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Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

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Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#151

Post by jack_pp »

INTPenis wrote: post #67

I've just become completely lethargic lately. And there's some sort of mental block stopping me from working. It's kinda insane because I can work on other stuff, but as soon as there's a simple task for my employer my mind just wanders off. And when I really try to focus I just go blank in my head. Can't explain shit. I'm trying to slowly get back on the pony just because I'm ashamed of all the salary I've collected…

I've gone through that at the start of the pandemic. In hindsight it might've been my subconscious telling me that I should do something else. I had the financial means to work on stuff that I enjoyed and I didn't have to rely on employment but for.. reasons I didn't do those things. So I suggest taking a break from distractions and thinking really hard about your long term goals and how to achieve them. You might feel lethargic and not motivated precisely because you don't have a good purpose for your life. The standard "just go to work, save money, start a family" life course is not for everybody. I'm not saying you shouldn't start a family but if you have the financial means, creativity and skill to build a business of your own I believe your family life will be much better, you will have more time to spend with your kids if you have a stable source of income that doesn't require you to work 40 hours a week for and which is at risk of going away because of office politics or whatever.

If I don't feel I have control over my own life I feel exactly like you described but.. that might just be me.

Regarding your existential dread.. my philosophy as someone who is close to Ukraine and feared that the war would spill into my country, is that while it may all end tomorrow for some reason or another.. that possibility is not worth thinking about. If I really knew for certain I would die in 2 years then I'd become totally hedonistic, I'd spend all my resources to just have the most fun possible but we don't know that. Humanity has gone through worse periods than we're facing right now but it got through them so chances are we'll get through it too so why not plan for the future? I've been hedonistic for the past 7 years, it gets old. If you haven't lived your life fully until now and just dread that you've been working your ass off, not going out, not meeting people, not taking drugs or whatever other hedonistic activity you wish you had gone through then maybe go do that, get it out of your system but eventually you'll want to settle down, plan for the future and even though it's scary and your mind will throw a lot of roadblocks I feel you still have to do it to truly be fulfilled.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#152

Post by projektfu »

Y_Y wrote: post #129

You may find this book interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_... Not only is it a good book anyway, but your story really reminded me of it.

Hmm, yes, but Pirsig had a psychotic break and that may or may not be what happened to OP. Psychosis also doesn't lend itself well to reflection. Pirsig describes the former self as no longer existing, as though that timeline was stopped and the current person now occupies his space. I've noticed that people's memories of their delusions are persistent and feel as real as any other. A friend of mine, for example, saw it as a coincidence that the people who were trying to make him kill himself stopped after he went to the hospital and started meds. It was still true to him then, the memory very real.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#153

Post by Mmrnmhrm »

I did. And when I went open with it, I did find out that plenty of people whom I know had breakdowns too.

The hardest thing was to admit I needed help (used to be a high performer: I solve my own problems!). It was very late, and by then it took a couple years, therapy and medication to recover. My doctor was very optimistic though. These sort of breakdowns happens to be very typical, and he was convinced that I would do a full recovery. I was skeptical. He was right.

The second hardest thing for me was to understand that it wasn't my fault. Athletes break their muscles often due to overwork. Brains can also break. In both cases recovery requires time, and often some treatment.

Don't be hard on yourself. I wish you the best!

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#154

Post by kasey_junk »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #98
kanzenryu2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on Gabapentin for back/leg pain. The doctor warned that it was very important to ramp up the dose gradually, and ramp down gradually. I followed the advice carefully and had no issues. But it was tempting to think "I'm okay now, I won't need to take more pills".

My doctor was awful and gave me no such warnings. I was only able to get off it through help from Reddit. If you look up Gabapentin on Google, the top results will make you think its a Nqyuil-tier drug with mild side effects. But there are entire subreddits dedicated to it, and all of them filled with horror stories of people struggling with withdrawals. Glad to be off it, but that one month of withdrawals was not fu…

Not to minimize the risks, because they are very real and I’ve had my own adverse interactions with Gabapentin (not anything as bad as others), but one reason there are so many stories about it is that it is extremely heavily prescribed.

