Asking on Hacker News about your psychological problems is better than ignoring them, so yay. But given the picture you paint, I'd advise you to get in-person

Asking on Hacker News about your psychological problems is better than ignoring them, so yay. But given the picture you paint, I'd advise you to get in-person help of some sort. I'm not a big fan of low cost counseling: most places it's done by interns, who are beginners. If you have access to good counseling, via insurance or ability to pay out of pocket, I'd start there. So often, we are blinded by what we can't see in ourselves, which makes it very difficult to get unstuck via typical self-help books. Another thing to consider: There are all sorts of high-powered processes designed to help you change direction in life, but whether these are suitable for you personally is something only you can know. (Examples include Tony Robbins workshops, The Landmark Forum, the Hoffman Quadrinity process.) Some folks will opine that these are scams (and they certainly don't work for everyone) and others will say they've found them very helpful, if sometimes extremely pricey. YMMV.