9 ms·

Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

339 points by ramon156 3mo ago

GianFabien 3mo ago
I have worked in environments where as the day wore on, my performance plummeted. After a lot of investigation, I suspect that air quality, lighting, ergonomics can have adverse effects. Only recently I read an article that said that in a room with several persons and poor ventilation the CO2 levels reach levels which are known to impair brain and other neurological functions. That is, I suspect that your depression is the symptom of a bad environment and not the root cause of your problems.
- simtel20 3mo ago
  This is irresponsible on your part. OP has been diagnosed by professionals and is being treated and clearly sees the difference. While high CO2 levels make a measurable difference in some tasks and its effects can be felt in crowded spaces, it seems like you're taking your pet peeve and dismissing the struggle that the OP is going through. Please try to have more sympathy. I understand it can be difficult or even frightening to think about problems that don't have a trivially described cause, effect and solution like your proposal, but it would be a good idea to ask questions, even as simply as asking if that OP has noticed an effect, before trivializing their struggles this way
- JumpinJack_Cash 3mo ago
  > > That is, I suspect that your depression is the symptom of a bad environment and not the root cause of your problems. Yeah that's BS. When you were a kid in class in winter you had 20 kids + the teacher in the same room submerged by co2 , plus you were in a literal prison taken from the comfort of your bed in the dead of the night, had to ask permission to use the restroom and you could be denied , once you managed to get to the restroom you'd be submerged by even more co2 because of all the cigarette smoking going on from the older guys. And I am not even considering bullying as a factor that for the least lucky or strong could be added to the above list. Still no depression in sight . The problem comes from within, life was never meant to be taken this seriously, all the improvements and technological prowness that we tout vs. Subsaharan Africa come with the cost of literal self torture. We have evolved in a scenario in which if you had reason to believe to have >90% chance of being alive 1 week from now (something like 168 hours into the future) then you could literally go out of your hut celebrating with your dick swinging left and right . We have now reached a point where people would be unhappy with 168 years because 'oh no what happens next OMG I am so scared!' Mental health and thinking are 2 parallel lines, they can never be reconciled, thinking is much more toxic than CO2, lead, sniffing glue, meth, heroin, fentanyl and all the other so called harmful substances which as toxic as they might be they don't make you want to off yourself. Paradoxically if we stopped thinking and ran New York City into the ground back to an African hut village it would be the best party in the history of humanity and so much happiness could be extracted from that, much much more than building it up further, even though it would not be visible from the outside
- stephantul 3mo ago
  As mentioned by a sibling comment: this is an insensitive take. It takes a lot of courage to write down one’s struggles for all the world to see. Your analysis denies the OP their self-reflection, and instead reduces it to a thing you happened to find in your own life.
Viacol 3mo ago
My mother is a therapist, and I'd like to share a few things I've learned from her over the years. One piece of advice is to start with the biological side. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and taking care of your physical health can have a surprisingly positive effect on your mental state. At the same time, don't hesitate to seek help from a therapist. They can help guide the way you think about your experiences and how you interpret them. It's a gradual process, but it really can make a difference. I believe you can get through this. :)
- jvanderbot 3mo ago
  You're right, but framed generally like this, it's easy to skip this advice. OP/reader, more specifically, examine that post. It is an avalanche of negative self-talk. It's a person telling themeselves and the world that they cannot do something. You can take a perfectly healthy person, turn on this cycle, and watch it destroy their lives. Depression has many causes, but its roots that make it stick are cycles like these. Antidepressants are a parachute, but you have to rebuild the engine and an important part of that is to learn to reframe events and identify and challenge your negative assumptions.
- consp 3mo ago
  > At the same time, don't hesitate to seek help from a therapist I'd like to add that for certain kinds of people, the process of doing this on your own is near torture.
_override 3mo ago
I can sympathize with what you're going through OP. I have similar struggles myself (primarily with severe anxiety) and wouldn't wish most of what I have had to go through on my worst enemy. I do have one comment though: You mention stability in your goals, and how you want to find stability. What is stability to you? I've struggled for years with trying to find stability but it often just leads me back to thinking that there really is no such thing. You just never know what is going to happen in life. Finding a job and having stable employment are hard, and will likely only get harder as we age. Relationships have ups and downs, and their downs can be incredibly challenging to navigate. Most of us (at least in Europe) don't have the luxury of building wealth to escape the 9-5 grind. We simply need to work (and stay employable) until we have the ability to retire. I don't know how things work in your country, but here in Sweden I can't even start to collect my state pension until I turn 69. I need to find a way to remain employable until I am 69, or amass enough wealth to not need to worry about paying my bills if I don't have stable employment. I could go on and on but honestly I think stability is a myth. Life is inherently unstable. But we human beings are also incredibly resiliant. Take care of yourself. I wish you all the best OP.
- switchbak 3mo ago
  The Buddhists call that seeking ground, and they consider it to be a real source of suffering. Their take is that the reality is fundamentally groundlessness, and the more you can relax into that (easier said than done), the less you'll suffer when the inevitable shit hits the fan. As someone who has had a metric ton of shit hit his fan, this is a hard pill to swallow, but very effective medicine and has helped me tremendously. In modern terms, you could say it's good to embrace a growth/flexibility mindset and work on the things that help you to build and restore resilience.
m1aw 3mo ago
I know this pattern from myself. I'm doing alright as far as my career goes, not great, but okay. Which is disappointing because me and everyone around thought I'd do great, because I/they thought I was a great software developer, since I'm smart and I know my tech and my programming. Unfortunately working as a software developer is a different story entirely, I found many times that my chase for good simple code takes time, and sometimes I overthink things and I don't test properly, and I'm also slow, and don't communicate the problem with my team because I don't work consistent hours, because my brain cannot do consistency. Turns out I have ADHD. Possibly autism too. So I understand your feelings of I just need to be better, because it works for other right? Even tho you know that fundamentally you are right, but it works for others so why not you? I don't have a solution. But sometimes you can't just "be better" and "more consistent", I also wish I could, but maybe it's not possible. Maybe the only way is to find where we are good and do more of that. If you have struggle finishing things hope on calls with people that are good at finishing things. Talk with them. Be proactive and be open. I also don't do this as often as I should, because I'm also ashamed. I don't know exactly what the point was to this, but so you know others also fail, even tho they deemed smart and skilled by others.
- jvanderbot 3mo ago
  If you recognize yourself in that post, then what you recognize is called negative self talk. The only advice I have for you is to learn to recognize how this pattern makes things worse and to learn (or be taught) how to stop that pattern. The blog post is a textbook self-flagellation and I have no doubt author returns to it to feel worse about themselves in some twisted attempt to motivate positive change.
  - 9dev 3mo ago
    Hah. I feel very much seen by both of these comments, much more than I’m confident to admit. Something I have been struggling with all my life is deciding whether I am flawed in some way, or the other party/the environment is - because my immediate reaction is always to feel responsible and inadequate, and it takes a lot of energy of confidently feeling superior or right about something. Like, is it a pattern, or am I reflecting to avoid being ignorant?
travelalberta 3mo ago
Most of y’all need to buck up. If day to day engineering tasks are so challenging for you maybe the anxiety and depression you’re feeling is your system telling you that you are in misalignment. Why are you an engineer if you are struggling to complete the basic tasks? Are you meant to be doing what you are doing?
- alphawhisky 3mo ago
  Rare and needed reminder in the big '26
- jvanderbot 3mo ago
  This is one side of the elephant. It's true a steel inner strength is required in day to day engineering. It's hard, and it lacks positive reinformcement almost always. When you hear something it is bad. But let's define "buck up" and see the other side of the elephant. That blog post is a textbook example of negative self talk. You can have a world that looks down on you and spit back at it and do your best work, but if you look down on yourself you _will not_ bootstrap your way out, because you learn to believe you cannot. That is depression, and depression is reinforced if not caused by that self-talk. Addressing the self-talk and stopping the flagellation will allow that steel inner strength to build up. Medication is a parachute but the wings and engine need to be rebuilt using self confidence, and that's a long road of: * reframing failures as lessons * honesty with self about your own role in your depression * careful build-up of support * learning to find the important and good in each memory, vs the deprecating and painful
  - quantummagic 3mo ago
    I think the point was that there are people who don't need all this extra work, it just comes naturally. And they are more suited to engineering than people who need to spend a lot of energy on emotional and mental regulation as well.
    - jvanderbot 3mo ago
      Yes - you are identifying a non-depressed engineer. A depressed engineer can become one of those by removing the depression.
Xortl 3mo ago
I would love to read an update about your experience with antidepressants, as it's a path I'm thinking about more and more with the (losing) battle I've been fighting against my own long term depression. I really resonated with your eventual realization that while others have their own battles, they are very rarely similar to this. I guess I knew it was unusual, but I took way too long to realize just how weird it was to feel soul-crushingly miserable for no identifiable reason, even when things are going well, even when I'm around friends I like and they're having fun. Wishing you the best OP.
- esseph 3mo ago
  Stop thinking about it and go talk to someone. You are likely just delaying your healing and happiness. Good luck!
- _override 3mo ago
  I'm not OP but just wanted to add my own experience with anti-depressants as someone who has battled mild depression and extreme anxiety for years. Ultimately in my case it turned out that I needed to try several different antidepressants that my doctor prescribed until I found one that worked to aid in decreasing my depression and anxiety symptoms with pretty much no side effects. I tried several which did not work for me or had a lot of side effects. Some antidepressants that helped my friends and family in their struggles did not help me. So definitely ask your doctor if they'd be willing to work with you to try and find a medication that works well for you with minimal side effects if they recommend that you take such medications. Wish you all the best. Mental illness sucks.
  - rowyourboat 3mo ago
    We know very little about how psychological drugs work in general. Having to try multiple things to find one that works well for you is par for the course
- ramon156 3mo ago
  I resonate with you word-for-word. I kind of assumed people were also struggling, but I didn't realize how much struggling it ended up being. I will post an update every now-and-then. It might not be very software-related (sorry dang!), so I will try to not post all of them on here. I wish you the best as well! And you are free to contact me, I think talking to someone in a similar boat helps a lot.
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jason_s 3mo ago
I agree mental health is important and have struggled with similar issues... but it is hard to read prose in fixed-width typefaces. Please consider a more readable serif variable-width typeface.
- esseph 3mo ago
  Many of us are used to monospace all day long in terminal
  - jason_s 3mo ago
    That doesn't mean it's more readable. This retro-terminal-website trend is so weird. When I was growing up, all the computers had was a fixed-width character set. Then GUI operating systems came out in the early 90s and PDFs and web browsers. Free from the fixed-width tyranny. It belongs in certain places, but readable prose is not one of them.
a_bonobo 3mo ago
I used to co-supervise a PhD student who suffered from severe anxiety, she was good but her anxiety stood in her way almost all of the time. You could see that she used up 3/4 of her brain just on being anxious, there wasn't much power left to do the actual work to any standard. It's a horrible disease. (and yeah, she was on medication and diagnosed).
neuralkoi 3mo ago
On your goals: 1. It's okay to make mistakes. Pain + reflection = progress. 2. Try to shift your perspective so your sense of worth isn't tied to your work. 3. Anytime you say "I should", "I need to", usually this is sign you are blindly following some sort of cognitive script [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMghRYqk8o&t=1844s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMghRYqk8o&t=1844s
- voakbasda 3mo ago
