I'm ex startup CEO, schizophrenic and ex-inmate. Where should do I go next
In my early 20s I founded a startup, got it on rails with traction, revenue and investors, and I was fired from it.
Around time of firing I started developing schizophrenia, still undiagnosed because I never went to psychiatrists. I broke all my contacts within a year, locked myself in, broke up with my significant one and switched to a social recluse lifestyle.
I started tinkering with crypto around that time and made some money, so I don't really have to work a lot of time if I keep my lifestyle.
I kept my programming skills up do date, spent a lot of time with AI projects, but I was unable to find team-mates to work on these projects. Most of these projects I was involved with were solo efforts.
Eventually decease progressed to a point where I had no real life, locked in my apartment tinkering with AI and crypto, Terry Davis style. My schizophrenia symptoms were getting even worse to a point I had no real-world contacts except my parents.
Around 2019 my father died and my mental state gotten even worse. I landed in prison for 2 years for attacking a police officer.
It has been 6 months after the prison, I now mostly involved with AI RL, Rust and Substrate projects, but I'm afraid I've completely lost a direction in life, with 0 peers still. I figured out I might just find a normal programming job, but so far my resume with 8 years of non-working gap keeps alienating employers. I completely unsure where should I go next. I have no social life.
Are there other misguided people like me?
23 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 70.9 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder
has nothing to do with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia
Never submitted my problems to a psychiatrist because if I said them out loud I would be in mental institution (paranoid schizophrenia).
If your symptoms are “in remission” then now is a perfect time to talk to someone. They won’t feel under time pressure to prescribe medication and they can do a full work up to figure out what the issue is, and help prevent future problems.
As other people have said, many mental health issues have overlapping symptoms (my personal favorite is that chronic sleep deprivation can look almost identical to ADHD), and diagnostic techniques and treatment regimes do change over time. Leverage the massive investment someone else has made in medical school to get a reliable diagnosis.
If you get a diagnosis and are in treatment I think you’ll find it easier to honestly explain both your gap in employment history and why you are worth taking a chance on now.
That said, be aware that psychiatry does suffer from the same over-prescription problem as the rest of US medicine and that there are financial incentives for hospitals to direct you towards ECT (it’s a “procedure” so they can charge more than for a simple office visit).
I’m not trying to imply that psychiatry is coin-operated, but if ECT is “funding the department” there is an incentive to propose ECT, even if the science doesn’t support that.
i have a similar story.
I am trying to write apps for small law firms so the big law firms don't have an advantage.
Most of my friends died of suicide or COVID 19. I lost track of the others. But due to my age and obsolete skills no startup wants to deal with me.
Glad you are in remission. The above information may help you stay in remission, and the plus is you can learn about it and do it yourself. All with inexpensive vitamins and other nutrients.
Most psychiatrists don't know (and don't want to know) about this. I understand your reluctance to see a doctor. Maybe you were smart to stay away from them.
As for work, you might give contracting a try for a while instead of seeking direct employment..
Best of luck to you!
I'll reiterate what others have said here: find a doc.
Even if you have to go into inpatient, it's better than letting the illness win.
Hello egoid333: You are dead, so few will see your comments, including the poster, as his karma is too low. But as you clearly respond to:
> Are there other misguided people like me?
I tried to establish a contact, <deleted>
--
Regardless, good initiative! I hope you'll get your life back on track. Or maybe consider tech isn't your best bet to do so, a-t a-l-l, as it requires some isolation.
I've experienced someone schizophrenic in my life, and I must confess that wasn't the best of experiences, as it was intensely demanding, in fact impossibly so because of past events. Still I have respect for the intensity.
I agree the medical establishment can only do so much, and that the inclination there is to make you pay handsomely for something that can't truthfully be called a treatment. That's putting it mildly, as there are perverse financial incentives at play, not something you want to have to deal with. It's complicated.
That is, IF you can afford it to begin with (not likely), which is the point some evidently fortunate posters seem to miss. Duh. Must be disheartening to read.
So I founded a startup around mid 2013, and we managed to get real traction by the end of 2013. I was pulling long workdays 6 days a week, but results were worth it. My fiance wasn't happy with it, and slowly my personal life started to deteriorate, but I hopped that's just temporarily. Around that time I started to use marijuana to relief stress, but eventually developed a bad habbit a daily evening smoker.
By 2014 we started to look for post-seed funding, I managed to get some mid-funding from VCs, I started this marathon of even longer work-days, and tried to enforce this on my peers who didn't really wanted to go beyond 9-5. This is when tensions started to develop with a founding team. Mid-2014 we have only a month of runway and major VC negotiations dragging. I have a nervous breakdown shouting on my peers, blaming them for bad work.
My girl friend breaks up with me the same time and I'm double-devastated. We have to switch to remote-mode and cut half of our employees who all were my personal peers. We have to cut our own salaries and look for external gigs to stay afloat.
Around that time that major VC aqui-hires us and puts in their office. I really disliked the guys for their style and in hindsight it was obvious how they operate.
I continue to work from home only going there for weekly meetings.
And here's how psychosis breaks in. Initially a started to notice people following me when I go to office. I though that maybe their putting pressure on me, provoking me on something to officially exclude from a business. Then bizzare effects kicked in. It seemed to me like people on street were echoing my thoughts, commenting on my actions and me overall. I started to research the symptoms and they were straight from DSM-V. On one of the office meetings I started to get a sense that company isn't going anywhere, meeting are non-sence and participants are only acting. I had to look normal on the outside so I never leaked and of symptoms and never told anyone.
World of Wild West was running that time and I started to develop a delusion that I'm in simulation, that world around me is fake, that it's all a surreal joke. But it was only a beginning to me.
Eventually I was denied access to an office, my email and company accounts were cut, but I was never officially fired, jsut cancelled. I acted all the time, never gave a single clue that my mental state is cracked. My questions regarding business future, relations with investors and future of products were ignored. Thou I did continue to put on some code up until denial to entry.
So after 3 shocking strikes in a row: break-up, aggressive acquihire and firing a was left alone with little funds, so I switched to crypto to make a living. Symptoms were increasing in intensity, a heard faint voices when I was trying to fall asleep, sometime I would wake up and my head is occupied with seemings conflicting ideas about why on earth it has happened. I understood that delusions were trying to integrate with reality, but nonetheless with all my power to rationally think of things I started to develop double-thinking patterns. A full blown schizophrenia.
I made some money to continue living, but people on street were still commenting me, peers I met were hearing my thoughts. My parents weren't really my parents -- I felt like IRL deepfake actors. I still pushed through ignoring these delusions. By that time I wasn't smoking, drinking or taking any drugs. I understood that there's something fundamentally wrong about me, my world or probably my simulation meta-theory is way deeper than I previously though. I just acted and ignored these effects.
Around 2015 AI winter ended and I got my hands dirty with it (I am still involved). My found justification for some of my delusions, that probably I'm living within a VR-esque world with super-advanced AI. I could only act publicly, because these delusions made any interpersonal interact...
>Are there other misguided people like me?
Strictly considering logical progression, looks like you would have recognizable preparation for modern politics next.