"Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health condition that is marked by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression, mania and a milder form of mania called hypomania. Hallucinations involve seeing things or hearing voices that others don't observe. Delusions involve believing things that are not real or not true."
I'm not sure this is an employable condition unfortunately. As progressive as anyone wants to be, I can see the disruption an illness like this causes not being tenable. Businesses are competitive entities, not machines for inclusion. My heart goes out to OP but I don't think I'd want him on my team either.
Regarding the Python Documentary, that is just the old boys boosting their personal brands and valuations again. If you aren't part of that club, you are nothing in the Python world.
It does not matter what you have done, whether you just maintained an email module throughout Python-3 or had your broken code fixed and completely rewritten by people who came later: The only thing that matters is that you have been there before around 2000-2005.
The Python community didn’t exclude Kenneth because of his condition, at least directly. They excluded him because of his actions and history of shady, manipulative behaviors.
And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much.
I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business, not a care facility.
One thing is clear: Kenneth is suffering. I hope that he is able to see his behavior from the outside and heal. He’s a great programmer who ships products.
For those who don’t know, Kenneth created the Requests library which is nearly ubiquitous in the Python world.
> Silence means constantly monitoring my behavior for signs that might reveal my condition, avoiding discussions of mental health that might trigger suspicion and living with the constant anxiety that discovery will lead to rejection.
This framing is at the very least maladaptive and possibly indicative of the mental illness they are writing about. Mentally healthy humans regulate their behavior around other humans depending on the context. Sometimes this produces anxiety. And the fact that the author can pull that off at all (even with some difficulty) is a positive sign.
There is no reason for an employer or professional colleagues to be aware of an employees medical issues. Maybe there are exceptions for in-office workers with conditions like epilepsy. There are plenty of companies with no questions asked PTO, and as long as they do good work (which the article indicates) no one will bother them for using it.
All the comments here about how it's okay that he got excluded because he did the bad things fall right in line with what he's describing. Mental health awareness is easy when you just throw away all the people who make you uncomfortable! I thought it was a pretty good read and I'm not discounting it because it was written by someone struggling with mental illness.
This is very unfortunate and I'm sorry to hear that the author has been excluded and is suffering to this extent.
On another note though:
"This isn't paranoia—it's pattern recognition honed by lived experience."
I can't stop seeing the LLM verbiage everywhere I look. I feel like once you recognize the repeated syntax that got RLHF'd into all of these models you never stop seeing it. Maybe everyone is learning those patterns from reading AI-generated language now too.
I was reading along with great sympathy until I got to this bit...
Schizoaffective disorder carries stigma that depression and anxiety don't. People can relate to feeling sad or worried; they cannot relate to experiencing reality differently.
Depression is not "feeling sad" and very much is experiencing reality differently. Flippantly calling something so horrifically painful "feeling sad" is exactly the kind of thing he's accusing everyone else of.
The post echoed some similar points from Freddie DeBoer on real mental illness not always being pretty. There's limits to inclusivity that you quickly run into with schizoaffective disorder or bipolar. Companies are proudly supportive on paper, but that rarely extends to mania or psychosis.
It's a reality that most people are absolutely not equipped to deal with a coworker (or any contributor) that has manic or psychotic episodes. Mental illnesses is not anyone's fault, but there are still behaviors that will make it difficult to work with others, even for someone like Kenneth who is very good on the technical side.
Non-negotiable tenet(s): all human lives are valuable, all humans deserve dignity, and when we as a society can't find a place for a valuable and talented individuals like the author then we have failed in some sense.
That said, within the current system...
Morally and legally, what are the limits of accommodation?
Accommodation, in my uninformed layman understanding, is about accommodating people who can do the job, but need to do it differently than others. For example, wheelchair accessibility for white-collar office workers.
Does it include the inclusion of people who can't perform all aspects of the job?
Communication and collaboration are absolute pillars of nearly any engineer's job, but by the writer's own statements it seems like his condition often prevents this.
> A perfect example: the Python documentary releases tomorrow, featuring interviews with Python community leaders and contributors. Despite creating one of the most foundational Python libraries in history, I wasn't even contacted about participating. No email, no mention, complete invisibility. The omission speaks volumes about how mental health disclosure transforms you from community asset to community liability
It features 22 people, which already seems quite a lot for a 90 minute documentary. And I can think of several other prominent Python people who are not listed. And lets be real here: "I made a Python library people like" really doesn't compete against "I was a core Python dev for 20 years". requests being "one of the most foundational Python libraries in history" seems quite exaggerated.
