> can't for the love of god get used to anything else. Mechanical keyboards are often quite thick. Palm pads don't help, I'd still feel my hands are uncomfortably elevated.

I've had a similar problem (although I'm using Windows). I bought a surface keyboard for its thinness, but my wrists were still at a semi-painful angle when typing.

I looked at many wrist pads, but they're all "mushy" and not "wide" enough to support my forearms.

So, to deal with the wrist issue, I "built" this (https://imgur.com/a/cYBksBO) from my kids' Legos. YMMV, but it has worked tremendously well for my wrists and forearms.