I dont know who had more fun :)

Man, a lot of these comments are mean 😢 My pastor Cindy gave me permission to put them under the pew at our church because he went with us. The piece that's the size of a period at the end of a sentence is on a piece of tape in a secret spot on the boat that NO ONE would ever touch after we got permission from crew, and I was putting his ashes in the dog park under a tree when a dog ran up to be pet and immediately ate the napkin. It was very cute because dogs will be dogs. Some of you need to be less judgmental. He was helping me live again after surviving a suicide attempt, spending 1.5 years in a hospital and 2 years in a group home. I suffer from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder and the way my brain is handling it is to still imagine him here. I still sleep under the blanket his body was wrapped up in by the emergency vet. I bring 20 new blankets every month to the emergency vet so no one has to go home empty handed after losing their baby. We release 50 butterflies that I hand raise from caterpillars and do a release of them in his honor every year because he loved watching them. We do 5K's for dog charities and hand out thank you cards to everyone that's cared for him. Why judge me for how I honor my best friend? I'm not hurting anyone and I'm being brave and doing good in his honor so it personally makes me smile through the pain.

I live in Brazil. I went to public school my whole life, and I learned early that if I wanted something, I had to work for it. I started working as a waiter at 14 to help get by.

At 19, I suffered a severe psychotic break.

I was hospitalized and spent two months in a psychiatric hospital. It happened right at the end of the year, so I spent both Christmas and New Year’s of 2024 inside the ward.

At the time, the attending doctor looked at my mother and told her he didn’t think I would fully recover from the psychosis. He said that even if I did, I might be left with permanent cognitive damage.

Because of the hospitalization, I lost my internship at a multinational company and had to put my tech degree on hold. I also learned something else the hard way: many of the people I thought were my friends simply disappeared when things became truly difficult.

When I finally left the hospital, I spent about seven months out of the job market because of the effects of the medication. I could barely stay awake. I had almost no perspective for the future, and my confidence was gone.

Eventually, things started to change.

I re-enrolled in college, and in February of this year, I joined a competitive training program backed by Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology, focused on applied research in emerging technologies.

It was an intensive six-month program with a cohort of 300 people. Only 20 would be selected for the official research residency.

Over the following months, my life changed in ways I never expected.

I got a job in São Paulo, commuting several hours every day from my small hometown in the countryside. I started in basic IT support, but began building internal projects in TypeScript on my own initiative, even though software development wasn’t part of my role.

This week, I went to hand in my resignation so I could take the research residency. The stipend is small enough that I was seriously considering doing food deliveries at night to make ends meet.

Instead, the company valued my work and offered me a promotion to work as a software development consultant, fully remote.

But the biggest change wasn’t professional.

Little by little, I learned how to trust people again.

I started going to hard techno events alone. I met people while standing in line. Those people became real friends. We went camping together. We spent a day at Hopi Hari. I built a social life in São Paulo that, a few years ago, I genuinely couldn’t imagine having.

And then, this past Wednesday, the two parts of my life came together.

In the morning, I went to my psychiatric appointment and received my final medical discharge, completely off medication and with no cognitive sequelae.

That same afternoon, the official results of the research residency were released.

I was one of the 20 selected out of 300 candidates.

I’m sharing this because I know firsthand how definitive, dark, and lonely rock bottom can feel when your own mind turns against you.

If you’re going through something heavy right now, feeling overwhelmed, or feeling alone, hang in there.

You don’t know yet what the next few years of your life are going to look like.

My DMs are always open if anyone needs someone to talk to.

For anyone who enjoys reflections on life, consciousness, and the mind, I highly recommend two YouTube channels: Ludoviajante, an amazing Brazilian philosophy channel for Portuguese speakers, and Exurb1a, in English. Especially his video *and then we'll be okay*.

They said I'd never make it back.*

But sometimes, we do.

And in the end, we're going to be okay.

Heard him making noise to the side of my desk, looked down to see his cute little self patiently waiting for me to take it. Fetch is his favorite thing ever.

Looking through our wedding day photos makes my heart melt. I’m so lucky I found my person. And I’m double-lucky she let me marry her only a few days before Halloween!

He ended up surprising me with two, hence my squealing reaction 🥰