An update for those who care: the situation I've been facing has now indeed manifested, and I'll be reducing my involvement with VP for an unknown amount of time to focus on dealing with it.
However, as I've recently discovered, it did so:
- Over 3 months later than it could have; this window of delay allowed me to finish 4UC work and VP Congress proposals, along with a large code cleanup, allowing me to exit on a positive note.
- In a way that will be far less disruptive to my immediate future than I was fearing.
- (crucially) In a way that poses far less of a threat to my longterm future than I was fearing. This means the odds of my being completely unable to return for years or suffering atrocious longterm consequences, while still not zero, have dropped greatly. This is due to having better information about the nature of what I was facing that I didn't have months ago.
I've also secured a low-interest loan for the ungodly sum of money I'll be potentially borrowing, and the prospects of getting that money back are actually not half bad either.
It's still a horrible and insane situation, but out of the various possible outcomes/timelines where my fears did manifest, this is among the milder versions, and with how seriously I'm taking battling this problem, there's actually a good chance I will emerge victorious in the end. Fingers crossed!