  The “should” trap is a big one. I found The Work by Byron Katie to be a very effective self-guided method for addressing those thoughts.
- ramon156 3mo ago
  I didn't really think about your third bulletpoint, that does make sense. I think it's also good to be aware when you're lying to yourself. An easy example is how people talk about their gym membership. "Oh, I would go, but I am so busy with X", or "I am already doing Y, so I don't really need to go". It's always a non-reason, while the true reason is that they just do not see a reason to go. I don't get why this happens with work, though. I didn't love my job, but I definitely loved the colleagues, and I felt like I didn't do that bad of a job (ofcourse I see this differently now, I was doing a bad job).
  - Paracompact 3mo ago
    In REBT (rational emotive behavioral therapy; a cognitive behavioral therapy focused on rational introspection) the excessive "need" language is identified with "musturbation": https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0087779 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0087779 In Buddhism, excessive "need" language is identified with excessive clinging to some aspect of life that behaves contrary to your cravings or your understanding. (Upadana = clinging, tanha = craving, together with its positive and negative forms bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha, "things must be so," "things must not be so.") The usual cure prescribed is to cure the ignorance that causes these illusions of reality, and/or detach from the clinging that causes your ignorance to inspire suffering (dukkha). REBT is inspired by a number of philosophies: Stoicism, Buddhism, among others. If this more analytical approach to self-help appeals to you any, I might encourage you to check it out.
zeafoamrun 3mo ago
I thought I was depressed but then I got divorced and realized my depression was situational from being in an awful relationship. Consider causes like this as well, it is hard to see when you're inside it.
- embedding-shape 3mo ago
  Also be careful with reaching conclusions too quickly. I ended up breaking a 10+ year long relationship after thinking that was the problem, I ended up even more miserable than before. Begged her to take me back after some years, and luckily we're happily together ever since and still married :) (with lots of changes from the first iteration, obviously)
  - ramon156 3mo ago
    Wow, without sounding sarcastic, that sounds like a healthy relationship! It really shows maturity to own up to it and choose each other again. Hoping the best for you both :)
consp 3mo ago
I've been there (without the LLMs and antidepressants since therapy is healthier). The 1 year is quite optimistic from my perspective. Good luck though. Prioritize yourself. The different usages of I or i though ... please fix the LLM type checking it.
NotGMan 3mo ago
I'm at this point fully convinced that 90%+ of people with depression have either a metabolic disfunction, gut issues, heavy metal poisoning or some other occult infection or a problem. So it's not really mental, it's literally a disease of the physical body. The brains are then affected as a side effect. You can look up low carb, carnivore, heavy metal elimination groups etc... and you will find thousands of real testimonials. The problem is that many if not most of these are hard if not impossible to diagnose since the modern medical science is lacking completely at this plus the combination of arrogant doctors not taking these people seriously and gaslighting them makes it 10 times worse, so experimentation is needed and then a commitment for a year or two. Many improve in 4 to 6 months. Some take longer.
- tayo42 3mo ago
  Comment and I'll DM the Pdf guide to fixing your life!
jxckshit 3mo ago
This sounds a lot like the shame and frustration people with ADD feel when untreated. I know several people who suffer with ADD, who are extremely intelligent and talented, and felt the exact same emotions before they were diagnosed. Those emotions were _much_ alleviated once treated, mostly through pharmacological means. Anecdotal but seems a strong pattern to me.
- ramon156 3mo ago
  You're not the only one commenting this. I do have to say it's quite re-assuring to know that this is a possibility. For the people you know that have ADD, was medication sufficient? Did they still end up taking therapy for their neurodivergence? I wonder how long it takes before I can be a functional programmer again. I know it'll take a while.
  - astrange 3mo ago
    I'm trying ADHD therapy now, but the thing about ADHD is that you can still do complex tasks like programming yet can't do simple things. So the therapy is partly focused on emotional management, and partly about skills to do seemingly simple things like cook and put away laundry. I haven't seen coaching for ADHD software engineers, but I'd be interested in it. (I'd rather take more cooking classes though.)
fwlr 3mo ago
This could be due to ADD, I am still getting tested. Granted, that's a diagnosis, not a root cause. No, it’s a diagnosis of the root cause - in fact, it is plausibly the root cause of everything else described in the post. Inability to complete work, procrastination/distraction by focusing on nearby tasks, the pervasive sense that you struggle with things that other people do not, even the depression (untreated ADD causing repeated failures, repeated failures causing depression). To understand why it really could be the root cause, you can read up on “executive dysfunction”, which is what ADD really is. The treatment for ADD is one of two medications, methylphenidate or dexamphetamine. You can try other things in addition to these, but not instead of these, and you should try both - there really is just no substitute. (In some places, bupropion can be prescribed as an antidepressant. It has effects that also help with executive dysfunction, so you may find it to be more effective than serotonin-based antidepressants.)
- imrehg 3mo ago
  It's scary how your first paragraph describes by recent (but not long term) experiences. Looks like I have some checks to do as well.
- SkyPuncher 3mo ago
  ADHD is unlikely to be the root cause as there is unlikely to be any single root cause. Treating ADHD will reduce or eliminate a component of this, but will not address the issues entirely.
- corytheboyd 3mo ago
  > untreated ADD causing repeated failures, repeated failures causing depression realized this one about myself earlier this year, it really helped to boil it down to something besides “I am just inherently bad at things.” that attitude worked as a dumb single kid, but it was harming my adult life and relationships. therapy helped me get there. I have been on bupropion for about a year, and recently started on methylphenidate. it might not be the right one for me, or maybe too small of a dosage. I’m taking it slow and being deliberate with the drugs. working with a personal trainer to get in shape and lose weight, as well as quitting my fully vested tech job to fuck off and be a cook for a while has also done wonders for me here. it’s cliche, but you really can’t replace fitness with anything else, and that took me 35 years to internalize.
Shalomboy 3mo ago
I've wanted to write something similar regarding anxiety on a blog of my own for close to a decade now, but I was always afraid to put my feelings to paper, in case they become real. If they stay in my head, I can dismiss them. OP, I hope you feel some relief having posted this; if it helped you, perhaps it could encourage other to let down their walls. Thank you so much for sharing.
- ramon156 3mo ago
  Would you like a tip? This post started out as bulletpoints that were no more than 5 words each, eventually you start typing away like there's no tomorrow. There's a lot I want to talk about, and not a lot of words until people stop scanning.
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6stringmerc 3mo ago
An admirable start down a self-discovery path. One of the major themes I pick up in this piece is an unfortunate, very common, misallocation of mental effort regarding the past-present-future mindset. As in, the described course is simply regarding treatment of symptoms. There is little to no awareness at this point in the journey that the sources of the mental issues may be much deeper than simply imposter syndrome or poor culture fit. I am not a Psychologist. I am a Writer. Psychology is the invention of a Writer, facts. To write convincing characters or portraits of events, it takes a long and often painful study of the human psyche. When I finally fell into circumstances where I was able to apply this to myself, the process, after years, has resulted in a fundamental change in my own mind. For the better, though it is occasionally foreign or akin to feeling “adrift” in life - such is clarity. Point being? Looking outside for help is problematic, and “friends and family” were in my situation the actual causes and “negative feedback loops” which had decades long consequences. Only by turning my back on them was I able to identify the nearly subconscious roots of my guilt and shame issues having no valid reason to exist. To the contrary, I found how my life had been quite a reflection of well formed morals, ethics, and principles of a high minded, pragmatic, and good quality of character person. That’s why AA and friends and family suck as resources. They are unreliable. One does not repair the mind by continuing to engage with others also of a broken nature. Healing happens in solitude. Being unable or unwilling to take this path is the first thing to address in pursuit of real, lasting positive change. Or, ya know, just take handfuls of pills and keep rowing your boat in the river of denial. Seems to be the way Mormonism keeps its catastrophically delusional dogma in play. Read the experiences of ex-Fundamentalist cast outs or voluntary abandonment. One must turn their back on the broken culture that broke them to find the truth and spiritual health within. Good luck to all.
ranger207 3mo ago
Hey, good luck! I've had some depressive episodes where I couldn't do work or even good off for a good week or so, but I'm privileged to have not been chronically depressed and need medication (I have others issues and working on those have prevented episodes). Going to therapy was the best decision of my life, and this year I've progressed enough that I put in almost 100 hours over 7 days for one critical project (which isn't something you should be able to brag about lol, but I'm proud of myself; a year ago I would've had a breakdown on about day 2). It's a journey though, and you'll have good weeks and bad, so just keep in mind that even if this week seems bad, next year's gonna be great!
- embedding-shape 3mo ago
  > Going to therapy was the best decision of my life Such an under-appreciated tool, going to therapy, granted you find the right person to do it with. For people who've tried it just a few times but never really had "the epiphany", don't stop trying to find the right individual to have this space and conversations with, as it quite literally can change your life. It might take going through 5-6 people before you encounter "Ah, I actually feel like I could tell this person anything, I'm relatively sure they'll have good insights and understands what I want", but it so worth it once things click.
ChrisGreenHeur 3mo ago
For software you don’t need to do engineering. You just need to provide value to your employer. No need to make a product perfect, but there is a need to make the product more valuable to your employer. Likely it will not be more valuable if the code is more shiny.
t43562 3mo ago
Work forces you to see your own motivations and character and you have to manage yourself like you might manage a very valuable employee that you cannot afford to lose. This means you need to see your strengths and understand how you are motivated and try to come up with ways of making the best use of those characteristics. There's no point feeling sad that you aren't X or Y. If you're Z then how can you make best use of Z? I suggest that it's important to stop thinking that other people are idiots because this lack of tolerance or understanding of other people seems to extend to yourself. You have to understand and accept yourself as having flaws. Then you may see that other people are the same - their apparent idiocy always has reasons behind it and you should take some time to understand them even if you still don't agree with them. I notice that depression is something I feel the ghost of when my image of myself is damaged by some real world situation. The only real solution to this is to stop thinking about yourself so much and think about other people more. Help people do what they want rather than what you want for a bit. Also as someone else noted, bad family situations, relationships etc, create a lot of weight. Try to avoid people who make you sad and find ways to hang out with people who interest you enough that you forget about yourself for a while.
- theoreticalmal 3mo ago
  “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping” - Jordan Peterson
  - pphysch 3mo ago
    Nice basic advice but ironic coming from him
    - throwawayffffas 3mo ago
      Broken clocks and all.
      - ethagnawl 3mo ago
        There's no shortage of other clocks to cite.
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justwhy 3mo ago
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Aboutplants 3mo ago
I have a young daughter and when I think about the most critical skills I want her to develop throughout her adolescence, communication is one of the most important ones that will prove to be valuable throughout her life. In whichever career she chooses, with friendships, personal mental health, partner relationships, etc. She is smart, she is talented and incredibly curious and those things I really do not worry about. What will set her apart from the majority of her peers throughout life will be her ability to effectively communicate and interact with others in a way that is meaningful. It’s benefits go far beyond what most of us appreciate
- mihaaly 3mo ago
  I agree with you. However succeeding is increasingly harder and harder. You can be the best communicator in the world but when the world only want to push their story to manipulate you towards their will then the only skill that counts is obedience or being the most aggressive manipulator. I wish that meaningful communication was a key to good and content life. You still can have your bubbles in the universe though, there it is invaluable, of course. Isolationism on the personal level might be necessary, unfortunately.
