Mental health isn’t a trendy phrase — it has real, deep impact on people throughout their lives. From my perspective as someone who lives with PTSD, anxiety, and being neurodivergent, I work hard at my mental health every single day since I’ve entered adulthood. From childhood abuse and trauma, to struggling through systemic racism and a plethora of other isms borne from white supremacy, I advocate for my mental health in workplaces, personal relationships, and with family. This often is coded in response with grossly inaccurate words from others. Yet, I refuse to allow my mental health to return me to a place of believing I shouldn’t draw breath.

A lot is blamed on video games, but it’s all about how and why a person plays whatever they play. From my perspective as someone who has always found solace in my video gaming, the negative behaviors, cyberbullying, and hyper-dependence on parasocial relationships are greater with people who don’t know themselves or fail to touch grass every once and awhile. Whether it’s RPGs of The Sims 4, being a gamer since I was a child has made me a better person — rather than a raging sociopath who gets pleasure out of being a d!ck to others.

Ten years ago working in Tech was all the rage. Now, you’re probs among the 180k+ laid off in the industry. From my perspective as someone who has been gainfully employed as well as unemployed multiple times in my career, working in tech doesn’t really live up to the hype associated with it. The massive layoffs aren’t surprising, and hopefully this shifts the elitism and “dream job” mentality associated with the industry, since you can love what you do but you can’t take any job with you 6 feet under. 

Most people should never be managers of other people — it’s not for the emotionally unintelligent. From my perspective as someone who has worked in multiple different organizations, as both a leader and individual contributor, this discussion breaks down to how a manager encourages and supports autonomy and agency among their team; how I have chosen to lead when I was a leader; why other leaders suck, and how fear plays a role in all of it.