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Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

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Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#261

Post by wonderwonder »

While I never experienced as major a break as you did, I have been completely burned out before. I would spend hours sitting at my desk looking at the screen and really only deliver 15 - 20 minutes of work. This went on for a year. I was just unable to focus on my job. Eventually I started getting debilitating migraines before or during work. Those lasted for months. Sitting at my desk everyday felt like strapping on a backpack filled with a ten ton weight made out of depression.

Im still not 100% recovered but 90% of the way. I just really don't like working in tech but have some how risen to a very high level and the golden handcuffs prevent me from leaving.

How did I get passed this? I don't recommend this. I was lying in bed with a migraine. I smoked a bunch of pot, told myself I was done with this nonsense and it was all in my head. Things were not that bad. Forced myself out of bed and to move around. Said no more. I have not had a migraine in over a year. I essentially patched myself in a moment of drug induced clarity.

I think the reason is I am trading hours of my life for money doing work I really don't like. It's essentially an existential crisis.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#262

Post by datavirtue »

goodpoint wrote: post #83
AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote: post #2

My mother went through a psychotic attack. I think she would have kept it secret, if not for the police finding and sectioning her. Roughly 3% of people in the U.S. are reported to experience psychosis at some point in their lives. Those are only the ones that report it.

The US is incredibly brutal and ineffective in handling psychotic episodes when the police gets involved.

Yeah, get a lawyer and prepare to lose your job.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#263

Post by wonderwonder »

INTPenis wrote: post #67

I've just become completely lethargic lately. And there's some sort of mental block stopping me from working. It's kinda insane because I can work on other stuff, but as soon as there's a simple task for my employer my mind just wanders off. And when I really try to focus I just go blank in my head. Can't explain shit. I'm trying to slowly get back on the pony just because I'm ashamed of all the salary I've collected…

I have kids and have experienced the exact same thing. Root cause for me I think is I don't like working in tech but make to much money to leave. I'm trading brain cycles and life hours for money doing something I really don't enjoy. Anything I build is meaningless.

I'm taken to a line from fight club: "We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off"

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#264

Post by Vedor »

scruple wrote: post #236
suranyami wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might be rooted in the fact that I don't have kids As a parent: nope, it's definitely not that. Yes, having children is a rich and beautiful experience. It's also a ruthless grind. So, if you think you're feeling lethargic and it's all a bit futile, imagine doing everything you do now, but also arguing with a smaller, more annoying version of yourself for a couple of decades while sleep deprived, and with 1/4 of…

On the stuttering thing, I've recently developed a similar problem. I had a stutter as a child and went through years of speech therapy and for all intents and purposes it was gone for over 3 decades. Now it's back? Not nearly as bad, but it's there and it's frustrating and distracting. Another recent speech related development, I'm losing words. I'll be mid-sentence and I'll have a specific word in mind that I want…

That sounds similarly to my condition, but I'm just in my early thirties.

I was stuttering since I was a small kid. In high school, went to therapy and I was stutter-free for around 8 years, then I started to stutter again. Since then, I have a better and worse periods, I can speak without much stuttering for as long a quarter of a year, then suddenly start to stutter even doing small talk with the family.

Regarding losing words, I really like your analogy with blank dictionary entry. It's like, "I can speak without stuttering as long as a... what is the word for a period of three months?", then I need to search my memory for this word, and quite often I can find the word I'm looking for, but it takes time. I had these symptoms as a child too, but they have gotten a bit worse in recent years.

