Ask HN: Is anyone else living this depression cycle?
Then, you quit your job. Just to find out the next one is as meaningless as the previous one - with a company and colleagues who don't share your values.
You aren't good enough to land a job in one of the cool companies you admire. You think about improving your skills but, then, your life is basically spending 20 hours per day just for work, sleeping, and commute. You have 4 hours left for cooking, family, friends, house cleaning, improving your skills. People tell you aren't trying hard enough. You feel shitty, guilty, and even more depressed.
You think about quitting your job, create your own company, do something you're passionate about and that will help other people. But you realize your savings would be enough to cover only two months without working.
You spend nights without sleep, develop simple prototypes, show them to investors. They praise your idea but tell you the prototype is too simplistic and, if you really believe in your idea, you should work full-time on it.
You make a whole plan for quitting your job. Thinking about becoming a homeless for a few months but you give up. You aren't strong enough.
You ask your friends for help. But they don't understand how a software engineer doesn't have some savings. You look back to all the money spent helping your family (who is poor and live in a developing country). You could ignore them but you're too weak, too soft. You feel shitty - and more depressed again.
Then, you tell how you feel to other people. They whine about your whining reminding you how shitty you're for complaining about life, reminding you how weak you are. And, guess what, you get more depressed again.
This cycle keeps repeating itself until you see yourself sitting on your bed with a bunch of pills thinking about killing yourself.
Is anyone else living this same depression cycle?
53 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadIt's not wrong to charitably keep your family afloat. That's for sure. Serious commendations for your rational generosity. You only ever get one family. One trouble with society is the opposite: Far too few children are too generous.
Your life brings tremendous value. Hope you feel better.
Then I quit my job (after a year) and went independent. I (eventually, not overnight) built an app that did moderately well, while sustaining myself through contracting revenue, and made a nice chunk of money from that. Not FU money, but enough to sustain me for a long time if I invested it well and didn't spend through the roof. And then I built another, and another.
Everyone is different and I get where you're coming from. The reason I'm telling you this is because I love what I do again. I have helped out my mom when she needed it. I have freedom in life to do what I want, when I want it. I love cooking and spend a proper amount of time each day doing it. And I love the users of my apps that reach out to me because they enjoy using it. A good day of work is 4 to 6 hours of productive work.
Also: you're not weak for helping out family -- call me crazy but I would give the people I care about a free monthly stipend if I could. People care too little about others.
Also 2: You should stop reading startup stories and Techcrunch, as they're mostly bullshit. Investors included. If you want to take control of your life, focus on small things or products you can build in a short amount of time (e.g. like a plugin, a library or an app). Not going to go too much into detail, but I built one app a few years ago in a week that grossed close to $50k. Then there was another I built in a month that did $X00k+. Then I spent six months on a SaaS which made me exactly $10. I'm definitely not the smartest or most commercial guy around.
Life isn't always easy, but please, don't kill yourself. It can definitely get better.
You'd think all low hanging fruit is gone, but I don't think this is the case. It doesn't need to be an original idea if the alternative isn't working very well, for example.
One thing I can tell you: there are a lot of opportunities you miss because you're not paying attention and busy with work or other random things.
I personally wish I had more industry specific knowledge so I could go disrupt things, but getting up to speed in an industry is a lot of work if it's not something you're at home in.
I also read a lot (and probably too much)
It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person.
People whining about your complaints are just failing at being empathetic. They lack the context or the decency to hear you out politely.
It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person.
Not having $X_DOLLARS in your savings account due remittances back home (or, hell, whatever else you spend it on) doesn't mean you're a bad or a weak person. It just means you didn't or couldn't optimize for that account balance in your life.
It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person.
For what it's worth, you mention that you spend 20 hours working, sleeping, and commuting. Sleep is important, but don't give the bastards more than 8 hours of your life per day (including commute) unless they're compensating you well for it. Valuing yourself and your time here about some corporate masters is important.
It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person.
https://www.anxietybc.com/sites/default/files/ThinkingTraps....
Think about how you can be content right now, exactly as things are, or maybe by changing only few small things. Slow down, breathe, appreciate the little things, give yourself a break.
First of all, the national suicide hotline is there for you if you should ever need it. 1-800-273-8255
I saw a psychiatrist. Therapist is also an option for you.
