Brain aneurism. The thought has always kept me up at night, and this only serves to make the fear worse. Poor guy, I really looked up to him. This really puts a damper on my mood which had been on an upswing recently
Compared to heart disease and cancer, aneurysms are a drop in the bucket. Not that they should be ignored, but if you're choosing where to put funding it's not going to be high on the list.
It's threatening to their model of how health works. I suspect it's not just a down vote, it's a passionate button smashing one.
I was very pro meat and was researching counter arguments to my vegan mother in law when I, sadly, found out the science is about as contested as whether or not aliens have visited earth. I.e. a lot in the general populous but basically not at all in the bonefide nutritional science community.
I think the weakened blood vessels show up on MRI and CT scans. I don't think it's usually done unless you have specific risk factors. Probably best to let your doctor know about your family history.
I remember when they were testing the aerodynamics of something in Mythbusters and needed a quick way to create laminar flow. Grant's solution was to cut both ends of a pack of drinking straws and put it inline with the airflow. Such an elegantly brilliant idea.
As a younger person who hasn't seen many of the celebrities I grew up with pass away, this is probably one of the first celebrity deaths that really affected me. I grew up watching Grant and the whole MythBusters crew. The show was hugely influential and definitely guided me towards an interest in science and engineering.
Whenever I think about the science of the MythBusters, I always bring up this xkcd comic.[1]
I think science tends to have an ivory tower issue, and those who don't get the resources growing up to be included in standard academic science may feel left out. People like Grant and shows like the MythBusters made the viewers feel included, and instead of just talking down to the viewer about a bunch of facts, the show included them into the process of discovery. I think that's really cool and important.
This makes me want to take more risk in life, to live a bit fuller and care less about money.
Even at 26 I still don't have a great way to digest loss like this. The loss of someone who I genuinely looked up to and whom had significant impact on decisions I made my life. Who I thought about when I really hated myself and felt that I didn't belong in engineering at college. Especially Grant, since he was one of my childhood "heroes" who never lost his luster or genuine character.
I've apparently been doing this, and you know? I'm thinking it's not going to work out.
If I followed those words to the letter, literally believing that I was going to die of a heart attack at any moment, I would go insane.
Maybe I am going insane, then.
There are a lot of things we take for granted. Sure. I'm incredibly grateful to have both my hands, because if I lost even one of them then I would be severely impacted in my work. I could end up having to take a pay cut or lose my job outright. And I might never be able to draw at the level I could accomplish by still having hands.
But I believe there's a reason we take these things for granted, with the side effect in a lot of people of never understanding their importance until it's too late. We do so because if we didn't take anything for granted, we would spend all of the time thinking about what would happen if we suddenly lost body part X or Y, and become constantly aware of every single tendon and muscle in our body and how they were still functional as opposed to dead, and never get anything done. Or at least greatly reduce our mental capacity to think about the important things we want to accomplish with those limbs instead of spending it on fruitless worry.
So I have to both understand that yes, it would be horrible if I lost my hands or ability to walk or my sight or my hearing or my life, and then I have to put it out of my mind and do what I want to do while there's still time instead of worrying about it every single day.
And even thinking like that becomes counterproductive.
I'm 24 and have had this bizzarre chest pain. I went to the doctor and the ER several times for it. Dozens of times. Nothing came of it. Not even a diagnosis of pleurisy, or a diagnosis of anything at all. It was just unresolved and I have to assume it's something in the realm of anxiety or hypochondria. And it still hurts in the most inconvenient moments and is a constant hovering reminder of my own mortality.
So now it's 3 in the morning and I need to write this thing. I know I'm only killing myself by failing to fall asleep at 3 in the morning but I don't know if I'm going to be alive tomorrow and I need to get this out there. Need someone to know that before I died that yes, I had thought enough to think of this thing, this concept that nobody else I've ever met has thought of, that nobody else will ever think and if I'm going to die tomorrow there will never be anyone else that will think of it again. So I need to do this, to write this down and move my still functioning fingers and joints over the keys to just get it out, need to finish this before I die because I don't take my own impending death for granted and I was smart enough to realize that fact, so use it. And oh, there's that other thing, that programming project I've spent years on committing to master alone and intend to spend several more years on. If I die that project will never be finished because nobody else cares enough. Sure, someone else realizing I died somehow and telling the community that I intended to finish it but never could because instead I happened to die, out of my control, could motivate someone else to take up the flag. Or not, and as a result the planet overheats 100 years from now without that one thing I wanted to accomplish with my life ever becoming reality. What could possibly be worse for the psyche of human accomplishment, of redefining the status quo, when you're trapped in this box of failing hearts and endless anxiety and just couldn't do it so that's just the end of it all? That's the end of the dream? What else is there to lose?
