Last updated on March 10, 2025
F-Fuc****-Zero. “F0” That’s the code. That’s what I see on the screen of my main mini-split air conditioner as I walk into our living room at 0-dark-thirty this early Saturday morning.
It’s warm in the room, and it’s clear to me the AC unit isn’t cooling properly. I have no fucking idea what code F0 even means. I’ve never seen it before on any of my AC units. I quickly looked up the meaning of this code online, and it’s apparently some kind of coolant related problem. Nothing I can probably fix. Sounds like I’m gonna have to ask for help now.
This is the kind of thing that if I had faced it just a few short years ago, it would have just completely shut me the fuck down. Back then I just didn’t have the mental or emotional bandwidth for these types of things. If I would have encountered something like F0 shit where I didn’t know what it was, or how to make it right it would have represented an unknown intrusion into the very, very fucking, limited amount of personal energy I could summon in a single day just to get through and spend some time with my family and my wife. Forget work. I mean, shit…I would do what I could regarding daily work demands, but I really wasn’t able to focus on much else at this point in my dark deep depression. My household was in basic survival mode.
At that point, I was just trying to survive each day. My wife, Margaret, would normally try to shield me from all of this stuff. She would see something coming and try to get in front of it and block it. Block me from harm and somehow, shielded me somehow from having a face, whatever this was, and it could be something simple as receiving an unexpected tax bill, or I don’t even know seminally small whatever it was. Normal, everyday life things. I just was not able to cope. I was not able to face them. I was not able to even consider any hopeful solution to these challenges at the time due to my veil of deep depression. And so, I would do what I could while I was trying to survive. I would shrink away from the challenges. I would Retreat back into my cave. And I would sleep. Oh, the sweet sleep. At least while sleeping I could escape for a little while. At least until I couldn’t any longer. I would eventually get lonely or hungry enough or have to go to a bathroom that I would be forced to slowly rise, and tentatively leave my cave again in search of connection, relief, and sustenance. I desperately desired connection with somebody. With any fucking thing that wasn’t already within my dark cave of despair. Once anyone saw me coming out of my cave, and they would smile cautiously and encouragingly, but I knew they knew no one had no fucking idea what was about to happen! Not even me. Everyone would try to connect as best we could. I would offer what little energy I could summon at the time. If anything came up while I was outside of my dark cave, I would be forced regretfully to retreat again. Back into my cave, my sleep. I would dream of a time when I might again face all of those F0’s, I time when I could again face difficult tasks and questions. A time when I could once again connect with my family, peers, and friends on healthy terms.
Uh, but that was just a fucking pipe dream for that period. It took something pretty fucking big to eventually draw me out of my dark cave of depression and set me on the difficult path to mental health recovery. This scary motivating force showed up in the form of a fucking tiny, microscopic package. This Covid-19 hand grenade was apparently cooked up in some Wuhan lab, in China. When this grenade blew up in my cave it set whatever small life I had at the time on fire.
I guess now, I have to get out of this burning and fragmented mental and emotional cave of desperation.
I hope I make it. I guess we’ll find out together.