HN Explorer

Ask HN: Have you ever hit absolute rock bottom?

20 points by raceconditioner ↗ HN
I'm referring to actually being broke, homeless, having no friends or family, no credentials, deteriorating mental and physical health, no prospects, starving, etc...

Were you able to get back up? How? Would you be able to do the same in 2020?

19 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 61.5 ms ] thread
seibelj
Everyone has their own personal rock bottom and you can’t know if you’ll hit a lower one later.

My first rock bottom was caused by depression and anxiety fully hitting me post-college, a tough job that wasn’t going well, then my longterm girlfriend (who I planned on marrying) cheating on me and breaking up over text message. Full on panic attacks, moving back home, suicidal ideation, the whole works. Therapy, exercise, and medication with SSRIs brought me out of the funk. I had a strong support network which made it easier.

My second rock bottom was during a period of intense professional stress, that through a strange sequence of events, almost resulted in serious legal consequences and potentially prison. Was some very dark days with similar suicidal ideation, panic attacks, etc. But I came out of it far stronger with much higher risk tolerance and knowledge of myself and capabilities.

Was I homeless? Tortured? Disabled? No. But for me, it was rock bottom, and I don’t want to be there again.

raceconditioner
Thanks for sharing. I didn't mean to invalidate your experience by listing what I thought represented rock-bottom -- I was just tossing a couple of examples around. I agree that we all have our limits and that's usually when the self-destructive thoughts begin.
DoreenMichele
I spent nearly six years homeless. I got back into housing about 2.5 years ago. I started multiple websites while homeless and I still run multiple websites, some of which are pertinent to this problem space.

This comment seems to list all my homeless sites:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22804929

2020 is proving especially challenging for the homeless population. The pandemic has made things very hard for homeless people of late.

Libraries are currently closed in many places, as are eateries with wifi and so forth. Some shelters and soup kitchens have shut down during the pandemic. It's pretty brutal at the moment.

But things like tablets are cheaper than when I first became homeless and websites are generally optimized to work well on smartphones and tablets, which was not true when I was first on the street. So there are ways in which it is easier than ever to figure out how to problem solve and create an income from the street and get your life back.

U will throw in this piece, which I didn't write but it's about me:

Homeless to housed: Her virtual life helped her out of homelessness

http://alexandralindelof.com/story-package/

raceconditioner
Thank you for the reading material. I believe I'm going to find myself in a similar situation soon and having those resources could really improve my chances of recovery.
DoreenMichele
Check out r/gigworks as well. It's listed in the sidebar of some of those sites and I run it.

If you can at all avoid homelessness, that's better. I have seen many conversations on r/homeless and r/almosthomeless where people said "I expect to be homeless in x weeks/months" and were encouraged to find answers before their time ran out and they did. It's much, much easier to problem solve while still housed.

If homelessness absolutely cannot be avoided, make sure to read the following posts before it's too late (because things like getting a mailing address beforehand is very helpful):

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/prepping-to...

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate-and...

Best of luck.

uvw
Not financially, but mentally. I was married to a woman who was and still is incredibly petty, emotional, dishonest and all around an awful person. I developed sleep apnea, depression. I would drive around after work so as to not come home earlier than I needed to. I tried to block her out and focus my energy on my autistic son. Lost all friends as I didn't know how to talk to them about my family problems. Stopped talking to my parents and sisters because any contact with them would cause more fights with her.

I started to go on hikes and travel alone just to escape proximity with this woman. Started drinking regularly.

I compartmentalize everything in my life, but my family life started to affect my work life. I started fantasizing getting a job in a foreign country to escape. Contemplated suicide many times, but I couldn't that to my kid.

Luckily, I met an incredible woman on a hike in Norway. Came back home, filed for divorce and moved out. I am getting better slowly.

runjake
And your kid?
uvw
He is with my soon to be ex. During my parenting time I teach him, we cook together, have long conversations, play board games, take him out for fun and hikes. With all her faults, the ex is not a bad mother.
poormystic
I was a technician doing industrial microcomputer repairs with that v=ir mentality and life got impossible. Somehow I found it in myself to pray for faith and was rewarded with a satori experience. That's more than 30 years ago now. My life changed a lot.
jurgenwerk
What's v=ir mentality?
Jugurtha
v=ri is a simple case of Ohm's law, with an impedance with no reactive component and no funny signals.

Being "v=ri" or having a "v=ri" mentality means not asking too many questions or not bothering with details or nuance. The meaning is contextual and depends on the delivery.

"That guy is v=ri", means a simpleton, without nuance or character depth, rigid, or extremely effective. It can either be a compliment or an insult, depending on the delivery.

"I was hungry and found a sandwich that's a week old. I was like v=ri" (meaning the person ate the sandwich withtout asking too many questions).

It also means not bothering to understand things and blindly following a rule all the time. No questions asked.

In the context of the comment, I believe it is repairing industrial microcomputers with a multimeter and a soldering iron, checking continuity, replacing parts, without digging deeper.

ak39
Thank you for explaining this so clearly. How old is this meme?
Jugurtha
You're welcome. It has been fifteen years. I was trained as an electronics engineer. We mainly used that expression in EE starting with the first two years of common core (people who plan to do engineering - except CS-, maths, or physics go through two common core years where it's mostly physics/maths/chemistry/alloys/machining/materials strength, etc. and it is in that cohort that this was popular).
cpufry
i find im always finding new lows
tucaz
Sometimes we discover that the bottom of the well has a hidden basement.
jahn716
Ha, that made me chuckle.

Hope you're up on like the 3rd floor or something!

kleer001
There is no situation so awful that someone cannot make it worse.
Mynewrandomu
In 2019 I lost nearly everything I loved, in the space of a week. I shook my fist at the cobalt sky, and hoped to die.
audiometry
Based on my own rock-bottom experience ( a very first-world rock-bottom problem ), I'd wouldn't identify them by some kind of 'objective measure of misery' litmus test. Instead I'd identify by saying, "a problem where my existing coping mechanisms no longer enable me to cope."

That's why some of these rock-bottom experiences can be great turns in life -- it forces you to do away with now-unhelpful coping strategies and find better ones.