I always half-jokingly thought there must be some consequences of being born almost 4 months ahead of schedule.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#265

Post by wonderwonder »

heleninboodler wrote: post #109
suranyami wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might be rooted in the fact that I don't have kids As a parent: nope, it's definitely not that. Yes, having children is a rich and beautiful experience. It's also a ruthless grind. So, if you think you're feeling lethargic and it's all a bit futile, imagine doing everything you do now, but also arguing with a smaller, more annoying version of yourself for a couple of decades while sleep deprived, and with 1/4 of…

If INTPenis hears anything I hope it's that not having kids isn't the root of this problem. I have kids and it's wonderful, but I too feel all the same lethargy and lack of purpose interspersed with bouts of helping kids with their homework and relentlessly getting their grumpy asses to school at ungodly hours every day and generally trying hard not to fuck them up. If you're already in a shitty situation, having kid…

This. Kids don't help with burnout. I drive my kids to school each morning at 7:20. This is preceded by 35 minutes of insanity asking them 100 times to get out of bed, eat their breakfast, get dressed, brush their teeth, etc. This morning on the drive in, I got in an argument with my kid over the stupidest thing that is probably my fault but the result was he got out of the car upset and I drove back home irritated, sat down to work and opened my emails and essentially raged at the requests the people were asking of me. Lately my wife has been on me for not practicing sports with my kids but I literally don't have breakfast or lunch most days because I cannot get up from my desk, the pings and requests just don't stop coming. By the time I get up its dark out. I am lucky to get to the gym once a week and if I do its on a Saturday at Noon. I work from home and I had to hire a nanny just to distract the kids and do homework with them otherwise they keep coming into my office and I have to context switch and I am useless for the next 45 minutes, then they would come in again.

On Friday I committed to delivering a feature set in an insane timeline. I open my email this morning and they are asking me for a bunch of other busy work that I just don't have time to deliver but its on me to figure it out.

Life should really not be like this.

I am seriously considering a test run of taking a couple hits of marijuana before work one day to see if there is any difference on my stress level and work delivery.

I sometimes watch the garbage truck and I am incredibly envious of the two guys on the truck.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#266

Post by dyingkneepad »

INTPenis wrote: post #67

I've just become completely lethargic lately. And there's some sort of mental block stopping me from working. It's kinda insane because I can work on other stuff, but as soon as there's a simple task for my employer my mind just wanders off. And when I really try to focus I just go blank in my head. Can't explain shit. I'm trying to slowly get back on the pony just because I'm ashamed of all the salary I've collected…

Having kids and a partner just helps to amplify the guilt by 10x because now your possibly destructive actions have impact on lives that are not your own. They also make it 10x harder to focus because not only you have to worry about delivering work, you have to help Johnny learn how to read, take Anne to the doctor, organize the birthday party, pay all these extra bills, etc, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#267

Post by conductr »

marcosdumay wrote: post #246
conductr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this happen more often than burnout. For me, it's simple lack of engagement. Even if you never gave much, when you really stop giving a shit, it becomes difficult to give even a bare minimum. It's usually coupled with a feeling that anything else you do with your time is more important than work. Like anything. I recall skipping important meetings to go outside and pick up dog poo from the lawn. Also for me,…

That looks like a very effective defense mechanism for recovering from burnout. Maybe the reason you didn't noticed it as burnout is that you recovered while it was still mild.

Maybe but I don't think so. In my mind, burnout requires some point of burn. In my experience, these jobs are just cush and have a nice paycheck but lack any type of burn. I usually get paid well to do something I feel is trivial but they see value in it. The job doesn't actually challenge me intellectually and maybe it was fine when I liked the people or was building out the process but then over time it's not enough to keep my mind from wondering (and sometimes the people change, so my engagement tanks because of that).

I've had burnout too (I think). It's stressful as fuck. What I described above is not, because I don't care at all. My burnout situations have crashed hard and usually bleed into my personal life more so.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#269

Post by kazinator »

alvivanco wrote: post #268

You're not an outlier. This happens to everyone at some point in their lives. Without periods like these, one would not be able to appreciate the good times. We are constantly evolving and finding ourselves. Keep your head up!

> This happens to everyone at some point in their lives.

I understand that you mean kindly, but hallucinating objects such as seeing fish fossils everywhere does not happen to everyone, or even the rhetorical "everyone".

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