Mental Illness and Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Mental Illness and Startups

#61

Post by navs » Sat, May 14, 2011, 11:42 PM UTC

As a student and an amateur developer working for a magazine startup, my schedule is chaotic and busy. Doesn't help that I go through days and sometimes weeks of just laying in bed and watching babylon 5 DVDs. Sometimes the only thing that can snap me out of it is an impending deadline. I'll then end up stressed as I try to complete my workload. Needless to say, my burndown charts are skewed.

I feel the chaos of a startup doesn't help things. I long for a structured 9 to 5 job in an office. Being alone at home just exacerbates things and having a bed behind me just makes me want to crawl under the covers and sleep. I tried going to various cafes to work but there's no free wifi (which I suppose I wouldn't use anyway) and the prices are ridiculous. Libraries are great when they aren't packed and when the homeless aren't using it for shelter.

I have to admit I do have a sudden burst of energy when I stumble across an interesting github repo.

Re: Mental Illness and Startups

#62

Post by salemh » Sun, May 15, 2011, 9:01 AM UTC

andrewvc wrote: post #30

idoh wrote: post #13

Speaking as someone who has a family member with mental illness: if you have such an illness then please seek professional help right away. If you suspect that someone you care about might have a mental illness then you should urge them to seek professional help right away. Sometimes it is all manageable or heals on its own, but sometimes the illness progresses and the results are tragic, so it needs to be viewed ser…

Eh, psychology and psychiatry are still fairly young sciences. I'd say it's worth a shot, but people put too much faith in it. I've had family members in professional help forever with no noticeable improvements. They'll even admit to it. My personal opinion is that, while sometimes useful, we just don't know enough about how humans work to really fix a large number of issues. People tend to go to psychiatrists persi…

Young in what regards?

Pursuing therapeutic response without success may point (especially with continued "They'll even admit to it") to problems with the therapist specifically. Finding a "good" therapist is very difficult. Personalities "gel" or "click" or "culture is important to us at company _ with programming skills _."

Hypochondriac behavior with therapy should be treated as such, not discounted due to perhaps a false sense of "therapy is bullshit, everyone I know is in therapy." The tragic stories of "noone even knew he/she was depressed" of suicide exist for a reason in abundance.

Re: Mental Illness and Startups

#63

Post by felipe » Sun, May 15, 2011, 9:06 AM UTC

andrewvc wrote: post #30

idoh wrote: post #13

Speaking as someone who has a family member with mental illness: if you have such an illness then please seek professional help right away. If you suspect that someone you care about might have a mental illness then you should urge them to seek professional help right away. Sometimes it is all manageable or heals on its own, but sometimes the illness progresses and the results are tragic, so it needs to be viewed ser…

Eh, psychology and psychiatry are still fairly young sciences. I'd say it's worth a shot, but people put too much faith in it. I've had family members in professional help forever with no noticeable improvements. They'll even admit to it. My personal opinion is that, while sometimes useful, we just don't know enough about how humans work to really fix a large number of issues. People tend to go to psychiatrists persi…

The problem is how to measure improvement? I have personally seen cases where the person stopped treatment because of "no noticeable improvements", and it was disastrous. In certain conditions (bipolar, for example), just the fact that the patient is stable and somewhat functional is already a huge victory. Wouldn't that be an "improvement" over the alternative?

Re: Mental Illness and Startups

#64

Post by javert » Tue, May 17, 2011, 9:33 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #33

yters wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got sent to field training, that cured my depression.

I don't get your point. Feel free to clarify. But, good for you.

Nevermind, for some reason I see what you're saying now, looking at this again 3 days later. That's awesome.