1) Burnout
2) Depression
3) Laziness
4) Being in the wrong job
Given that they all have very similar symptoms, how would you determine which one an individual is dealing with?
Depression is a clinical condition that arises when your mind/brain is unable to cope with the experiences/environment it's been in for an extended period of time, and is a signal that a change is needed in the brain/mind (medication and/or therapy) or in the environment (changes to e.g., lifestyle, relationships, job, location) - and likely both.
Laziness is a lack of motivation that could be caused by any number of things, but is generally a sign that your current life situation doesn't inspire you into positive action. But it could also be related to an undiagnosed mental and/or physiological illness that impedes your energy production/utilisation.
Being in the wrong job is a common sentiment, and may or may not be a problem depending on how empowered someone is. An empowered person (someone with enough qualifications/experience/confidence/energy/etc) will negotiate better conditions for their current job or find a new job that they're better suited to. A disempowered person will stay in the job due to lack of other options, and after long enough may end up being affected by one or more of the first three conditions.
Background: experienced it all over 15+ years and researched far and wide.
A job may fit, then as we grow, we get new ones that fit better.
I would say the stages are usually:
#1: Grow out of the current job
#2: Still working same hours, but tasks become boring, therefore instead of the job fueling us, it drains us... causing Burnout.
#3: Then Laziness settles in, because putting energy into boring tasks only leads to Burnout.
#4: Spiraling down the Laziness slide, into Depression. Simply, Depression is a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. The antidote to Depression is doing... Doing new things we enjoy.
Therefore, take up an entirely new, and different practice. Perhaps move up to management. Or go to a new place, around new people.
TLDR: Do new.
Laziness stems from not caring, depression stems from the opposite.
I think what you've labelled as laziness could better be labelled as something else. Apathy perhaps?
... well, let's just say depression is inevitable. And being able to see new, a way out or anything else will likely require help from others. I got both help from others (churches (to oversimplify, there are multiple religious groups involved here) and more in my case - psych and medical was mostly unhelpful and/or toxic too - they believed the same lies the employers used!) and from friends and family ... and my life is a whole pile healthier and happier now. And if curious, no I don't attend any of the religious groups I visited during that period now. But I have a lot of respect for them now - well earned. And don't regret visiting any of them. And hopefully none regret my visiting them either too. People are people, and having healthy relationships means both parties should try to be healthy to one another.
Yes, employers can be abusive too, with all the consequences of being in an abusive relationship. This can also result in depression and usually burnout too. Especially if one works to ridiculous levels trying to keep the abusive employer happy. (it's also sometimes really hard to see that it's abusive without either outside help, or long and far enough distance)
I disagree though with laziness. IMHO it protects us from doing things that we don't like. People try to hack themselves to overcome it. That's actually dangerous.
Clinical methodology for treating depression in Sweden is to change the person's living / work situation as a first step before pursuing other treatments.
(prepare for cynical HN discussion at the top, but the article itself is pretty spot on)
It would be difficult to give a comprehensive comment in depression, so I think you did fine, but I want to point out that it is difficult and complex, and as much as we understand about it, there is so much that is not understood.
This [1] is a video of a Robert Sapolsky lecture on depression that gives a high level but comprehensive overview of the current (as of 2009) state of understanding depression, kinds of depression, the role of some neurotransmitters.
This is a compassionate, technical, and broad overview.
Source: Got diagnosed with ADHD after feeling burnout, depression, laziness, and imposter syndrome all at once.
>Laziness is a lack of motivation that could be caused by any number of things, but is generally a sign that your current life situation doesn't inspire you into positive action.
I see motivation/inspiration/laziness conflated a lot. IMO 'laziness' is just a lack of discipline. You can be disciplined and still accomplish things without motivation or inspiration. In fact, I would argue that if you wait until you are inspired/motivated to get things done, you will be on the less-productive side of the spectrum.
Of course, it can be a huge challenge to stay disciplined when you are burnt out or depressed (or both). But, laziness is the difference between "I am depressed and don't feel like going to the gym" and "I am depressed and don't feel like going to the gym anyway, but I am still putting on my shoes and walking out the door".
Burnout: taking time off is a sufficient cure.
Depression: you cannot feel pleasure even at points of success when everyone else is, and it won't be so if you changed anything else about the job.
