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The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

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Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#101

Post by sillysaurusx »

justinclift wrote: post #89
sillysaurusx wrote: post #61

For what it's worth, I'm not sure this is a mental breakdown, and it might give the wrong impression to people who do legitimately suffer breakdowns related to stress about tech. For me it's only happened once. It was an anxiety attack, and I'm very lucky my wife was there to talk me through it and help me understand what was happening. She's had them many times, but it was my first (and thankfully only). It turns ou…

> Xanax is worth having on hand Doing a search online seems to indicate that Xanax can be addictive? https://www.drugs.com/xanax.html Doesn't seem to be the kind of thing to take lightly?

You're correct. Don't take it lightly. But have it on hand for an emergency, if you're prone to panic or anxiety attacks.

Those are relatively rare, so you shouldn't end up taking it at a frequency where addiction can manifest. But everyone's different; keep open communications with your doctor.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#102

Post by prewett »

mtnviewer wrote: post #46
minkles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the entire risk: being fired and financially in trouble. I spent 5 years eliminating that risk. Now I don't give a single fuck. There is no fear. They get better, more rational work and I have security.

How did you get to this point? I have $2M+ net worth, and while I live somewhere rent controlled, $2M isn't that much in the Bay Area. I'm still scared to lose my job.

What is your $2m generating? For instance, if you invested in high quality dividend stocks, you can get 3% and it should generally grow about what GDP does (which should also include inflation effects). So that's $60k/year, or after 15% dividend tax + let's say 5% California state tax, for a net of $48k. If you're in somewhere rent-controlled, seems like even with a family you're not going to on the streets starving.

Alternatively, if you have $2m in stocks that are growing, you could consider the growth amount as potential income, because you could always sell it. Generally the growth is better than 3%, but down times will also hurt worse since you might have to sell at a low.

Or you could purchase a residence with $1m, and buy dividends with the rest. Taxes on the residence will be about $10k, with dividend income of $24k, leaving $14k for food, etc.

You won't independently wealthy in any of these scenarios (not in the Bay Area, anyway), but in these scenarios you don't actually need much from a job, maybe $40k with a family. So you should be able to save several years worth of that on a Bay Area salary, which leaves you with quite a long runway.

And if things get really bad, you can move to the middle of nowhere, buy a house for $300k and actually be independently wealthy.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#103

Post by caseyy »

justinclift wrote: post #89
sillysaurusx wrote: post #61

For what it's worth, I'm not sure this is a mental breakdown, and it might give the wrong impression to people who do legitimately suffer breakdowns related to stress about tech. For me it's only happened once. It was an anxiety attack, and I'm very lucky my wife was there to talk me through it and help me understand what was happening. She's had them many times, but it was my first (and thankfully only). It turns ou…

> Xanax is worth having on hand Doing a search online seems to indicate that Xanax can be addictive? https://www.drugs.com/xanax.html Doesn't seem to be the kind of thing to take lightly?

Doesn’t usually cause addiction if used in emergencies only and quite a few people in tech do.

I do feel more stressed 12-24 hours after taking benzos though. This leads some people to take a higher dose and you can see where that leads.

But no, no addiction in me or anyone I know using it “as needed”.

Some doctors prescribe it daily for a long period of time, which is reckless if other drugs are available for the same problem, like sertraline for anxiety. But then, some doctors prescribe oxy for pain when ibuprofen will do. Malicious stuff. All the addiction warnings are to steer people away from these drugs in these scenarios.

Benzos 3x a day for a month will be tough to shake. Benzos 3x a month to 3x a year — hard to imagine problems with that.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#104

Post by ziddoap »

timgl wrote: post #35
jonnycat wrote: post #23

Great post, but kind of buries the lede: PostHog is having a CrowdStrike moment.

PostHog cofounder here. This affected users that did not have a specific version of the JS library pinned and deployed a new version, or were using the snippet, and had network capture enabled, (a feature we introduced very recently and is only enabled on 3% of projects), and had recordings enabled on that particular session (for most customers, only a small percentage of sessions are recorded due to sampling or bill…

Random guy here. This affected users that

- Used your recommended way of implementing PostHog [1]

- Used a feature of the product

- Used a feature of the product

The comparison to CrowdStrike is not fair, you're right. But this attempt to shed responsibility still leaves a sour taste.