This kind "I need to be front and centre of attention and when I'm not I am being oppressed" type stuff is a big part of the reason why so many people found it hard to work with Kenneth. His constant self-aggrandizing and need for endless validation gets very tiring very fast.
I appreciate that Kenneth's mental health struggles are very real and I do not mean to devalue that in any way, but his constant use of his mental health to dismiss and and all criticism of his behaviour is another thing that gets very tiring very fast.
Of course I have no insight in many aspects of Kenneth's life and can't comment on any of it. I am perfectly willing to believe that sometimes in some places he has been discriminated due to his mental health diagnosis.
I can however comment on the state of things in Python because much of it is public, and the problems there have been mostly or entirely unrelated to his mental health diagnosis.
people in states of psychosis often behave in frightening ways out of their control, and do and say hurtful things to those around them. if someone hurts you or does something very frightening, fear and anger are natural emotions.
but it’s not morally wrong to experience psychosis. so how could it be right for me to feel fear and anger towards that person when they haven’t done anything wrong? it is a tough contradiction.
you can resolve the contradiction by just deciding to hate and fear anyone who shows signs of psychosis, treat them as if it is a morally bad trait, which many people do, see discourse about homeless people in NYC.
or you can just try to pretend that psychosis doesn’t exist, which a lot of people do, like when some public figure shows obvious psychotic symptoms but people act like it’s rational behavior.
or you can disavow the fear and anger, but if a person does actually frighten and hurt you, the resulting negative feelings often tend to be expressed in weird and unfair ways. i suspect this author’s employers and doctors probably do a lot of this.
personally I think the least bad solution is to acknowledge that anger towards a person can be justified even if they’ve done nothing morally wrong, just feel anger, and express it only in controlled ways. but this is philosophically confusing, easy to state, hard to really believe deep down.
Many people are crazy, few are honest. Most people say they want diversity but they really don’t. But mentally ill people will trust what people say because they can’t trust their own instincts and this makes them prone to being victimized and othered, often by the systems and people that are supposed to help.
I have schizoaffective disorder and work in the tech industry and have not noticed any of the things this author talks about. While I am medicated, even if I inform bosses, coworkers or HR that I have this dangerous mental illness, I am treated completely normal. It is only when I have an episode of psychosis that things get difficult, and rightfully so for the people around you, because it is extremely difficult for someone to have any sort of normal relationship with someone who is psychotic and delusional. Psychosis happens when there is a failure in the healthcare. Psychosis does ruin relationships, but I don't blame other people for this. As a patient, while still in my right mind, I must insist that my healthcare needs are adequately addressed. This includes retaining a qualified doctor, setting up a medical power of attorney, reminding myself that I must take medications that work, despite the side effects, and possibly asking for reduced hours or responsibilities. It is neither everyone else's fault for the difficulties I face, nor my fault, it just is the way it, and pointing the finger at everyone else is not helpful. I am grateful for the consideration and forgiveness people do offer considering the objective circumstance.
FYI, I updated the post to acknowledge the public criticisms of my previous behavior:
> I need to be clear about something. I'm not claiming innocence in every workplace conflict or community dispute. I've made mistakes, handled situations poorly, and there's been legitimate criticism of my behavior in some cases. The Requests 3 fundraising situation, in particular, was handled badly - I took on commitments I couldn't deliver and didn't communicate well about the problems. I've apologized for this, though I understand the damage was already done. Mental illness doesn't excuse harmful behavior, and I'm not asking it to.
22 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 38.2 ms ] threadI'm not sure this is an employable condition unfortunately. As progressive as anyone wants to be, I can see the disruption an illness like this causes not being tenable. Businesses are competitive entities, not machines for inclusion. My heart goes out to OP but I don't think I'd want him on my team either.
It does not matter what you have done, whether you just maintained an email module throughout Python-3 or had your broken code fixed and completely rewritten by people who came later: The only thing that matters is that you have been there before around 2000-2005.
And while workplaces should be accommodating, there’s a point where it gets to be too much.
I worked at a place with a person with similar behaviors and it destroyed that company because they refused to acknowledge reality: this was a business, not a care facility.
One thing is clear: Kenneth is suffering. I hope that he is able to see his behavior from the outside and heal. He’s a great programmer who ships products.
For those who don’t know, Kenneth created the Requests library which is nearly ubiquitous in the Python world.
