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Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

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Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

#1

Post by solididiot »

Being a SW Eng I spent hours on a chair. In home-office. COVID lockdowns made this worse. Added extra stress due to bad future outlook and a lack of direction in my career plus dozens of other blockers that navigating gets more difficult as I grow older.

Anyway. The point of the matter is that I crack and meltdown quite often. And that makes my problems multiply because I then have to deal with apologies etc.

How do you deal with meltdowns? How do you calm yourself down? I'm not talking about being a Buddha (I'm as far away from that as I could be unfortunately). I'm talking about doing the bare minimum so that I don't cause myself and the people around me extra problems.

For the most part I have managed to keep this away from my (shitty) job so it has not affected my (dead in the water) career. But it is taking a toll on my family relations and I hate me for that.

No phychotherapy please. I won't go near their arrogance.

Any practical tips that work on you are highly appreciated.

For context I'm 45 yrs old, male, relatively new dad in a backwater EU country.

TIA

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

#4

Post by thejackgoode »

> No phychotherapy please. I won't go near their arrogance.

No professional psychotherapist can afford to be arrogant, you might have gotten unlucky with your experience so far. They are equipped to answer exactly such questions. Psychodynamic approaches, for example, are something you might want to look into.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

#7

Post by laputan_machine »

I cannot speak for you, but what works for me:

- Daily cardio / lifting, alternating between them (first thing I do in the morning)

- Minimise caffeine intake

- Reminding myself that nobody is going to die even if I completely mess up everything

- Regular sleep schedule (new dad, so I imagine this is not going to be applicable)

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

#8

Post by noduerme »

Having been here a lot of times.. Fuck the client or the boss, it's important to me that I put my best work forward. Even if it makes no difference to me financially. Even if their stupid company will go down in flames. Even if I don't want to wake up tomorrow and look at their piece of shit online store / dumbass genZ insta-sales emails / customer can't click button on iphone / server collapsed because Amazon EC2 West-1 .........

It's called fucking professionalism. So stop listening to the whining cohort and realize it's just doing a goddamn job.

Okay, that's my pitch to people who grew up in a military family.

On the other hand, consider yourself the bright spot in the day for everyone who has no fucking clue what's going on.

And it's 2022. I just raised my hourly rate from $200 to $250. Do the same. And find some good ways to spend that good energy you still have, racing in the street or playing in a band or throwing paint at a wall.

One day I realized.. ahem. Sorry. Today I woke up and reminded myself . Ahem. Every fucking day I work on a customer's code I need to remember it's a job, I'm doing it for the fucking money. Not to be a saint. Wake up. Set four hours. Make money. Write good code. Done? Great. Now I hope you know by now what you're going to do with the rest of your day. What is it?

It's soooo easy to slip into the hole where we feel like we finished the work and the day is done. Let's get a pizza and watch netflix. That, my friend, is a death spiral.

Just treat the work like work. [edit here:] Everyone I've ever worked for had no capacity to do what I do, but those motherfuckers went above and beyond to make me feel like my moral obligation and main mission in life was to solve their problems while they partied and slept.

Your main problem sounds like you don't know how to enjoy the other 16 hours of your day.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage or avoid meltdowns?

#9

Post by kstenerud »

Biologically, a big thing is exercise. Get plenty of it, because it helps regulate mood (a lot). Longish walks or runs also help you take a time-out, which is important from time to time. Sunlight might also play a factor depending on how susceptible you are.

Also, being a new parent is inherently stressful. It helps to be aware of that to give some perspective.

Career-wise, think about what kinds of things related to your line of work you actually enjoy doing, don't enjoy doing, and utterly hate doing. There are different kinds of companies and work cultures that increase or decrease these things. Right now is a good time for remote workers, so you have more choice than you did a year ago. Figure out what areas of work will maximise what you like and minimise what you hate, then think carefully about what kinds of interview questions you can ask a potential employer to see what you can realistically expect if you worked there. It's perfectly fine to say "Sorry, we won't be a good match" and move on. Just like in relationships, there are all kinds.

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