Laziness: you are not unhappy or unwell but notice other people with roughly your skillset and responsibility are more productive.
Wrong job: you are arguing a lot with people or taking a lot of criticism for having legitimately valid alternative opinions or ways of doing things.
In my experience personally and observing others, burnout is most often caused when you have a disconnect between expected reward (monetary, status, or emotional) for labor and actual reward for labor, effectively negatively reinforcing labor. It's especially bad when the miss is uncorrelated to performance, e.g. political or business decisions derail your e.g. promotion or payoff.
Taking a break to mitigate burnout can thus make the next cycle worse. A better choice is to take structured vacations at set points in the future, and when you feel like a missed expectation is likely or has happened, reinforce the work-reward relationship by doing little work things that create pops of success. The counterintuitive thing is that a strategy to counter burnout is more work (but carefully curated to nearly guarantee success)
For programming, I find going into an intense refactoring or debugging cycle is helpful (making green dots out of red ones is immensely satisfying)... When I was a biologist, I found doing routine "never fail" procedures like molecular biology to be helpful after an experimental failure or catastrophe, like staying up on an all nighter and coming back the next day to find a procedural error had ruined the whole thing
For me personally whenever I have felt burned out by programming I just went over to one of those competitve programming sites and solve one of their problems. It is also cool seeing your rank move in correlation with others. I know if I quit peogramming for a week then I will actually feel less motivated to code.
Depression is a mental health condition that can cause lethargy and can be brought on by stress, but it is chiefly characterized by extended and repeated periods of sadness and self loathing and can be brought on by many causes, including traumatic events, changes in hormone balance, or environmental factors. Simple rest and relaxation will not, at least on its own, make depression go away. While a depressed person is having a depressive episode, they may find it very difficult to work, but in between episodes they will work normally.
Laziness means you don't like to work, or at least can't motivate yourself to do the tasks you need to do. It is a character trait that neither starts nor goes away suddenly. Instead it something that must be routinely overcome. A lazy person may have a lower baseline level of motivation than a non-lazy person, but their motivation level should remain about as consistent as a normal person's; they won't have sudden unexplainable drops in productivity.
Being in the wrong job means something specific to the job itself is problematic but the person is otherwise an enthusiastic worker. Instead of sudden dips in enthusiasm, or consistent low performance, they will likely show a slow but steady decline as the negative aspects of their job takes a toll. Often the person in the wrong job actually likes the work itself, but other aspects of the working environment such as coworkers or organization make them unhappy.
Finally, these cases are not mutually exclusive. A lazy person can find themselves in the wrong job, get burntout trying to do it anyways, triggering the onset of depression. Luckily, the remedies for each challenge are very unlikely to have a negative effect on someone who is actually facing one of the other challenges.
"Understanding Burnout," Prof. Christina Maslach (U.C. Berkeley) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs
This article is a summary of what's in the above speaker's book
Recovering from Burnout https://kierantie.com/burnout/
I also want to mention the article above has a link to Mind Tools, which is a web site that has a test you can take but I recommend reading their articles on leadership as it helps one understand their place and the direction they need to take as leaders of their own life as well as leaders in the lives of others, which is an interesting perspective in the context of the listed topics.
Yay, 60 points!
Assuming you're not trolling: if you think you have ADHD and are telling yourself "may not be best suited" etc I strongly recommend looking into this in more detail. At its root, ADHD is a "hardware problem" in one part of the brain and can occur independent of other attributes of a person. So a highly intelligent and not-so-intelligent person can both have ADHD.
If you DONT think you have ADHD, educate yourself and stop saying ignorant stuff. Do you think near/long sighted people should not wear glasses too, and that people with depression should not get treatment?
You can start by watching Dr. Barkley's videos on youtube.
PS: Every time ADHD is mentioned someone pops up with an ignorant comment. You win this thread!
Maybe you should find someone with severe ADHD and try to convince them it’s not a problem at all, see how that goes.
I'm just going to ignore the laziness point since I don't really like that word. You can dislike an activity and avoid it, that doesn't make you lazy. If you need to still do something regardless of whether you like it or not, you need to change how you think about that activity or find a way to enjoy it, otherwise you're just needlessly torturing yourself. Or you just avoid thinking about how much you dislike something and just do it instead. Either way, saying someone is lazy carries both a negative judgement and a lack of insight, so this word I think is best avoided. If you feel you're being "lazy", best to try to understand why you're avoiding what you think you should be doing and fix it.