jhyggggap 3mo ago
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dwaltrip 3mo ago
My story has a lot of similarities to yours… I got diagnosed with ADHD 2 years ago, at age 35. It was one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I strongly encourage you to keep looking into this. Please be gentle to yourself. You’ve been fighting your whole life with one hand tied behind your back, and no one even knew.
throwawayffffas 3mo ago
My 2c, stop looking for excuses, stop assigning your self worth to the quality of your work. Mistakes happen, bugs are impossible to avoid. You may need to add rigid processes to your work to avoid the most egregious examples, but you just have to live with the fact that you will write bugs. If you find you write more bugs than your peers and they have more impact than your peers, that's fine maybe you are not cut out to be a "systems engineer" maybe move to something more forgiving like frontend or something, you will probably be happier. There is a reason that I am not working on avionics or respirator firmware. I don't have the discipline to follow the processes required to minimize the chance of accidentally killing people and I don't want the legal liability. You don't have to be working on "important" stuff, John Carmack one of the best and most celebrated developer of our time spent most of his career working on games. Be mercenary, do not take pride in your work, do your work for money. You will be happier, take pride in who you are and what you do outside of work.
- otekengineering 3mo ago
  > stop assigning your self worth to the quality of your work my personal riff on that is 'stop assigning self worth to the quality that others assign to your work'. being able to internally generate self-worth through the act of producing high quality work is a super power.
  - switchbak 3mo ago
    Good refinement. I like Paul Graham's "keep your identity small" piece: https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html When you're not personally identified with your work, it stings a whole lot less when someone rips it up. And keep in mind we're imperfect people working with other (often very) imperfect people. It's a mess, and always will be.
- ramon156 3mo ago
  I do agree that working for your career isn't the only options. Sometimes it's just to earn a living. The things that both of them have in common is that they're sustainable. If you do not like your current position, make it sustainable for the time being. I was unable to do that, twice, so I think I'm at a point where I cannot do what I need to do. Even the fun work (FOSS) is something I cannot sustain for 40 hrs a week, despite how much I enjoy it. Time will tell, though
archarios 3mo ago
I started doing a lot better at work when I stopped smoking weed and started getting a quick workout in before work each day.
FartyMcFarter 3mo ago
> I do not feel like I have the mental space to keep track of everything I need to do, and I do not even feel like I am aware of what I'm doing anymore. Have you tried keeping a document logging what your thoughts/steps while doing a task were? I find this helps me stay on track. You don't need to write it in a clean way, just bullet points to reconstruct the steps you've taken, progress, decisions you need to take etc. You can start with something as simple as "I downloaded the code from 'X', 'Y' is the shell command I used to build the project, now how do I reproduce bug 'Z'? Is there an existing script I can run or do I need to ask someone for a command, blah blah"... I find this is very useful when working on unfamiliar tasks or when I'm finding it hard to get traction on a task (due to procrastination or anything else). Just writing something has a way of making yourself get any clarity you can, and if you lose traction again, the notes you wrote are something you can use to get started again. It's quite freeing to not have to have all the context in your head all the time.
- ramon156 3mo ago
  I was actually doing this in my last month, which was probably too late in my trajectory. I even kept daily voice notes on all the issues I had that day, and what I should do to fix it. It helps, but it wasn't enough to save my job.
- bityard 3mo ago
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poisonwomb 3mo ago
You might have depression but reading that post I get autism/ADHD more than anything else. I note that you don’t really describe the sensations and feelings you experience, it’s framed through being ‘unmotivated’ at work. Inability to describe feelings is a classic autistic trait. I could of course be jumping the gun here but it’s definitely something to look into. Your description of feeling like you’re the only person in the world who experiences stuff this way also remind me a lot of my own experiences with autism and the accounts of others living with it. Communication difficulties and difficulty reaching out are also rolled up with all that too. Your descriptions of leaving tasks half done, working irregular hours, and getting distracted with something that’s not in the work item are also very common autism/adhd experiences that I see in myself and others. It’s good that you are getting tested for ADHD - note that autism and ADHD are quite comorbid and it’s very possible you have both. The good news is that, whether autism/adhd or depression, you are far from alone in your experiences, certainly very far from alone in this field. It does get better. Where depression came in for me is I had a lot of self hatred about how my brain worked, and h things other people seemed to be able to do easily I had to force myself to do, with immense effort. In a way, depression is anger turned inward, and it’s very easy to be angry at yourself. It will get better. It’s about learning how your brain works, what your limits are, and what works for you. Basically, self-compassion, because shame is only a short term motivator. It’s so easy to burn out, and so much ‘advice’ online is about pushing yourself more and more when what works is listening to and understanding yourself.
smugglerFlynn 3mo ago
> My goals for the end of 2027 are as follows: > Stop making stupid mistakes. I want to be able to finish a task fully without missing or skipping a step. One way to do this is to make a plan for everything you do, and only do that thing. Nothing else. If you are neurodivergent or have other things influencing you mentally, you are _NOT_ going to snap out of it. You are not going to just build a better planning system one day. HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. People here have trouble agreeing on engineering, product and business practices they specialise in. They are _NOT_ going to guide you in the right direction on mental health topics. Please OP, close HN, reach out to people, get help, and (importantly) learn to navigate your mind, not fight with it.
- smallerize 3mo ago
  Reach out to... people?
  - gffrd 3mo ago
    Yes, people. Friends, coworkers, family.
    - johngoode 3mo ago
      I think a lot of people with mental health problems could attest that this is not always very effective, most often you exchange the reality you’ve been living in for some kind words and then inevitably the normalisation of your problem.
      - deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
      - gffrd 3mo ago
        Sure. But there's always the chance—and not a small one!—that someone will have experience with mental health issues, know someone who has, of have an idea about how to help. Gotta start somewhere. And the best thing to do is to try lots of doors.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
PieUser 3mo ago
How do you all find a good therapist? I'd imagine it takes some trial and error to find one that fits?
- CookieCrisp 3mo ago
  Sometimes, but I feel like more than 50% are good (or I’ve been lucky) - I read their profiles online at psychologytoday.com and pick a few that seems to fit me. I then call and see if they have open appointments
cynicalsecurity 3mo ago
Check what companies he worked for and never work for them. He's got his CV on his website.
daxfohl 3mo ago
Also, find the right manager and the right role. With a manager that expects a highly regimented routine, you probably aren't going to do so well. With a manager that lets you explore and be more creative, you might do a lot better. I've found one of my own strengths is in finding ways to use existing features, maybe with slight modifications, together to do the things that customers want, allowing the team to avoid several large projects and the resulting maintenance burden entirely. My first manager understood the value of that and we worked really well together for a few years. After a reorg, my subsequent manager considered it lazy and PIP after six months. I don't fault them, and different management styles work for different people. But make sure you find someone you're compatible with.
BeetleB 3mo ago
I appreciate the candor and wish the best for you. Sadly, I will also tell you that once you do resume your job search, this post is going to hurt your chances. It shouldn't. It really, really shouldn't. I don't respect my colleagues who reject people for stuff like this. But I can't change the world. I don't have a solution other than to make such posts private and share only with people you trust. Or start a new blog on a new domain so employers don't associate it with you.
onion2k 3mo ago
The author should probably read The Checklist Manifesto. It's a great book that has some excellent advice about getting things done with higher quality by, not surprisingly given the title, using checklists.
- sethammons 3mo ago
  Item one: find and complete abandoned check lists. Item two: forget this checklist exists I mostly kid. My life is ruled by checklist, alarms, and calendars. I have a single notebook with a carry forward pressing items style checklist. Two columns: priority and keep in mind. I have to abandon it quarterly because i cannot do everything on the lists.
yobutdude 3mo ago
26% of social psychology is reproducible Roughly 50% of cognitive psychology is reproducible Worse or barely as good as a coin toss Here's a psychiatrist arguing Americans have become addicted to therapy and lost their nerve for normal irrational aspects of reality: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-became-addicted-therapy/677532/ https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-... Therapy is just the new religion; used to ostracize and denigrate and demonize people who don't confess their sins to a therapist and receive absolution It's another "intelligent design" moment; traditional values wrapped in atheist language as religious language has fallen out of favor Keep in mind therapists are human meat suits with bills and rent to pay. It's just more capitalism. You're paying for a friendly ear because you have no friends
- astrange 3mo ago
  Therapists have specific techniques and programs that work. Well, some of them do anyway. If you have a real serious issue like PTSD or BPD it can be mostly fixed with the right sort of therapy. It's like saying you only work with a personal trainer at the gym because you don't have a friend to go with. Sort of true sort of not.
  - yobutdude 3mo ago
    Sure and that's the cohort that benefits from the 26% and 50% reproducible science. I grew up around the types that truly need the help in rural America. Saw many people truly benefit. The other 74% and 50% is nonsense like Myers-Briggs and non-formal language use means someone is a dysregulated nonce; just modern phrenology. Often but not always peddled by rich kids who got a degree and decided everyone who isn't rich like them fits some definition they memorized in the DSM. And they charge money to tell them so; win win. Frameworks in the DSM are also barely reliable. Inter-rater scores suggest descriptions for anxiety only fit like 23% of the time. I forget the exact number, it's in the low or middle 20s. Descriptions for a diagnosis of depressive disorder are only accurate 30-some percent of the time. When looked into the primary contributors to DSM are big pharma employees. Zero conflict of interest
titanomachy 3mo ago
Just want to add another voice of empathy and encouragement. I have ADHD, I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety at various times, I’ve scored and subsequently been fired from some top-tier SWE jobs because of inconsistent productivity and poor communication. I know how much it sucks, and how tempting it is to fall into a spiral of blaming yourself. It’s possible to learn to accept yourself and improve these attitudes and behaviors, but it takes time and work and it won’t be a straight line. Use your doctors as expert resources and listen to them, but they’re not all-knowing wizards, and the drugs aren’t magic. Take responsibility, read books, take your own actions. Now you have time to do the obvious things that everyone already knows they should do to be healthy: exercise, eat well, sleep at the same time each day, see your friends and family, help other people, don’t doomscroll or game all day, keep your apartment clean. Find little projects to work on to help build your sense of agency and self-esteem, maybe not software stuff to start with since you have a lot of complex negativity built up around that. Oh also, on the specific point of thinking you write bad quality software… you graduated in 2024. You’re basically brand new at this. Most people write shit software when they start out, don’t beat yourself up over this. Good luck.
ramon156 3mo ago
I would also like to add that I have read multiple comments talking about their struggles with either some neurodivergent diagnosis, or with depression. I've never seen this side of HN, and I am very grateful to have been a part of it. I haven't met anyone in a similar boat, so seeing I'm not alone is very healing.
luckydata 3mo ago
Everyone makes mistakes. I think OPs problem might be more in how he analyzes, internalizes and reacts to mistakes. I hope he can fix his problems and move on with his life, as a person living with ADHD I can empathize with feeling "broken" and not equipped for corporate life and in a way I am not, but I'll keep going until my energy allows me because... I have no other option. Good luck to everyone out there.
donkers 3mo ago
Learn to be your own best friend. My DBT therapist is making me work through this Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook [0]. It feels hokey at the beginning, but it seems to actually be working. Improving your internal self talk and becoming your own advocate and supportive best friend gives you the capacity and perspective to change your behaviors to drag yourself out of the muck. [0] https://a.co/d/029g4obS https://a.co/d/029g4obS
