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The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

kennethreitz.org

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Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#11

Post by alphazard »

> Silence means constantly monitoring my behavior for signs that might reveal my condition, avoiding discussions of mental health that might trigger suspicion and living with the constant anxiety that discovery will lead to rejection.

This framing is at the very least maladaptive and possibly indicative of the mental illness they are writing about. Mentally healthy humans regulate their behavior around other humans depending on the context. Sometimes this produces anxiety. And the fact that the author can pull that off at all (even with some difficulty) is a positive sign.

There is no reason for an employer or professional colleagues to be aware of an employees medical issues. Maybe there are exceptions for in-office workers with conditions like epilepsy. There are plenty of companies with no questions asked PTO, and as long as they do good work (which the article indicates) no one will bother them for using it.

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#14

Post by kamranjon »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

"Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health condition that is marked by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression, mania and a milder form of mania called hypomania. Hallucinations involve seeing things or hearing voices that others don't observe. Delusions involve believing things that are not real or not true." I'm not sure this is an empl…

I would hope that there would be some possibility for folks like this to utilize platforms like Patreon or GitHub sponsorships to help pay their bills - they are obviously motivated and productive coders and also talented writers.

In my experience there is sort of a discrepancy often times. Someone discloses a severe mental health diagnosis and the company just goes on pretending they are just like every other employee - making no changes to accommodate them.

On the flip side, employees with severe mental health disorders often want to be treated exactly the same as other employees - so it seems a bit of an un-winnable situation.

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#15

Post by [deleted] »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

"Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health condition that is marked by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression, mania and a milder form of mania called hypomania. Hallucinations involve seeing things or hearing voices that others don't observe. Delusions involve believing things that are not real or not true." I'm not sure this is an empl…

[deleted]

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#16

Post by sfn42 »

runjake wrote: post #10

The Python community didn’t exclude Kenneth because of his condition, at least directly. They excluded him because of his actions and history of shady, manipulative behaviors. And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much. I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business,…

This blog I found seems to support your view https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#17

Post by runjake »

sfn42 wrote: post #16
runjake wrote: post #10

The Python community didn’t exclude Kenneth because of his condition, at least directly. They excluded him because of his actions and history of shady, manipulative behaviors. And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much. I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business,…

This blog I found seems to support your view https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...

Yeah, I’m on mobile, sorry.

You can Google or HN search these past events. In fact, Kenneth lurks on HN, too.

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#18

Post by 481Jqgat »

sfn42 wrote: post #16
runjake wrote: post #10

The Python community didn’t exclude Kenneth because of his condition, at least directly. They excluded him because of his actions and history of shady, manipulative behaviors. And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much. I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business,…

This blog I found seems to support your view https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...

Written by Nathaniel Smith, who also got Oliphant out of the NumPy Steering Council? And that linked post was approved by the CoC compliant Python Steering Council, a later version of which canceled and defamed Tim Peters?

Maybe Smith is right on the facts here, but the methods are despicable.

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#19

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

runjake wrote: post #10

The Python community didn’t exclude Kenneth because of his condition, at least directly. They excluded him because of his actions and history of shady, manipulative behaviors. And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much. I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business,…

I read the post and felt a lot of sympathy. Then I saw your response and re-read the post and it comes across as quite manipulative (if your statements are factually correct). My comment is less about this person (great library, btw), but more how it is Interesting how context can totally change how words on a page are received.

Re: The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

#20

Post by rlmcdonald »

All the comments here about how it's okay that he got excluded because he did the bad things fall right in line with what he's describing. Mental health awareness is easy when you just throw away all the people who make you uncomfortable! I thought it was a pretty good read and I'm not discounting it because it was written by someone struggling with mental illness.
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