Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#61

Post by chipsy » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 6:30 PM UTC

Don't worry about the particulars of your problems. Everyone has problems(and they will often go out of their way to hide them), but the best way to resolve them is to keep working on yourself and try to find whatever lifestyle you are looking for, within the context of being a student. The small positive habits can build up to help you achieve larger results, because at each step you will worry a little less about your life, and feel a little bit freer to take action.

Most of the other suggestions here are based on exactly those kinds of small habits - take exercise, eat well, try to talk to people, etc. Many people enter adulthood retaining major imbalances in their personality, and they tend to find their way towards balance only with the passage of years and effort.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#62

Post by kanwisher » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 6:46 PM UTC

lisperforlife wrote: post #29

Dear throw999. I had a bad time at college as well. I hated it and at one point simply stopped turning up. I lost a year because of that. But I was spending all that time learning how to code and getting better at Quake 3. I had made a decent bit of income by working on part time projects before I graduated. But I understand what you are going through. Firstly, I would strongly suggest professional help. Losing a yea…

Its hard to fight the urge to become an extrovert, everything on TV tries to make you believe you have to do these things to be cool and have friends. But like what you said, you make friends at local techmeetups. When your around people that share the same interests its a lot easier to make friends and be social. Start there and then work your way outwards.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#63

Post by jiganti » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 6:51 PM UTC

Your mentality is self-fulfilling. If you think you have a problem and can't get better without professional help, you probably won't get better. Introversion isn't so deeply ingrained in your genetics that it can't be conditioned out of, and I speak from experience.

Your problem right now is that you don't really believe that making a concerted effort, despite how uncomfortable it might feel, is ultimately going to be worth it. (or even work, for that matter) It is.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#64

Post by MattGrommes » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 6:58 PM UTC

Metanote: The last time I saw a topic like this come up on proggit, almost all of the messages were people saying they would be happy to go have beers with the poster and chat. I like the HN community but this is a pretty stark difference with the "advice" he's being given here. Interesting.

So in the spirit of a slightly nicer community, if you were in San Diego I'd be happy to get some beers with you and talk to you about this. I'm 32 now but I was a 21 year old introvert who had just dropped out of school and had low self-esteem once and now would consider myself successful in making a living programming. The thing that got me going was just getting to work. Start making something. Making progress on a project is important and will certainly help your self-esteem. I always learn by picking a project and figuring out the technology/language I need as I go. It helps, believe me. Don't give up, just keep moving. I've never personally been bothered by loneliness but there's got to be clubs and groups around, even if they're like Public Speaking clubs or whatever. You don't have to date or even make best friends in school, just meet people and let things happen.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#65

Post by crazymik3 » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:01 PM UTC

Hey man, we all go through rough patches in our life. You're at a very good position right now to do something about it. You have a lot ahead of you. Looking at the past, and making unrealistic goals for the future won't help. Look at the present, what can you do right now to make things better?

It's not going to happen in a day, it'll take time. We're all strong and you can get through it. Talking to someone helps. We've all been there and when I talked to a professional it made the world of a difference, but see what you can do for yourself first.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#66

Post by grandalf » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:06 PM UTC

vimalg2 wrote: post #59

1) Join a gym. Lift progressively heavier weights. Its fine if you stick to Deadlifts, Squats, and Bench-press (all preferably with free weights) i.e the basic [functional+compound] lifts. Make sure a trainer corrects you on proper Form or you'll injure yourself. 2)Pick a challenging puzzle/problem to solve during the lifting session. You'll get over your confidence hangups and make bold strides forward in no time.

This is good advice b/c it breaks down the mind-body dichotomy. It is all one piece of meat and so the key to mental happiness is physical exercise (and plenty of sleep).

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#67

Post by peterarmstrong » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:09 PM UTC

You are 21. At 21 I thought I'd made all kinds of mistakes too. In fact, I had! But you've only had about 3 or 4 years of quasi-adulthood to make them!

At 21 you think you've had a past, and you have, but your past is almost entirely a childhood. Mistakes you have made in your past at 21 are mostly childhood mistakes.

By the time you're 34 (as I am) you'll have had 17 years of adult-esque time to make all kinds of mistakes. You'll have also had all kinds of time to make major changes and accomplish major things.

Unless you had a truly horrific past, at 21 you can pivot to doing almost anything.

This is especially true in university. In undergraduate at university I switched majors from International Business (about 8 months until I fell in love with 100-level Economics) to Economics (about a month, until I realized it was all math) to Philosophy (about a year; it was really fun but I didn't want to do it professionally) to Cognitive Psychology (which I completed a major in) to Computer Science (which was the other half of my double-major). If you add that up and include co-op work terms, it took 6 years! At the end of it, did I wish I'd had the "wasted" time back once I was a software developer? Sure! I'd missed a good portion of the dot-com boom, and it would have been really fun, presumably :) But I learned a lot from the "wasted" time, and that's what undergraduate is for.

Everyone in their 30s (and older) will probably tell you that you have "so much time", and I'm sure it's infuriating to hear about all the choice etc when you probably don't have much money or direction. But you also presumably don't have a mortgage or children! So, you have more "degrees of freedom", in that your income requirement is a lot lower. So, you can make huge changes with a lot less risk than when you're older. You won't realize how huge an opportunity that is until you are older. But trust me: it is.

TL;DR - Don't obsess over your supposedly wasted time; you've hardly had any time to waste. Take some time to decide what you want to do and become, then figure out the next action you could take to get slightly closer to that goal. Then repeat as necessary.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#68

Post by ethanhuynh » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:10 PM UTC

read pick-up materials like "The game", you'll be surprised to learn that even some average people who tried hard to overcome their fear and negative side can become winners (well, in term of winning women), but technically it'll help you more than that, you'll learn how to become alpha, the type of ppl who loves taking risk, like approaching women without the fear of being rejected (just like doing startups). the point is you need to do risky things, challenge yourself, put yourself to the limits, then you'll feel rewarding after all those efforts (doesn't matter much if you fail or not). Hope it helps

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#69

Post by sriramk » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:10 PM UTC

Reading this, this is something I could have posted from my UG college days in India if HN had existed back then.

Just trust me - things will better.

Mail me (you can find my email address easily) if you want to talk to someone about how terrible being a teen hacker in Indian UG colleges can be.

Re: Ask HN: Having emotional breakdown

#70

Post by grandalf » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 7:11 PM UTC

My advice to you is simple:

- Get lots of vigorous exercise. Run for over 1 hour each day, etc. Your exercise regimen should take 2 solid hours of your day.

- Get plenty of sleep. Be sure you are getting at least 8 hours per night at predictable times.

- Start reading for pleasure. Preferably a novel, even an audiobook is great for this.

- When you're getting started with this, ban yourself from doing any work for 4 days and just exercise, sleep, read, and relax.

You may have psychiatric issues, but more likely this is a small slump and you just need to change up your routine and let your body produce a bit more natural dopamine.