z3t4 3mo ago
I would suggest building something on your own, choose your own processes, work however you want, with something that gives you motivation, and see if you are able to ship and release the things you build, attract users and lifetime management of the products. Now if that works great the problem is not with you.
- hahahaa 3mo ago
  The attract users bit. In 2026? That is going to be hard. I'd say don't worry about it if that part doesn't happen.
Paracompact 3mo ago
No one else has mentioned it here, so on account of my own experiences I feel the obligation to say: Be aware of this developing into suicidal ideation, if it hasn't already. I get the impression (again, mostly my own experiences, projected onto you) from your intense "the problem has to be me" convictions that you're simultaneously dealing with a lot of self-loathing, and that this self-loathing fills a void of answers to existential questions that no other source in your life can. In other words, your depression has become a maladaptive coping strategy. And if that's so, then it's not a long shot until your maladaptive coping strategies evolve from, "the problem is me" into "the solution would be/will be/should be/is my own death." I derive these warnings from these whiffs of absolute, impossible-to-change miseries you mention: "my mind is exploding, I'm not aware of what I'm doing anymore"; "tomorrow it'll be something else I screwed up"; "I'm the only one with these problems." So, if you have a dark voice inside your head that promises change or absolution only in return for your own physical or emotional injury (perhaps dressed up as "discipline"), be forewarned: This voice is a cognitive illusion. It does not care about you. It will hold your head underwater until you drown, and still be unhappy. On another note: I would agree with others that you would be a strong candidate for an autism assessment. Like you say with ADD, autism would not a root cause of anything, but it might help you understand your situation more intuitively if it is involved.
tsoukase 3mo ago
Depression is for many people the animal in the room, for some a fox and for others an elephant. You cannot avoid, ignore or hack a chemical imbalance in your brain with societal or personal measures. If you find yourself hopeless and helpless, irrespective if you have attended any form of psychotherapy, take an antidepressant. Don't hesitate and if you are in trouble, contact me, seriously. The author takes Fluoxetine which is the less potent A-D drug among all. If he is really in a heavy depression, he should be on Escitalopram.
- kmoser 3mo ago
  Can you provide some insight into a) how you know somebody else should take a given drug, without having examined that person yourself, and b) whether you're qualified to prescribe that drug?
  - astrange 3mo ago
    Their bio does say they are, but they certainly forgot some things. (Some people presenting with depression should not be on antidepressants because they actually have bipolar disorder.)
    - tsoukase 3mo ago
      This 'some' refers to many subcategories of cases, not only unipolar vs bipolar.
  - tsoukase 3mo ago
    Disclaimer: I am neurologist in a psy department. I used the second person and a direct advice deliberately to overcome the taboo and suspicion against antidepressives, which cost quality of life. Obviously, one has to reach a doctor for a proper diagnosis and therapy. Anyway, in most countries you cannot buy such drugs OTC. The end goal is to persuade to actively discuss about it with the doctor and/or in case he suggests a drug, follow it. We definitely need the medical analog to TINLA (This is not legal advice) but TINMA is not accurate. As for the post author, he seems to still suffer, although under a drug, and he might benefit from a change, which is a frequent situation.
hahahaa 3mo ago
Thanks for sharing. You are doing incredibly well for thesw circumstances - you found a therapist, are attending, on a treatment plan and have good relationships in your life. I think 2026 is a really hard time to be a new software engineer. There is too much tech to learn. AI in the mix. Many are finding it really hard. Good luck with it all. I have no advice just keep putting mental health first, as you rightly said in the title.
jimnotgym 3mo ago
One thing to know, is that if you are neurodivergent, well organised normies will continuously give you bad advice. Copying their system won't work for you, it might however cause you a lot of anguish because you can't work their way. I don't code anymore. But one thing that helped me, is that all of the neurodivergent people I have worked with have a super-power or two, that offsets their failings. One of mine is seeing systems as a whole. Another is a photographic memory for certain things, although working through them is a great cause of insomnia, i can run through conversations over and over until I see the inconsistencies between what different people told me. The solution to a major problem often seems totally obvious to me, however the anguish I am about to cause other people by pointing it out to them is not obvious to me at all! Find those things, then find a job that lets you exercise them. I tend to get recruited to companies in a state of extreme flux, and I'm great at stabilising them. When you are in a disaster people are much more willing to change! Read about other people's rules and hunt out your place in life. Kind of ironically, things got easier for me once I was more senior. I would recruit a team of super-organized people to kind of fill in my gaps. They value my insight, and also my (ironically) empathy I show towards them. I think I had to try so hard to study people, that I became better at it than most normies. It might take a bit of searching but you will find your place. I was a legend at the majority of my roles and a failure at 2 others. You have to find your fit. Flexitime is useful btw. Lastly, beware of burnout. I'm going to say it again beware of burnout. It is easy for some of us to become obsessed with problem solving to our own detriment.
glitchc 3mo ago
I read your post very carefully. I feel compelled to share my opinion, just as you should feel equally free to ignore it. Here goes: I suspect your vocation of choice is misaligned with your personality. Software/hardware development is very detail-oriented work, not much different from a mechanic, carpenter or watch-maker. It's easy to recover from mistakes in tech unlike the more tangible fields, but not any less focused on the tiny bits. That's not for everyone and it should also come as no surprise that most good developers have some degree of OCD (things have to be _just so_). It's not a good fit for those who prefer to see the big picture, who like dealing with opinions rather than fact, who naturally gravitate to thinking of the human rather than the machine. There is a way to test this, for you and anyone else. Try the game Shenzhen I/O. It mimics the typical work environment of an embedded developer (mix of hardware and software). Communication is minimal, you can't really reach out to colleagues to help you solve the problem, the manual is your best friend. It seems to match very closely with your current way of working. Try playing it, but with a specific focus on how it makes you feel. Does opening the inbox and seeing a new problem fill you with joy or dread? Does finding a solution make you feel elated or downcast? After you're done, do you feel like improving your design or do you prefer to never see it again? Do you prefer to see the email of the colleague trying to be funny or the colleague giving you a useful tip? It may seem like such a simple thing, yet the difference in feeling can be enormous. Let it guide you to discovery. Software problems are essentially puzzles. Do you like solving puzzles? If not, it's totally okay. Not everyone does. It just means there are better fits than software out there for you.
- crispyambulance 3mo ago
  >...vocation of choice is misaligned with your personality... I also kind of sense this. The OP mentioned they were doing systems engineering. That's a very particular hellscape of grinding details. It involves being comfortable constantly dealing with a lack of control and flow. The good news is there many different kinds of work. I hope they can find their path.
ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago
> Turns out I'm the only one. I realize that while others also have issues, they are in no way similar. Not the only one. Well, maybe I'm luckier because I have a milder form of it, but having to test things thoroughly used to be absolutely mind crushing. I can see how a different personality would just skip over it for this reason. However, it may be possible to get over that, like I no longer find it so terrible. I'm not sure "making a plan and not making mistakes" is how it's done, maybe it's possible but I can't just follow a plan like that, to me it's more about switching myself to a bug hunting mode and feeling of shame if it doesn't work that overrides the tediousness of testing and doing it until it becomes a habit. Agree with smuggler's comment though, don't take hn comments too seriously
thisislife2 3mo ago
> I want to be able to finish a task fully without missing or skipping a step. One way to do this is to make a plan for everything you do, and only do that thing. Nothing else. True. Also don't overthink during the planning stage. And you need to understand that the reason you freeze / abandon and not complete something is because of anxiety (which triggers avoidance). For example, for perfectionists it is the strain of the high standards they demand from themselves and the hidden fear of judgement that drives this.
xivzgrev 3mo ago
While you are resting I'd recommend meditation. You have a lot of thoughts, and you are trying to make sense of them. Just create some space. Sit with them. Things will eventually make sense. Or not, some mysteries don't get solved. Either way you'll find a path forward.
throwaway382914 3mo ago
I've felt motivated to dump a bunch of personal stuff here after reading this. I know this isn't the best way to deal with things and it's not interesting reading for most people, but putting it in the open anonymously would help me a bit. I have similar problems with mental health. I don't think I have as much trouble with the autism and ADD aspects. I can definitely focus on a single task for long periods when motivated. Although I do have communication issues due to depression and social anxiety, and low self-esteem around my job performance (and really in general). I didn't know what to do once I finished high school. I got into software development because I was bouncing around university degrees and ended up doing a programming course. I found it more interesting and easier than any of the other subjects I had done, and decided it was a sensible idea to make it a career. I remember thinking I was good at it because I often did better than my peers in those classes. I know now that wasn't as strong an indicator as I thought it was, as the majority of those people probably had their own subjects they found easy and interesting. I read Timequake recently and the chapter about meeting someone that "cuts you a new asshole" stood out to me. The first time that happened to me was my industry internship, where they weren't shy about saying I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I got a job and worked really hard in the first few years trying to prove myself. I was very productive and made a few things that impressed people. And then a better engineer came along and, rightfully, poked a lot of holes in the work I had done. And this better engineer eventually started getting the more interesting work and opportunities and my motivation just kind of died away. I'm still here almost a decade later. It's impossible to be fired where I am so long as you do the bare minimum, which is a blessing and a curse. I've gone for a few other jobs over the years but chickened out when I got an offer because I'm afraid of going somewhere where I can be fired for poor performance, worried that I wouldn't find that motivation again. My work now is maintenance and easy tasks. I avoid trying to do anything new or bring forward ideas because I made so many mistakes that it became humiliating. I think a healthy person in my situation would take the opportunity to learn from their betters and be motivated to improve, but I feel like a failure. I've isolated myself and work remotely because I've never done well socially and feel like I'm a bad fit for the office and the culture. The isolation compounds things as you end up forgotten, and so much nuance is lost in communication which leads to misreading things and becoming easily offended. I know that I'm depressed and need to get help. I should start with therapy. I've tried it before but never found a good therapist. I should probably also try medication, but that scares me. I went through the ringer with psychiatrists when I was a teenager, got a bipolar diagnosis. I tried a lot of medications and remember not feeling improvement at all, just being miserable and dealing with weird side effects. I need to try again though. Despite my issues I've still ended up with a wonderful relationship and a small amount of friends who are very good people. But I can feel I am getting worse and my mental health is a threat to the good things I have. I would really like to improve my mental health and find a different career, while I still have time to do it. In Timequake, in regards to the cutting of the new asshole, Vonnegut said people should aspire to do what's natural and interesting to them. Unfortunately I don't know what that is yet, but I know I need to sort my shit out before I can start pursuing it.
cleandreams 3mo ago
My son has ADHD and I never knew what it meant but this year I made him get coaching for it and I made him get meds. He was living at home for free rent and the condition of staying was to address this. My experience is that getting treatment for this condition helped him a lot. The coach really helped, the meds really helped. He is full of zest for the work that lies ahead. He's off on his own now and while I think he'll have stumbles it's basically very positive. One thing about ADHD coaching. The coach is a consistent person who helps frame a positive attitude with agency and skills and this takes you away from negative self talk. It's good. I think ADHD folks need this positive support.
ahaferburg 3mo ago
Link timed out for me. Mirror: https://archive.ph/LlX04 https://archive.ph/LlX04