No.
Not going to happen.
So now it's seven in the morning.
And I've failed to get any sleep and failed to eat anything so I'm starving an...
I think so. I think this is not normal, and if it isn't normal then it might do me in.
But it could also be a coping mechanism that I've developed over the years because telling myself all these negative things was the only way to motivate me.
I believe that was influenced by the way I was raised. Operant conditioning and such. But it's also a part of the negative feedback loop that might have made, now that I'm alone with my own thoughts, reinforcing the same tired patterns day after day and seeing the worst in the world get to me and letting it validate my cynicism and morbidity.
It's like, if you're inclined to that way of thinking throughout your entire life, how do you accidentally discover someone dying like this and not let it get to you? How are you supposed to "get over it" and do the thought suppression or whatever that all of the other mature people around me seem to handle reasonably well?
It's like, basically I never learned how to do that, and it does hurt me in a sense.
So I need to unlearn that and learn something better.
But maybe that's also why I'm thinking of these things and incorporating them into writing the way I do, because of this counterproductive way I think and how the frustrations I want to express can be expressed with my thought process, that people aren't usually trying to think counterproductively in this manner so I have some kind of insight that people with more self esteem will never find, because they don't personally understand the problems I have.
Kayne West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. They put him on medication and if I'm remembering correctly he said it took away some of his creativity.
If Kanye West wasn't bipolar then we might never have known him as Kanye West the way we do today.
I think about that sometimes, for some reason.
So it's like, what is the part of me that needs the help? Okay, so I ought to improve somehow, because I pretty much always have room for improvement, in general. Maybe art is therapudic. But still, if nobody knows what you do and validate you for it, it's like you're screaming into the void, and that's how I see myself as alone a lot of the time. Not validated for the things I do. Nagata Kabi's definition of "alone" that she picked up from one of her sympathetic Twitter followers. Even though I do have a few people that validate the things I create, it still doesn't feel like it's enough, and don't know at what point it will. Or if it's even supposed to be enough at some point, like if I was some kind of genius in the top X percent of people (I'm not, I'm somewhere in the bottom half) and somehow did everything perfectly I'd just be happy and satisfied one thousand pages and ten thousand upvotes later, after hundreds of comments from people whose faces I'll never know reading "this is the best thing I've read today" and "thanks for the words" and "cool", when I reach middle age and can just kick back and watch the entirety of Star Trek without worrying about what impact I'm going to make on the world every single day.
That being the only reason I do these things.
It's like when people start saying a sentence that begins with the words "In life, you should" and talk about making interpersonal contacts, people that will at least talk to you in good faith and not call you "salty" for getting frustrated at your errors. Because you are going to be put through adversity and fail over and over no matter what you do, and you need to have a healthy way of managing that if you're going to survive. I mean, of course I'm going to get frustrated if I choose to play Persona 5 and end up getting my ass handed to me over and over again. I can't help it. What do you expect me to feel instead?
It was a miracle I managed to meet a single person that understands that kind of ...
It really opened my eyes to what AD(H)D is really like from someone actually suffering from it and speaking his mind without mincing words, and how hyperactivity is sometimes overemphasized in the diagnosis. So some people get the impression that if you're not hyper it doesn't apply.
And for me specifically this was so ironic because ADHD was the one disorder that my parents insisted I never had, so I just ended up believing them the entire time I was with them.
But at least now I can think for myself and revisit the possibility for once without being shut down.
And they had once been wrong about me not having this other disorder that, surprise, I actually did have, which is the only reason I was hired into a position specifically seeking those with a diagnosis of said disorder, allowing me to pay my own rent.
And it certainly has something to do with anxiety.
I might have had panic attacks at one point when the pain was new and I wasn't sure if I was in immediate danger. Even after I sort of got used to it and it became "normal," it still stresses me out but not in an "am I going to die in 5 minutes" sense, spurred on by late-night WebMD binging.
I very well could be wrong, but that's almost completely besides the real point [as well the self diagnosis regarding ADHD].
The amount of anxiety you're experiencing in your day to day life is grossly abnormal. I would suggest not waiting another day to start seeking out the help [therapy or working with a psychiatrist] you deserve. I also you suggest you research hallucinogenic medications as something to possibly relieve your existential anxiety: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucin...
Have you considered Acid Reflux? When I was going through a lot of stress, consuming too much coffee and not eating enough I had a similar thing happen.
