Anxious tech workers are going to therapy

Unfortunately, a few of the programmers that I'd like to follow retweet a lot of the cultural warfare crap (left vs right, white vs nonwhite etc.), and there is no feature to filter that out specifically. In the end, I decided to just unfollow them, as the agitation created by vitriol and stupidity was just not worth it.

The other kind of negativity I see is people tweeting dumb/argumentative things at the people I follow. The solution for that is to only read replies that the people I follow replied to and ignore the rest of the randos. This makes my daily Tweeter routine very quick BTW.

Anyway... my phone is beholden to me. I choose when I open apps. I have notifications disabled for virtually everything. I also have it on perma-silent. It will vibrate once for certain things... and ring only when those aforementioned special people call me. At 9pm it goes into do not disturb. At 7am it goes back to normal.

My wife on the other hand... good grief. She is a solo dog walker / sitter and is getting bookings CONSTANTLY. Her phone sounds like R2-D2 having an aneurism. I’m working on her... but she has insane FOMO since she is still gaining a strong foothold in our community. It’s tough to talk to her about this stuff because she’s right in the midst of it: anxious, worried she will miss client messages, worried she will miss a booking, etc... so until that dies down a bit it’s not even worth pursuing with her. I hope she can eventually get to this level, though, and realize that she will be much happier when she controls her attention instead of allowing others to do it.

Approaching it from changing mental models, perspectives and learning new skills is how we view mental health issues management/prevention. If you're interested in this angle, you should try out one of our sessions at Mindset. It'd be really great to hear what you think of them.

I don't think we can function as humans without regular long, meaningful detachment from all these digital tools.

There's a lot of ways to do it. But I feel like everyone needs to pick one.

Let go of control and hand it to someone else for a while. Give it a shot, even if for just one or two sessions to start.

The key here is to have a long-term view of this. Obviously this doesn't mean to disown your relationships with anybody who didn't bring you joy this week, but you should look at the history of the relationship, and how you think the relationship will be in the future, and decide whether or not the relationship is really a value add in your life.

As you say, there is a lot of value in sticking with shit that can be really irritating, and hard.

In Texas, they go too far the other way, and tolerate things for longer than they sometimes should.

Funny how that tendency maps so well to the foundations of their politics (progress / conservation). As usual, the right way is somewhere in the middle.

I'm undoubtedly the most negative person in my life.

This seems to be a really common sentiment, and I could not disagree more. At worst, it comes across as severely narcissistic. At best, it's avoidance of reality.

But to summarize — you should optimize for things like quality of happiness rather than happiness units. And this gets messy and you will make bad calls, it’s a moral framework for decision making no one has a perfect system. But be optimizing for great happiness and make those long term investments.

There is nothing wrong with taking this approach, while you get yourself back on track. I've gone through this myself. Became an "asshole" in some peoples' eyes - "Why should I attend that social event? What am I going to get out of it? Nah, pass". They've gotten over it. So have I.

Truly though, who gives a shit, if that is what you need. Like OP said, it's your life. Do what you need to do for you. If you keep investing in things that suck the life out of you endlessly, it's going to drag you to a dark place, which is no good for anyone.

I trust selfish people more than I trust "selfless" people. Simply because selfish people are less likely to snap, and take out all of their repressed frustration at a seemingly random time.

It's taken me a while, but now I have a more diplomatic approach to extending my personal energy to benefit those around me, or invest in projects, work, etc.

You are right. It requires balance. However, you should not be afraid to tip the scales the other way for a while, so that you can refactor your priorities.

What got me off Facebook (>3y ago, not a passing whim) was the realisation that I found no value in keeping in touch with people I was only 'in touch with' via Facebook.

> * YIMBY activism. Facebook especially is a great, low-friction way to get new people involved.

Okay, that probably helped too. ;)

I did a lot to turn it around, including running regularly, and a better diet. I lost a lot of weight. But what's more amazing in the long term is the mental transition that's come with it. When I get anxious, often I think "when is the last time I went running?" and if it was more than 2 days ago, getting my gear on and getting outside is nearly automatic. It's an emotional outlet. Anxious? Run it out. Angry? Run it out. Happy? Run with it!

Truly, we are meant to run. We are meant to exert ourselves. And our bodies crave it, if given the ability to.

I'm not saying there is any correlation. Merely that if tech companies in the SF Bay area cared about 'making a difference' - there is ample opportunity to do so, literally outside their door.

This is all marketing hype speak from the type-a extrovert hustlers at the top. No sane person truly believes things like FB etc... are changing the world.

It's cover for their employees to make the world a worse place, while collecting massive checks, and not feel bad for it.