339 points by ramon156 3mo ago

I have worked in environments where as the day wore on, my performance plummeted. After a lot of investigation, I suspect that air quality, lighting, ergonomics can have adverse effects. Only recently I read an article that said that in a room with several persons and poor ventilation the CO2 levels reach levels which are known to impair brain and other neurological functions. That is, I suspect that your depression is the symptom of a bad environment and not the root cause of your problems.

simtel20 3mo ago
This is irresponsible on your part. OP has been diagnosed by professionals and is being treated and clearly sees the difference. While high CO2 levels make a measurable difference in some tasks and its effects can be felt in crowded spaces, it seems like you're taking your pet peeve and dismissing the struggle that the OP is going through. Please try to have more sympathy. I understand it can be difficult or even frightening to think about problems that don't have a trivially described cause, effect and solution like your proposal, but it would be a good idea to ask questions, even as simply as asking if that OP has noticed an effect, before trivializing their struggles this way
JumpinJack_Cash 3mo ago
> > That is, I suspect that your depression is the symptom of a bad environment and not the root cause of your problems. Yeah that's BS. When you were a kid in class in winter you had 20 kids + the teacher in the same room submerged by co2 , plus you were in a literal prison taken from the comfort of your bed in the dead of the night, had to ask permission to use the restroom and you could be denied , once you managed to get to the restroom you'd be submerged by even more co2 because of all the cigarette smoking going on from the older guys. And I am not even considering bullying as a factor that for the least lucky or strong could be added to the above list. Still no depression in sight . The problem comes from within, life was never meant to be taken this seriously, all the improvements and technological prowness that we tout vs. Subsaharan Africa come with the cost of literal self torture. We have evolved in a scenario in which if you had reason to believe to have >90% chance of being alive 1 week from now (something like 168 hours into the future) then you could literally go out of your hut celebrating with your dick swinging left and right . We have now reached a point where people would be unhappy with 168 years because 'oh no what happens next OMG I am so scared!' Mental health and thinking are 2 parallel lines, they can never be reconciled, thinking is much more toxic than CO2, lead, sniffing glue, meth, heroin, fentanyl and all the other so called harmful substances which as toxic as they might be they don't make you want to off yourself. Paradoxically if we stopped thinking and ran New York City into the ground back to an African hut village it would be the best party in the history of humanity and so much happiness could be extracted from that, much much more than building it up further, even though it would not be visible from the outside
stephantul 3mo ago
As mentioned by a sibling comment: this is an insensitive take. It takes a lot of courage to write down one’s struggles for all the world to see. Your analysis denies the OP their self-reflection, and instead reduces it to a thing you happened to find in your own life.

Viacol 3mo ago

My mother is a therapist, and I'd like to share a few things I've learned from her over the years. One piece of advice is to start with the biological side. Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and taking care of your physical health can have a surprisingly positive effect on your mental state. At the same time, don't hesitate to seek help from a therapist. They can help guide the way you think about your experiences and how you interpret them. It's a gradual process, but it really can make a difference. I believe you can get through this. :)

jvanderbot 3mo ago
You're right, but framed generally like this, it's easy to skip this advice. OP/reader, more specifically, examine that post. It is an avalanche of negative self-talk. It's a person telling themeselves and the world that they cannot do something. You can take a perfectly healthy person, turn on this cycle, and watch it destroy their lives. Depression has many causes, but its roots that make it stick are cycles like these. Antidepressants are a parachute, but you have to rebuild the engine and an important part of that is to learn to reframe events and identify and challenge your negative assumptions.
consp 3mo ago
> At the same time, don't hesitate to seek help from a therapist I'd like to add that for certain kinds of people, the process of doing this on your own is near torture.

_override 3mo ago

I can sympathize with what you're going through OP. I have similar struggles myself (primarily with severe anxiety) and wouldn't wish most of what I have had to go through on my worst enemy. I do have one comment though: You mention stability in your goals, and how you want to find stability. What is stability to you? I've struggled for years with trying to find stability but it often just leads me back to thinking that there really is no such thing. You just never know what is going to happen in life. Finding a job and having stable employment are hard, and will likely only get harder as we age. Relationships have ups and downs, and their downs can be incredibly challenging to navigate. Most of us (at least in Europe) don't have the luxury of building wealth to escape the 9-5 grind. We simply need to work (and stay employable) until we have the ability to retire. I don't know how things work in your country, but here in Sweden I can't even start to collect my state pension until I turn 69. I need to find a way to remain employable until I am 69, or amass enough wealth to not need to worry about paying my bills if I don't have stable employment. I could go on and on but honestly I think stability is a myth. Life is inherently unstable. But we human beings are also incredibly resiliant. Take care of yourself. I wish you all the best OP.

switchbak 3mo ago
The Buddhists call that seeking ground, and they consider it to be a real source of suffering. Their take is that the reality is fundamentally groundlessness, and the more you can relax into that (easier said than done), the less you'll suffer when the inevitable shit hits the fan. As someone who has had a metric ton of shit hit his fan, this is a hard pill to swallow, but very effective medicine and has helped me tremendously. In modern terms, you could say it's good to embrace a growth/flexibility mindset and work on the things that help you to build and restore resilience.

m1aw 3mo ago

I know this pattern from myself. I'm doing alright as far as my career goes, not great, but okay. Which is disappointing because me and everyone around thought I'd do great, because I/they thought I was a great software developer, since I'm smart and I know my tech and my programming. Unfortunately working as a software developer is a different story entirely, I found many times that my chase for good simple code takes time, and sometimes I overthink things and I don't test properly, and I'm also slow, and don't communicate the problem with my team because I don't work consistent hours, because my brain cannot do consistency. Turns out I have ADHD. Possibly autism too. So I understand your feelings of I just need to be better, because it works for other right? Even tho you know that fundamentally you are right, but it works for others so why not you? I don't have a solution. But sometimes you can't just "be better" and "more consistent", I also wish I could, but maybe it's not possible. Maybe the only way is to find where we are good and do more of that. If you have struggle finishing things hope on calls with people that are good at finishing things. Talk with them. Be proactive and be open. I also don't do this as often as I should, because I'm also ashamed. I don't know exactly what the point was to this, but so you know others also fail, even tho they deemed smart and skilled by others.

jvanderbot 3mo ago
If you recognize yourself in that post, then what you recognize is called negative self talk. The only advice I have for you is to learn to recognize how this pattern makes things worse and to learn (or be taught) how to stop that pattern. The blog post is a textbook self-flagellation and I have no doubt author returns to it to feel worse about themselves in some twisted attempt to motivate positive change.
- 9dev 3mo ago
  Hah. I feel very much seen by both of these comments, much more than I’m confident to admit. Something I have been struggling with all my life is deciding whether I am flawed in some way, or the other party/the environment is - because my immediate reaction is always to feel responsible and inadequate, and it takes a lot of energy of confidently feeling superior or right about something. Like, is it a pattern, or am I reflecting to avoid being ignorant?

travelalberta 3mo ago

Most of y’all need to buck up. If day to day engineering tasks are so challenging for you maybe the anxiety and depression you’re feeling is your system telling you that you are in misalignment. Why are you an engineer if you are struggling to complete the basic tasks? Are you meant to be doing what you are doing?

alphawhisky 3mo ago
Rare and needed reminder in the big '26
jvanderbot 3mo ago
This is one side of the elephant. It's true a steel inner strength is required in day to day engineering. It's hard, and it lacks positive reinformcement almost always. When you hear something it is bad. But let's define "buck up" and see the other side of the elephant. That blog post is a textbook example of negative self talk. You can have a world that looks down on you and spit back at it and do your best work, but if you look down on yourself you _will not_ bootstrap your way out, because you learn to believe you cannot. That is depression, and depression is reinforced if not caused by that self-talk. Addressing the self-talk and stopping the flagellation will allow that steel inner strength to build up. Medication is a parachute but the wings and engine need to be rebuilt using self confidence, and that's a long road of: * reframing failures as lessons * honesty with self about your own role in your depression * careful build-up of support * learning to find the important and good in each memory, vs the deprecating and painful
- quantummagic 3mo ago
  I think the point was that there are people who don't need all this extra work, it just comes naturally. And they are more suited to engineering than people who need to spend a lot of energy on emotional and mental regulation as well.
  - jvanderbot 3mo ago
    Yes - you are identifying a non-depressed engineer. A depressed engineer can become one of those by removing the depression.

Xortl 3mo ago

I would love to read an update about your experience with antidepressants, as it's a path I'm thinking about more and more with the (losing) battle I've been fighting against my own long term depression. I really resonated with your eventual realization that while others have their own battles, they are very rarely similar to this. I guess I knew it was unusual, but I took way too long to realize just how weird it was to feel soul-crushingly miserable for no identifiable reason, even when things are going well, even when I'm around friends I like and they're having fun. Wishing you the best OP.

esseph 3mo ago
Stop thinking about it and go talk to someone. You are likely just delaying your healing and happiness. Good luck!
_override 3mo ago
I'm not OP but just wanted to add my own experience with anti-depressants as someone who has battled mild depression and extreme anxiety for years. Ultimately in my case it turned out that I needed to try several different antidepressants that my doctor prescribed until I found one that worked to aid in decreasing my depression and anxiety symptoms with pretty much no side effects. I tried several which did not work for me or had a lot of side effects. Some antidepressants that helped my friends and family in their struggles did not help me. So definitely ask your doctor if they'd be willing to work with you to try and find a medication that works well for you with minimal side effects if they recommend that you take such medications. Wish you all the best. Mental illness sucks.
- rowyourboat 3mo ago
  We know very little about how psychological drugs work in general. Having to try multiple things to find one that works well for you is par for the course
ramon156 3mo ago
I resonate with you word-for-word. I kind of assumed people were also struggling, but I didn't realize how much struggling it ended up being. I will post an update every now-and-then. It might not be very software-related (sorry dang!), so I will try to not post all of them on here. I wish you the best as well! And you are free to contact me, I think talking to someone in a similar boat helps a lot.

deleted 3mo ago

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jason_s 3mo ago

I agree mental health is important and have struggled with similar issues... but it is hard to read prose in fixed-width typefaces. Please consider a more readable serif variable-width typeface.

esseph 3mo ago
Many of us are used to monospace all day long in terminal
- jason_s 3mo ago
  That doesn't mean it's more readable. This retro-terminal-website trend is so weird. When I was growing up, all the computers had was a fixed-width character set. Then GUI operating systems came out in the early 90s and PDFs and web browsers. Free from the fixed-width tyranny. It belongs in certain places, but readable prose is not one of them.

a_bonobo 3mo ago

I used to co-supervise a PhD student who suffered from severe anxiety, she was good but her anxiety stood in her way almost all of the time. You could see that she used up 3/4 of her brain just on being anxious, there wasn't much power left to do the actual work to any standard. It's a horrible disease. (and yeah, she was on medication and diagnosed).