I'm literally in the same boat as you on this one. I've had random chest pain for years (27 now, started when I was 22). I've had my heart imaged, tested, basically everything that they can do non-invasively (no angiogram, odds of me having a problem is less than the odds of the test itself killing me). All the tests come back telling me I have a perfectly healthy heart for a 20 something. It's just never enough.
It's driven me insane for years. At this point they say I have acid reflux that's in part triggered by anxiety, but I've never had the probe done (they run a probe through your nose and down your throat. Push the button when you feel pain and they can see if it correlates with increased acid or acid backflow). Doctors put me on medication for it but it hasn't done anything for me. Everytime I see the doctor it just sounds like he's annoyed at me being back.
Part of this whole thing is that I'm very overweight, it's something I've struggled with my whole life, and it got bad in college and now my adult life. Needless to say I missed out on your typical college social experience. Being alone with your thoughts can be a dark place.
Knowing I'm at higher risk for these things and seeing many of the HAES people dying young has me very worried. My dad's boss's son died at 28 earlier this year from undiagnosed heart issues. He also struggled with weight his entire life.
Going to start seeing a therapist and see if it helps and possibly consider anxiety medication. The fear has been paralyzing and I need to get over it so I can start making changes to my lifestyle.
Life really is short. Plan for tomorrow or live for today. There is a balance, but I think many engineer types skew much too far into the planning, not enough into the living. I've gone to a lot of funerals and it is always a constant reminder.
Not a lot of genuine people in the entertainment business for sure. Its tragic that such a great thinker is lost, especially for our generation 50 feels so young, who knows what he could have done with more years.
Brain aneurysm is truly something terrible, I lost a friend to it a couple of years ago. (She was 22 at the time and in good health). She just woke up one day in the middle of the night with a headache and had to vomit. On the way to the hospital she fell into a coma and never woke up. Really scary.
It is, she was on life support for about a week, the doctors had said that there was no chance she would ever wake up, so her parents decided to take her off life support and donate her organs. I can't even begin to understand what they must've gone through, such a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
I went to see her the night before (as did many of her friends), it's very unsettling knowing this is the very last time you'll ever get to see that person. And especially given her age, it's very upsetting how unforgiving life can be.
My significant other (23 at the time, otherwise perfectly healthy) felt a sudden headache one evening. Since it didn't stop, she was taken to the emergency room immediately, where they've dismissed her with "menstrual problems".
A day after that the pain didn't stop, she ended up in the hospital, and had a (fortunately successful) brain operation some days later. Luckily it was in an accessible place, so she ended up with no apparent long-term damage.
Definitely a terrible situation to be in. About 4% of people have it, and a small percentage of those only find out when it bursts.
Being dismissed from the ER while having serious conditions that they overlooked is an awful experience. I wanted to let you know that my wife and I can sympathize with you and your SO.
It is something terrible, and really scary. My best friend at the time suffered one at 23 years old. He eventually recovered but he suffered a huge loss of concentration capabilities and had to drop from college eventually. He also fought with speech impairment for many years but with a lot of training he was able to recover 99% of it.
About 1 per 100,000 people have a ruptured brain aneurysm each year. You have to screen a whole lot of people to detect one person who will suffer from this.
Worse, you'll get a whole lot of "positives" / questionable imagery in people who would never have had a problem, and may end up giving some not insignificant number of people unnecessary brain surgery.
(I'm not really here to discuss the pros and cons, false positives and what not here as it's a complex topic, but..) I have a medical every three years that involves a full body MRI and ultrasounding which monitors for both brain and aortic aneurysms. There are people who have caught aneurysms in early stages through such monitoring, but there are enough downsides to such screening that it's not something that would usually be recommended for everyone. My next is next week and I'm going to try and tweet as much of the process as I can since enough people have asked about it in the past.
Not the poster but I imagine false positives as one specific cost to excessive monitoring unless there’s an underlying condition or history that necessitates it. One of the reasons in the US they raised the recommended age for mammograms.
As a sibling response says, false positives are a big issue. Understanding risks is another issue (consider if you're told you have an aneurysm with annual risk of spontaneous rupture at 0.1% versus an operation with 10% mortality rate.. do you choose the op?)
In some people, indulging anxieties around health can be problematic in itself or have mental health repercussions. Anxieties could also be aroused by benign findings. For example, I have a 7mm cyst on my left kidney. It is entirely benign and not growing but some people may find such a finding unduly alarming and seek treatment they don't need.
Oh man, this is me right now! I had some minor but constant back pain and got an MRI. They found a bulging disc which had shrunk (a good thing) since the last MRI 5 years ago (when I presumably injured the disc, though there's no way to even know that for sure).
