11–20 of 44 posts
Stay strong.
If I had to make a recommendation, I'd say go stay for a few months in Joseph, OR. It's a very small town (you can walk the entire length of it in a very short amount of time) surrounded by a lot of nature. You may remember it from a Kickstarter campaign from not too long ago: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708553749/the-jennings-...
In any case, you can get away from big city life, work remotely (perhaps as a contractor? If you want, email me a resume and I'll pass along any contracting gigs that fit your skillset. I don't do any work on the side anymore, so it's good to have people that I can pass work to), enjoy nature (see http://bit.ly/1Kbk2BB and http://bit.ly/1MRBTw7), and get your depression under control. An added bonus is that it's very cheap to live in Joseph, especially compared to San Francisco: http://www.bestplaces.net/compare-cities/joseph_or/san_franc...
In terms of medical facilities, Joseph has very little. There's a psychiatrist about 1.5 hours away in La Grande, though, and being a small town, a lot of people make that trip once/wk, and they love splitting the cost with somebody that's going the same way.
It's really a different lifestyle to live in a small town where it's not socially unacceptable to strike up a conversation with somebody on the street and where helping one another is a common thing. The Bay Area was almost the exact opposite, and I could totally see why you'd be depressed living there.
This is probably not going to be a very popular reply, but I'll say it anyway on the off-chance it'll help you: get out of the Bay Area. You don't need to live in San Francisco to be a professional software engineer. I lived there for three months, and at the end, I wanted to jump off of a fucking building. I know that many people consider it to be a great place to live (albeit expensive), but it's just not for me. I…
Fat and out of shape, I started swimming. It was horrible, awful, painful, miserable. I sucked at swimming. The water was cold, I hated the people I had to talk to, I got athlete's foot and ear infections. Actually going to the pool took every bit of willpower I could muster. Many days I thought "why bother? I don't want to live anymore, anyway."
But I made myself go. Gritted my teeth and went. First 10 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Then 15. Then 30. Then 4 days a week. Then 60 minutes. Then 5 days a week. I never thought about it helping with my sometimes crushing depression, but I knew that my obesity was hurting my back and my heart, so I kept going.
It's been 18 months. I've lost 50 lbs of fat and gained muscle. My back is better, my blood pressure is down and can walk up the stairs without huffing and puffing.
Sure enough, I still see the black dog around every once in a while, but less often. I'm starting to enjoy my job, frustrating as it is -- something about the rhythm of getting up, going to the pool and then going to work. Now that I feel like I'm getting good at swimming, it's an incentive to keep going and a virtuous circle. And the bonus is I can eat what I want without stressing about my blood pressure and my weight.
This may or may not be the approach for you, but I strongly feel that there's are 2 things at work: fitness, and becoming good at something.
Make no mistake, I'm no super swimmer, but I'm good for me. You may think you can never be good at anything, but trust me, it's possible to get very good at something you choose to do. Patient persistence, even when it hurts, will pay off.
Caveat: this is not an instant cure. It takes time and effort that I know you feel you can't muster right now. Take small steps and make yourself do it. Grit your teeth and get out of bed even when you feel you can't, and just go exercise, particularly doing something at which you can build skill, even if it's for only 5 or 10 minutes. It might take 6 months, it might take 2 years, but DON'T QUIT!!
You can do it!
And it will work.
I don't know the root cause of your depression. I do know that shaking things up can really make you look deeper into yourself, & find what your happiness is.
Also, I do find that when I am more physically active I tend to be more in tune with my emotions. I ride my bike for work, & usually put in about 30-40 miles a day working. The time I spend on my bike gives me a lot of time to talk to myself, & center my thoughts/emotions.
I agree with the others that have said move away from San Fran. Of all of the cities in the world, that is the absolute last place I would want to live. The yard stick that you measure yourself with, and other measure you with is about 10 feet too long in that overly entitled cesspool.
Good luck brother!
SWE does have a certain amount of room for up and down--any objective-based thought work job does. But if you're going to be part of an organization, at some point you need to learn how to be constantly valuable.
But that is not necessarily the same thing as being constantly productive. There are other ways to contribute value to a team and, for that matter, other ways to structure your work so that you do harder stuff while feeling more up to it. Macros, metaprogramming, other tooling, all that stuff can be very useful for packing work into your useful moments and benefitting from it later (but can be an excessive timesink too, so watch out).
Sometimes you're not up to coding but you can put together an architectural plan for the next task in line. And to be honest, if you get very good at coding you may find that your hour of high-quality work in a day is enough to keep you employed because it has as much/more impact than someone else's four hours of mediocre work. I'm not even talking 10x programmer here, just that most good code is written in jumps and spurts, maybe capped off with a "holy crap the groove" all day session or three.
But the thing is, at some point you'll have a crunch deadline that won't accommodate the fact that you're not very useful that day. And early on, you're definitely going to be leaning more on the consistency of your beginner/intermediate work than anything. And no matter what, you always have to keep relationships going with your coworkers. The social/political aspect of software engineering is a pretty big deal in most companies. It's not something you necessarily notice when things go well, but you'll sure as hell notice when it doesn't. Depression hits that hard.
Overall, I think you've gotten some good advice here, though I will say as someone who has dealt with similar issues in the past, freelancing will require an extra level of self-discipline to pull yourself back onto the rails after an episode. But I also think it should be on the table to do something other than software engineering for a living. It's entirely possible this is something that, for you, would be a great thing to do on the side, not so great for a paycheck.
Try working on a farm, try fixing cars (maybe some you bought yourself), try buying & selling on craigslist, whatever floats your boat. I'd lean towards jobs that put you outside and aren't totally miserable.
Anyway, you might find you'd rather do something else, and scratch your programming itch part time, or with a lifestyle business project, or whatever.
FWIW I'm feeling & often performing similarly (without depression), and I have plans to do more-or-less what I've outlined here. I've bought a property in a fairly remote location (but with internet) and I'm going to spend as much time as possible working on other things, outside, and getting away from this screen. I expect it to help--it has in the past.
You didn't mention anything about your social life, or if you are married or not. If you don't have at least one of those, it is very likely you would suffer some level of depression.
Since social skills take time, here are somethings you could do: - Go to gym - Care for cause or somebody or something, something that takes focus away from yourself. Like raising a garden or getting a dog, or joining a meetup for like minded people doing things that matter
And slowly build a social circle for the long term.