Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important • Hacker News Board

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#221

Post by jimnotgym » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

One thing to know, is that if you are neurodivergent, well organised normies will continuously give you bad advice. Copying their system won't work for you, it might however cause you a lot of anguish because you can't work their way.

I don't code anymore. But one thing that helped me, is that all of the neurodivergent people I have worked with have a super-power or two, that offsets their failings. One of mine is seeing systems as a whole. Another is a photographic memory for certain things, although working through them is a great cause of insomnia, i can run through conversations over and over until I see the inconsistencies between what different people told me. The solution to a major problem often seems totally obvious to me, however the anguish I am about to cause other people by pointing it out to them is not obvious to me at all! Find those things, then find a job that lets you exercise them.

I tend to get recruited to companies in a state of extreme flux, and I'm great at stabilising them. When you are in a disaster people are much more willing to change!

Read about other people's rules and hunt out your place in life.

Kind of ironically, things got easier for me once I was more senior. I would recruit a team of super-organized people to kind of fill in my gaps. They value my insight, and also my (ironically) empathy I show towards them. I think I had to try so hard to study people, that I became better at it than most normies.

It might take a bit of searching but you will find your place. I was a legend at the majority of my roles and a failure at 2 others. You have to find your fit. Flexitime is useful btw.

Lastly, beware of burnout. I'm going to say it again beware of burnout. It is easy for some of us to become obsessed with problem solving to our own detriment.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#222

Post by hirvi74 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #124

hirvi74 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that is "neurodivergent," I agree. A lot of advice, especially surrounding executive dysfunction, could be boiled down into a single step -- step 1: do not have executive dysfunction. Now, I am not trying to say there is nothing anyone can do to improve themselves or their situation, but I do find a lot of advice falls short. Common advice is to set reminders, make lists, etc.. However, none of that is hel…

> I need lots of forced, external structure Me as well, which is a really "fun" time when my specific blend of neurodivergence also causes me to immediately resent said authority and external structure and view it as removing my agency. What I've learned as I've gotten older is just how much of our struggle comes down to our social model of disability. A lot of these "symptoms" are only disorders because we've built…

> view it as removing my agency.

I completely understand you. I hate rigid structure, and tend to rebel in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. However, I cannot function without it. It's like electronics relying on electricity. Too little current, things do not work. Too much current, things explode.

> A lot of these "symptoms" are only disorders because we've built such rigid, uncompromising systems for interacting with and participating in society.

Absolutely. What makes things worse that the pathologies are definitionally tautological. You have a disorder because you exhibit certain behaviors. But you behave in such ways because you have a disorder. That logic has never truly been stratifying to me. I also feel like many pathologies are highly contextual.

I honestly believe Dr. Tomas Szasz was right about some things (and wrong about plenty). I do agree with him that clinical psychology/psychiatry often serve as enforcers of social expectations. It's never the systems that are broken, it's always us that are broken.

> Instead, we work really hard to force a square peg into the round hole.

The worst part is no matter how hard the peg is rammed, it never truly fits.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#223

Post by embedding-shape » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC

ethagnawl wrote: post #107

throwawayffffas wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broken clocks and all.

There's no shortage of other clocks to cite.

That said somewhat the same thing? I despise the guy as much as the next person, but it's a useful thing to think about, regardless. Who cares who said it?

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#224

Post by Paracompact » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

ramon156 wrote: post #164

neuralkoi wrote: post #21

On your goals: 1. It's okay to make mistakes. Pain + reflection = progress. 2. Try to shift your perspective so your sense of worth isn't tied to your work. 3. Anytime you say "I should", "I need to", usually this is sign you are blindly following some sort of cognitive script [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMghRYqk8o&t=1844s

I didn't really think about your third bulletpoint, that does make sense. I think it's also good to be aware when you're lying to yourself. An easy example is how people talk about their gym membership. "Oh, I would go, but I am so busy with X", or "I am already doing Y, so I don't really need to go". It's always a non-reason, while the true reason is that they just do not see a reason to go. I don't get why this hap…

In REBT (rational emotive behavioral therapy; a cognitive behavioral therapy focused on rational introspection) the excessive "need" language is identified with "musturbation": https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0087779

In Buddhism, excessive "need" language is identified with excessive clinging to some aspect of life that behaves contrary to your cravings or your understanding. (Upadana = clinging, tanha = craving, together with its positive and negative forms bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha, "things must be so," "things must not be so.") The usual cure prescribed is to cure the ignorance that causes these illusions of reality, and/or detach from the clinging that causes your ignorance to inspire suffering (dukkha).

REBT is inspired by a number of philosophies: Stoicism, Buddhism, among others. If this more analytical approach to self-help appeals to you any, I might encourage you to check it out.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#225

Post by astrange » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

xlayn wrote: post #190

smugglerFlynn wrote: post #99

> My goals for the end of 2027 are as follows: > Stop making stupid mistakes. I want to be able to finish a task fully without missing or skipping a step. One way to do this is to make a plan for everything you do, and only do that thing. Nothing else. If you are neurodivergent or have other things influencing you mentally, you are _NOT_ going to snap out of it. You are not going to just build a better planning syste…

get your eyesight check, at some point in life I was having difficulties staying focus and even started having headaches... and I needed prescription glasses... Also very important, try to sleep the best you can and do exercise... I remember reading here about exercise in some cases exceeding the benefits of ADHD medications... If you are overdosing things... don't... caffeine can be overdosed and the effects are nas…

> Also very important, try to sleep the best you can and do exercise... I remember reading here about exercise in some cases exceeding the benefits of ADHD medications...

