8 ms·

I recently left a stressful job after developing shingles and then celiac disease. My life is much worse now, I went into that job healthy and strong and now I'

I recently left a stressful job after developing shingles and then celiac disease. My life is much worse now, I went into that job healthy and strong and now I'm sick all the time. Perhaps celaic disease was always in the genetic cards for me, or maybe the stress triggered it? The worst part is the job wasn't especially bad, it was a reasonable job, and I can expect my next job to have similar stress I think. What am I going to do? I'm always amazed at the change in perspective after being in a job for a while. While unemployed, I feel competent, I make progress on hard problems nobody else in the world is working on, and I feel good. While employed, stupid crap stresses me constantly, I can't leave the stress at work, I bring it home, I obsess about social hierarchies that can vanish in an instant. Everytime I've left a job I'm amazed that after just a couple days I can barely remember what I was working on before and what stressed me, like my brain knows all of that no longer matters and let's it go in an instant. How can I keep a healthy outside perspective while remaining employed? How do I avoid becoming mentally trapped in the workplace mindset? I've been giving this a lot of thought, but no answers so far.

Icathian 4y ago
Go to therapy. Seriously. Helping you work through your mind not doing what you want is literally their profession. I've found it incredibly helpful multiple times throughout my life, for lots of things vaguely similar to this.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  I asked a psychiatrist friend of mine what they do when someone shows up depressed for reasons that are totally reasonable. She said they try to use drugs and therapy to generate some minor delusions that would help the person feel better in their environment. Maybe OP is just having the reasonable response to corporate work and the rest of us are deluded. But yeah, talking to therapists is like a cheat code OP. You'll feel better. But you might just be having a totally rational experience. Edit: since this seems to be the wrong place to have this conversation (my mistake), I'd like to emphasize that my point is that you should seek therapy as it was suggested OP, but also to commiserate that offices are often horrible experiences.
  - diag 4y ago
    Calling what therapy does as "creating delusions" helps nobody. Therapy offers a number of tools that helps a person get grounded in reality, helps a person create boundaries, and helps strengthen a person's abilities to deal with their life stresses by creating the framework to either deal with them or help move on to a new environment that doesn't create as much stress. Not all therapists are good. If you try somebody and don't connect or trust them, try to find somebody else. Internalizing stress really destroys the body, and it's important to find somebody you trust to help process it.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Really? It helped me. It was nice for me to have someone else acknowledge that the emperor was in fact naked. The emperor transparent clothes in this situation was the suggestion that offices aren't horrible places to be. Take the IBM book of songs, for example. I would like to emphasize that I agree with you (and my original comment): Therapy is a cheat code! It will make your life immeasurably better. Everyone should do it!
      - agumonkey 4y ago
        No need to fight, I think both of you are right. Some people can get stuck into painful context or interpretations, in which case some therapy trick can help get out of the pit. That said if you discuss high level sociology you often end up in the "what a massive soup of chaos" too.
      - ineedasername 4y ago
        If the emperor is in fact naked, then you're not deluded in believing that. I'm confused by the use of that term in this way.
        fartcannon 4y ago
        Yeah. I can't write in my own first language. Forgive me. Let me try again: The emperor is actually naked (offices are bad), but for various reasons people say the emperor is not naked (offices aren't bad). Does that help? I need help, clearly.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Sometimes it helps to use a Linter. And a debugger. Even on yourself.
  - throwaway6532 4y ago
    Turns out I'm covered in lint and basically a walking fire hazard.
kevingadd 4y ago
It can help a lot to find ways to compartmentalize your work. It also helps to have ongoing appointments with therapists or other experts who can help you keep an eye on your symptoms to figure out whether anything is starting to go wrong - keeping a journal etc may help you keep things under control. For me there were some really obvious signs early in my career that I didn't recognize until much later when they led to diagnosis (and mostly successful treatment) of chronic illness - it's easy to assume that things in your workplace are bad because they have to be. Bringing the stress home is definitely a tough thing. I don't have any answers for you on that. It might help to try and find work you're good at but don't care about, oddly enough, but that poses its own challenges.
breakfastduck 4y ago
- fsociety 4y ago
  They never said anything about those unemployed without savings. I grew up in a poor family and am always disappointed with this take. Everyone is allowed to share their stresses and try to learn how to deal with it from others.
- alimov 4y ago
  What is the purpose of your comment? They are simply sharing their own experience and asking for advice. You don’t know anything about them, but are dropping in to tell them they are privileged… How is that related to anything they said?
- dgreensp 4y ago
  Having a toxic job is not a sign of extreme privilege. Nor is facing a trade-off between having income and taking care of one’s mental or physical health.
bg24 4y ago
