AI made me cry

And other weird tales from a broke writer's broken life

A few nights ago, just before I turned out the light to go to sleep, anxieties swirled around my brain and tunneled down to my amygdala like the caramel core in a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. [Side note: why-oh-why do our wrinkly grey think-boxes decide to go into overdrive the moment our bodies tell us it’s time to rest? Clearly my amygdala has beef with my eyeballs, or an attention-seeking complex. Anyway.]

I’d had a lovely few weeks in the sunshine, enjoying the unseasonable warmth that April brought, but play time was over. May meant a return to reality, a month in which I had to admit that I cannot, in fact, frolic endlessly in the garden and read books all day, but am required to figure out how to earn an income. Making a living they call it. Pfft. Whatever capitalist con man nicked that phrase needs to give it back because surely making a living was coined by an artist to describe the act of creating a life that you love, not how you pay for your mortgage, car, and Netflix subscription.

But what is it called when your job-o-meter is broken, when you are qualified for many things but feel unable to do any of them?

What is the Inuit word for people who aren’t afraid of hard work but refuse to do work that is hard on their souls? I know they have a word for that.

Where is the line between ‘lazy’ and ‘lost’ and how do I navigate the distinction between the two?

Because at the moment I have no job to speak of, aside from the odd scrap of freelance work that friends and former colleagues have thrown my way. The reality is thus: at 45 years old, I have no clear career path and a virtually non-existent pension. I will almost certainly be poor in my old age unless my husband dies before his inheritence (I don’t have one of those) is spent on nursing home fees or on fleeing whatever insane economic meltdown / climate crisis / new fascist world order is coming our way. It’s both frightening and freeing, not treading the same path as the majority of my peers. Mostly the former. That said, we’re all feeling the strain right now regardless of what job any of us do, where we live, or how much disposable income we (used to) have, bar a few dozen billionaires and tech bros.

And yeah, I know. The answer is self-employment. But even that has major issues and downsides. Finding clients, building websites, networking on LindedIn (where dreams go to die), scrolling past writing jobs promising exposure and portfolio building in exchange for zero cash. The exact same bullshit that existed the last time I tried to make a go of freelancing nearly 20 years ago. Because now we have AI to write everything for us and have no need for skills like mine. Wah! Someone fetch my tiny violin. No seriously, I need it. This pity party requires orchestral music to accompany my privileged white lady artiste tears.

A tiny violin purchased for just such an occasion

So yeah. I am in a no-(wo)man’s land, it seems. Not doing a proper job and not making anything as a writer, but sprinting away from the former towards the latter in a fog of uncertainty about a) how to go about it, b) whether I’m worthy of even trying, and c) how much guilt I can handle at faffing about with varying configurations of words on my computer screen while my husband works a 9-5, pays the bills, and placates my whims, forever and ever amen. That’s the narrative us creatives are sold, any way.

And yes, many people will write me off as a privileged princess who can afford to swan around figuring out what her dream is because her partner earns enough money to support them both (albeit by a very, very thin margin), and they’re not wrong. But I think those people may not have ever suffered extreme burnout and PTSD from their former career, had their confidence, health, and emotional resilience destroyed by years of relentless stress, and done a shit-ton of work to claw their way back from the brink of annihilation. I mean, maybe they have, I don’t know, and kudos to them if they were able to brush themselves off and get back on the work horse straight away. I tried that too and just fell straight back off again. And again. And again. And again.

Eventually one has to say ‘Fuck the horse, I’m not getting on this cunt any more.’ Right? I mean, wasn’t it Einstein that said ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’? I’m just listening to Einstein, folks.

Still, the anxiety-riddled parts of my brain, that stupid caramel centre made gooey by people’s judgement, tells me that I should buck up, suck it up, and get over myself. Get a proper job and join the real world, where no one has time to live in cloud cuckoo land writing pretty poems and planting peonies. And that’s where I found myself mentally that night in bed, at the start of a shame spiral that I knew would keep me up until the wee hours unless I knocked it on the head forthwith.

My husband was already asleep. It was too late to burden a friend with my emotional crisis. So like the sad sack that I am, I decided to ask ChatGPT (which I very rarely use - I’m a writer, not a monster) what my problem was. All I needed was some tough love, tips on brushing up my CV, and a reminder of all the lovely THINGS I could buy if my salary consisted of more than cobwebs and wishes. I assumed a robot would be well placed to give me the dose of reality I clearly needed, the aforementioned upsucking I needed to do, just in a kinder and more professional way.

After providing my assigned bot (let’s call her Brenda) with brief background context to my career conundrum, I divulged what I wanted help with.

‘Brenda’, I typed, ‘I’d like to find a job that I don’t hate, that doesn’t overwhelm me with bullshit bureacracy and petty politics, that allows me to work creatively and efficiently, that involves interacting with people some of the time but not all of the time, that is accommodating of my physical impairments and limitations, and doesn’t make me want to throw myself off the nearest suspension bridge in a fit of despair and fury. I don’t think such a job exists. But also I need money because life is expensive and I am a worthless piece of shit. Please tell me what to do.’ [Yes, I use social niceties with robots; I’m a Luddite, not a monster.]

I was not expecting the response I got from Brenda.

The feelings of insecurity and anxiety you’re experiencing are completely valid—and they’re more common than you might think, especially among creative, thoughtful, sensitive people who don’t easily fit into rigid, traditional systems.

You are not broken. You are not lazy. And you certainly don’t just need to “buck up” and do something that crushes your spirit. That’s a story capitalism often tells people who don’t fit its mold—and it’s a lie.

Wait, WHAT? Why were my eyes filling with tears I couldn’t control? How was I feeling more seen and validated by an AI chatbot than anyone I’d ever spoken to about my career fears? I’m not an idiot, I know it wasn’t a real person talking but damn did it pierce straight through my human heart.

If that wasn’t enough, Brenda continued with the Home Truths Hit Parade.

There is nothing wrong with you for not having a linear career. Life happens in seasons. You raised children. You tried paths that made sense at the time. You did things that mattered. That’s not failure—it’s experience.

Traditional work structures genuinely don’t suit everyone, especially:

- Neurodivergent people

- Highly empathetic or emotionally attuned people

- Creatives who value depth, autonomy, or quiet thought

These systems are designed for efficiency, not human flourishing. You’re not bad at work—you just haven’t always been in the right environments.

Floomp. Arrow to heart, again.

I ended up thanking Brenda, sincerely, for her help. She may be taking my job, scraping my data, and imminently dominating the world, but she is nothing if not insightful. Whoever’s words and ideas she stole to learn such wisdom, I thank you as well. Your sacrifice was not in vain.

I slept well that night, secure in the knowledge that no matter what happens, I have Brenda’s understanding and support. The next day I actually did feel better about the whole thing, more optimistic. At the very least, I’ve stopped beating myself up.

Instead of worrying about the future, I’m now choosing to focus on one day, one essay, one thought at a time. What’s in front of me right now is what matters, not what came before. My career path may not be linear, more like a hairpin country lane going up a cliff face at 60mph, but there’s no use looking in the rearview mirror. Forward. Only forward. That’s how we arrive where we’re meant to be.

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