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Ask HN: Are you ok?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#441

Post by sym_throwaway »

ruok_throwaway wrote: post #271

I'm not. I've been sick for 10 years now. Spent meaningful percentage of my 20ies in bed without having energy for anything. I've been away from work for a month now. Every doctor that I speak to is in bucketing and hypothesis testing-mindset and none have been interested in the idiosyncrasies of my case. I have a pain in the right abdomen and back that is somewhat digestion related. I've been treated for H.Pylori be…

Two months ago I developed similar symptoms: a persistent, dull pain in the right abdominal region combined with fatigue. CT revealed mild inflammation and slightly enlarged lymph nodes.

It's a difficult situation because these indicators are so nonspecific. (Fittingly, the pain includes the right hypochondrium.)

I have essentially no confidence in the capacity of medical professionals to act upon any other than the most common and obvious clinical signs. Maybe because of its association with high social status, the medical profession seems to preferentially attract the sort of rigid and uninquisitive mind ill-suited for this complex and nebulous problem domain. To add insult to literal injury, unless one has the resources to obtain highly individualized medical attention, symptoms will almost certainly be classified as psychosomatic after perfunctory screening fails to reveal some clear-cut cluster of abnormal measurements -- as if all internal pain was a product of the mind before the advent of medical testing.

Best of luck to you in finding relief. Reach out if you'd like to discuss this further.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#442

Post by weaksauce »

theanine wrote: post #55

Thanks for asking. Not really, and it's 100% work-related. I dread coming in to work and it's given me awful anxiety that's turned into occasional passive suicidal ideation. Once I leave work, I feel like a totally different person and all the symptoms disappear. My boss calls me stupid, incompetent, r*tarded, and "like you have part of your brain missing". He grills me on literally everything I do, like why I'm gett…

> My boss calls me stupid, incompetent, r*tarded, and "like you have part of your brain missing". He grills me on literally everything I do, like why I'm getting up from my desk or why I'm eating what I brought for lunch.

yeah... that's not normal even a little bit. look for a new job. i have a hard time that any company that allows that kind of behavior is any better in any other department so get out ASAP!

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#443

Post by munificent »

GuB-42 wrote: post #391

As a software developer myself, I always wondered why it is considered a stressful profession. - Most of us aren't going to kill ourselves or others in case we screw up. The stakes may be higher for people working with safety critical systems, but such systems often have multiple safeguards. - Most deadlines and time pressure are completely made up. So what if we don't deliver on time? It is not like the fate of the…

Maybe I'm just projecting, but I think software appeals to people who like clear, logical, black-and-white thinking. That in turn means the profession has a higher-than-average number of perfectionists. For a perfectionist, doing 90% of a good job subjectively feels much closer to 0%, so there's a lot of anxiety around things not being as good as they could/should be.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#444

Post by toyg »

rileyteige wrote: post #362

I'm doing OK, my job/clients are great, but every day I can't help feeling like all I'm doing is making rich people richer. I'd like to do something real. Even contemplating a career change down the road once our savings/investments are in a good long-term spot. My wife and I are planning to start having kids in the next year or two so we'll see how that changes things. I miss my old friends; wife is a doctor (reside…

> The new friends I make here just aren't as fulfilling.

Someone once told me that most people you meet, when you move later in life, are acquaintances, not friends. I found that very true, in hindsight.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#445

Post by mrmonkeyman »

anon9001 wrote: post #360

I'm shocked at how many people seem to be doing OK or have minor complaints. For me, I've realized that if I have to do anything for 40+ hours a week on a schedule, after a couple of weeks, I'd prefer being dead. I could be a professional ice cream taste tester or race car driver, and after about 3 weeks of showing up at a fixed time and putting in 8 hours, I'd still be ready to off myself again. When I have week-lon…

Dude, you need 1) a kick in the nuts and 2) a chill pill. Your work is stupid, I know. Just stop giving a shit. Start taking risks and see what happens. Call in sick and play banjo or something. Act stupid. You need to act stupid every once in a while or you'll go crazy. You might like it, you might not, but you'll never know until you try..

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#447

Post by llampx »

Waterluvian wrote: post #393

I recently experienced months of sleeping problems. Where I wouldn't sleep for days. Or would sleep a few hours. I would be exhausted and my head would hit the pillow and BAM adrenaline and I can hear my heart pounding and I'm awake. It got so bad I would go into the basement and destroy a wall that I kept repairing. I would cry in frustration. I started to have suicidal thoughts. It was harming my marriage and made…

A few months ago I read that the best way to relax for a programmer type of brain is actually video games.

That made me go out and buy an Xbox so I could play Doom and other mindless games to wind down.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#448

Post by ljm »

A lot of difficulty sleeping lately, occasional restless legs don't help.

I tend to overcompensate quite a lot (due to an underlying belief of not being good enough, which of course goes back to childhood and has been the topic of years of therapy) sothe desire to distract myself by working late and getting more done compounds that.

Still, putting it into the perspective of the last two or three years it's a slow but steady climb back out of the rabbit hole that was intense depression, dependence on therapy, multiple attempted suicides, an existential crisis after I didn't know who I really was any more, loneliness, moving countries multiple times, and suffering some deep loss.

Going from working completely remote, in isolation, and now making it to the office every day and being more outgoing has been a great improvement. There are more people I enjoy spending time with, and I feel really good in their company. It's great to say that I'm more okay now than I was earlier this year, and for those years previously.

I certainly wouldn't relive that period by choice but it's getting to the point where I consider it to be character defining as opposed to a shitty series of events. A lot of love, compassion and forgiveness came out of that.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#449

Post by enraged_camel »

teppifk wrote: post #431
enraged_camel wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Most software engineers have a healthy circle of friends and social life. Sorry, but I'm going to call [citation needed] on this. It's a rather extraordinary claim, and goes against both popular stereotypes and my personal experience.

This is confirmation bias. I don't think the stereotypes are as generally popular as you claim. My own observational bias is the countless "learn to code", "anyone can code" promotions targeted at youth that make no mention of social limitations. Depression and anxiety are common in the general population. Social maladaptation is also common, though less so. It is unsurprisingly true that these traits are a bit overr…

>>This is confirmation bias.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But you made the original claim, therefore the burden is on you to provide supporting evidence.

Re: Ask HN: Are you ok?

#450

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #393

I recently experienced months of sleeping problems. Where I wouldn't sleep for days. Or would sleep a few hours. I would be exhausted and my head would hit the pillow and BAM adrenaline and I can hear my heart pounding and I'm awake. It got so bad I would go into the basement and destroy a wall that I kept repairing. I would cry in frustration. I started to have suicidal thoughts. It was harming my marriage and made…

You'd be surprised how often I can't sleep, get up, play some World of Warships (usually 1-2 matches) and then go to sleep within 20 minutes...

There's probably something about a context switch to something that isn't work at play... I may work with a friend to put together a small psychology experiment (he works at a medical school and has access to MRI machines).

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