Lastly, if you're depressed or burnt out, there will be some obvious signs. You'll be tired, have a hard time focusing, you may have muscle aches or headaches all the time. You may see nothing positive in your future and may ruminate excessively about your perceived shortcomings or problems. You may also find it difficult or impossible to react emotionally to things (e.g. being excited or sad). Basically, you'll feel terrible all the time.
2) Depression - It is a state of mind where you do not have the energy to do anything, not only in office but also in personal life. Usually characterized by lack of enthusiasm in anything and a lingering feeling of sadness. Switching jobs won't help, consulting a psychiatrist will.
3) Laziness - A state where you have been doing the same thing for so long that you have gotten good at it and do not feel panic anymore. If you do not have any aim in life and just want to cruise along ( and have the ability to cruise along while getting good reviews in office ) laziness is a valid choice. It might not get you promoted or noticed at office and you will stagnate. IMO it is not a negative state to be in, but not positive either.
4) Being in the wrong job - Two types that I can think of
1. You have tons of energy, you have tons of enthusiasm and want to do tons of work but still you seem to be going nowhere, is a sign of being in the wrong job.
2. You have low energy, you don't enjoy what you do while at your job. At home you have high energy, contribute to projects and can work on stuff which interests you and can get you paid. In burnout, depression and laziness people's ability to do side projects is markedly diminished. This is not the case with being in the wrong job.
4 sub 2: I think I have the right job but the wrong home.
The individual needs to talk to an expert (a doctor or a therapist) to find this.
Many medical issues show similar symptoms - we go to a doctor for a physical issue, then why do we think we know enough to diagnose mental issues?
These things are complex, and it is okay to ask for help.
In psychology, laziness simply does not exists as a mental health issue or as a personality trait.
It's a vague and judgemental word used to describe a behavior while the real cause might be burnout, depression or many other.
Laziness isn't vague, nor judgemental. Laziness is marked by non-production. Which can be measured by simple time-tracking. How many hours a day is he coding/writing vs. on YouTube "passing the time".
Moreover, the post specifically says "symptoms". And he's attempting to discern between the words, specifically asking "What's the difference between..."
What you described is not laziness but either a lack of focus, a lack of awareness of how you are wasting your own time or a conscious decision to not do your work in favor of something else. Both depression and burnout make it hard to focus on tasks that are going to move your life forward, so you could easily be depressed or burnt out AND waste hours on Youtube as a result of it. You could also just be a distracted individual who is not burnt out or depressed and still waste time on Youtube. You could be too tired to devote your mind to coding, so you waste time on Youtube - this is just biological reality, and I dont think we would normally call someone lazy if they can't code anymore after a 12 hour day. Perhaps the act of coding brings about some negative thoughts (e.g. why am I doing this, my colleagues are just going to criticize my commit) so you're actively avoiding it in favor of another activity. This is not necessarily lack of focus but maybe a lack of awareness. Perhaps you are feeling stressed and watching Youtube helps you relax, so it is a strategy to help you avoid burnout in the long run. Basically, I don't think laziness exists, its just a word used to describe something you don't understand.
It really depends on your relationship with this person. If you are peers, it is really none of your business, they need to chat with their manager or HR (if they want too/have too). You have no idea what they are going through at home, it could be some health issue, and none of these things, or all these things. If you are managing someone who is going through this, you need to support them, what can you do to help/understand? Likely this starts with a coffee and a chat on how's things going? Do they need time off, are they over worked, work on what a path forward looks like. If you are friendly peers, chat with them in a non-weird way. Take them for coffee/beers, ask how are things going, how's work?
Just a heads up, don't ask someone who is burnt out or depressed, why they are lazy or lagging behind, this is extremely out of touch with what they are going through. I'm sure they are already hyper aware.
1) Burnout is acute exhaustion caused by successive days of lack of sleep, successive weekends of working late with long delays in launch, feedback or project completion.
2) Depression (not the clinical kind) is chronic exhaustion and chronic depletion of dopamine. No hope. No care for the project, product or for completion because you know it doesn't matter. This is caused by poor feedback, rejections, project failures (product does not work) but mostly because of running out of money.
