needadvicebadly

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Quick background: Grew up in an immigrant household with very little in the way of resources, guidance, encouragement. Was enamored by Silicon Valley and tech from a young age, but foolishly followed the family tradition of medicine despite hating it as I felt I had no choice. Went to medical school, dropped out, worked a few odd end gigs for the next couple years, stumbled into a PM role that I was let go from due to performance.

I am now 37 without an impressive educational or professional background, no network of colleagues, no mastery in any one skill, and a whole lot of mental health debt. And yet the child inside of me still wants to pursue the scrappy Silicon Valley tech dream.

Am I deluded? Where do I even begin?

Is this really a case of innovator's dilemma + slow moving megacorp? With all the talent they have?

Had my first job interview in a while and I completely bombed it because I could not provide clear and structured answers. Blanking on words, tripping over myself, rambling along a million different vectors that are all tangentially related to the question being asked.

Every day I'm drowning in depression, anxiety, and fear. No amount of therapy, medication, psychedelics, meditation has put a real dent in the issue. Trying to lose weight, fix my sleep, sharpen my cognitive abilities, in addition to managing a marriage within the context of my emotional instability is a Herculean task I have failed time and time again.

With every failed attempt to correct course, suicide becomes an ever more likely inevitability. At this point, it feels like there is no other option.

I just want to die.

5 years ago, fresh out of college, I co-founded a company with someone I had hardly known. Dumb and naive, I know. In those 5 years, it has been one crisis after another, in large part due to my co-founder's (CEO) poor management, unethical behavior, and irresponsible spending. Time and time again she has manipulated and exploited her relationships (including ours) to her advantage. She has wantonly spent large sums of company funds on personal activities. The culture she's created is more than toxic. Question anything she says, and she'll punish you until you're gone. She's surrounded herself with sycophants.

All this time I've put up with it, for the "sake of the business" and to "protect my reputation" amongst the board and investor community. I feel an intense obligation to stay as a co-founder. But I am burnt out, depressed, filled with anxiety, and have become at times suicidal. There's not a day that goes by where I don't feel as if my co-founder is calculating yet another way to exploit our relationship, or just push me out. I've seen some of the smartest, kindest, and most driven people come through here and ultimately leave, by choice or force, due to their desire to work in an honest and open environment.

My biggest fears with leaving: 1) that my co-founder tarnish my reputation with board/investors as she has done with past employees, 2) that since founding the company, I have not developed meaningfully given all of the chaos, stress, and crises, resulting in a stunted and unmarketable skillset, and 3) that I have no network to rely on as I moved to SF for this opportunity and have spent the past 5 years here giving my all to this company.

I feel stuck, miserable, unmarketable, and it's eating at me every day.

Any advice you may have would be hugely appreciated. Thank you.