[1] See "This is the simplest way to get PostHog up and running. It only takes a few minutes." from your website, which is the first method suggested when clicking the "installation" tab

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#105

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Weirdly I think this is heavily related to social anxiety / shame - as in “everyone will knowingness me and point”. This is buried so deep in our brains it’s almost certain to do with herd behaviour.

And it’s (IMO) why anonymity online is usually a bad idea - we need to learn, deep in our bones, that what is said online is the same as standing up in front of the church congregation and reading out our tweets - if you would not in front the vicar, don’t in front of the planet.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#107

Post by mattmcegg »

justinclift wrote: post #89
sillysaurusx wrote: post #61

For what it's worth, I'm not sure this is a mental breakdown, and it might give the wrong impression to people who do legitimately suffer breakdowns related to stress about tech. For me it's only happened once. It was an anxiety attack, and I'm very lucky my wife was there to talk me through it and help me understand what was happening. She's had them many times, but it was my first (and thankfully only). It turns ou…

> Xanax is worth having on hand Doing a search online seems to indicate that Xanax can be addictive? https://www.drugs.com/xanax.html Doesn't seem to be the kind of thing to take lightly?

[dead]

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#108

Post by gosub100 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #105

Weirdly I think this is heavily related to social anxiety / shame - as in “everyone will knowingness me and point”. This is buried so deep in our brains it’s almost certain to do with herd behaviour. And it’s (IMO) why anonymity online is usually a bad idea - we need to learn, deep in our bones, that what is said online is the same as standing up in front of the church congregation and reading out our tweets - if you…

> you would not in front the vicar, don’t in front of the planet.

Every tyrannical government in history would love this maxim.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#109

Post by timgl »

ziddoap wrote: post #104
timgl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PostHog cofounder here. This affected users that did not have a specific version of the JS library pinned and deployed a new version, or were using the snippet, and had network capture enabled, (a feature we introduced very recently and is only enabled on 3% of projects), and had recordings enabled on that particular session (for most customers, only a small percentage of sessions are recorded due to sampling or bill…

Random guy here. This affected users that - Used your recommended way of implementing PostHog [1] - Used a feature of the product - Used a feature of the product The comparison to CrowdStrike is not fair, you're right. But this attempt to shed responsibility still leaves a sour taste. [1] See "This is the simplest way to get PostHog up and running. It only takes a few minutes." from your website, which is the first m…

Just to be clear, those are AND not OR conditions.

Definitely not trying to shed responsibility here, we messed up and we'll make sure this doesn't happen again.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#110

Post by RHSeeger »

zappchance wrote: post #72
mtnviewer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get to this point? I have $2M+ net worth, and while I live somewhere rent controlled, $2M isn't that much in the Bay Area. I'm still scared to lose my job.

If you're scared about your financial situation with over a $2M net worth either you are prone to paranoia or you're living well above your means. I'm constantly surprised how many well-off people try to pass themselves off as "one of the poors". My family and friends do okay with a net worth way below that, in the Bay Area. I've worked minimum wage jobs here in the bay, and had co-workers actually struggling to make…

> If you're scared about your financial situation with over a $2M net worth either you are prone to paranoia or you're living well above your means.

As someone who was layed off and went without a job for 13 months (tech bubble), I am _always_ scared about my financial situation. Sure, if I lose my job, I have the resources to hold out while I find another, but

- It _will_ impact my lifestyle, because I'll need to be more careful about what money I spend

- It _will_ make my family unhappy, for the same reasons

- I've been in the position where it's "do we eat or pay rent next month?", and it sucks. I likely won't get back there, but the fear of getting there persists.

Look, I get it, $2M is a lot of money. But there's a fair number of people that can get to that amount (especially living in an area where a 2br dwelling is easily $1M of that), still be saving _more_ money, and still fear the idea of being out of work for months. Especially if it's a single earner household. And especially if there's children.

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