Ah, I see. My apologies for misreading. But, alas, I have no magic answers. Except for the fact, I suppose, that there are no magic answer in general, and you may have to do something a bit spectacular if you want out, to prove to those outside that you can function outside. This is where programmers have it easy; it's really easy to get involved in an open source community or something, compared to a lot of the other people who can get stuck in Dilbert-land.