I don't think it's working anymore.

Another aspect is that often times sensitive subjects involving the spouse come up that you have previously been unsuccessful in discussing with them, or you are simply uncomfortable discussing with them.

An easy comeback would be to say "you should be able to discuss anything with your spouse," but reality ain't that simple for everybody.

I would assume most people are not that candid with their partners, but that's the sort of thing you can discuss with a therapist.

However, they will most certainly help you change the way you think about that mistake. Which can be extremely helpful in moving past those mistakes and making the best of where you find yourself now in life.

I just recently started seeing a therapist, and this was a huge revelation to me. More specifically, helping me realize I was holding onto a lot of guilt over things where it made no sense to cling to that guilt. Learning to let go of that mental overhead has been extremely helpful.

Rather therapists help you not make the same mistake again.

A lot of humans think "But I'll never make that mistake again!"

But then they do. We're just not evolved to live in modern environments, so our brains and nervous systems lead us to do silly things.

Therapists help reduce the likelihood that you keep making the same mistakes. And they provide techniques to mitigate the risks arising from new types of mistakes you might make.

Well, OK - that realization didn't make my problems go away, but it did set me down a path.

As others have already said, the role of a therapist isn't to solve those problems you have in your life. They might be able to help you not get mentally affected by those problems, though.

When I found out my insurance included therapy, I said "Heck, why not?" Had only 3 sessions with him. The outcome?

I learned that my problems are not severe enough to warrant serious therapy (based on a heuristic they use). That's not to say I shouldn't feel bad about them or anything, but to highlight that yes, people have ups and downs, and I may have just a few more downs than the median, but I'm not far from the median.

The problems I was dealing with had solutions. He outlined a few options to me and recommended some books. I picked one of the options and started reading those books (frankly, I was interested in the topic anyway).

Knowing that my problems were ultimately due to the lack of a few (learnable) skills makes a big difference. And now I can see people around me who have similar issues - some who think they've got serious psychological problems - and their internal mental torment is rather sad.

Agree with what others have said: Plenty of crappy therapists out there. I seem to have been lucky with mine.

to you

to others

it may very well change very concretely how you feel about past present and future

Not an easy task I'll give you that

The real solution is the one we've already been pushing for and have had a great amount of success over the years, which is to treat mental health issues with the same importance as physical health issues.

This is starting to change and I hope it continues

Why do we live in fear of our own healthcare system? It's truly upsetting for US citizens to fear getting professional medical help.

It's like if you got into a car accident and your car is totaled, but you try to fix it yourself and keep driving it around because you fear the repair costs.

We're all just broken cars afraid of going to the mechanic.

Fearing seeking help because of possible consequences is the act of creating a personal hell.

There will always be consequences no matter the choice. The chance to live life without consuming fear is the missed opportunity for not seeking help.

Is there really? I haven't really seen it, at least among people who I hang out with (which admittedly, include a good number of therapists. Also a good number of knowledge workers who have a therapist.)

I suspect this might be class-based. The therapist market bifurcates into high-functioning professionals who can afford $400/session without insurance and just need someone to talk some feelings out, and people who really need therapy and are often referred by the school or court system. Therapists will usually take on a number of the former to pay the bills, and then a few of the latter to feel like they're doing good in the world. Who doesn't get therapy? What's left of the middle class, who are the people who usually need it the most.

If you're a member of the missing middle class, who do you see who goes to therapy? Usually the latter group, the folks who are visibly mentally ill and have trouble functioning normally. You probably don't know a whole lot of corporate executives in general, and if you do, they're often fairly good at keeping quiet that they have a therapist. So you get a very distorted picture of reality.

And knowing these class-based distortions, it's only when the highly-paid professionals, managers, and executives get together that they will casually remark, "Oh, my therapist said..." Occasionally you'll catch glimpses of this in media meant for this social class though, eg. TED talks or songs whose audience is primarily this class.

My thoughts on this are that first and foremost, my health is more important than my career. And for SW professionals, the reality is very few jobs require disclosure. You can easily go to a mental health professional without adversely impacting your career.

Regarding the national security position disclosure, from what I see:

- You have to disclose a court appointed order to get mental health, or a court finding of mental incompetence.

- You have to disclose a hospitalization for mental health problems.

- You have to disclose any of the following:

"Have you EVER been diagnosed by a physician or other health professional (for example, a psychiatrist, psychologist, licensed clinical social worker, or nurse practitioner) with psychotic disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, bipolar mood disorder, borderline personality disorder, or antisocial personality disorder?"