This framing is at the very least maladaptive and possibly indicative of the mental illness they are writing about. Mentally healthy humans regulate their behavior around other humans depending on the context. Sometimes this produces anxiety. And the fact that the author can pull that off at all (even with some difficulty) is a positive sign.
There is no reason for an employer or professional colleagues to be aware of an employees medical issues. Maybe there are exceptions for in-office workers with conditions like epilepsy. There are plenty of companies with no questions asked PTO, and as long as they do good work (which the article indicates) no one will bother them for using it.
Archive link: https://archive.is/UjCgv
https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...
But the thing is, if you asked my employers, I'm sure they'd give very good reasons as to why I was let go.
I wonder what some of those 20 companies he's worked for would say if they were allowed to share their side.
I'm not trying to blame Kenneth here, but things are not often as clear cut as he is implying here.
On another note though:
"This isn't paranoia—it's pattern recognition honed by lived experience."
I can't stop seeing the LLM verbiage everywhere I look. I feel like once you recognize the repeated syntax that got RLHF'd into all of these models you never stop seeing it. Maybe everyone is learning those patterns from reading AI-generated language now too.
Schizoaffective disorder carries stigma that depression and anxiety don't. People can relate to feeling sad or worried; they cannot relate to experiencing reality differently.
Depression is not "feeling sad" and very much is experiencing reality differently. Flippantly calling something so horrifically painful "feeling sad" is exactly the kind of thing he's accusing everyone else of.
It's a reality that most people are absolutely not equipped to deal with a coworker (or any contributor) that has manic or psychotic episodes. Mental illnesses is not anyone's fault, but there are still behaviors that will make it difficult to work with others, even for someone like Kenneth who is very good on the technical side.
That said, within the current system...
Morally and legally, what are the limits of accommodation?
Accommodation, in my uninformed layman understanding, is about accommodating people who can do the job, but need to do it differently than others. For example, wheelchair accessibility for white-collar office workers.
Does it include the inclusion of people who can't perform all aspects of the job?
Communication and collaboration are absolute pillars of nearly any engineer's job, but by the writer's own statements it seems like his condition often prevents this.
How do we resolve this?
It features 22 people, which already seems quite a lot for a 90 minute documentary. And I can think of several other prominent Python people who are not listed. And lets be real here: "I made a Python library people like" really doesn't compete against "I was a core Python dev for 20 years". requests being "one of the most foundational Python libraries in history" seems quite exaggerated.
This kind "I need to be front and centre of attention and when I'm not I am being oppressed" type stuff is a big part of the reason why so many people found it hard to work with Kenneth. His constant self-aggrandizing and need for endless validation gets very tiring very fast.
I appreciate that Kenneth's mental health struggles are very real and I do not mean to devalue that in any way, but his constant use of his mental health to dismiss and and all criticism of his behaviour is another thing that gets very tiring very fast.
Of course I have no insight in many aspects of Kenneth's life and can't comment on any of it. I am perfectly willing to believe that sometimes in some places he has been discriminated due to his mental health diagnosis.
I can however comment on the state of things in Python because much of it is public, and the problems there have been mostly or entirely unrelated to his mental health diagnosis.
but it’s not morally wrong to experience psychosis. so how could it be right for me to feel fear and anger towards that person when they haven’t done anything wrong? it is a tough contradiction.
you can resolve the contradiction by just deciding to hate and fear anyone who shows signs of psychosis, treat them as if it is a morally bad trait, which many people do, see discourse about homeless people in NYC.
or you can just try to pretend that psychosis doesn’t exist, which a lot of people do, like when some public figure shows obvious psychotic symptoms but people act like it’s rational behavior.
or you can disavow the fear and anger, but if a person does actually frighten and hurt you, the resulting negative feelings often tend to be expressed in weird and unfair ways. i suspect this author’s employers and doctors probably do a lot of this.
personally I think the least bad solution is to acknowledge that anger towards a person can be justified even if they’ve done nothing morally wrong, just feel anger, and express it only in controlled ways. but this is philosophically confusing, easy to state, hard to really believe deep down.
> I need to be clear about something. I'm not claiming innocence in every workplace conflict or community dispute. I've made mistakes, handled situations poorly, and there's been legitimate criticism of my behavior in some cases. The Requests 3 fundraising situation, in particular, was handled badly - I took on commitments I couldn't deliver and didn't communicate well about the problems. I've apologized for this, though I understand the damage was already done. Mental illness doesn't excuse harmful behavior, and I'm not asking it to.
Thanks for the feedback!