Sertraline (Zoloft) or other SSRI may provide some 'distance'. I find it helpful.
Shamatha meditation and Shambhala meditation center provides mindfulness and community for me.
Make regular exercise a priority.
Make getting a good night's sleep a priority every night.
Slow down. Try to avoid overextending yourself. Learn to say "no" sometimes. Turn off the phone, TV, and computer when possible.
Good luck! Take care of yourself! :-)
-makes me feel much better -relaxed -helps recovers the joy of thinking deeply
I don't think I'm depressed- but I feel like my highs are very high and my lows are very low
Thanks for the advice
This item is a key to your whole depression cycle IMO. And this is exactly where you are mistaken. There's a great chance that cool companies you admire do not deserve admiration; you will see it as soon as you get there, and will become even more depressed. Please remove this item from your system of axioms, and you will feel better already. There's nothing meaningful about programming job, period. But it's (in most cases) something you can tolerate. Don't overwork, convince yourself that your salary is quite decent for the effort, and suddenly - you have time left for cooking, family, friends, house cleaning, improving your skills. Please tell me why this is not a good plan (Full disclosure: I decided to stick to the same plan years ago, and think it was a really good idea :)
It is easier to cut your spending in half than to double your salary, assuming you're capitalizing on your skills already.
You don't have to be homeless, try being monastic. Move out of the city and downsize.
That's a fair bit of free time every day. That's like 6pm - 10pm every day. I could see friend and family 2 nights a week, clean one, cook and eat every night, and still have weekends free. What are you expecting? If you were really motivated to improve you could spend plenty of time on the weekends and at least a few nights a week programming.
I can understand why you want to ask this... but the answer isn't going to be helpful. If you are depressed and thinking of killing yourself, get professional help. Now.
And importantly, in those cases, it's fixed by psychological means- usually not by life success, even when such success occurs.
Run away from this type of investor, simply because they no longer understand that believing in an idea and risking homelessness are two very different things that should not be correlated.
Investors want to make their money back, and they have every right to want to do that. But when they say things like that, they either don't understand the difference between the two terms I mentioned, it they simply care about making money and have no interest in your idea whatsoever.
Run. Away.
So, I actually quit my corporate job and spent 5.7 years homeless. I had my reasons (health related). It was the right choice for me. I can see it being the right choice for others at times.
But this is not one of those times. Being homeless sucks, and I had alimony.
If you think you feel like shit now, you really don't want to face choices like "Spend a few bucks on a hot meal because I have no cooking facilities or stand in line with other homeless people for up to two hours to get a free meal at a soup kitchen. The free meal will be lousy and I will be surrounded by sick people smoking and being assholes the entire time."
You maybe need a different social circle. My mom is an immigrant. I am very familiar with helping the extended family yadda. If your people don't get that, get new people. Their limited world view is hardly the only one out there.
It's not always fun or perfect.
Sounds like you are doing alright, able to help your family, find jobs and able to change jobs. So focus on the positive.
Now as far as doing your own thing that's a great dream to work at. You can do it while working. Just don't try to go the investor route.
Here's some inspiration:
@DHH Startup School Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY
Follow Rob from drop shipping beach towels to creating and selling Drip.com. http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/archives
Good luck, enjoy the ride.
First and foremost, understand that your life is fine; you're a software developer with a job that, albeit boring, is stable and makes good money. You're supporting your family. Most people would give a limb to be in that position. Your problems are psychological.
Consider seeing a therapist; it sounds like you need more perspective on your own life than a bunch of commenters on HN could give you.
But for this commenter's two cents; if you do continue looking for a (even) better job, try to find one that gives you better work-life balance. 20 hours for work+sleeping+commute? A good situation should see that down to 17, tops- 8 for work, 1 for commute, 8 for sleep. Moving closer to work, to reduce commute, has been cited as one of the greatest happiness-enhancing life changes one can make. The 8 hour workday is poo-poo'd by HN because it's full of SV workaholics, but its an available and healthy choice outside that scene. (Notably, either working for a Big Name company or doing a startup would make your life much worse in this regard!) If sleep is eating up the time, consider getting tested for sleep apnea (which can also have complications such as depression... natch!)
With 7 hours of free time per day, rather than 4, you'd be in a much better position to get your feet under yourself, both psychologically and practically. (And perhaps, eventually, to make a better prototype for what you want to do long-term.)
