Ask HN: Is startup PTSD real and possible?

That depends if you mean PTSD in a clinical sense, or PTSD in the pop-culture-phrase sense. And also, you're asking a yes/no question, but it's probably better to ask "how likely is it". There are a lot of humans in existence, so a whole lot of really unlikely things are technically possible just by the laws of big numbers.

In the pop culture sense, PTSD is basically just residual stress/anxiety from some negative event that happened in the past. Burnout, or even generalized anxiety disorder with work-related triggers... these are all totally legitimate things that have a very negative toll on quality of life, and that people conversationally might refer to as PTSD, but from a clinical standpoint, they aren't the same.

PTSD has very particular clinical diagnostic criteria [1]. If you read carefully, they're perfectly understandable. But I want to make some key points: in a clinical sense, the trauma referred to in "post-traumatic stress disorder" is explicitly and exclusively "actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence". That's it, end of list. Among other things, a PTSD diagnosis requires some kind of repeating, severe negative episode(s) -- night terrors, dissociative reactions, panic attacks, that kind of thing. It has to last more than a month, and it has to cause significant disturbance in your life. PTSD is a disorder, but it is almost always a qualifier for a disability, because it is extremely common that PTSD precludes your ability to live a normal life. PTSD, in the clinical sense, is something I would find extremely, exceedingly rare in any kind of business situation, startup or otherwise.

To be clear, I don't want to be relativizing either PTSD or burnout or anxiety disorders. I don't want to be comparing anything; I've yet to see anything productive come out competitions about who has the worse health problems, mental or otherwise. There are plenty of other very real conditions that can and very likely do result from the stressful environment of a startup, and they can be very serious, even leading to suicide, and I really don't want to trivialize that. But I want to make one thing clear: from a clinical standpoint, PTSD is a distinct entity with concrete characteristics. I've personally been dealing with pretty severe mental health issues my entire life, and I've also had friends with diagnosed PTSD, and to be completely honest, even though I doubt you meant anything by it, conflating the two feels deeply disrespectful to all of us.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/box/part1_ch3.b...

All of that is fine except the have a kid part. Don't bring a person into the world with the thought that he/she will motivate you to unfuck your shit.

Going to have to disagree with you. There is a significant difference between going through something that really sucks, and being traumatized. Based on the information presented thus far, OP is going through the former.

It is real. And it’s been debilitating for me as well. I’m working through the process too, holding on to the hope to rise back to a steady normal state of sorts. On my good days, journaling, mediating, exercising, good diet, and fresh air / outdoor time help.

I will say the year 2020 into 2021 has not been very good for behavioral health. But PTSD is like so old right now. The girls don't want that. They really go for the diagnosis that is currently found in a virtual parade being promoted on a website. romaticised. encouraged. Now start up PTSD? I think that it not really what you are talking about. Sounds like you like it is commonly found and many professions ups and downs problems mistakes failures and during the resilient or you're not. And I know that you said that it's like maybe possibly hindering your performance? Find a mentor in your industry. Southwest might be a little bit rattled from this you know the stress of it but it's not a disorder. I mean I'm not saying your experience doesn't qualify to be stressful but I am saying I'm sorry that you're going through it and you need to find a way like she said to grow through it. And I don't really think you're going to find a libertarian source on startup besides maybe like a startup that writes content about start ups.