I wonder how we classify lot of things as "it's in the mind". My life (eg. family) is already destroyed because of environment. Stress adds up to the damage. Do not rule out: lyme and other diseases - it is hard to detect those and try bandaid treatments for symptoms. Mold issues in the home/work/car - again this is sickening. When you have a weak immune systems, you get affected with some of the daemonic disease, and then EMF, stress etc. wreaks havoc on your body. Yes, you can CONTROL stress and EMF exposures - and reduce the impact on your body.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  It must really suck to live on planet earth with its giant magnetic field.
  - mmh0000 4y ago
    This is why you should always wear a crystal. The crystal will adsorb the latent EMF and harmonize you with Gia. Also consider a negative-ion bracelet and sleeping with your head pointing north which will alleviate any remaining symptoms of EMF. /s
  - 4e530344963049 4y ago
    Mars doesn't have one...
- anonuser123456 4y ago
  You sound like you might have a somatoform disorder.
sometimeshuman 4y ago
What worked for me past years is having a vision for the money earned at work. My vision is time/energy/financial independence and I do that by buying income paying assets (e.g., rental properties), running a small business, and being contractor so I have a say in the number of hours I work. What didn't work for me is buying a fancy car, expensive shoes, semi-luxury remodels of my home, etc. -- those were just net negatives like a drug that keeps life bearable just a little longer. Frankly I suspect _needing_ those things are often a symptom of not being content with your life. It's been said "a why to live can bear almost any how". The problem in your case is that the stress can make your precarious health situation worse. But maybe the why > how mitigates stress ? It did in my case. Sorry and thanks for sharing. Anyone of us can go from good to poor health so it is worth contemplating your situation.
dr_monster 4y ago
I also developed celiac disease recently - it is tough to deal with. Since diagnosis, meal planning, shopping and cooking have become tasks that require a lot of mental energy. Normal things like going out to a show or commuting to work are logistically difficult when you’re unable to eat at any restaurants. I am trying to get a WFH job to curb some of this difficulty. Good luck with everything.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  If it makes you feel any better my wife has celiac and it gets easier with time. Eventually you get pretty familiar with things and figure out where is good and where isn't. We mostly do GF in our family cause it's easier to just do GF than try and mix and match. Also I hope you like Mexican food corn tortillas and chips are a life saver.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Sadly chain restaurants are your friend now. PF Chang's has never poisoned me with their gluten free. Red Robin's are pretty good about their gluten free but ask them and make sure they know you are actually celiac, the waitress will normally tell you if the place is safe for celiac or just kind of 'gluten free'. Make sure they have a dedicated fryer for their frys, the whole swapping it out is not good enough for celiacs. No other chains have been consistently safe enough 'gluten free' to risk on a business trip for me. Big surprise is the Thai places around me don't have gluten in their soy sauce so they are safe if you order smart/tip well enough that they make sure not to cross contaminate, so you might check with them to see if they will let you look at their soy sauce label, but obviously don't try out places like that on work trips. 'The sickness' in a hotel with jet lag and having to be 'on' to meet clients sucks. Be careful with things you think are safe. Tortilla chips can have too much cross contamination so experiment when it's safe to 'get the sickness' and find what works for you. When my daughter and I were first diagnosed we couldn't drink coke because the carmel color supposedly had gluten. Some craft rootbeers/dark sodas still have the 'bad' natural color not the 'good' artificial one. Another tricky one that got me a lot until I figured it out, red wine can use a wheat paste to seal the barrels. So cheap steel aged reds only. Red wine is the only thing that gets cheaper when you go gluten free :)
kerblang 4y ago
It sounds like you're talking about social stress as much as anything else?
mescaline 4y ago
Eating habits can change with stress. If I eat certain types of wheat, my back hurts. I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy that came back normal, but I had some inflammation spots in my stomach, likely due to consuming some bad wheat or something else. These changes can come about from the state of gut biomes. Cleaning up my eating habits and consuming probiotics seems to have helped a lot. I can eat limited amounts of gluten now without my back hurting, or my stomach complaining about it. I still struggle with cravings of sugar and cream at times, especially when I'm fighting depressive events. Eating things the body craves is an easy out. It's limiting those actions with mind, when it is not so healthy, that challenge many of us.
- protomyth 4y ago
  Not sure what its called, but there is a test you can get your doctor to do that checks what foods you shouldn't eat. Sister-in-law took it and discovered soy was not good for her along with some other products she ate. Really helped with avoid food related problems.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Nowadays many plants, including barley and soybeans, are sprayed with round-up two weeks before harvest so they will dry in the field. Of course the round-up is not rinsed off, because that would defeat the purpose. It is unknown what effect consuming that much round-up has on people, but the effects we know about are not good.
  - metadat 4y ago
    ncmncm, do you have a citation for the harvest claims?
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Farmer relatives.
    - stefantalpalaru 4y ago