3) Laziness is when your subconscious is too smart for yourself about the prospects of success resulting in inaction. For example: you may be outwardly excited about a project/product but your internal subconscious mind has already doomed it as a failure therefore you find all sorts of excuses not to start or finish the project. Your subconscious has already done FWIW a cost-benefit and SWOT analysis and judges the project as a no-go or no-continue.
4) Being in the wrong job is the number 1 reason for the causes of all 1), 2) and 3) above.
depression is what we call this thing when we try to solve it via medical intervention of some sort.
Lazyness is what we call this thing when we try to solve it through force of will and/or shame, or when we don't try to solve it at all.
Being in the wrong job is what we call this thing when we try to solve it by getting a different job.
I'm not trying to say they are all the same thing; just that the only way I can tell the difference is what therapies work.
For burnout, rest is important and structuring your work/life systems defensively can help prevent it. Some interesting studies exist on this: https://hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to-work-...
Depression may or may not be tied to anything a person can control. This is where medication and therapy are very important. Like with most serious health issues, self-medicating and self-treating serious depression can be extremely hazardous.
Depression is NOT a synonym for "bad mood" or "being tired", it's much more serious than that.
Totally agree depression is a serious mental illness, but this description is like describing bugs as a "debugging deficiency". We know depression and bugs can be fixed with debugging/ssris but just because we can fix them with it doesn't mean the opposite is the cause.
For instance in addition to serotonin and nor-epinephrine we also know glutamate (nmda and ampa) is involved, as well as opiates, gaba, bdnf, dopamine, and inflammation.
The chemical imbalance explanation is a very simple and convenient one. It pairs nicely with the don't like the situation, apply a patch (pharmaceutical or not), repeat. The patch mutes the signal and the theory is that since the system is functional everything is fine except we haven't dealt with the underlying emotional issue. It makes sense to me given this situation why some patients have trouble staying on medications. We can list as many substances as we want, but to me these solutions pair best with lifestyle changes which are more hard to implement/navigate which most likely why we default to patches when maybe what we need is a full version update.
After six months of weekly therapy, I finally felt well enough to hand in my notice. Once I'd done that I felt a huge weight lift off me. It still took several more months to get back on an even keel, and I'm still popping happy pills. The moral I guess here is... if people are telling you over and over again that your job is a major [bad] influence on your state of mind, then you should probably listen to them.
For me, burnout is the result of a long period of intense work and effort that accomplishes little. I experienced this in my last job, where I was brought in to a specific purpose by a motivated boss who quit the company a few weeks later. The rest of the org was too bogged down with politics, lack of tech leadership, and other organizational issues. I put in a lot of effort as an individual SWE to fix bugs and help other teammates when they got stuck, but nobody else was putting in so much diligent effort for the sake of the team. I burned out and a t the same time realized that I was on the wrong team, when (1) people kept coming to me for help with the same things I'd already taught them in the past (2) I had way too many moments teaching other people how their own code works (code that they own, that I'd barely looked at) (3) too much energy was spent dealing with other teams rather than on our own team getting work done (4) I had three managers in 18 months (5) everything was owned by multiple teams, and I wore myself out working with too many components that should have been strictly divided between teams.
I have since moved to a new team. This is a much better team -- no politics, no BS, just a few diligent individuals getting things done.
But being on the right team doesn't fix burnout. I'm still burned out from my last job. I took the last six months to ramp up on my current job but I need to take time off soon.
There are a lot of "lazy" people "doing the wrong thing", whom closer analysis -- or just actually listening to them -- indicates are actually acting rationally, within their circumstances, and doing the best they can.
In part, the question for me comes down to: Are you going to label? Or are you going to do something about it?
I see and hear a lot of the former. Much less of the latter.
Yet those same people would hate to be treated as they insist others be treated.
So, I don't listen to them, too much.
For years, I made myself ill dealing with tremendously distracting and counter-productive open-space work environments. From college onward, I was told -- encultured -- that "this is the future" and that I'd better learn to cope with, err "thrive", in it.
Now, finally, the cultural dialog is turning the corner on this. They really are horrible, not just in terms of personal welfare but also productivity.
So, what really changed? I was "contrary"; well, actually, I wish I had been more so and actually acted against my circumstances.
Now, it turns out, I was "insightful".
