Holy ratfucking christ indeed. Bloody misfortune combo right there.
I can only relate in bits and pieces. I've lived through many years of shitty hospital drama by proxy, live on a comparable budget, and for the longest time I've had to assume relationships weren't for me. Only now I'm well middle-aged I'm seeing some progress on that front. But for someone to match emotionally, they need to apparently be comparably messed up, which means having to manage twice the unmanageable bullshit, heh. But I've lived the monk lifestyle long enough that I'm used to it, by now I would be content to die one. There's an equanimity that sets in after a while, and once acceptance turns it into voluntary celibacy it ceases to be an issue, and even comes with very interesting effects. I imagine lacking the physical sensation below should make adaptation easier, and quicker. It's not what you want to hear, obviously. But it's the message that helped me the most in the end. It's only radical acceptance that can make space for any miracle to occur.. though of course if you only accept it for any potential miracle it's not quite radical acceptance.
Do we remember MXE? Of course we do, what are you talking about?! Incidentally it was during the year deep into MXE that I got these mad ideations of being a brain in a jar, connected to the Internet. No junk? Nice, no distraction from it either. No body to transform my environment? Nice, full focus on inner transformations. No money? Well that one sucks if you're beyond caring too much about harm reduction, but forced tolerance breaks should retain some merit, surely.
Though of course my fantasy didn't include hospital idiocy. Not being in control of one's brain chemistry sucks donkey balls. It comes with some real life social interaction at least, if you happen to be into that.
I've got the sneaking suspicion that the expanded mindstate only will get more important the more AI continues to obsolete vanilla skills. I'm sure your life feels like a joke since you're the one actually living it. But in my opinion it can't be that much of a joke if you're still on the forefront contributing to psychopharmacological knowledge. At least that's how I've often felt about my life all these years.
I've always appreciated, and will continue to appreciate, your presence here.