      > do you have a citation for the harvest claims? https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/managing-wheat-harvest https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation
debug-desperado 4y ago
Social stress gave me a case of the shingles once in my twenties. It didn't make much sense to me at the time, but for some reason being stressed out about buying a bunch of Christmas gifts late in the season caused it to happen!
- nostrademons 4y ago
  Shingles is very commonly brought on by stress. It's latent chickenpox virus, which is usually kept in check by the immune system, but stress depresses immune response. I had a coworker who developed shingles as we were nearing the deadline on a project that had all sorts of problems in layers of the stack we didn't control, and my sister developed shingles after being laid off. The first thing I associate with that disease is stress.
agumonkey 4y ago
I felt this way after leaving an absurdly toxic place[0]. Anything felt more productive. Even lifting weight felt like a torrent of meaning. But I'm not sure this freedom lasts on your own. It seems reactionary after being pressured into something that hurt you. After 1 month where I did 3h of sport daily and read books, my motivation crashed. Be prepared in case that happens. Find people with better view on life, better sense of workplace sanity. This (IMO) is better long term. Unless you manage to monetize your standalone problem solving skills (freelancing might be a good option for you too). Take care. [0] I had a string of bad luck regarding jobs, and I hated the whole work concept, but I got lucky and found a new place which is peaceful and interesting enough. Maybe you can find something like that.
barelysapient 4y ago
Consider taking up contracting. You pick the clients, set your own hours, manage your own deadlines and only take on as much as you want. Its helped me tremendously manage my mental health.
- convolvatron 4y ago
  I certainly agree that it gives you a much broader sense of agency. especially when you get to the point you can fire clients for just not being good to work with (generally wanting the final results but not wanting to put in the organizational effort) it can have the opposite effect on the down times. no one is looking after you to make sure to make rent, and alot of engineers don't have the kind of training or personality that lends to cold calling. at least I don't...I can't even imagine what that would look like for systems programmers - "oh hi, I'm just calling to see if you need any device drivers written". ".......uh..."
  - gilmore606 4y ago
    You don't cold call, you hook up with a small agency, who also doesn't cold call. They are plugged into the VC network; when some startup needs outside technical help, they ask their VC to find someone. Your agency gets those calls. There are many of these small agencies focusing on different parts of the software ecosystem, the trick being to find them.
beauzero 4y ago
For me it was moving to the rural South and buying a farm. Animals die if I don't feed or water them. It gives me a daily reset. That and I took a job that I feel ethically pushed to do for my 8-5. Just what worked for me. I hope you find your "place".
bitexploder 4y ago
Ya, therapy. But, short answer, stoicism / CBT, at least narrowly. Focus on what you can control. Check out the dichotomy of control. Do your best to be a positive influence. Give your work what is fair, but no more. Work is for earning slavery units to live life. Everything outside of work is your actual life. Create hard edged barriers between work and not work. Develop and foster deep hobbies you enjoy. This takes effort. I would suggest they not be computer based hobbies.
- pikuseru 4y ago
  Hope you don’t mind but I’ve copied this So I can refer back to it ;)
  - bitexploder 4y ago
    Be my guest. I am an older (41) but have been in tech since 1998, my first job was a local tech shop writing apps in ColdFusion…I built software for a long time before going into cybersecurity. My hobbies and interests have changed, but having that switch you can flip and just transport yourself completely to something else is amazing. It helps you have perspective and not let work stuff become your whole universe. Even the author of this article fell into that trap IMO. Of course the whole article was about them recognizing it. They felt their work was super important and let it slowly eat their life. You get so invested in promotions and grinding things out, making projects look good for promotions. It is all toxic as heck. Like, when you see that happening just, stop. Who knows what will happen, but at least you won’t lose yourself. You may not get promoted as fast, but on a difficult project being eaten by politics that is likely anyway, our own heroics can’t overcome inertia like that. Work isn’t worth it. Do right by the project, but just stop caring about it so much. Sorry, older tech survivor rant over. But, yeah, take care of yourselves, the golden FAANG chains aren’t worth your health :)
cossatot 4y ago
While unemployed, I feel competent, I make progress on hard problems nobody else in the world is working on, and I feel good. If those problems are important, is there a way to work on them for pay? Like through a nonprofit, for example?
- Buttons840 4y ago
  Good idea, but he stuff I work on it just for fun, and not as important as I made it sound. My point was that I'm competent and motivated, but stress from work encroaches on that and ruins it.
ROTMetro 4y ago