I CANNOT stop worrying about it. Ever since the doctor labeled it, even though she says it's not cause for concern, I cannot stop worrying about it and imagining the worst; it bursting and leaving me in agony for the rest of my life. Fun times.... The best part, bulges are not even necessarily abnormal, I know all this and yet, cannot let it go.
Yes, that's exactly the downside to screening, although it sounds like it was necessary in your case nonetheless :-) I hope it continues to get better! Maybe a third improvement will set your mind at rest.
I went through with screening because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have similar concerns over such findings, but it's quite hard to know that for sure until something comes up, I suspect. If I had a benign, but growing, tumor somewhere in my body, it's hard to know how I'd take it, though I do tend to be pretty prosaic.
Researchers seem nervous about the contrast dye used in the process.
It would seem unwise to do a MRI with GBCA for fun or speculative purposes, on the other hand "makes 1 in a zillion people sick" is actually quite acceptable odds for something that's fatal unless treated.
It seems those dyes can cross the blood-brain barrier as very few things can, which is good during the MRI process, however the body may or may not be terribly good at cleaning them out (and the process of cleaning those dyes out of the blood once they're outta yer brain is also hard on the kidneys).
Also edited to add, we DO know everything there is to know about stupid tricks involving ferrous metal being attracted to giant MRI magnets with squishy humans in the way, and that risk of damage is probably higher than the GBCA risk.
Don't know why you're being downvoted. Anecdotally, my brother-in-law had surgery to correct an aneurysm, and was told to change his diet and start running after to help his recovery.
And sleep. Since I made a real effort to re-establish regular sleeping patterns of sufficient length (sadly I need a full 8 hours) the diet and exercise thing also got a lot easier to whip into shape too.
It's possible Hulu's recommendations have a "what's suddenly popular" component, so it could be recommended in response to a number of people choosing to watch it in response to the news. Or it could be a total coincidence; it's a great show, it should be recommended!
The Mythbusters were incredibly influential in my desire to pursue engineering. I also liked watching Battlebots, seeing all the crazy things they would come up with...
I'd recognized him from Battlebots since his robot Deadblow was a finalist from season 1, the final episode[0] starts with a short intro from Grant that shows his fun perspective brought to the table on Mythbusters. The entire Mythbusters team surely inspired the next generation of scientists and engineers with a can-do mentality.
So very sad to lose a hero, I was lucky to be crammed right next to him at Pershing Square in a very crowded group at the March for Science in Downtown Los Angeles a couple years ago. He was very friendly, I was starstruck. I wish I could have chatted with him more.
Agreed. He's inspired many "hackers" over the last 15+ years. Many are still early in their careers, but Grant's inspiration shouldn't be underestimated.
My guess is that the age demographic of the moderators may be more tuned to earlier CS community contributors. I often recognise the names from references in university lectures, but don't have much of a connection to them. Grant on the other hand is someone who I grew up with on my TV, inspiring me to make things.
Grant and I lived in the same building in San Francisco for a while and I met him at the HOA-run functions. Always a delight to talk to about his crazy path through life. He was a good man and I'm really sorry to hear of his passing.
I normally don't care about celebrity deaths but this one really has me sad. I know a lot younger people were influenced by him but he had a positive influence on me even thought I was already well into my career as an engineer. He embodied a true engineering spirit, and watching him on TV would make me reflect and kindle the engineering spirit of my own. Even if my job wasn't as sexy, was in a sea of cubicles and the biggest explosions were a small circuit fuse burning off.
This is not relevant, but this strikes me as a big cultural difference between wherever you're from and where I'm from. Here, the first thought to complete that sentence would be "he strikes me as someone you'd be friends with". I wonder why "hang out at work" was the first thing that came to mind for you. Here we don't tend to think in terms of "people we hang out with after work", we generally have "friends we first met at work" and "coworkers with no other social relationship".
I know it's a small thing, but that's where cultural differences usually manifest, and I find them very interesting.
I'm not sure where are you from initially but I think it's a flaw with english language itself. There are just too few words to describe relationships in english, everything is very binary, e.g. You either love someone or you don't where other languages are have many more words to describe your relationship with someone; see famous example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
I'm actually from Greece, and while we still use most of those words, we have about the same words as English does (friends, acquaintances, lovers, etc).
We just rarely use "people you hang out with after work" as a category, if you went out on a work dinner, we say acquaintances, if you regularly hang out, they're friends.
> I wonder why "hang out at work" was the first thing that came to mind for you.
The Mythbusters team had a great comradery that reminds me of working at a great company. I guess he just seems like talented humble engineer that you might been lucky to hang out with at work at some point...
probably means "someone I would be unlikely to meet via my personal circles, but likely someone I'd encounter at work, and then develop a friendship with, both within and outside the workplace."