neuralkoi 3mo ago

On your goals: 1. It's okay to make mistakes. Pain + reflection = progress. 2. Try to shift your perspective so your sense of worth isn't tied to your work. 3. Anytime you say "I should", "I need to", usually this is sign you are blindly following some sort of cognitive script [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMghRYqk8o&t=1844s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMghRYqk8o&t=1844s

voakbasda 3mo ago
The “should” trap is a big one. I found The Work by Byron Katie to be a very effective self-guided method for addressing those thoughts.
ramon156 3mo ago
I didn't really think about your third bulletpoint, that does make sense. I think it's also good to be aware when you're lying to yourself. An easy example is how people talk about their gym membership. "Oh, I would go, but I am so busy with X", or "I am already doing Y, so I don't really need to go". It's always a non-reason, while the true reason is that they just do not see a reason to go. I don't get why this happens with work, though. I didn't love my job, but I definitely loved the colleagues, and I felt like I didn't do that bad of a job (ofcourse I see this differently now, I was doing a bad job).
- Paracompact 3mo ago
  In REBT (rational emotive behavioral therapy; a cognitive behavioral therapy focused on rational introspection) the excessive "need" language is identified with "musturbation": https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0087779 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0087779 In Buddhism, excessive "need" language is identified with excessive clinging to some aspect of life that behaves contrary to your cravings or your understanding. (Upadana = clinging, tanha = craving, together with its positive and negative forms bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha, "things must be so," "things must not be so.") The usual cure prescribed is to cure the ignorance that causes these illusions of reality, and/or detach from the clinging that causes your ignorance to inspire suffering (dukkha). REBT is inspired by a number of philosophies: Stoicism, Buddhism, among others. If this more analytical approach to self-help appeals to you any, I might encourage you to check it out.

zeafoamrun 3mo ago

I thought I was depressed but then I got divorced and realized my depression was situational from being in an awful relationship. Consider causes like this as well, it is hard to see when you're inside it.

embedding-shape 3mo ago
Also be careful with reaching conclusions too quickly. I ended up breaking a 10+ year long relationship after thinking that was the problem, I ended up even more miserable than before. Begged her to take me back after some years, and luckily we're happily together ever since and still married :) (with lots of changes from the first iteration, obviously)
- ramon156 3mo ago
  Wow, without sounding sarcastic, that sounds like a healthy relationship! It really shows maturity to own up to it and choose each other again. Hoping the best for you both :)

consp 3mo ago

I've been there (without the LLMs and antidepressants since therapy is healthier). The 1 year is quite optimistic from my perspective. Good luck though. Prioritize yourself. The different usages of I or i though ... please fix the LLM type checking it.

NotGMan 3mo ago

I'm at this point fully convinced that 90%+ of people with depression have either a metabolic disfunction, gut issues, heavy metal poisoning or some other occult infection or a problem. So it's not really mental, it's literally a disease of the physical body. The brains are then affected as a side effect. You can look up low carb, carnivore, heavy metal elimination groups etc... and you will find thousands of real testimonials. The problem is that many if not most of these are hard if not impossible to diagnose since the modern medical science is lacking completely at this plus the combination of arrogant doctors not taking these people seriously and gaslighting them makes it 10 times worse, so experimentation is needed and then a commitment for a year or two. Many improve in 4 to 6 months. Some take longer.

tayo42 3mo ago
Comment and I'll DM the Pdf guide to fixing your life!

jxckshit 3mo ago

This sounds a lot like the shame and frustration people with ADD feel when untreated. I know several people who suffer with ADD, who are extremely intelligent and talented, and felt the exact same emotions before they were diagnosed. Those emotions were _much_ alleviated once treated, mostly through pharmacological means. Anecdotal but seems a strong pattern to me.

ramon156 3mo ago
You're not the only one commenting this. I do have to say it's quite re-assuring to know that this is a possibility. For the people you know that have ADD, was medication sufficient? Did they still end up taking therapy for their neurodivergence? I wonder how long it takes before I can be a functional programmer again. I know it'll take a while.
- astrange 3mo ago
  I'm trying ADHD therapy now, but the thing about ADHD is that you can still do complex tasks like programming yet can't do simple things. So the therapy is partly focused on emotional management, and partly about skills to do seemingly simple things like cook and put away laundry. I haven't seen coaching for ADHD software engineers, but I'd be interested in it. (I'd rather take more cooking classes though.)

fwlr 3mo ago

This could be due to ADD, I am still getting tested. Granted, that's a diagnosis, not a root cause. No, it’s a diagnosis of the root cause - in fact, it is plausibly the root cause of everything else described in the post. Inability to complete work, procrastination/distraction by focusing on nearby tasks, the pervasive sense that you struggle with things that other people do not, even the depression (untreated ADD causing repeated failures, repeated failures causing depression). To understand why it really could be the root cause, you can read up on “executive dysfunction”, which is what ADD really is. The treatment for ADD is one of two medications, methylphenidate or dexamphetamine. You can try other things in addition to these, but not instead of these, and you should try both - there really is just no substitute. (In some places, bupropion can be prescribed as an antidepressant. It has effects that also help with executive dysfunction, so you may find it to be more effective than serotonin-based antidepressants.)

imrehg 3mo ago
It's scary how your first paragraph describes by recent (but not long term) experiences. Looks like I have some checks to do as well.
SkyPuncher 3mo ago
ADHD is unlikely to be the root cause as there is unlikely to be any single root cause. Treating ADHD will reduce or eliminate a component of this, but will not address the issues entirely.
corytheboyd 3mo ago
> untreated ADD causing repeated failures, repeated failures causing depression realized this one about myself earlier this year, it really helped to boil it down to something besides “I am just inherently bad at things.” that attitude worked as a dumb single kid, but it was harming my adult life and relationships. therapy helped me get there. I have been on bupropion for about a year, and recently started on methylphenidate. it might not be the right one for me, or maybe too small of a dosage. I’m taking it slow and being deliberate with the drugs. working with a personal trainer to get in shape and lose weight, as well as quitting my fully vested tech job to fuck off and be a cook for a while has also done wonders for me here. it’s cliche, but you really can’t replace fitness with anything else, and that took me 35 years to internalize.

Shalomboy 3mo ago

I've wanted to write something similar regarding anxiety on a blog of my own for close to a decade now, but I was always afraid to put my feelings to paper, in case they become real. If they stay in my head, I can dismiss them. OP, I hope you feel some relief having posted this; if it helped you, perhaps it could encourage other to let down their walls. Thank you so much for sharing.

ramon156 3mo ago
Would you like a tip? This post started out as bulletpoints that were no more than 5 words each, eventually you start typing away like there's no tomorrow. There's a lot I want to talk about, and not a lot of words until people stop scanning.

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6stringmerc 3mo ago

An admirable start down a self-discovery path. One of the major themes I pick up in this piece is an unfortunate, very common, misallocation of mental effort regarding the past-present-future mindset. As in, the described course is simply regarding treatment of symptoms. There is little to no awareness at this point in the journey that the sources of the mental issues may be much deeper than simply imposter syndrome or poor culture fit. I am not a Psychologist. I am a Writer. Psychology is the invention of a Writer, facts. To write convincing characters or portraits of events, it takes a long and often painful study of the human psyche. When I finally fell into circumstances where I was able to apply this to myself, the process, after years, has resulted in a fundamental change in my own mind. For the better, though it is occasionally foreign or akin to feeling “adrift” in life - such is clarity. Point being? Looking outside for help is problematic, and “friends and family” were in my situation the actual causes and “negative feedback loops” which had decades long consequences. Only by turning my back on them was I able to identify the nearly subconscious roots of my guilt and shame issues having no valid reason to exist. To the contrary, I found how my life had been quite a reflection of well formed morals, ethics, and principles of a high minded, pragmatic, and good quality of character person. That’s why AA and friends and family suck as resources. They are unreliable. One does not repair the mind by continuing to engage with others also of a broken nature. Healing happens in solitude. Being unable or unwilling to take this path is the first thing to address in pursuit of real, lasting positive change. Or, ya know, just take handfuls of pills and keep rowing your boat in the river of denial. Seems to be the way Mormonism keeps its catastrophically delusional dogma in play. Read the experiences of ex-Fundamentalist cast outs or voluntary abandonment. One must turn their back on the broken culture that broke them to find the truth and spiritual health within. Good luck to all.

ranger207 3mo ago

Hey, good luck! I've had some depressive episodes where I couldn't do work or even good off for a good week or so, but I'm privileged to have not been chronically depressed and need medication (I have others issues and working on those have prevented episodes). Going to therapy was the best decision of my life, and this year I've progressed enough that I put in almost 100 hours over 7 days for one critical project (which isn't something you should be able to brag about lol, but I'm proud of myself; a year ago I would've had a breakdown on about day 2). It's a journey though, and you'll have good weeks and bad, so just keep in mind that even if this week seems bad, next year's gonna be great!

embedding-shape 3mo ago
> Going to therapy was the best decision of my life Such an under-appreciated tool, going to therapy, granted you find the right person to do it with. For people who've tried it just a few times but never really had "the epiphany", don't stop trying to find the right individual to have this space and conversations with, as it quite literally can change your life. It might take going through 5-6 people before you encounter "Ah, I actually feel like I could tell this person anything, I'm relatively sure they'll have good insights and understands what I want", but it so worth it once things click.

ChrisGreenHeur 3mo ago

For software you don’t need to do engineering. You just need to provide value to your employer. No need to make a product perfect, but there is a need to make the product more valuable to your employer. Likely it will not be more valuable if the code is more shiny.

t43562 3mo ago

Work forces you to see your own motivations and character and you have to manage yourself like you might manage a very valuable employee that you cannot afford to lose. This means you need to see your strengths and understand how you are motivated and try to come up with ways of making the best use of those characteristics. There's no point feeling sad that you aren't X or Y. If you're Z then how can you make best use of Z? I suggest that it's important to stop thinking that other people are idiots because this lack of tolerance or understanding of other people seems to extend to yourself. You have to understand and accept yourself as having flaws. Then you may see that other people are the same - their apparent idiocy always has reasons behind it and you should take some time to understand them even if you still don't agree with them. I notice that depression is something I feel the ghost of when my image of myself is damaged by some real world situation. The only real solution to this is to stop thinking about yourself so much and think about other people more. Help people do what they want rather than what you want for a bit. Also as someone else noted, bad family situations, relationships etc, create a lot of weight. Try to avoid people who make you sad and find ways to hang out with people who interest you enough that you forget about yourself for a while.

theoreticalmal 3mo ago
“Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping” - Jordan Peterson
- pphysch 3mo ago
  Nice basic advice but ironic coming from him
  - throwawayffffas 3mo ago
    Broken clocks and all.
    - ethagnawl 3mo ago
      There's no shortage of other clocks to cite.

