Hey, good luck! I've had some depressive episodes where I couldn't do work or even good off for a good week or so, but I'm privileged to have not been chronically depressed and need medication (I have others issues and working on those have prevented episodes). Going to therapy was the best decision of my life, and this year I've progressed enough that I put in almost 100 hours over 7 days for one critical project (which isn't something you should be able to brag about lol, but I'm proud of myself; a year ago I would've had a breakdown on about day 2). It's a journey though, and you'll have good weeks and bad, so just keep in mind that even if this week seems bad, next year's gonna be great!
Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
41–50 of 307 posts
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes - you are identifying a non-depressed engineer. A depressed engineer can become one of those by removing the depression.
No, the point is that not everyone is cut out to be an engineer. If you find yourself being depressed as an engineer, one possibility is that it's really not the job for you. Not everyone is capable of being an engineer, and being prone to emotional disregulation is probably a good indicator. Not to say you can't muddle through, but the original post was saying that you should at least ask yourself if you'd be happie…
Yeah, you articulated it better than me. Especially in the case where the OP is indicating that a lot of their stress comes from inability to perform or get better in an engineering context. If after a few years you aren't feeling more confident in your skills or aren't more comfortable with your tech stack it's time to re-evaluate. OP mentions they prioritize stability and I think a lot of people get into engineering for the wrong reasons.
In my opinion the prerequisites are a natural aptitude and a genuine curiosity.
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#43For software you don’t need to do engineering. You just need to provide value to your employer. No need to make a product perfect, but there is a need to make the product more valuable to your employer. Likely it will not be more valuable if the code is more shiny.
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#44Work forces you to see your own motivations and character and you have to manage yourself like you might manage a very valuable employee that you cannot afford to lose.
This means you need to see your strengths and understand how you are motivated and try to come up with ways of making the best use of those characteristics. There's no point feeling sad that you aren't X or Y. If you're Z then how can you make best use of Z?
I suggest that it's important to stop thinking that other people are idiots because this lack of tolerance or understanding of other people seems to extend to yourself. You have to understand and accept yourself as having flaws. Then you may see that other people are the same - their apparent idiocy always has reasons behind it and you should take some time to understand them even if you still don't agree with them.
I notice that depression is something I feel the ghost of when my image of myself is damaged by some real world situation. The only real solution to this is to stop thinking about yourself so much and think about other people more. Help people do what they want rather than what you want for a bit.
Also as someone else noted, bad family situations, relationships etc, create a lot of weight. Try to avoid people who make you sad and find ways to hang out with people who interest you enough that you forget about yourself for a while.
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#45Hey, good luck! I've had some depressive episodes where I couldn't do work or even good off for a good week or so, but I'm privileged to have not been chronically depressed and need medication (I have others issues and working on those have prevented episodes). Going to therapy was the best decision of my life, and this year I've progressed enough that I put in almost 100 hours over 7 days for one critical project (w…
> Going to therapy was the best decision of my life
Such an under-appreciated tool, going to therapy, granted you find the right person to do it with.
For people who've tried it just a few times but never really had "the epiphany", don't stop trying to find the right individual to have this space and conversations with, as it quite literally can change your life. It might take going through 5-6 people before you encounter "Ah, I actually feel like I could tell this person anything, I'm relatively sure they'll have good insights and understands what I want", but it so worth it once things click.
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#46Most of y’all need to buck up. If day to day engineering tasks are so challenging for you maybe the anxiety and depression you’re feeling is your system telling you that you are in misalignment. Why are you an engineer if you are struggling to complete the basic tasks? Are you meant to be doing what you are doing?
This is one side of the elephant. It's true a steel inner strength is required in day to day engineering. It's hard , and it lacks positive reinformcement almost always . When you hear something it is bad. But let's define "buck up" and see the other side of the elephant. That blog post is a textbook example of negative self talk. You can have a world that looks down on you and spit back at it and do your best work,…
Too much therapy speak here. You can't think your way out of depression. Only by taking action can you change things. Fix your body first. Then learn to socialize. Then get good at something (ideally something you can make money from). Think in terms of systems not goals. As a man your only way out is action (I can't speak on the female side of things).
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#47I would love to read an update about your experience with antidepressants, as it's a path I'm thinking about more and more with the (losing) battle I've been fighting against my own long term depression. I really resonated with your eventual realization that while others have their own battles, they are very rarely similar to this. I guess I knew it was unusual, but I took way too long to realize just how weird it wa…
I'm not OP but just wanted to add my own experience with anti-depressants as someone who has battled mild depression and extreme anxiety for years. Ultimately in my case it turned out that I needed to try several different antidepressants that my doctor prescribed until I found one that worked to aid in decreasing my depression and anxiety symptoms with pretty much no side effects. I tried several which did not work for me or had a lot of side effects. Some antidepressants that helped my friends and family in their struggles did not help me. So definitely ask your doctor if they'd be willing to work with you to try and find a medication that works well for you with minimal side effects if they recommend that you take such medications.
Wish you all the best. Mental illness sucks.
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#48[deleted]
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#49I have worked in environments where as the day wore on, my performance plummeted. After a lot of investigation, I suspect that air quality, lighting, ergonomics can have adverse effects. Only recently I read an article that said that in a room with several persons and poor ventilation the CO2 levels reach levels which are known to impair brain and other neurological functions. That is, I suspect that your depression…
> > That is, I suspect that your depression is the symptom of a bad environment and not the root cause of your problems.
Yeah that's BS.
When you were a kid in class in winter you had 20 kids + the teacher in the same room submerged by co2 , plus you were in a literal prison taken from the comfort of your bed in the dead of the night, had to ask permission to use the restroom and you could be denied , once you managed to get to the restroom you'd be submerged by even more co2 because of all the cigarette smoking going on from the older guys. And I am not even considering bullying as a factor that for the least lucky or strong could be added to the above list.
Still no depression in sight .
The problem comes from within, life was never meant to be taken this seriously, all the improvements and technological prowness that we tout vs. Subsaharan Africa come with the cost of literal self torture.
We have evolved in a scenario in which if you had reason to believe to have >90% chance of being alive 1 week from now (something like 168 hours into the future) then you could literally go out of your hut celebrating with your dick swinging left and right .
We have now reached a point where people would be unhappy with 168 years because 'oh no what happens next OMG I am so scared!'
Mental health and thinking are 2 parallel lines, they can never be reconciled, thinking is much more toxic than CO2, lead, sniffing glue, meth, heroin, fentanyl and all the other so called harmful substances which as toxic as they might be they don't make you want to off yourself.
Paradoxically if we stopped thinking and ran New York City into the ground back to an African hut village it would be the best party in the history of humanity and so much happiness could be extracted from that, much much more than building it up further, even though it would not be visible from the outside
Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
#50[deleted]