It is off label prescribed for everything from headaches to arthritis relief to anxiety. It has a complicated instruction set and as you mentioned some people are more sensitive to that than others (I’m on a fairly high dose and can skip a day with no major effects other than the symptoms it’s treating coming back).

One thing I don’t think we as a society don’t do well enough is explain how important dosing protocols are to people. Acetaminophen for instance is an extremely dangerous drug, yet most people take it without thought.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#155

Post by klondike_klive »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #124
John23832 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're burnt out. We've all been there. Focus on yourself to get better. As far as work, break tasks down AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE. Do a portion and pat yourself on the back. You'll be able to build up from there. Part of burnout is seeing a wall of work and your body/mind having an adverse reaction to it. You need smaller portions to get back on the horse.

And part is a rebellion against postponing giving time to things that matter personally . 'Yes, BigCo project xyz launches tomorrow and you've got xx people depending on me, but I ... really wanted to spend some time today ... reading a book ... gardening ... watching a movie ... a little shopping ....' Don't underestimate your mind's capacity to rebel against delayed gratification.

...especially the later it gets. "I haven't had enough time to just mess around today - I'm going to stay up another hour. The guy who has to get up at 7 is a different guy!"

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#156

Post by danuker »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #98
kanzenryu2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on Gabapentin for back/leg pain. The doctor warned that it was very important to ramp up the dose gradually, and ramp down gradually. I followed the advice carefully and had no issues. But it was tempting to think "I'm okay now, I won't need to take more pills".

My doctor was awful and gave me no such warnings. I was only able to get off it through help from Reddit. If you look up Gabapentin on Google, the top results will make you think its a Nqyuil-tier drug with mild side effects. But there are entire subreddits dedicated to it, and all of them filled with horror stories of people struggling with withdrawals. Glad to be off it, but that one month of withdrawals was not fu…

Google is only a mall nowadays.

When I need information I can trust, I go straight to Wikipedia. If it's high-impact, I also check references - Sci-Hub is a game-changer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin#Withdrawal_and_depe...

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#157

Post by projektfu »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #73
2devnull wrote: post #66

Sometimes this can be a sign you need to put more energy into the spiritual side of your life. Many people find faith important to their mental well being. As society has abandoned its religious foundation, mental illness has increased. Perhaps psychosis is the mind’s way of saying, there’s more to all this.

Counterpoint: some might consider a lot of the aspects of many faiths as exacerbating to a mental health disorder. Plenty of mental health issues center around faith and specific religions, even. I think society is at a net positive for leaving "faith" behind, but spirituality can exist in the absence of any specific religion [0]. [0] https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/13/spirituality-kris...

Yeah, a different friend of mine from another comment I made went from observant-religous to fanatical while losing weight and generating tons of work. Bipolar, obviously, and when he crashed it was very hard on him. He then became an atheist because the experience of being godspoken and then abandoned, and realizing it's just bipolar disorder, brings into question the basis of prophets, etc.

Other people, perhaps, would look at the same example and say that bipolar is what happens when someone is being used as the mouthpiece of a god, but my friend ended up with the opposite conclusion.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#158

Post by brmgb »

I have not experienced that as strongly but unless they are lucky I think most people will have gone through hardship at some point in their life.

Some years ago I found myself working at a job I felt trapped in, under an abusive boss feeling like a failure and slowly getting more and depressed. Meanwhile, my long term relationship ended. After that I was somewhat out of commission for a full year, just going with the flow.

So yeah, I don’t know if it helps but I think having some kind of break down when things go south is not at all abnormal.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#159

Post by maCDzP »

Yes, a panic attack while abroad. Maybe triggered by anti Malaria pills, I don't know. It was really scary, I thought I had gone crazy. Lost my grip on reality. It passed after a couple of days thank god.

I started therapy six months after that, it has helped me a lot. I am pretty open about it with my friends, my boss at work knows about it.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

#160

Post by projektfu »

benatkin wrote: post #15

That's a lot to unpack. Did you get Lyme disease? That's the thing keeping me from wandering some forests. Luckily I live on the west coast which has less Lyme disease.

Taking the ticks off within 18 hours generally protects against infection with Lyme disease. There's also a vaccine, and proper clothing prevents the ticks from biting as well.

The trouble is the black-legged ticks (I. scapularis) can be very small, especially the males.

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