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justwhy 3mo ago

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Aboutplants 3mo ago

I have a young daughter and when I think about the most critical skills I want her to develop throughout her adolescence, communication is one of the most important ones that will prove to be valuable throughout her life. In whichever career she chooses, with friendships, personal mental health, partner relationships, etc. She is smart, she is talented and incredibly curious and those things I really do not worry about. What will set her apart from the majority of her peers throughout life will be her ability to effectively communicate and interact with others in a way that is meaningful. It’s benefits go far beyond what most of us appreciate

mihaaly 3mo ago
I agree with you. However succeeding is increasingly harder and harder. You can be the best communicator in the world but when the world only want to push their story to manipulate you towards their will then the only skill that counts is obedience or being the most aggressive manipulator. I wish that meaningful communication was a key to good and content life. You still can have your bubbles in the universe though, there it is invaluable, of course. Isolationism on the personal level might be necessary, unfortunately.

jhyggggap 3mo ago

[flagged]

dwaltrip 3mo ago

My story has a lot of similarities to yours… I got diagnosed with ADHD 2 years ago, at age 35. It was one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I strongly encourage you to keep looking into this. Please be gentle to yourself. You’ve been fighting your whole life with one hand tied behind your back, and no one even knew.

throwawayffffas 3mo ago

My 2c, stop looking for excuses, stop assigning your self worth to the quality of your work. Mistakes happen, bugs are impossible to avoid. You may need to add rigid processes to your work to avoid the most egregious examples, but you just have to live with the fact that you will write bugs. If you find you write more bugs than your peers and they have more impact than your peers, that's fine maybe you are not cut out to be a "systems engineer" maybe move to something more forgiving like frontend or something, you will probably be happier. There is a reason that I am not working on avionics or respirator firmware. I don't have the discipline to follow the processes required to minimize the chance of accidentally killing people and I don't want the legal liability. You don't have to be working on "important" stuff, John Carmack one of the best and most celebrated developer of our time spent most of his career working on games. Be mercenary, do not take pride in your work, do your work for money. You will be happier, take pride in who you are and what you do outside of work.

otekengineering 3mo ago
> stop assigning your self worth to the quality of your work my personal riff on that is 'stop assigning self worth to the quality that others assign to your work'. being able to internally generate self-worth through the act of producing high quality work is a super power.
- switchbak 3mo ago
  Good refinement. I like Paul Graham's "keep your identity small" piece: https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html When you're not personally identified with your work, it stings a whole lot less when someone rips it up. And keep in mind we're imperfect people working with other (often very) imperfect people. It's a mess, and always will be.
ramon156 3mo ago
I do agree that working for your career isn't the only options. Sometimes it's just to earn a living. The things that both of them have in common is that they're sustainable. If you do not like your current position, make it sustainable for the time being. I was unable to do that, twice, so I think I'm at a point where I cannot do what I need to do. Even the fun work (FOSS) is something I cannot sustain for 40 hrs a week, despite how much I enjoy it. Time will tell, though

archarios 3mo ago

I started doing a lot better at work when I stopped smoking weed and started getting a quick workout in before work each day.

FartyMcFarter 3mo ago

> I do not feel like I have the mental space to keep track of everything I need to do, and I do not even feel like I am aware of what I'm doing anymore. Have you tried keeping a document logging what your thoughts/steps while doing a task were? I find this helps me stay on track. You don't need to write it in a clean way, just bullet points to reconstruct the steps you've taken, progress, decisions you need to take etc. You can start with something as simple as "I downloaded the code from 'X', 'Y' is the shell command I used to build the project, now how do I reproduce bug 'Z'? Is there an existing script I can run or do I need to ask someone for a command, blah blah"... I find this is very useful when working on unfamiliar tasks or when I'm finding it hard to get traction on a task (due to procrastination or anything else). Just writing something has a way of making yourself get any clarity you can, and if you lose traction again, the notes you wrote are something you can use to get started again. It's quite freeing to not have to have all the context in your head all the time.

ramon156 3mo ago
I was actually doing this in my last month, which was probably too late in my trajectory. I even kept daily voice notes on all the issues I had that day, and what I should do to fix it. It helps, but it wasn't enough to save my job.
bityard 3mo ago
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poisonwomb 3mo ago

You might have depression but reading that post I get autism/ADHD more than anything else. I note that you don’t really describe the sensations and feelings you experience, it’s framed through being ‘unmotivated’ at work. Inability to describe feelings is a classic autistic trait. I could of course be jumping the gun here but it’s definitely something to look into. Your description of feeling like you’re the only person in the world who experiences stuff this way also remind me a lot of my own experiences with autism and the accounts of others living with it. Communication difficulties and difficulty reaching out are also rolled up with all that too. Your descriptions of leaving tasks half done, working irregular hours, and getting distracted with something that’s not in the work item are also very common autism/adhd experiences that I see in myself and others. It’s good that you are getting tested for ADHD - note that autism and ADHD are quite comorbid and it’s very possible you have both. The good news is that, whether autism/adhd or depression, you are far from alone in your experiences, certainly very far from alone in this field. It does get better. Where depression came in for me is I had a lot of self hatred about how my brain worked, and h things other people seemed to be able to do easily I had to force myself to do, with immense effort. In a way, depression is anger turned inward, and it’s very easy to be angry at yourself. It will get better. It’s about learning how your brain works, what your limits are, and what works for you. Basically, self-compassion, because shame is only a short term motivator. It’s so easy to burn out, and so much ‘advice’ online is about pushing yourself more and more when what works is listening to and understanding yourself.

smugglerFlynn 3mo ago

> My goals for the end of 2027 are as follows: > Stop making stupid mistakes. I want to be able to finish a task fully without missing or skipping a step. One way to do this is to make a plan for everything you do, and only do that thing. Nothing else. If you are neurodivergent or have other things influencing you mentally, you are _NOT_ going to snap out of it. You are not going to just build a better planning system one day. HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. People here have trouble agreeing on engineering, product and business practices they specialise in. They are _NOT_ going to guide you in the right direction on mental health topics. Please OP, close HN, reach out to people, get help, and (importantly) learn to navigate your mind, not fight with it.

smallerize 3mo ago
Reach out to... people?
- gffrd 3mo ago
  Yes, people. Friends, coworkers, family.
  - johngoode 3mo ago
    I think a lot of people with mental health problems could attest that this is not always very effective, most often you exchange the reality you’ve been living in for some kind words and then inevitably the normalisation of your problem.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - gffrd 3mo ago
      Sure. But there's always the chance—and not a small one!—that someone will have experience with mental health issues, know someone who has, of have an idea about how to help. Gotta start somewhere. And the best thing to do is to try lots of doors.

deleted 3mo ago

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PieUser 3mo ago

How do you all find a good therapist? I'd imagine it takes some trial and error to find one that fits?

CookieCrisp 3mo ago
Sometimes, but I feel like more than 50% are good (or I’ve been lucky) - I read their profiles online at psychologytoday.com and pick a few that seems to fit me. I then call and see if they have open appointments

cynicalsecurity 3mo ago

Check what companies he worked for and never work for them. He's got his CV on his website.

daxfohl 3mo ago

Also, find the right manager and the right role. With a manager that expects a highly regimented routine, you probably aren't going to do so well. With a manager that lets you explore and be more creative, you might do a lot better. I've found one of my own strengths is in finding ways to use existing features, maybe with slight modifications, together to do the things that customers want, allowing the team to avoid several large projects and the resulting maintenance burden entirely. My first manager understood the value of that and we worked really well together for a few years. After a reorg, my subsequent manager considered it lazy and PIP after six months. I don't fault them, and different management styles work for different people. But make sure you find someone you're compatible with.

BeetleB 3mo ago

I appreciate the candor and wish the best for you. Sadly, I will also tell you that once you do resume your job search, this post is going to hurt your chances. It shouldn't. It really, really shouldn't. I don't respect my colleagues who reject people for stuff like this. But I can't change the world. I don't have a solution other than to make such posts private and share only with people you trust. Or start a new blog on a new domain so employers don't associate it with you.

onion2k 3mo ago

The author should probably read The Checklist Manifesto. It's a great book that has some excellent advice about getting things done with higher quality by, not surprisingly given the title, using checklists.

sethammons 3mo ago
Item one: find and complete abandoned check lists. Item two: forget this checklist exists I mostly kid. My life is ruled by checklist, alarms, and calendars. I have a single notebook with a carry forward pressing items style checklist. Two columns: priority and keep in mind. I have to abandon it quarterly because i cannot do everything on the lists.

yobutdude 3mo ago

26% of social psychology is reproducible Roughly 50% of cognitive psychology is reproducible Worse or barely as good as a coin toss Here's a psychiatrist arguing Americans have become addicted to therapy and lost their nerve for normal irrational aspects of reality: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-became-addicted-therapy/677532/ https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-... Therapy is just the new religion; used to ostracize and denigrate and demonize people who don't confess their sins to a therapist and receive absolution It's another "intelligent design" moment; traditional values wrapped in atheist language as religious language has fallen out of favor Keep in mind therapists are human meat suits with bills and rent to pay. It's just more capitalism. You're paying for a friendly ear because you have no friends

astrange 3mo ago
Therapists have specific techniques and programs that work. Well, some of them do anyway. If you have a real serious issue like PTSD or BPD it can be mostly fixed with the right sort of therapy. It's like saying you only work with a personal trainer at the gym because you don't have a friend to go with. Sort of true sort of not.
- yobutdude 3mo ago
  Sure and that's the cohort that benefits from the 26% and 50% reproducible science. I grew up around the types that truly need the help in rural America. Saw many people truly benefit. The other 74% and 50% is nonsense like Myers-Briggs and non-formal language use means someone is a dysregulated nonce; just modern phrenology. Often but not always peddled by rich kids who got a degree and decided everyone who isn't rich like them fits some definition they memorized in the DSM. And they charge money to tell them so; win win. Frameworks in the DSM are also barely reliable. Inter-rater scores suggest descriptions for anxiety only fit like 23% of the time. I forget the exact number, it's in the low or middle 20s. Descriptions for a diagnosis of depressive disorder are only accurate 30-some percent of the time. When looked into the primary contributors to DSM are big pharma employees. Zero conflict of interest

titanomachy 3mo ago

Just want to add another voice of empathy and encouragement. I have ADHD, I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety at various times, I’ve scored and subsequently been fired from some top-tier SWE jobs because of inconsistent productivity and poor communication. I know how much it sucks, and how tempting it is to fall into a spiral of blaming yourself. It’s possible to learn to accept yourself and improve these attitudes and behaviors, but it takes time and work and it won’t be a straight line. Use your doctors as expert resources and listen to them, but they’re not all-knowing wizards, and the drugs aren’t magic. Take responsibility, read books, take your own actions. Now you have time to do the obvious things that everyone already knows they should do to be healthy: exercise, eat well, sleep at the same time each day, see your friends and family, help other people, don’t doomscroll or game all day, keep your apartment clean. Find little projects to work on to help build your sense of agency and self-esteem, maybe not software stuff to start with since you have a lot of complex negativity built up around that. Oh also, on the specific point of thinking you write bad quality software… you graduated in 2024. You’re basically brand new at this. Most people write shit software when they start out, don’t beat yourself up over this. Good luck.

ramon156 3mo ago

I would also like to add that I have read multiple comments talking about their struggles with either some neurodivergent diagnosis, or with depression. I've never seen this side of HN, and I am very grateful to have been a part of it. I haven't met anyone in a similar boat, so seeing I'm not alone is very healing.

luckydata 3mo ago

Everyone makes mistakes. I think OPs problem might be more in how he analyzes, internalizes and reacts to mistakes. I hope he can fix his problems and move on with his life, as a person living with ADHD I can empathize with feeling "broken" and not equipped for corporate life and in a way I am not, but I'll keep going until my energy allows me because... I have no other option. Good luck to everyone out there.

donkers 3mo ago

Learn to be your own best friend. My DBT therapist is making me work through this Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook [0]. It feels hokey at the beginning, but it seems to actually be working. Improving your internal self talk and becoming your own advocate and supportive best friend gives you the capacity and perspective to change your behaviors to drag yourself out of the muck. [0] https://a.co/d/029g4obS https://a.co/d/029g4obS

z3t4 3mo ago

I would suggest building something on your own, choose your own processes, work however you want, with something that gives you motivation, and see if you are able to ship and release the things you build, attract users and lifetime management of the products. Now if that works great the problem is not with you.

hahahaa 3mo ago
The attract users bit. In 2026? That is going to be hard. I'd say don't worry about it if that part doesn't happen.