I came to software development late in my career (I was a lawyer and a health care administrator first). I work for a good company and I like a lot of my coworkers. I would never want to be friends with them. That's a barrier I'm not very comfortable crossing. When I worked in a hospital, when I was a lawyer, it was the same. Good coworkers, no desire to keep seeing them after quitting time.
I have a lot of software development friends who play board games or video games or go climbing or whatever with their coworkers. It baffles me. They ask me and my wife for social advice and I have nothing to give - how I'd resolve a given problem with a friend and with a coworker are too totally different things.
I've talked to friends from college who've gone into many different industries, and a lot of them distinguish between "friends" and "friends from work".
Except engineers, developers, and data scientists. I'm not sure what it is.
> Except engineers, developers, and data scientists. I'm not sure what it is.
I assume you mean "they're not friends", rather than "they're all just friends"?
That doesn't really echo my experience, I have many good friends from past jobs that I'm still in contact with. Though I've also definitely gotten frustrated with people we seemed to get along with at work but then didn't ever seem to want to hang out outside work...
So frustrating when you have a coworker who you get along with very well, will take walks/lunch/etc, but refuses to go to happy hour or do anything outside of work.
We’re all people, shouldn’t matter where we met. It’s not like we talk about work outside of work.
I don't personally limit myself in this way, but I understand. Having personal friendships at work makes it more challenging to make hard business decisions such as switching companies when opportunities present themselves or firing / laying off team members. I've worked with people who are very friendly and pleasant to work with but explicitly avoid any personal relationships so they can use pure cost-benefit analysis in career and company decisions, rather than allowing emotion and sentiment to influence it.
Edit: actually, the most effective person I ever met who did this was someone who _did_ hang out outside work and etc to allow others to form personal bonds with him, but he avoided reciprocal investment in them. This let him take advantage of their empathy while not having any of his own to limit his decision-making. It was a bit sociopathic, but I saw firsthand how much it helped his career.
More than a "bit" sociopathic, unless you are saying that this person had to make a conscious effort to avoid reciprocating, and you know that they naturally formed reciprocal bonds in other contexts.
> a lot of them distinguish between "friends" and "friends from work", except engineers, developers, and data scientists
as in my experience is the people who don't distinguish between the two seem to be very STEM focused.
I'll get drinks with coworkers after work, but it's still very much "drinks with coworkers".
My friends get to place demands on my time that coworkers don't, and I'm willing to accept a higher level of frustration with coworkers than I am with my friends. For me, they're different relationships, and I always want to know which one I'm in. I never want to fire a friend, ever.
There are those nerds who grew up bullied, ostracized by everybody. Where the ones at work remind us of those bullies. Where there's some common thread between "engineers, developers, and data scientists" that respects hard work, and rejects blowhards. Something along this crowd that's compelled to accept the meekest and quietest of all, and as equals. The font this comment is written in as the same as from `pg` or `dang`. There's a broader, quieter culture that thrives on listening to the substance of people.
I don't know about OP's intention, but I always took and intended "someone you grab a beer with after work" to mean something along the lines of "close acquaintance" or "casual friend". Someone you more than incidentally hang out with via group meets or mutual friends, but not quite someone you would invite to a small intimate event.
It doesn't necessarily imply co-workers, but usually that's where that sort of friendship develops; given forced proximity.
I saw him as an engineer before being a celebrity. I'm like you deaths of celebrities although sad tend to be of vapid people. But Grant was a scientist who inspired many. Just reading the comments here it's amazing the impact he had in such a short time.
We care about celebrity deaths because our instinctive brain sees them as someone familiar. Someone that you knew, a member of your tribe. Even if that person doesn't even know you exist. It is also a reminder of our own death. Specially when it is someone young that looks fit and all.
Had to do a double take on this one. He always seemed like a genuine and kind person, it's weird to see "Grant Imahara" and "Dies" in the same sentence.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 296 ms ] threadHope you get to read this before it gets downvoted to oblivion.
I was very pro meat and was researching counter arguments to my vegan mother in law when I, sadly, found out the science is about as contested as whether or not aliens have visited earth. I.e. a lot in the general populous but basically not at all in the bonefide nutritional science community.
There are certain supplements, which can help with it [0], specifically:
* Alpha-lipoic acid
* Calcium
* Folic Acid (actually, Folate), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, and Betaine
* Magnesium
* Omega-3 Fatty Acids
* Potassium
* Vitamin C
* Vitamin E
* Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)
* Selenium
* Bilberry
* Garlic
* Ginkgo
* Ginseng
* Turmeric
[0]: http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productid=107&...
