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Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#11

Post by neekburm »

I wrote an article about the ADA amendments a few years ago:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/246397486/The-ADAAA-Congress-Brea...

Major depression, or the perception that someone is depressed, is now considered a disability that the ADA applies to.

If an employer takes a hostile action (denial of promotion, firing, etc.) against someone based on their disability, the victim can sue the employer.

Proving that they fired you because of the article will be an issue, but a skilled disability attorney can probably do that. Presuming that you were otherwise a good employee, it probably won't be too hard to prove that the article was the reason. Talk to a disability attorney, or just contact the EEOC.

http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/charge.cfm

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#12

Post by krrishd »

falsestprophet wrote: post #10
fadelakin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I live in Indiana but very close to Chicago and commute to Chicago daily for work....well I did. My boss was from Indiana and I don't think he was either Christian or Mormon. I see a psychiatrist and a therapist twice a week. Obviously they're are cutting into my runway but I figured it's worth it since I've been doing much better ever since I wrote the piece of writing.

Spending three hours a day on the South Shore Line would make anyone depressed! I bet you can get a software internship gig near you. Contact professors doing computational work at Notre Dame ( http://ibms.nd.edu/clusters/computational-biology-bioinforma... ) they may have room in their budget. Though the pay will not be extravagant. Indeed shows 300+ software gigs in South Bend: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=software…

As pragmatic as your solution of deleting the article is, I don't think that should be the action Fisher has to take here, it simply doesn't seem fair. If an employer takes issue with an article like that, then that's your indicator that they aren't right for you to begin with. But I have no experience with any of this so I can't conclusively say much.

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#14

Post by ickryricky »

As a person who's suffered from depression, and experienced discrimination because of it, I'd like to encourage you to both sue the shit out of this asshole, and name the company publicly. Don't be ashamed of your depression, and don't let people like this continue to get away with abusing those who suffer from mental illness.

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#15

Post by sarabmann »

By letting you go, your employer lost a courageous and honest resource so it was not your loss at all.Secondly, I think you don't have serious issue as you are in the right framework of mind to confront and identify the problem.

Try to take project out of Elance and Odesk and if you think you have real good skills that are not valued in Chicago then move to place where your skill set has value. Valley is extremely good technology cluster but Boston,Austin and Seattle are also not bad.

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#16

Post by fadelakin »

falsestprophet wrote: post #10
fadelakin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I live in Indiana but very close to Chicago and commute to Chicago daily for work....well I did. My boss was from Indiana and I don't think he was either Christian or Mormon. I see a psychiatrist and a therapist twice a week. Obviously they're are cutting into my runway but I figured it's worth it since I've been doing much better ever since I wrote the piece of writing.

Spending three hours a day on the South Shore Line would make anyone depressed! I bet you can get a software internship gig near you. Contact professors doing computational work at Notre Dame ( http://ibms.nd.edu/clusters/computational-biology-bioinforma... ) they may have room in their budget. Though the pay will not be extravagant. Indeed shows 300+ software gigs in South Bend: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=software…

I'm deleting the article tonight but I wanted to make sure people got the whole story and I didn't mention the company at all.

I'll definitely look into getting an internship gig and probably spend all of tonight and tomorrow applying for the software gigs that I think I'll be a good fit in. Still debating suing.

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#17

Post by fadelakin »

krrishd wrote: post #12
falsestprophet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending three hours a day on the South Shore Line would make anyone depressed! I bet you can get a software internship gig near you. Contact professors doing computational work at Notre Dame ( http://ibms.nd.edu/clusters/computational-biology-bioinforma... ) they may have room in their budget. Though the pay will not be extravagant. Indeed shows 300+ software gigs in South Bend: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=software…

As pragmatic as your solution of deleting the article is, I don't think that should be the action Fisher has to take here, it simply doesn't seem fair. If an employer takes issue with an article like that, then that's your indicator that they aren't right for you to begin with. But I have no experience with any of this so I can't conclusively say much.

Thanks Krish. <3

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#19

Post by [deleted] »

ickryricky wrote: post #14

As a person who's suffered from depression, and experienced discrimination because of it, I'd like to encourage you to both sue the shit out of this asshole, and name the company publicly. Don't be ashamed of your depression, and don't let people like this continue to get away with abusing those who suffer from mental illness.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I was let go for writing about my depression. What should I do?

#20

Post by Devthrowaway80 »

penguindev wrote: post #13

Have you read "mans search for meaning"? That guy lived in a concentration camp, so you probably don't have it that bad... Hope you find something better than pills and/or paying a shrink for the rest of your life. I know you can.

Clinical depression is a physiological condition that produces irrational negative emotions that are largely unrelated to the sufferer's circumstances.

Telling a clinically depressed person "buck up, things aren't that bad" is about as helpful as telling somebody with diabetes that "sugar is actually pretty tasty, you should just try it again and see if you like it."

Those pills you so casually dismiss prevented me from taking my own life and have lifted a lifelong fog.

Hope you can find something better to do with your time than writing incredibly ignorant comments on Hacker News. I know you can.

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