Paracompact 3mo ago

No one else has mentioned it here, so on account of my own experiences I feel the obligation to say: Be aware of this developing into suicidal ideation, if it hasn't already. I get the impression (again, mostly my own experiences, projected onto you) from your intense "the problem has to be me" convictions that you're simultaneously dealing with a lot of self-loathing, and that this self-loathing fills a void of answers to existential questions that no other source in your life can. In other words, your depression has become a maladaptive coping strategy. And if that's so, then it's not a long shot until your maladaptive coping strategies evolve from, "the problem is me" into "the solution would be/will be/should be/is my own death." I derive these warnings from these whiffs of absolute, impossible-to-change miseries you mention: "my mind is exploding, I'm not aware of what I'm doing anymore"; "tomorrow it'll be something else I screwed up"; "I'm the only one with these problems." So, if you have a dark voice inside your head that promises change or absolution only in return for your own physical or emotional injury (perhaps dressed up as "discipline"), be forewarned: This voice is a cognitive illusion. It does not care about you. It will hold your head underwater until you drown, and still be unhappy. On another note: I would agree with others that you would be a strong candidate for an autism assessment. Like you say with ADD, autism would not a root cause of anything, but it might help you understand your situation more intuitively if it is involved.

tsoukase 3mo ago

Depression is for many people the animal in the room, for some a fox and for others an elephant. You cannot avoid, ignore or hack a chemical imbalance in your brain with societal or personal measures. If you find yourself hopeless and helpless, irrespective if you have attended any form of psychotherapy, take an antidepressant. Don't hesitate and if you are in trouble, contact me, seriously. The author takes Fluoxetine which is the less potent A-D drug among all. If he is really in a heavy depression, he should be on Escitalopram.

kmoser 3mo ago
Can you provide some insight into a) how you know somebody else should take a given drug, without having examined that person yourself, and b) whether you're qualified to prescribe that drug?
- astrange 3mo ago
  Their bio does say they are, but they certainly forgot some things. (Some people presenting with depression should not be on antidepressants because they actually have bipolar disorder.)
  - tsoukase 3mo ago
    This 'some' refers to many subcategories of cases, not only unipolar vs bipolar.
- tsoukase 3mo ago
  Disclaimer: I am neurologist in a psy department. I used the second person and a direct advice deliberately to overcome the taboo and suspicion against antidepressives, which cost quality of life. Obviously, one has to reach a doctor for a proper diagnosis and therapy. Anyway, in most countries you cannot buy such drugs OTC. The end goal is to persuade to actively discuss about it with the doctor and/or in case he suggests a drug, follow it. We definitely need the medical analog to TINLA (This is not legal advice) but TINMA is not accurate. As for the post author, he seems to still suffer, although under a drug, and he might benefit from a change, which is a frequent situation.

hahahaa 3mo ago

Thanks for sharing. You are doing incredibly well for thesw circumstances - you found a therapist, are attending, on a treatment plan and have good relationships in your life. I think 2026 is a really hard time to be a new software engineer. There is too much tech to learn. AI in the mix. Many are finding it really hard. Good luck with it all. I have no advice just keep putting mental health first, as you rightly said in the title.

jimnotgym 3mo ago

One thing to know, is that if you are neurodivergent, well organised normies will continuously give you bad advice. Copying their system won't work for you, it might however cause you a lot of anguish because you can't work their way. I don't code anymore. But one thing that helped me, is that all of the neurodivergent people I have worked with have a super-power or two, that offsets their failings. One of mine is seeing systems as a whole. Another is a photographic memory for certain things, although working through them is a great cause of insomnia, i can run through conversations over and over until I see the inconsistencies between what different people told me. The solution to a major problem often seems totally obvious to me, however the anguish I am about to cause other people by pointing it out to them is not obvious to me at all! Find those things, then find a job that lets you exercise them. I tend to get recruited to companies in a state of extreme flux, and I'm great at stabilising them. When you are in a disaster people are much more willing to change! Read about other people's rules and hunt out your place in life. Kind of ironically, things got easier for me once I was more senior. I would recruit a team of super-organized people to kind of fill in my gaps. They value my insight, and also my (ironically) empathy I show towards them. I think I had to try so hard to study people, that I became better at it than most normies. It might take a bit of searching but you will find your place. I was a legend at the majority of my roles and a failure at 2 others. You have to find your fit. Flexitime is useful btw. Lastly, beware of burnout. I'm going to say it again beware of burnout. It is easy for some of us to become obsessed with problem solving to our own detriment.

glitchc 3mo ago

I read your post very carefully. I feel compelled to share my opinion, just as you should feel equally free to ignore it. Here goes: I suspect your vocation of choice is misaligned with your personality. Software/hardware development is very detail-oriented work, not much different from a mechanic, carpenter or watch-maker. It's easy to recover from mistakes in tech unlike the more tangible fields, but not any less focused on the tiny bits. That's not for everyone and it should also come as no surprise that most good developers have some degree of OCD (things have to be _just so_). It's not a good fit for those who prefer to see the big picture, who like dealing with opinions rather than fact, who naturally gravitate to thinking of the human rather than the machine. There is a way to test this, for you and anyone else. Try the game Shenzhen I/O. It mimics the typical work environment of an embedded developer (mix of hardware and software). Communication is minimal, you can't really reach out to colleagues to help you solve the problem, the manual is your best friend. It seems to match very closely with your current way of working. Try playing it, but with a specific focus on how it makes you feel. Does opening the inbox and seeing a new problem fill you with joy or dread? Does finding a solution make you feel elated or downcast? After you're done, do you feel like improving your design or do you prefer to never see it again? Do you prefer to see the email of the colleague trying to be funny or the colleague giving you a useful tip? It may seem like such a simple thing, yet the difference in feeling can be enormous. Let it guide you to discovery. Software problems are essentially puzzles. Do you like solving puzzles? If not, it's totally okay. Not everyone does. It just means there are better fits than software out there for you.

crispyambulance 3mo ago
>...vocation of choice is misaligned with your personality... I also kind of sense this. The OP mentioned they were doing systems engineering. That's a very particular hellscape of grinding details. It involves being comfortable constantly dealing with a lack of control and flow. The good news is there many different kinds of work. I hope they can find their path.

ShinyLeftPad 3mo ago

> Turns out I'm the only one. I realize that while others also have issues, they are in no way similar. Not the only one. Well, maybe I'm luckier because I have a milder form of it, but having to test things thoroughly used to be absolutely mind crushing. I can see how a different personality would just skip over it for this reason. However, it may be possible to get over that, like I no longer find it so terrible. I'm not sure "making a plan and not making mistakes" is how it's done, maybe it's possible but I can't just follow a plan like that, to me it's more about switching myself to a bug hunting mode and feeling of shame if it doesn't work that overrides the tediousness of testing and doing it until it becomes a habit. Agree with smuggler's comment though, don't take hn comments too seriously

thisislife2 3mo ago

> I want to be able to finish a task fully without missing or skipping a step. One way to do this is to make a plan for everything you do, and only do that thing. Nothing else. True. Also don't overthink during the planning stage. And you need to understand that the reason you freeze / abandon and not complete something is because of anxiety (which triggers avoidance). For example, for perfectionists it is the strain of the high standards they demand from themselves and the hidden fear of judgement that drives this.

xivzgrev 3mo ago

While you are resting I'd recommend meditation. You have a lot of thoughts, and you are trying to make sense of them. Just create some space. Sit with them. Things will eventually make sense. Or not, some mysteries don't get solved. Either way you'll find a path forward.

throwaway382914 3mo ago

I've felt motivated to dump a bunch of personal stuff here after reading this. I know this isn't the best way to deal with things and it's not interesting reading for most people, but putting it in the open anonymously would help me a bit. I have similar problems with mental health. I don't think I have as much trouble with the autism and ADD aspects. I can definitely focus on a single task for long periods when motivated. Although I do have communication issues due to depression and social anxiety, and low self-esteem around my job performance (and really in general). I didn't know what to do once I finished high school. I got into software development because I was bouncing around university degrees and ended up doing a programming course. I found it more interesting and easier than any of the other subjects I had done, and decided it was a sensible idea to make it a career. I remember thinking I was good at it because I often did better than my peers in those classes. I know now that wasn't as strong an indicator as I thought it was, as the majority of those people probably had their own subjects they found easy and interesting. I read Timequake recently and the chapter about meeting someone that "cuts you a new asshole" stood out to me. The first time that happened to me was my industry internship, where they weren't shy about saying I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I got a job and worked really hard in the first few years trying to prove myself. I was very productive and made a few things that impressed people. And then a better engineer came along and, rightfully, poked a lot of holes in the work I had done. And this better engineer eventually started getting the more interesting work and opportunities and my motivation just kind of died away. I'm still here almost a decade later. It's impossible to be fired where I am so long as you do the bare minimum, which is a blessing and a curse. I've gone for a few other jobs over the years but chickened out when I got an offer because I'm afraid of going somewhere where I can be fired for poor performance, worried that I wouldn't find that motivation again. My work now is maintenance and easy tasks. I avoid trying to do anything new or bring forward ideas because I made so many mistakes that it became humiliating. I think a healthy person in my situation would take the opportunity to learn from their betters and be motivated to improve, but I feel like a failure. I've isolated myself and work remotely because I've never done well socially and feel like I'm a bad fit for the office and the culture. The isolation compounds things as you end up forgotten, and so much nuance is lost in communication which leads to misreading things and becoming easily offended. I know that I'm depressed and need to get help. I should start with therapy. I've tried it before but never found a good therapist. I should probably also try medication, but that scares me. I went through the ringer with psychiatrists when I was a teenager, got a bipolar diagnosis. I tried a lot of medications and remember not feeling improvement at all, just being miserable and dealing with weird side effects. I need to try again though. Despite my issues I've still ended up with a wonderful relationship and a small amount of friends who are very good people. But I can feel I am getting worse and my mental health is a threat to the good things I have. I would really like to improve my mental health and find a different career, while I still have time to do it. In Timequake, in regards to the cutting of the new asshole, Vonnegut said people should aspire to do what's natural and interesting to them. Unfortunately I don't know what that is yet, but I know I need to sort my shit out before I can start pursuing it.

cleandreams 3mo ago

My son has ADHD and I never knew what it meant but this year I made him get coaching for it and I made him get meds. He was living at home for free rent and the condition of staying was to address this. My experience is that getting treatment for this condition helped him a lot. The coach really helped, the meds really helped. He is full of zest for the work that lies ahead. He's off on his own now and while I think he'll have stumbles it's basically very positive. One thing about ADHD coaching. The coach is a consistent person who helps frame a positive attitude with agency and skills and this takes you away from negative self talk. It's good. I think ADHD folks need this positive support.

ahaferburg 3mo ago

Link timed out for me. Mirror: https://archive.ph/LlX04 https://archive.ph/LlX04