Shows the magnitude of emotional response people who are insecure about the science of their food choices elicit when threatened.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Managing and monitoring blood pressure, avoiding smoking, alcohol and cocaine, avoiding excess body fat, and last managing risk for physical trauma.
Whenever I think about the science of the MythBusters, I always bring up this xkcd comic.[1]
I think science tends to have an ivory tower issue, and those who don't get the resources growing up to be included in standard academic science may feel left out. People like Grant and shows like the MythBusters made the viewers feel included, and instead of just talking down to the viewer about a bunch of facts, the show included them into the process of discovery. I think that's really cool and important.
[1] https://xkcd.com/397/
This makes me want to take more risk in life, to live a bit fuller and care less about money.
Even at 26 I still don't have a great way to digest loss like this. The loss of someone who I genuinely looked up to and whom had significant impact on decisions I made my life. Who I thought about when I really hated myself and felt that I didn't belong in engineering at college. Especially Grant, since he was one of my childhood "heroes" who never lost his luster or genuine character.
Depends on what type of risk. Some risks make you die earlier.
Thank you for pointing out that people can die on a post about a person dying.
I'm about double your age and don't either. And I would be surprised if someone double my age claimed to.
Live every day like it could be your last. Don't hold grudges, and tell people you love them.
That's the best we can do. And it is apparently what Grant did, as his colleagues all have fond memories of him.
RIP, Grant. You were cool.
I've apparently been doing this, and you know? I'm thinking it's not going to work out.
If I followed those words to the letter, literally believing that I was going to die of a heart attack at any moment, I would go insane.
Maybe I am going insane, then.
There are a lot of things we take for granted. Sure. I'm incredibly grateful to have both my hands, because if I lost even one of them then I would be severely impacted in my work. I could end up having to take a pay cut or lose my job outright. And I might never be able to draw at the level I could accomplish by still having hands.
But I believe there's a reason we take these things for granted, with the side effect in a lot of people of never understanding their importance until it's too late. We do so because if we didn't take anything for granted, we would spend all of the time thinking about what would happen if we suddenly lost body part X or Y, and become constantly aware of every single tendon and muscle in our body and how they were still functional as opposed to dead, and never get anything done. Or at least greatly reduce our mental capacity to think about the important things we want to accomplish with those limbs instead of spending it on fruitless worry.
So I have to both understand that yes, it would be horrible if I lost my hands or ability to walk or my sight or my hearing or my life, and then I have to put it out of my mind and do what I want to do while there's still time instead of worrying about it every single day.
And even thinking like that becomes counterproductive.
I'm 24 and have had this bizzarre chest pain. I went to the doctor and the ER several times for it. Dozens of times. Nothing came of it. Not even a diagnosis of pleurisy, or a diagnosis of anything at all. It was just unresolved and I have to assume it's something in the realm of anxiety or hypochondria. And it still hurts in the most inconvenient moments and is a constant hovering reminder of my own mortality.
So now it's 3 in the morning and I need to write this thing. I know I'm only killing myself by failing to fall asleep at 3 in the morning but I don't know if I'm going to be alive tomorrow and I need to get this out there. Need someone to know that before I died that yes, I had thought enough to think of this thing, this concept that nobody else I've ever met has thought of, that nobody else will ever think and if I'm going to die tomorrow there will never be anyone else that will think of it again. So I need to do this, to write this down and move my still functioning fingers and joints over the keys to just get it out, need to finish this before I die because I don't take my own impending death for granted and I was smart enough to realize that fact, so use it. And oh, there's that other thing, that programming project I've spent years on committing to master alone and intend to spend several more years on. If I die that project will never be finished because nobody else cares enough. Sure, someone else realizing I died somehow and telling the community that I intended to finish it but never could because instead I happened to die, out of my control, could motivate someone else to take up the flag. Or not, and as a result the planet overheats 100 years from now without that one thing I wanted to accomplish with my life ever becoming reality. What could possibly be worse for the psyche of human accomplishment, of redefining the status quo, when you're trapped in this box of failing hearts and endless anxiety and just couldn't do it so that's just the end of it all? That's the end of the dream? What else is there to lose?
No.
Not going to happen.
So now it's seven in the morning.
And I've failed to get any sleep and failed to eat anything so I'm starving an...
Do you need help?
But it could also be a coping mechanism that I've developed over the years because telling myself all these negative things was the only way to motivate me.
I believe that was influenced by the way I was raised. Operant conditioning and such. But it's also a part of the negative feedback loop that might have made, now that I'm alone with my own thoughts, reinforcing the same tired patterns day after day and seeing the worst in the world get to me and letting it validate my cynicism and morbidity.