As someone whose work imbalances led him from a software development manager to years of prison, here's what years of alone time to think about things led me to (probably just the ravings of someone gone insane but it feels good to share): 1. Truly take the time to realize that your life is valuable and worth prioritizing. Somehow my only identity morphed into filling the 'superman' roll at work and successful executive at home. If I hadn't saved the company from X or performed some herculean feat I had no worth at work. If I didn't get the next promotion I had no worth at home. But guess what? I had huge worth as a husband and especially as a father, and I sacrificed that because I couldn't see it. You are valuable. You have worth. You are worthy of love. And hopefully, if you are in the right place, you are loved. Being superman/the wonder kid at work/the executive big dog so your wife can show off to the Joneses does not define you. And eventually you age out of the wonder kid role or just actually break in the superman role because, sorry, none of us are superman. And all that fancy stuff? In 10 years its all outdated and you either need to throw it away and replace it or you are too uncool to be one of the cool kids. 2. Find a mentor. Someone who has been through it, who knows what's BS and what isn't, and can help you with what's important. My healthiest work environments were when I had a mentor. One of the most valuable things a mentor always reminded me of when I was deep into an 80 hour week fighting fires. No one is going to die because of this, and no one is going to remember it in 5 years. That and a manager's job is to provide his team the tools they need to do their job, not make his employees tools to do his. 3. Find a community. Relating back to step one, it helps us to value ourselves when we see others valuing us. If you can't find any other, go to an addiction group. You are an addict, maybe in search of an addiction at this point because your character is still holding out, but if you continue this path and haven't already you WILL find your addiction sooner or later. 4. Do not let others tear you down. I had a horrible relationship with my ex-wife. Instead of working to fix it I put tons of energy into going to court in my head why I was right, she was wrong and horrible. Tons of energy into why she was right to think I was a total piece of shit and falsely think I was not worthy of love (see 1 above). Tons of energy into why I deserved a treat/reward for all the hard work I did that no one properly gave me recognition for and deserved, and secretly rewarding myself in the most destructive of ways. At the time I hated my wife. I'm not sure it could be fixed looking back, but I would give anything to go back and put the energy into that relationship that I put into stupid work projects and addiction. Instead the mother of my children, the woman who picked me forever, my best friend from high school on, with whom I shared every major life event, will never talk to me again. A lifetime of memories I don't get to share with her. Family vacation memories. The first time we ordered lemon light at Takara's and remember how good it used to be. Never again a 'dad will you make your amazing ribs this weekend?'. 5. If you have a family, make sure to have a worry tree in your front yard. After a crap work day, after a 1.5 hour commute (I'm oldschool from when people still went to work in the office, you spoiled kids these days!), before going into the house, I paused and left my worries at the worry tree to be picked up in the morning, and went into the house leaving work behind and myself ready to be present for my kids when I opened that door and they ran up screaming excitedly 'daddy's home' :'( When we moved I didn't setup a new worry tree routine and I that is one of my biggest regrets. So many lost evenings because I came home in a shit attitude. 6. Don't white knuckle through life. Ask for help. Ask for help at work. Ask for help at home. Ask for help from a mentor. Ask for help from friends. Definitely don't keep track of all the times you didn't get help/what you wanted in your head. If you didn't ask for it, it's on you. If you keep track of it in your head, you are just wasting energy/brain power. You can't judge people on not helping/appreciating you if you don't show them what you need. No one is going to fix this for you. No one is going to say 'wow, Bob's really deserves a break/help/affection' unless you are lucky enough to have amazing people around you. Ask for a break. Ask for help. Ask for affection. Find enough self worth somehow to know you are worthy of all of those things! If work doesn't respect that, leave. They are a zombie company and will suck you dry. I gave 15 years to a company in a field that I felt made a difference. Made them millions. Signed over patents. Impacted hundreds of thousand of people lives in a positive way. In the end I was worth 2 weeks notice. And nothing I ever did mattered when I was left so broken I utterly and completely failed my children and wife. Sorry for my rant. I have a mens 'stop being a shitty person' group tonight where it is my night to talk about my story, so I have been thinking about this stuff today and just kind of threw up all over this reply. I apologize for the word vomit.
jasfi 4y ago
While not a cure-all, try Ashwaghanda. It lowers cortisol levels. > How do I avoid becoming mentally trapped in the workplace mindset? Think about starting your own business, or at least find a job where you have a greater degree of freedom, or perhaps where you feel you have more of an impact.
dataangel 4y ago
how was your celiac disease diagnosed?
kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 4y ago
The elephant in the room is that the vast majority of people who are coping are supporting a family, usually with kids, or are at some age-appropriate stage on that track. The stupid crap and social hierarchies at work are trivialities, obstacles to be overcome and then forgotten. People raising families are often swimming in an ocean of oxytocin and existential fulfillment giving them huge mental and emotional boosts. I'm pointing this out in case you're endlessly ruminating on what is wrong with you, why can't you just buckle down and deal, whatever, and you're coming home to an empty apartment and Netflix year after year. That's missing the big picture. I'm not saying you should start a family if you don't have one. Maybe you can't or won't, in which case, be gentle with yourself and make sure that you are taking the whole picture into account when you compare yourself with others.