If they fire you (and they might) find another job. Programers are in demand ALL OVER.
You don't want to get promoted, you don't want to climb the corporate ladder, you want to launch your own product while you still send money home.
And as for launching, well just launch. Just keep building and adding features -- don't market out of the gate but GO LIVE and be very public about what your working on and how it is coming (blog a paragraph or two a few times a week)
That work is on your resume now, it is part of who you are, and might be something someday but doesn't have to be something tomorrow... your creating for yourself.
Also, don't give a shit during those 8 hours. Sure do the best you can, but don't be tempted to refactor the code base, just change the bits that are required to get the job done. If the company give two shits about code quality then they would designate time to improve it.
Plenty of people think their job sucks or feel like they don't have enough time to focus on the things they love, but if you are having genuine thoughts about suicide, you DO have options. Even if things seem hopeless and you can't see a way out, things can improve for you. Don't give up on yourself :)
Life is good my friend. You are part of the super human beings. You're 100% alive and healthy. Go live tomorrow like it was your last day. Rince and repeat.
STOP! DO NOT INDULGE IN THIS SORT OF THINKING.
You are strong, you can get past this.
None of use live up to our hopes and dreams, not a single damn one of us. Depression feeds itself. The negative thoughts offer a strange short term comfort. But they are lies total bull crap that isn't any use to anyone. You've gotta shut them down when they come up. Congratulate your self when you do shut them down.
I know when your depressed nothing feels good, nothing feels like it's working. But look for reasons to congratulate your self, force your self to note the things you did achieve. Maybe you're so down you can't get out of bed. Well plan to get out of bed for an hour, celebrate when you do. Yeah it wont feel great it won't fix anything but it'll start a trend. Keep going 'till your out of this funk.
"You hate your job" jobs are work they can be a grind but you can live life despite having a 9 to 5. You can find ways to enjoy the day. Getting that amazing job wont fix this. You have to learn how to enjoy life as it is. And you can and will.
You mentioned this is a cycle, if you're like me you know this happens and you'll feel normal again one day. Just slog through it, you know you have the strength. Maybe you don't see a point, well then just do it to beat this stupid thing. Depression is a son of a bitch, don't let it take you out, take it out. You know you can.
Some of the best advice I've ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_qvy82U4RE
Wait a minute, I feel that's a success. If you're "too weak" to blow past your conscience, "too soft" to harden your heart, then I think that there is still hope for you. Don't aspire to be a rich person who left his family in the dust.
> You aren't good enough to land a job in one of the cool companies you admire.
Cool companies are often overrated. Working there can be a grind just like everywhere else.
> You look back to all the money spent helping your family (who is poor and live in a developing country).
I understand this very well. But you will be of no use to them if you are dangling from the end of a rope or living under a hedge. Own oxygen mask first. I see this a lot in the filipino community here in UK. I believe the solution to this is you have a set amount each month that goes to you savings - that money just doesn't exist - not even to you. It has to be like you never earned it. That becomes your critical savings. You then have another fixed amount each month that goes to the family slush fund. I don't know of any other way. You have to drawn the line somewhere.
First things first.
1) You have to make the best of your current job. Talk to the other engineers and find out what they love about the job. Make new friends at work. Talk to people about cool tech or outside of work activities. Put yourself out there a bit more. Find a new tool that gets you enthusiastic again. Watch a few videos that inspire you.
2) Plan your weekends. You mention family. See your family on the weekends. Take up a new hobby that will get you out in the fresh air - long distance walking is an awesome hobby (for example https://www.ldwa.org.uk) and you can do it alone or preferably with some guys from work, or other friends.
3) You are probably a bit depressed. Maybe discuss with your doctor.
4) These depressive cycles tend to be self-reinforcing. You need to break out of the negative thought patterns - CBT is very, very useful for helping with that. I use CBT all the time now - even though I'm not depressed as such. It's actually fun.
5) I wouldn't worry about side projects if you are pushed for time. Side projects can add a bit of stress - oh I really need to write that blog post. Just let it go and, for now, focus on getting your job back on track as that's what pays the bills. It seems like you are putting quite a bit of pressure on yourself.
6) Easier said than done but a quick mental list before you sleep of the things you are grateful for can help.
Good luck!