Are your issues with bi-polar and focus self-diagnosed or have you tried some professional help? You need to focus a bit on yourself and apply some fixes. You

Are your issues with bi-polar and focus self-diagnosed or have you tried some professional help? You need to focus a bit on yourself and apply some fixes. You say experience and connections but also talk about too many burned bridges and interviews that seem to suggest that your experience may not be good enough. If you are talking about being burned out it suggests not only some physiological problems but also not feeling like doing it (psychological). If you get low pay and you despise what you're doing maybe try looking for something that you would enjoy? 40 is not end of the world. You can dive into a new thing at 60 and 70 if you keep trying to make some use of your brain. I know that it's all very difficult when you need to keep providing for your family and focusing on them too instead of just being able to take a few months off to try to sort yourself out, but difficult position is where you already are, so what's left is trying to figure out how to get out of it. Only you know your situation well enough, so get an hour of peace, take a piece of paper, think about what you don't like about the place where you are currently and think about solutions that you can implement to help yourself. If you think you can be useful at any job then you need some problem solving skills - start with this problem. Hack around, if you get 1% response to your CV then look at how other CVs look like. Make it more like them. Heck, post a job offer and see what candidates look like. And remember that sleep is super important. Sysadmins job changed a lot. If you are somewhat decent, you already know how to code. So you could try applying as full stack coder instead. And try to look past the age barrier. If they invited you, then the age is not the problem. But if you psychologically despise the fact that some kids interview you, your body will send signals to them about that. Regardless of your competence there will be lack of rapport, poor communication and unwillingness to cooperate. Shit could be worse. Good luck.