Icathian 4y ago

Go to therapy. Seriously. Helping you work through your mind not doing what you want is literally their profession. I've found it incredibly helpful multiple times throughout my life, for lots of things vaguely similar to this.

fartcannon 4y ago
I asked a psychiatrist friend of mine what they do when someone shows up depressed for reasons that are totally reasonable. She said they try to use drugs and therapy to generate some minor delusions that would help the person feel better in their environment. Maybe OP is just having the reasonable response to corporate work and the rest of us are deluded. But yeah, talking to therapists is like a cheat code OP. You'll feel better. But you might just be having a totally rational experience. Edit: since this seems to be the wrong place to have this conversation (my mistake), I'd like to emphasize that my point is that you should seek therapy as it was suggested OP, but also to commiserate that offices are often horrible experiences.
- diag 4y ago
  Calling what therapy does as "creating delusions" helps nobody. Therapy offers a number of tools that helps a person get grounded in reality, helps a person create boundaries, and helps strengthen a person's abilities to deal with their life stresses by creating the framework to either deal with them or help move on to a new environment that doesn't create as much stress. Not all therapists are good. If you try somebody and don't connect or trust them, try to find somebody else. Internalizing stress really destroys the body, and it's important to find somebody you trust to help process it.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Really? It helped me. It was nice for me to have someone else acknowledge that the emperor was in fact naked. The emperor transparent clothes in this situation was the suggestion that offices aren't horrible places to be. Take the IBM book of songs, for example. I would like to emphasize that I agree with you (and my original comment): Therapy is a cheat code! It will make your life immeasurably better. Everyone should do it!
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      No need to fight, I think both of you are right. Some people can get stuck into painful context or interpretations, in which case some therapy trick can help get out of the pit. That said if you discuss high level sociology you often end up in the "what a massive soup of chaos" too.
    - ineedasername 4y ago
      If the emperor is in fact naked, then you're not deluded in believing that. I'm confused by the use of that term in this way.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        Yeah. I can't write in my own first language. Forgive me. Let me try again: The emperor is actually naked (offices are bad), but for various reasons people say the emperor is not naked (offices aren't bad). Does that help? I need help, clearly.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Sometimes it helps to use a Linter. And a debugger. Even on yourself.
- throwaway6532 4y ago
  Turns out I'm covered in lint and basically a walking fire hazard.

kevingadd 4y ago

It can help a lot to find ways to compartmentalize your work. It also helps to have ongoing appointments with therapists or other experts who can help you keep an eye on your symptoms to figure out whether anything is starting to go wrong - keeping a journal etc may help you keep things under control. For me there were some really obvious signs early in my career that I didn't recognize until much later when they led to diagnosis (and mostly successful treatment) of chronic illness - it's easy to assume that things in your workplace are bad because they have to be. Bringing the stress home is definitely a tough thing. I don't have any answers for you on that. It might help to try and find work you're good at but don't care about, oddly enough, but that poses its own challenges.

breakfastduck 4y ago

fsociety 4y ago
They never said anything about those unemployed without savings. I grew up in a poor family and am always disappointed with this take. Everyone is allowed to share their stresses and try to learn how to deal with it from others.
alimov 4y ago
What is the purpose of your comment? They are simply sharing their own experience and asking for advice. You don’t know anything about them, but are dropping in to tell them they are privileged… How is that related to anything they said?
dgreensp 4y ago
Having a toxic job is not a sign of extreme privilege. Nor is facing a trade-off between having income and taking care of one’s mental or physical health.

bg24 4y ago

I wonder how we classify lot of things as "it's in the mind". My life (eg. family) is already destroyed because of environment. Stress adds up to the damage. Do not rule out: lyme and other diseases - it is hard to detect those and try bandaid treatments for symptoms. Mold issues in the home/work/car - again this is sickening. When you have a weak immune systems, you get affected with some of the daemonic disease, and then EMF, stress etc. wreaks havoc on your body. Yes, you can CONTROL stress and EMF exposures - and reduce the impact on your body.