Who really failed? The bozos who stuffed us into cattle pens and couldn't even perform decent metrics against their claims, let alone look at the welfare of their employees.
So, "burnout", "depression", "laziness"? Just words.
Find something you enjoy doing. Some place you enjoy living. And stuff the "opinions" about it.
If you feel like you are in a situation where you have no control and are feeling stressed, find someone to talk to. Take some serious time off. Gain some perspective.
I think it's easier to point to the cause of burnout. Too much pressures/stress at work/home for a prolonged period of time, a bad work environment, the loss of an expected reward after a long period of extended hours, etc. Identifying the root cause won't cure burnout, but you can at least take steps to change it. When you're burned out you may feel like you'll never climb out of it, but at least you can identify steps (e.g. new job) that may help in the long term. Burnout can last a while (1 year+) after a really bad experience.
Depression is harder (impossible?) to point to a single cause. You can feel a completely loss of feeling, or even just one feeling (sadness) and not really know why you feel that way. Depression can go on for a very long time.
I think a lack of motivation and creativity is there with both burnout and depression.
Being in the wrong job is when somebody is highly motivated and has a lot ideas, but their work environment kills that motivation or inspiration completely.
I never had depression in the medical sense, only a few days of feeling that I am worthless after failures. Oddly, I like this feeling. It keeps me grounded.
- Burnout is happing when things you're most fighting your self take to much on your plate get frustrated and not able to get release. Continuous inner battles and frustration not being able to do things. No able to set barriers in a work environment. Normally people can recover from this over time. - Depression is the state where u end up where nothing brings you joy art all. Depression is the state when you end up if you're not able to bounce back or come out the other end of a misery or something bad that happend in your life. - Laziness is just not being able to do something. but can be a result of things above. - being in the wrong job. not a problem if you have a mechanism to change the job, if you don't have a mechanism, above things can happen by a lot of frustration.
Burnout: After all the effort you’ve expended, you never got anything in return. Like chasing unrequited love.
Depression: In a word, hopelessness. An inabilitity to fantasize about the potential for a better tomorrow. With an emotion so broad, any cause is on the table. Grief for dead loved ones. Crippling physical disabilities. Consistent general rejection by any and all total strangers throughout the world at large.
Laziness: As a qualitative word for external behavior, inner state cannot be discerned by this behavioral attribute. As an internal behavior, sometimes even we don’t know why we’re unable to summon motivation for something we cognitively know we should not procrastinate. Sometimes, at it’s core, once I get past a rough patch of avoiding something, I realize that my intuition was waiting on other cues. A subliminal signal was not yet present. Looking back, it was only until someone threw those final switches that my entire psyche agreed that the time was right to swing into action. I’m still not sure how that works, but I’ve seen it enough times, that by now, I’m usually able to interrogate my uncooperative subconscious to discover the things I’m sometimes left waiting on.
Being In The Wrong Job?
This presupposes a “right” job. As if we’re supposed to be wage slaves, living paycheck to paycheck, under pain of death or firing for the entirety of our youth, and productive adulthood, until we retire at an age too old to have fun.
All jobs are the wrong job. This becomes obvious during periods when you don’t have to work.
But, hey, let’s be realistic, right? We just have to be good little employees, right? It’s the way to world works. Can’t have too many chiefs and not enough Indians, can we?
Well, sorry, but the sad fact is, this one’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of answer. The the others are adjectives of character or psychological state. But “fitting in” has no simple description. You could blame talent, mixture of personalities, or the resources supplied by the employer.
Mostly, this thread seeks to lay blame. It smells like a manager looking to cut heads. And I think that’s the real problem.
2) Depression - When you have a chemical imbalance or got hit by a traumatic event that chances the way you perceive things.
3) Laziness - When you do not want to work. It could be due to any reason. You may be mindfully doing it.
4) Being in the wrong job - Actually happens to a lot more people than 1 & 2. But it could lead to 1 and 2. Maybe 3 but then you're getting paid for it.
For 2) you may need to go to a doctor or therapist. Everything else you can do something about. Hope that helps!
I had it, couldn’t sleep well for a month. My ex girlfriend had it, she couldn’t sleep for 5 days.
Many (most?) depressed individuals do experience sleeplessness, but that's not at all universal.