Exercise is very true. I used to take walks but it didn't help; pushing myself at the gym (inc using a trainer) is a lot more effective.

Also, ADHD meds interact with sleep, both making it better and worse. I was on Intuniv 2mg and it absolutely ruined my sleep, but 1mg plus a sleep medication (25mg trazodone) are working very well.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#226

Post by astrange » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #216

busymom0 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> talking to a psychiatrist Would you mind sharing what solutions they recommended for you to try? Also any meds?

Yep - meds. Tried a bunch and duloxetine is making a massive difference for me. On them for 4 months so far. Also picked up therapy yet again but tbh I never found therapy to really solve things - it helps me understand myself better at a logical level but the underlying anxiety / depression (including suicidal ideation) has never really gone away until the meds. I'd say right now I'm feeling quite content with life,…

> I'm still trying to understand this new reality as I'm not used to it at all.

I'm having a similar issue with ADHD meds, which is that we randomly settled on one that made me feel incredibly "normal" (ie not nerdy) but now my lifestyle totally doesn't match that so I need to redo everything.

Still in progress, I've always had winter depression and likely need to be on something for that as well.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#227

Post by hallole » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:08 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #193

graysnow86 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The treatment for ADD is one of two medications, methylphenidate or dexamphetamine. You can try other things in addition to these, but not instead of these, and you should try both - there really is just no substitute. No, not quite - there's a variety of different ADHD medications and I'd argue there's more popular ones like Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine). Non-stimulants like Strattera or Intuniv absolutely can and ar…

Intuniv gets a bad reputation because the patient has to be titrated up to the final dose and it takes a long time to see the full effects. It's the opposite pattern of stimulants where the patient feels great (unnaturally so, due to stimulant euphoria at the start) and the effects wane over time. The internet is really, really bad at pushing everyone toward ADHD diagnoses and then pushing them further toward stimula…

>Stimulants have a habit of being enjoyable at first ... and then the effects wane over the years

The standard approach to addressing this is thru the use of "drug holidays," regular short periods during which one doesn't take their medication with the intention of abating the growth of tolerance. I much prefer going this route since stimulants have proven to be such a solid solution. The other standard approach is, of course, upping dosage, which could be seen as only delaying the problem.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote, though. The internet is indeed a terrible place to get any advice on these topics.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#228

Post by astrange » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #124

hirvi74 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that is "neurodivergent," I agree. A lot of advice, especially surrounding executive dysfunction, could be boiled down into a single step -- step 1: do not have executive dysfunction. Now, I am not trying to say there is nothing anyone can do to improve themselves or their situation, but I do find a lot of advice falls short. Common advice is to set reminders, make lists, etc.. However, none of that is hel…

> I need lots of forced, external structure Me as well, which is a really "fun" time when my specific blend of neurodivergence also causes me to immediately resent said authority and external structure and view it as removing my agency. What I've learned as I've gotten older is just how much of our struggle comes down to our social model of disability. A lot of these "symptoms" are only disorders because we've built…

> Me as well, which is a really "fun" time when my specific blend of neurodivergence also causes me to immediately resent said authority and external structure and view it as removing my agency.

I was never very bad at that, but it can happen in ADHD because you lose interest in everything you're "supposed" to do and get stuck on random other things like commenting here. Especially if the "supposed" tasks are hard or give you anxiety.

So I was quite surprised when going on Intuniv made that basically disappear.

My advice is that there are interventions for things like this, but they're never the obvious ones and you'll be surprised what might work. And it's worth trying meds.

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#229

Post by bityard » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #94

> I do not feel like I have the mental space to keep track of everything I need to do, and I do not even feel like I am aware of what I'm doing anymore. Have you tried keeping a document logging what your thoughts/steps while doing a task were? I find this helps me stay on track. You don't need to write it in a clean way, just bullet points to reconstruct the steps you've taken, progress, decisions you need to take e…

[dead]

Re: Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important

#230

Post by Aurornis » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:17 PM UTC

hallole wrote: post #227

Aurornis wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuniv gets a bad reputation because the patient has to be titrated up to the final dose and it takes a long time to see the full effects. It's the opposite pattern of stimulants where the patient feels great (unnaturally so, due to stimulant euphoria at the start) and the effects wane over time. The internet is really, really bad at pushing everyone toward ADHD diagnoses and then pushing them further toward stimula…

>Stimulants have a habit of being enjoyable at first ... and then the effects wane over the years The standard approach to addressing this is thru the use of "drug holidays," regular short periods during which one doesn't take their medication with the intention of abating the growth of tolerance. I much prefer going this route since stimulants have proven to be such a solid solution. The other standard approach is,…

Drug holidays can make a small impact, but tolerance is going to build to many of the effects no matter what you do.

The other problem with drug holidays is that some people start getting into cycles where they don’t take the drug and have lazy days where they justify not doing anything, then they wait for the drug to kick in on the return day to even try doing anything. The housework and personal life things pile up on the off days and then they try to speed around and do it all on the medication days, which is another pattern that isn’t sustainable forever.

Drug tolerance doesn’t build and then abate in a very asymmetric manner where someone could take it for 30 days and then have a couple days off and reverse it all. Some of the biochemical mechanisms of tolerance have persistence measured in months or years.