cinntaile 4y ago
It must really suck to live on planet earth with its giant magnetic field.
- mmh0000 4y ago
  This is why you should always wear a crystal. The crystal will adsorb the latent EMF and harmonize you with Gia. Also consider a negative-ion bracelet and sleeping with your head pointing north which will alleviate any remaining symptoms of EMF. /s
- 4e530344963049 4y ago
  Mars doesn't have one...
anonuser123456 4y ago
You sound like you might have a somatoform disorder.

sometimeshuman 4y ago

What worked for me past years is having a vision for the money earned at work. My vision is time/energy/financial independence and I do that by buying income paying assets (e.g., rental properties), running a small business, and being contractor so I have a say in the number of hours I work. What didn't work for me is buying a fancy car, expensive shoes, semi-luxury remodels of my home, etc. -- those were just net negatives like a drug that keeps life bearable just a little longer. Frankly I suspect _needing_ those things are often a symptom of not being content with your life. It's been said "a why to live can bear almost any how". The problem in your case is that the stress can make your precarious health situation worse. But maybe the why > how mitigates stress ? It did in my case. Sorry and thanks for sharing. Anyone of us can go from good to poor health so it is worth contemplating your situation.

dr_monster 4y ago

I also developed celiac disease recently - it is tough to deal with. Since diagnosis, meal planning, shopping and cooking have become tasks that require a lot of mental energy. Normal things like going out to a show or commuting to work are logistically difficult when you’re unable to eat at any restaurants. I am trying to get a WFH job to curb some of this difficulty. Good luck with everything.

buscoquadnary 4y ago
If it makes you feel any better my wife has celiac and it gets easier with time. Eventually you get pretty familiar with things and figure out where is good and where isn't. We mostly do GF in our family cause it's easier to just do GF than try and mix and match. Also I hope you like Mexican food corn tortillas and chips are a life saver.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Sadly chain restaurants are your friend now. PF Chang's has never poisoned me with their gluten free. Red Robin's are pretty good about their gluten free but ask them and make sure they know you are actually celiac, the waitress will normally tell you if the place is safe for celiac or just kind of 'gluten free'. Make sure they have a dedicated fryer for their frys, the whole swapping it out is not good enough for celiacs. No other chains have been consistently safe enough 'gluten free' to risk on a business trip for me. Big surprise is the Thai places around me don't have gluten in their soy sauce so they are safe if you order smart/tip well enough that they make sure not to cross contaminate, so you might check with them to see if they will let you look at their soy sauce label, but obviously don't try out places like that on work trips. 'The sickness' in a hotel with jet lag and having to be 'on' to meet clients sucks. Be careful with things you think are safe. Tortilla chips can have too much cross contamination so experiment when it's safe to 'get the sickness' and find what works for you. When my daughter and I were first diagnosed we couldn't drink coke because the carmel color supposedly had gluten. Some craft rootbeers/dark sodas still have the 'bad' natural color not the 'good' artificial one. Another tricky one that got me a lot until I figured it out, red wine can use a wheat paste to seal the barrels. So cheap steel aged reds only. Red wine is the only thing that gets cheaper when you go gluten free :)

kerblang 4y ago

It sounds like you're talking about social stress as much as anything else?

mescaline 4y ago

Eating habits can change with stress. If I eat certain types of wheat, my back hurts. I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy that came back normal, but I had some inflammation spots in my stomach, likely due to consuming some bad wheat or something else. These changes can come about from the state of gut biomes. Cleaning up my eating habits and consuming probiotics seems to have helped a lot. I can eat limited amounts of gluten now without my back hurting, or my stomach complaining about it. I still struggle with cravings of sugar and cream at times, especially when I'm fighting depressive events. Eating things the body craves is an easy out. It's limiting those actions with mind, when it is not so healthy, that challenge many of us.

protomyth 4y ago
Not sure what its called, but there is a test you can get your doctor to do that checks what foods you shouldn't eat. Sister-in-law took it and discovered soy was not good for her along with some other products she ate. Really helped with avoid food related problems.
ncmncm 4y ago
Nowadays many plants, including barley and soybeans, are sprayed with round-up two weeks before harvest so they will dry in the field. Of course the round-up is not rinsed off, because that would defeat the purpose. It is unknown what effect consuming that much round-up has on people, but the effects we know about are not good.
- metadat 4y ago
  ncmncm, do you have a citation for the harvest claims?
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Farmer relatives.
  - stefantalpalaru 4y ago
    > do you have a citation for the harvest claims? https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/managing-wheat-harvest https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation

debug-desperado 4y ago

Social stress gave me a case of the shingles once in my twenties. It didn't make much sense to me at the time, but for some reason being stressed out about buying a bunch of Christmas gifts late in the season caused it to happen!

