4 ms·

Thanks for posting that. It brought my awareness to something important. I worked in 1 WTC and was about to get into the elevator when the first plane hit on 9

Thanks for posting that. It brought my awareness to something important. I worked in 1 WTC and was about to get into the elevator when the first plane hit on 9/11. I was outside on the corner when the second plane hit. When my head started to clear some time later--a week? two?--the clearest thought I had was: if my last act as a human had been connecting a data input form to a database table, it would have been a tremendous waste of my life. Shortly thereafter I entered a new career and a new trajectory through life. The last 10 years have been amazing. Living with the visceral awareness that sudden death is possible has changed me in many ways. Mostly for the better. I do have some symptoms of PTSD. Low-flying planes freak me out intensely, as do sudden loud noises and low vibrations strong enough to shake things. On balance, though, it has catalyzed tremendously positive change in my life. I'm glad that you've been able to make the same of it. Cheers to being alive. (Bizarrely, I was also in London on 7/7. A bomb squad truck nearly ran me over (on my bike) going the wrong way down the road near Liverpool St. station, and my wife was very nearly on the Hackney Wick bus.)

victorhn 15y ago
I am curious, what was your previous career and your new career? and what was wrong with the previous one?
- joncooper 15y ago
  I'm actually on my second career since then. At the time of 9/11 I was an enterprise Java programmer. We built software for MBS desks: trade capture, portfolio management and risk analytics. Finance is hugely interesting, but I was not learning any of it. I was building CRUD operations hooked up to Swing UI and a black-box (to me) analytics backend. There wasn't (and isn't) anything "wrong" with that, objectively. But I possess two things: one, a strong need for self-determination--I need to eat what I kill; and two, a love for learning that can manifest as antipathy toward using things that I don't understand. I ended up getting into finance proper and spending six years as a multi-asset prop trader at a gigantic hedge fund and then a gigantic bank, living in NYC and London. I've ultimately realized that I want to help build stuff that people use, so my lovely wife and I moved to SF and are building a life here.
BCM43 15y ago
I do have some symptoms of PTSD. Low-flying planes freak me out intensely, as do sudden loud noises and low vibrations strong enough to shake things. Are these really PTSD symptoms? I have the same thing, though perhaps not as bad. I was 5 miles from the attack, and in fourth grade at the time.
- swombat 15y ago
  I'm not a doctor, but my understanding from talking to doctor friends is that the difference between a "Disorder" and a "quirk" is how much disruption it causes your life. If when you see a plane flying low you hit the ground and start screaming, that's certainly a disorder. If you glance up at the plane and feel "hrm, I don't like it much", that's not really a disorder. In between those two extremes is found the difference between PTSD and "I don't like low-flying planes since 9/11".
  - joncooper 15y ago
    I have about 3/4 of a panic attack if a big plane flies low near me in an urban environment. It has to be low enough for me to feel (or imagine that I feel) the vibration from the engines in my body. Now that I think about it, I also get freaked out in moving crowds now, which I never did before. (I can be in crowded places, no problem--it's just when a lot of people are moving and mixing, like at a parade, music festival or busy shopping district.) The airplane thing is totally manageable; I just need to stop and take a few deep breaths. The crowds thing starts off that way, but can get outright panic attack inducing if I don't get somewhere less crowded, and quickly. I'm with OP. It seems that to be a 'disorder' it needs to have outwardly visible and functionally maladaptive outcomes on your behavior.
- deathwarmedover 15y ago
  If you want to know what constitutes PTSD "officially", then just google around for the DSM-IV criteria: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp

victorhn 15y ago

I am curious, what was your previous career and your new career? and what was wrong with the previous one?

joncooper 15y ago
I'm actually on my second career since then. At the time of 9/11 I was an enterprise Java programmer. We built software for MBS desks: trade capture, portfolio management and risk analytics. Finance is hugely interesting, but I was not learning any of it. I was building CRUD operations hooked up to Swing UI and a black-box (to me) analytics backend. There wasn't (and isn't) anything "wrong" with that, objectively. But I possess two things: one, a strong need for self-determination--I need to eat what I kill; and two, a love for learning that can manifest as antipathy toward using things that I don't understand. I ended up getting into finance proper and spending six years as a multi-asset prop trader at a gigantic hedge fund and then a gigantic bank, living in NYC and London. I've ultimately realized that I want to help build stuff that people use, so my lovely wife and I moved to SF and are building a life here.

BCM43 15y ago

I do have some symptoms of PTSD. Low-flying planes freak me out intensely, as do sudden loud noises and low vibrations strong enough to shake things. Are these really PTSD symptoms? I have the same thing, though perhaps not as bad. I was 5 miles from the attack, and in fourth grade at the time.

swombat 15y ago
I'm not a doctor, but my understanding from talking to doctor friends is that the difference between a "Disorder" and a "quirk" is how much disruption it causes your life. If when you see a plane flying low you hit the ground and start screaming, that's certainly a disorder. If you glance up at the plane and feel "hrm, I don't like it much", that's not really a disorder. In between those two extremes is found the difference between PTSD and "I don't like low-flying planes since 9/11".
- joncooper 15y ago
  I have about 3/4 of a panic attack if a big plane flies low near me in an urban environment. It has to be low enough for me to feel (or imagine that I feel) the vibration from the engines in my body. Now that I think about it, I also get freaked out in moving crowds now, which I never did before. (I can be in crowded places, no problem--it's just when a lot of people are moving and mixing, like at a parade, music festival or busy shopping district.) The airplane thing is totally manageable; I just need to stop and take a few deep breaths. The crowds thing starts off that way, but can get outright panic attack inducing if I don't get somewhere less crowded, and quickly. I'm with OP. It seems that to be a 'disorder' it needs to have outwardly visible and functionally maladaptive outcomes on your behavior.
deathwarmedover 15y ago
If you want to know what constitutes PTSD "officially", then just google around for the DSM-IV criteria: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp