary supplies without ordering through a university - and I gave up again.

But that's okay - I found another passion, and was soon saving up thousands of dollars to build my own EEG for brain-computer interface programs. During the time I spent acquiring funds, I brushed up on programming and self-taught the basics for simple BCI software. I was really excited, because it reminded me of when I got originally got into programming as a teen, and the nostalgia gave me a boost of motivation. After a few months, I had enough money and ordered/assembled the device - it worked flawlessly, but there was a catch. My brain wouldn't calibrate with my software. I would be alright for a few moments (albeit erratic compared to what the guide told me I should be), and then get a HUGE spike of activity in my left-side, followed by it going almost silent, and then super erratic behaviour from my right. Then both hemispheres completely de-synced again, and wouldn't fit within the parameters for the calibration software. I could make the headset, make the software, but my goddamn brain was on the fritz and it was completely outside of my control. I printed the results for my psychiatrist (not for a medical opinion, he was interested in my work and wanted to see my progress) and THAT lead to him booking me into the hospital for a medical EEG - only to find that some damage I had was causing temporal-lobe epileptic seizures, which ended up explaining some of my psychotic symptoms throughout the years. Then they told me that my brain was really dis-regulated, and that it was a sign of PTSD. So hey, I got the diagnosis - but I can't fix my brain, and I can't maintain normal brain function long enough to "calibrate" with my own work. So.

I'm broken. I'm so tired of picking up a new passion only to lose it, it feels like the abandonment that I fear from relationships - this is what I did to AVOID this sort of abandonment. I thought about pursuing machine learning next, but as I'm upgrading my math I get hit with this heavy hopelessness, just: what's the point? I'm never going to afford to finish university, I'm never going to be stable enough to maintain a career in what I'm most passionate about, and sooner or later I'm going to reach a stage where the only way to satisfy my itch of curiosity is to access data and resources far outside of my reach as a non-academic hobbyist. It hurts. Like, emotional pain hurts. I know it sounds stupid but it feels like everything I love "abandons" me in this sense. I'm reaching for anything that gives me that rush I used to feel as an adolescent, but shit - the last time I poured myself into a passion the only thing I got out of it was a diagnosis revealing brain damage. Just. SHIT.

I'm tired of rebuilding my life and identity every time I hit a wall in my passions. I'm so afraid of committing myself to another topic only to have it ripped away from me again. I am NO ONE without some sort of subject to throw myself into, I feel like NOTHING and I HATE myself for lacking a solid foundation of some sort of personality other than what I "do".

Sorry for the life story, I just suck right now.