nostrademons 4y ago
Shingles is very commonly brought on by stress. It's latent chickenpox virus, which is usually kept in check by the immune system, but stress depresses immune response. I had a coworker who developed shingles as we were nearing the deadline on a project that had all sorts of problems in layers of the stack we didn't control, and my sister developed shingles after being laid off. The first thing I associate with that disease is stress.

agumonkey 4y ago

I felt this way after leaving an absurdly toxic place[0]. Anything felt more productive. Even lifting weight felt like a torrent of meaning. But I'm not sure this freedom lasts on your own. It seems reactionary after being pressured into something that hurt you. After 1 month where I did 3h of sport daily and read books, my motivation crashed. Be prepared in case that happens. Find people with better view on life, better sense of workplace sanity. This (IMO) is better long term. Unless you manage to monetize your standalone problem solving skills (freelancing might be a good option for you too). Take care. [0] I had a string of bad luck regarding jobs, and I hated the whole work concept, but I got lucky and found a new place which is peaceful and interesting enough. Maybe you can find something like that.

barelysapient 4y ago

Consider taking up contracting. You pick the clients, set your own hours, manage your own deadlines and only take on as much as you want. Its helped me tremendously manage my mental health.

convolvatron 4y ago
I certainly agree that it gives you a much broader sense of agency. especially when you get to the point you can fire clients for just not being good to work with (generally wanting the final results but not wanting to put in the organizational effort) it can have the opposite effect on the down times. no one is looking after you to make sure to make rent, and alot of engineers don't have the kind of training or personality that lends to cold calling. at least I don't...I can't even imagine what that would look like for systems programmers - "oh hi, I'm just calling to see if you need any device drivers written". ".......uh..."
- gilmore606 4y ago
  You don't cold call, you hook up with a small agency, who also doesn't cold call. They are plugged into the VC network; when some startup needs outside technical help, they ask their VC to find someone. Your agency gets those calls. There are many of these small agencies focusing on different parts of the software ecosystem, the trick being to find them.

beauzero 4y ago

For me it was moving to the rural South and buying a farm. Animals die if I don't feed or water them. It gives me a daily reset. That and I took a job that I feel ethically pushed to do for my 8-5. Just what worked for me. I hope you find your "place".

bitexploder 4y ago

Ya, therapy. But, short answer, stoicism / CBT, at least narrowly. Focus on what you can control. Check out the dichotomy of control. Do your best to be a positive influence. Give your work what is fair, but no more. Work is for earning slavery units to live life. Everything outside of work is your actual life. Create hard edged barriers between work and not work. Develop and foster deep hobbies you enjoy. This takes effort. I would suggest they not be computer based hobbies.

pikuseru 4y ago
Hope you don’t mind but I’ve copied this So I can refer back to it ;)
- bitexploder 4y ago
  Be my guest. I am an older (41) but have been in tech since 1998, my first job was a local tech shop writing apps in ColdFusion…I built software for a long time before going into cybersecurity. My hobbies and interests have changed, but having that switch you can flip and just transport yourself completely to something else is amazing. It helps you have perspective and not let work stuff become your whole universe. Even the author of this article fell into that trap IMO. Of course the whole article was about them recognizing it. They felt their work was super important and let it slowly eat their life. You get so invested in promotions and grinding things out, making projects look good for promotions. It is all toxic as heck. Like, when you see that happening just, stop. Who knows what will happen, but at least you won’t lose yourself. You may not get promoted as fast, but on a difficult project being eaten by politics that is likely anyway, our own heroics can’t overcome inertia like that. Work isn’t worth it. Do right by the project, but just stop caring about it so much. Sorry, older tech survivor rant over. But, yeah, take care of yourselves, the golden FAANG chains aren’t worth your health :)

cossatot 4y ago

While unemployed, I feel competent, I make progress on hard problems nobody else in the world is working on, and I feel good. If those problems are important, is there a way to work on them for pay? Like through a nonprofit, for example?

Buttons840 4y ago
Good idea, but he stuff I work on it just for fun, and not as important as I made it sound. My point was that I'm competent and motivated, but stress from work encroaches on that and ruins it.