It's like, if you're inclined to that way of thinking throughout your entire life, how do you accidentally discover someone dying like this and not let it get to you? How are you supposed to "get over it" and do the thought suppression or whatever that all of the other mature people around me seem to handle reasonably well?
It's like, basically I never learned how to do that, and it does hurt me in a sense.
So I need to unlearn that and learn something better.
But maybe that's also why I'm thinking of these things and incorporating them into writing the way I do, because of this counterproductive way I think and how the frustrations I want to express can be expressed with my thought process, that people aren't usually trying to think counterproductively in this manner so I have some kind of insight that people with more self esteem will never find, because they don't personally understand the problems I have.
Kayne West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. They put him on medication and if I'm remembering correctly he said it took away some of his creativity.
If Kanye West wasn't bipolar then we might never have known him as Kanye West the way we do today.
I think about that sometimes, for some reason.
So it's like, what is the part of me that needs the help? Okay, so I ought to improve somehow, because I pretty much always have room for improvement, in general. Maybe art is therapudic. But still, if nobody knows what you do and validate you for it, it's like you're screaming into the void, and that's how I see myself as alone a lot of the time. Not validated for the things I do. Nagata Kabi's definition of "alone" that she picked up from one of her sympathetic Twitter followers. Even though I do have a few people that validate the things I create, it still doesn't feel like it's enough, and don't know at what point it will. Or if it's even supposed to be enough at some point, like if I was some kind of genius in the top X percent of people (I'm not, I'm somewhere in the bottom half) and somehow did everything perfectly I'd just be happy and satisfied one thousand pages and ten thousand upvotes later, after hundreds of comments from people whose faces I'll never know reading "this is the best thing I've read today" and "thanks for the words" and "cool", when I reach middle age and can just kick back and watch the entirety of Star Trek without worrying about what impact I'm going to make on the world every single day.
That being the only reason I do these things.
It's like when people start saying a sentence that begins with the words "In life, you should" and talk about making interpersonal contacts, people that will at least talk to you in good faith and not call you "salty" for getting frustrated at your errors. Because you are going to be put through adversity and fail over and over no matter what you do, and you need to have a healthy way of managing that if you're going to survive. I mean, of course I'm going to get frustrated if I choose to play Persona 5 and end up getting my ass handed to me over and over again. I can't help it. What do you expect me to feel instead?
It was a miracle I managed to meet a single person that understands that kind of ...
https://gekk.info/articles/adhd.html
It really opened my eyes to what AD(H)D is really like from someone actually suffering from it and speaking his mind without mincing words, and how hyperactivity is sometimes overemphasized in the diagnosis. So some people get the impression that if you're not hyper it doesn't apply.
And for me specifically this was so ironic because ADHD was the one disorder that my parents insisted I never had, so I just ended up believing them the entire time I was with them.
But at least now I can think for myself and revisit the possibility for once without being shut down.
And they had once been wrong about me not having this other disorder that, surprise, I actually did have, which is the only reason I was hired into a position specifically seeking those with a diagnosis of said disorder, allowing me to pay my own rent.
And it certainly has something to do with anxiety.
I might have had panic attacks at one point when the pain was new and I wasn't sure if I was in immediate danger. Even after I sort of got used to it and it became "normal," it still stresses me out but not in an "am I going to die in 5 minutes" sense, spurred on by late-night WebMD binging.
The amount of anxiety you're experiencing in your day to day life is grossly abnormal. I would suggest not waiting another day to start seeking out the help [therapy or working with a psychiatrist] you deserve. I also you suggest you research hallucinogenic medications as something to possibly relieve your existential anxiety: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hallucin...
It's driven me insane for years. At this point they say I have acid reflux that's in part triggered by anxiety, but I've never had the probe done (they run a probe through your nose and down your throat. Push the button when you feel pain and they can see if it correlates with increased acid or acid backflow). Doctors put me on medication for it but it hasn't done anything for me. Everytime I see the doctor it just sounds like he's annoyed at me being back.
Part of this whole thing is that I'm very overweight, it's something I've struggled with my whole life, and it got bad in college and now my adult life. Needless to say I missed out on your typical college social experience. Being alone with your thoughts can be a dark place.
Knowing I'm at higher risk for these things and seeing many of the HAES people dying young has me very worried. My dad's boss's son died at 28 earlier this year from undiagnosed heart issues. He also struggled with weight his entire life.
Going to start seeing a therapist and see if it helps and possibly consider anxiety medication. The fear has been paralyzing and I need to get over it so I can start making changes to my lifestyle.