But, if you are really burnt out or depressed, this could quickly become a life or death situation, so seeking professional help in a timely manner, is the best option. Your life could literally be at stake. Reason is, HN lacks context and any sustained attention/followup. Take this thread for example. OP has not provided any comments or followup. We have no context on why this person is asking this question. Are they going through this personally, asking about a co-worker, a spouse? We have no idea. Their question and following discussion could come back to haunt them via a search if they give enough details. We are not experts with context, sure we can offer advice on something we might have gone through, but that is not expert advice tailored to their situation.
So, it is really a good idea, to seek professional help if you find yourself in this situation vs asking random strangers on HN. Chatting with a professional is confidential, they will ask and gather the correct context (with local customs, current medical practice, and laws in mind), and hopefully give you a good path forward.
Your advice might be different on where you are located too. Do you have the same options if you live in the US, EU, or Asia? I have no idea on what your situation is, what your support network looks like, what your resources are, how bad it is, etc. You are much better off chatting with a professional.
You shouldn't take information in a forum at face value but also don't trust blindly the advice from "professionals" be it doctors, surgeons, lawyers, consultants or others. A lot of them suck.
As with everything else, gather as much as information as possible and make up your own mind. Don't believe anything blindly but try it out and see what works for you.
It's the same in tech. I get better information in online forums like this one than I get from most highly paid consultants my management likes to hire.
I'm curious to see what HN readers think of this subject, but I think it's important to realize the answers may tell us far more about HN commenters than about psychology or any objective truths about mental health. Which is to say: if the OP is asking the question because they're trying to work through their own stuff, they need to know this is no substitute for asking professionals. I expect a lot of wrong answers in the comments, and everyone else should too, and as a non-expert I'm not even sure I can recognize the wrong answers as wrong.
Now it's still probably true that the average HN commentator knows even less than the average mental health professional, but at the same time there are plenty of people on HN (including actual MDs!) who know more than the average mental health professional. Knowing how to identify these posts can be tricky, but even so I think there's value in seeking for these.
In therapy a wide range of topics can be explored, and more safely: when I first started therapy my motivations all had to deal with stressors in my present life, but after much discussion I ended up learning and realizing how past trauma influences how I perceive the present. I really didn't know the full set of questions I should have asked when I started, but the professional atmosphere - where I could discuss a wide range of things relatively easily (because of the professional ethics surrounding patient confidentiality) ended up making it easier and safer to explore things I shouldn't.
I think for many people who read this, if they were to go to a therapist motivated by wanting to change their response to stimuli like work stress, may eventually end up discovering how the specifics of their lives to date influence their present, and that knowledge can be empowering.
But here on HN, I don't think you'll get to meaningfully explore things like childhood, past traumas, deep fears, etc. to better understand the present. Stress is common to our (and any) profession, but the ways which we respond to it are deeply personal and transcend our industry.
HN is about as qualified to give good advice on health issues as it is to give good info on astrophysics. There are few licensed medical professionals here.
I completely agree that the actual paper of a license means nothing, and someone can know more than a licensed pro through their own research and experience. BUT, the replies here are from random people on the internet, and there's no way to qualify their level of experience. I'm not surprised to hear this "anyone can do it" perspective from fellow software engineers, because of the shape of our industry, but it's a mistake to apply that universally.
I do agree that anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are a problem and it is clear that not everyone has the same ability to scrutinize what they read and determine where the truth lies. That being said, I tend to assume that people posting on HN are intelligent and capable of thinking for themselves and in that case, I think it is fine for non-experts to offer opinions.
Look at all the other people commenting about how terrible the experience was for them?
I'm very, very skeptical of jaded "professionals" that quickly make a diagnosis and move you along the pharma train. I'm also concerned by my location that I may not even have access to "Good Professionals?"
It seems like talking to a professional without a deep prior level of introspection and self-research is precisely the expressway to being on a road that might not even work. (What if I have ADHD and get treatment for something else entirely, or vice versa?)
This thread fits someone like myself perfectly: I feel lazy, I'm certainly depressed, and I experience burnout all the time, and I have absolutely no idea how to actually seek out help.
Simplistic comments like yours always aggravate me a la:
"Call your attorney or seek legal council for further information" (not many people have a lawyer on retainer, bud)
So, I'm very likely to seek out information from the internet from people who have been in my shoes and have helped themselves, and until I get a solid feeling that I know how to proceed safely, I will continue to do so.