ROTMetro 4y ago

As someone whose work imbalances led him from a software development manager to years of prison, here's what years of alone time to think about things led me to (probably just the ravings of someone gone insane but it feels good to share): 1. Truly take the time to realize that your life is valuable and worth prioritizing. Somehow my only identity morphed into filling the 'superman' roll at work and successful executive at home. If I hadn't saved the company from X or performed some herculean feat I had no worth at work. If I didn't get the next promotion I had no worth at home. But guess what? I had huge worth as a husband and especially as a father, and I sacrificed that because I couldn't see it. You are valuable. You have worth. You are worthy of love. And hopefully, if you are in the right place, you are loved. Being superman/the wonder kid at work/the executive big dog so your wife can show off to the Joneses does not define you. And eventually you age out of the wonder kid role or just actually break in the superman role because, sorry, none of us are superman. And all that fancy stuff? In 10 years its all outdated and you either need to throw it away and replace it or you are too uncool to be one of the cool kids. 2. Find a mentor. Someone who has been through it, who knows what's BS and what isn't, and can help you with what's important. My healthiest work environments were when I had a mentor. One of the most valuable things a mentor always reminded me of when I was deep into an 80 hour week fighting fires. No one is going to die because of this, and no one is going to remember it in 5 years. That and a manager's job is to provide his team the tools they need to do their job, not make his employees tools to do his. 3. Find a community. Relating back to step one, it helps us to value ourselves when we see others valuing us. If you can't find any other, go to an addiction group. You are an addict, maybe in search of an addiction at this point because your character is still holding out, but if you continue this path and haven't already you WILL find your addiction sooner or later. 4. Do not let others tear you down. I had a horrible relationship with my ex-wife. Instead of working to fix it I put tons of energy into going to court in my head why I was right, she was wrong and horrible. Tons of energy into why she was right to think I was a total piece of shit and falsely think I was not worthy of love (see 1 above). Tons of energy into why I deserved a treat/reward for all the hard work I did that no one properly gave me recognition for and deserved, and secretly rewarding myself in the most destructive of ways. At the time I hated my wife. I'm not sure it could be fixed looking back, but I would give anything to go back and put the energy into that relationship that I put into stupid work projects and addiction. Instead the mother of my children, the woman who picked me forever, my best friend from high school on, with whom I shared every major life event, will never talk to me again. A lifetime of memories I don't get to share with her. Family vacation memories. The first time we ordered lemon light at Takara's and remember how good it used to be. Never again a 'dad will you make your amazing ribs this weekend?'. 5. If you have a family, make sure to have a worry tree in your front yard. After a crap work day, after a 1.5 hour commute (I'm oldschool from when people still went to work in the office, you spoiled kids these days!), before going into the house, I paused and left my worries at the worry tree to be picked up in the morning, and went into the house leaving work behind and myself ready to be present for my kids when I opened that door and they ran up screaming excitedly 'daddy's home' :'( When we moved I didn't setup a new worry tree routine and I that is one of my biggest regrets. So many lost evenings because I came home in a shit attitude. 6. Don't white knuckle through life. Ask for help. Ask for help at work. Ask for help at home. Ask for help from a mentor. Ask for help from friends. Definitely don't keep track of all the times you didn't get help/what you wanted in your head. If you didn't ask for it, it's on you. If you keep track of it in your head, you are just wasting energy/brain power. You can't judge people on not helping/appreciating you if you don't show them what you need. No one is going to fix this for you. No one is going to say 'wow, Bob's really deserves a break/help/affection' unless you are lucky enough to have amazing people around you. Ask for a break. Ask for help. Ask for affection. Find enough self worth somehow to know you are worthy of all of those things! If work doesn't respect that, leave. They are a zombie company and will suck you dry. I gave 15 years to a company in a field that I felt made a difference. Made them millions. Signed over patents. Impacted hundreds of thousand of people lives in a positive way. In the end I was worth 2 weeks notice. And nothing I ever did mattered when I was left so broken I utterly and completely failed my children and wife. Sorry for my rant. I have a mens 'stop being a shitty person' group tonight where it is my night to talk about my story, so I have been thinking about this stuff today and just kind of threw up all over this reply. I apologize for the word vomit.

jasfi 4y ago

While not a cure-all, try Ashwaghanda. It lowers cortisol levels. > How do I avoid becoming mentally trapped in the workplace mindset? Think about starting your own business, or at least find a job where you have a greater degree of freedom, or perhaps where you feel you have more of an impact.

dataangel 4y ago

how was your celiac disease diagnosed?

kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 4y ago

The elephant in the room is that the vast majority of people who are coping are supporting a family, usually with kids, or are at some age-appropriate stage on that track. The stupid crap and social hierarchies at work are trivialities, obstacles to be overcome and then forgotten. People raising families are often swimming in an ocean of oxytocin and existential fulfillment giving them huge mental and emotional boosts. I'm pointing this out in case you're endlessly ruminating on what is wrong with you, why can't you just buckle down and deal, whatever, and you're coming home to an empty apartment and Netflix year after year. That's missing the big picture. I'm not saying you should start a family if you don't have one. Maybe you can't or won't, in which case, be gentle with yourself and make sure that you are taking the whole picture into account when you compare yourself with others.