I went to see her the night before (as did many of her friends), it's very unsettling knowing this is the very last time you'll ever get to see that person. And especially given her age, it's very upsetting how unforgiving life can be.
A day after that the pain didn't stop, she ended up in the hospital, and had a (fortunately successful) brain operation some days later. Luckily it was in an accessible place, so she ended up with no apparent long-term damage.
Definitely a terrible situation to be in. About 4% of people have it, and a small percentage of those only find out when it bursts.
Glad your SO made it fine.
Infuriating.
Seems like there is something called a Magnetic Resonance Angiography.
https://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=rca&sub=ecr_2019&p...
Worse, you'll get a whole lot of "positives" / questionable imagery in people who would never have had a problem, and may end up giving some not insignificant number of people unnecessary brain surgery.
In some people, indulging anxieties around health can be problematic in itself or have mental health repercussions. Anxieties could also be aroused by benign findings. For example, I have a 7mm cyst on my left kidney. It is entirely benign and not growing but some people may find such a finding unduly alarming and seek treatment they don't need.
I went through with screening because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have similar concerns over such findings, but it's quite hard to know that for sure until something comes up, I suspect. If I had a benign, but growing, tumor somewhere in my body, it's hard to know how I'd take it, though I do tend to be pretty prosaic.
It would seem unwise to do a MRI with GBCA for fun or speculative purposes, on the other hand "makes 1 in a zillion people sick" is actually quite acceptable odds for something that's fatal unless treated.
It seems those dyes can cross the blood-brain barrier as very few things can, which is good during the MRI process, however the body may or may not be terribly good at cleaning them out (and the process of cleaning those dyes out of the blood once they're outta yer brain is also hard on the kidneys).
Also edited to add, we DO know everything there is to know about stupid tricks involving ferrous metal being attracted to giant MRI magnets with squishy humans in the way, and that risk of damage is probably higher than the GBCA risk.
Not sure about the timing but I wonder if Hulu was recommending the show because of his death or it was just random
I wish the best for his friends and family.
RIP to an all around positive addition to our world.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTDrwWCJqAo
Grant seemed like such a genuine, kind-hearted intelligent dude.
My condolences to his family.
I agree. That follows.
He may not have been a founding member of a computer based community, software, or protocol, but he certainly inspired many of us.
I know it's a small thing, but that's where cultural differences usually manifest, and I find them very interesting.
We just rarely use "people you hang out with after work" as a category, if you went out on a work dinner, we say acquaintances, if you regularly hang out, they're friends.
The Mythbusters team had a great comradery that reminds me of working at a great company. I guess he just seems like talented humble engineer that you might been lucky to hang out with at work at some point...
I came to software development late in my career (I was a lawyer and a health care administrator first). I work for a good company and I like a lot of my coworkers. I would never want to be friends with them. That's a barrier I'm not very comfortable crossing. When I worked in a hospital, when I was a lawyer, it was the same. Good coworkers, no desire to keep seeing them after quitting time.
I have a lot of software development friends who play board games or video games or go climbing or whatever with their coworkers. It baffles me. They ask me and my wife for social advice and I have nothing to give - how I'd resolve a given problem with a friend and with a coworker are too totally different things.
I've talked to friends from college who've gone into many different industries, and a lot of them distinguish between "friends" and "friends from work".
Except engineers, developers, and data scientists. I'm not sure what it is.
I assume you mean "they're not friends", rather than "they're all just friends"?
That doesn't really echo my experience, I have many good friends from past jobs that I'm still in contact with. Though I've also definitely gotten frustrated with people we seemed to get along with at work but then didn't ever seem to want to hang out outside work...
We’re all people, shouldn’t matter where we met. It’s not like we talk about work outside of work.
Edit: actually, the most effective person I ever met who did this was someone who _did_ hang out outside work and etc to allow others to form personal bonds with him, but he avoided reciprocal investment in them. This let him take advantage of their empathy while not having any of his own to limit his decision-making. It was a bit sociopathic, but I saw firsthand how much it helped his career.
> a lot of them distinguish between "friends" and "friends from work", except engineers, developers, and data scientists
as in my experience is the people who don't distinguish between the two seem to be very STEM focused.
I'll get drinks with coworkers after work, but it's still very much "drinks with coworkers".
My friends get to place demands on my time that coworkers don't, and I'm willing to accept a higher level of frustration with coworkers than I am with my friends. For me, they're different relationships, and I always want to know which one I'm in. I never want to fire a friend, ever.
And then are those "nerds" who did the bullying.
It doesn't necessarily imply co-workers, but usually that's where that sort of friendship develops; given forced proximity.