I don't know about the last two, but the rest are serious conditions that are often treated with medication and not with therapy. If you have any of them, I think it's a lot better to get help and be excluded from those jobs. Furthermore, they're about issues orthogonal to the article and most of the discussion here.

You have to answer this:

"Do you have a mental health or other health condition that substantially adversely affects your judgment, reliability, or trustworthiness even if you are not experiencing such symptoms today? (Note: If your judgment, reliability, or trustworthiness is not substantially adversely affected by a mental health or other condition, then you should answer "no" even if you have a mental health or other condition requiring treatment. For example, if you are in need of emotional or mental health counseling as a result of service as a first responder, service in a military combat environment, having been sexually assaulted or a victim of domestic violence, or marital issues, but your judgment, reliability or trustworthiness is not substantially adversely affected, then answer "no.")"

This is an easy "No" for almost everyone.

I think for most stress/anxiety related issues that one would seek help from a therapist, you would not have to disclose any of it for this form.

Seeking counseling for depression/anxiety does not fall under any of the questions being asked in this form.

Insofar as it works, therapy is "preventive care" -- it should help you to live a healthier life, thus reducing your overall cost to the insurer.

This gets tricky when we consider the frequency and cost of therapy. If you go every week, and a session costs $200 (not unreasonable in much of the world) then it's probably only coverable in a single-payer, "healthcare-is-a-human-right" system, and even then only after building a pro-therapy consensus that might be difficult.

Because even if everyone should go to therapy, lots of people think they shouldn't.

It's been a while since I read this article, but I believe James Risen also talked about government employees working with the NYT to publish pre-approved "leaks".

Every rag has its issues. The pieces are written by people and edited by more people in turn. It’s more about reading the least worst of a bad bunch. NYT and FT are in that category for me at least.

It's been almost 2 years since my first ayahuasca ceremony and I don't feel depressed at all, I feel a child-like absorption with life and a need to serve the planet I call home. I wouldn't attribute all of this to the entheogen itself, I made a conscious choice to change and the ceremonies were catalysts that helped. People go to ceremonies and revert back to their old ways if they don't 'integrate'. Integration is just as important, if not more, than the ceremony itself.

First time was in October 2017, I flew to Colombia after getting a 'scholarship'. They let me do a 10-day retreat with 3 ceremonies (plus 2 sweat lodges and 2 san pedro ceremonies) for $400 instead of the $2K+ that most centers charge. I would not have been able to afford it otherwise. Before going, I had already gone 4 months without drinking, smoking, meat, or sex though. I was all-in on this transformation and saw this plant medicine as a way to reach the deepest parts of my psyche to do a 'reboot' of sorts. That's what I got from it.

The 2nd and 3rd retreats were in upstate NY through a girl I know who has pure intentions and good connections. She runs a center that is donation-based and is basically a commune. I couldn't live there but it's nice to know I can always go there if I find myself at a crossroads again.

Quitting pot was difficult, it's everywhere these days. Ultimately, my grandma's death put everything into perspective for me. I listened to the Steve Jobs Stanford speech recently and everything he said echoes what I realized in the last few months.

Do you journal? Do you have access to a steam room/sauna? Sweating the THC out of your body is a good start. Meditation and fitness can help curb your anxiety. I didn't go looking for ayahuasca or bufo, they both kinda found me. It's a long story, so I'll spare you.

I started out with psilocybin in 2009 when I was 19. Over the course of the last decade, I dove deep into EVERYTHING from Antiquity to the Renaissance to the Counterculture. I feel psychedelics helped me synthesize so many different aspects of STEAM fields in a meaningful and practical way.

Meditation and gratitude keep me child-like, I can't even put it into words really. It's just something that has to be experienced to be understood, I'm sure you know what I mean!

The first appointments are usually going to be freeform discussions, so you'll be able to see if there's a connection.

If the first one doesn't work out, they might recommend somebody more suited for you specifically or, in the worst case, you can just repeat the process above.

Unless you can get a recommendation from somebody you know, I think this is the best option. It's usually better to do something than to do nothing :).

Where a startup beats the odds and starts to become successful, it needs to employ a lot of people (and generate other benefits for others, such as returns to investors and, oh yeah, valuable products to customers) before the founders can get personally rich.

Occasionally it goes well enough for the founders to "make tons of money", but it's not the norm.

In this case, founders of these companies will only "make tons of money" if they succeed in helping vast numbers of people overcome anxiety and other distressing states of existence.

Of the founders I know who are working on one of these startups to help people overcome anxiety and ill health, if you could talk to them, and see the sincerity with which they are dedicated to building something that makes life better for troubled people, you wouldn’t dismiss them with such cynicism and snark.