The year I didn't survive | Hacker News Reader

The year I didn't survive

bessstillman.substack.com

949 pointsLaurenSerino255 comments

My son had cancer during COVID, though he was fortunate enough to beat it into remission (with the help of a huge care team).

I was active duty military, and he is also non-verbal and autistic.

The things she talks about, how focused she was and how hard it is to do any of that now, I've been experiencing exactly the same things. I find it hard to do anything, put anything together, etc. after 3 years of managing his care closely, being at his bedside all hours, having to scream at nurses to call away a code because he couldn't breathe (anaphylaxis), and a ton of other things. All of this while working 50+ hours a week, including remotely from his bedside.

It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it. I get minutes or hours when I can hit that stride again and it's absolutely terrifying to realize that I can no longer keep it up.

I don't know that this comment adds anything to her story. I just felt like I understood her on a level that's hard to communicate and had the urge to share that.

COVID coincided with my daughter being born, my parents dying unexpectedly and my partner having complete mental breakdown all while I was working a very stressful job with long hours and high stakes. Years have passed and I still feel like the battered husk of the person I was. I have good days and bad days but I'm slowly coming to accept I won't ever feel the confidence, the capability or the boundless reserves of energy, love and patience I took for granted again.

Which is all to say, I hear you.

Jeez, this resonates with me so much. In 2019 I was constantly on the upswing. But in 2020, it's been an intensely downward spiral since. I was under so much stress from a 60hr/wk job, isolated during covid with a partner who turned physically abusive and having constant mental breakdowns, on top of trying to endure it all for a once in a lifetime housing opportunity, and then both of my parents ended up hospitalized in the ER from covid... I remember feeling at the time that my mental gears were breaking and doing permanent damage. Those 6 months felt like such a short time that fundamentally changed me from a cheery person to permanently somber.

I quit my job in 2021, physically incapable of continuing and wanting to end it all, thinking if I just make it through each month it'll eventually get better and it never has. It only got worse like the universe kept ratcheting up the difficulty. My abusive partner only got more abusive as I didn't have a job (but paid all our bills) and couldn't muster any energy towards relationship milestones as the abuse and depression crippled me. Years of enduring this only led to now being abandoned and feeling worse than ever, like there is no upside worth the calamitous downsides in life.

That sounds really rough. Here if you ever want to talk about it. Sorry.

Sorry to hear that, really sorry.

One thing I dont get with similar stories - you felt things are seemingly going to shit in relationship yet no reaction, no quitting but maybe even double down? Abusive people will be abusive with no easy fix in sight, sucking it up for some real estate opportunity is a sure recipe for disaster and misery and no money gained will ever compensate for that. Thats one of 101 of life, there shouldnt be a need to really walk through it to confirm this. Kids do complicate this massively but you dont mention them.

Same for work it seems, working on edge of what you can handle means any little bad thing happening on top can send you over and down the spiral of breakdown.

I dont want to bash anybody and its more for others who will one day experience similar things - listen to your body, its telling you tons of things, and not for just fun. Its your best buddy so dont neglect it, there is no replacement and it really gets weaker with age, sooner than you would like.

I see a lot of high performers ending up similarly - very narrow focus on one brilliance ie work, but deep neglect of the rest. Never a nice story at the end. Nobody will be happy when dying from how much they worked or which investments worked out. If one really has to, set clear short term goals for when to stop it and have a bit of discipline (ie dont get used to better lifestyle that more money brings requiring you to continue).

You will hear success stories of those who got out and made themselves better. You won't hear the numerous stories of those who broke up, realized they're hyperdependent on a romantic relationship and don't have the strength to do without - or those who break up but end up with another abusive partner.

I doubt there is good statistics or research on this, but anecdotally, it doesn't seem uncommon.

You also mention "neglect of rest", and in relationships you might also say neglect of the self - but often it's not explicit neglect, instead it's not even being used to or knowing how to recognize or fulfil those needs. As an example, after my tinnitus got worse, rest is simply so hard to achieve that it doesn't matter if I make it my top priority. People saying I need to rest more obviously annoys me, and claiming I'm neglecting rest would be borderline disrespectful.

Not comparing tinnitus and workaholism, just making a general statement about the use of "neglect" here.

> you felt things are seemingly going to shit in relationship yet no reaction, no quitting but maybe even double down? Abusive people will be abusive with no easy fix in sight

I loved them so much that constantly fighting and being abused was still better than their absence now. I believed we would both turn things around, but it only got worse every few months. Being in this situation felt like a 90/100 misery scale, that I couldn't bear, and leaving would be asking me to volunteer for 95/100

> Same for work it seems, working on edge of what you can handle means any little bad thing happening on top can send you over and down the spiral of breakdown.

Also thought it would be temporary and not do permanent damage. In the midst of crisis, I'm thinking "just get through this month, it will get better" and then before you know it years have went by and all those months accumulated their toll

Every single person who winds up in that situation has said or thought exactly that about someone else. There’s a reason all this advice is a cliche, and there’s a reason we have to keep giving it, and just consider yourself lucky that you still don’t understand why that is. It’s harder to be human than it seems.

Sometimes, you just have to walk out on it all. Pack a go-back, open the door and go. You are not the domain of some vampire of suck to park their life in. You can just leave them and start over. Relationships should not a trap door function.

I've had some rough years recently as well.

I'm slowly healing and learning how to live a new life. A life that I like. But it's been really fucking hard. This wasn't in the manual.

I hear you both (and anyone lurking :). Much love to you all.

Shit is this everybody?

I feel like I'm constantly mourning who I used to be, like it was a different person entirely and there's no getting that level of empathy or patience back again.

I’m still working on it, not as extreme as some of these cases here it feels quite embarrassing to admit how much I mourn for my old life (changed country, became a father, zero social circle etc).

Zen practice and fitness have made an astronomically large improvement for me, but I guess everyone has to find that which helps them accept their current situation.

I had the same reaction.

I’m half the person I used to used to be, after a painful burnout. And it’s not even close as painful as what the OP experienced.

So many of my friends went through some very hard time that I stopped counting.

So yes, is this everybody?

I think economic factors and the health of society at large are one of the largest parts of this. I'm young and didn't get to grow up in an innocent time, and anyone older than me seems worse off. The only way I think I can make things work is to make drastic life choices like relocation, and live pretty alternative lifestyles like off grid for economic security.

I'm always wondering where the interesting people went, but maybe they became just like everyone else.

I believe you are right about the larger factors shaping the individual experience.

And since you mention that you are young, just to let you know: when "celebrating" the latest new years eve, all guests present (40 to 50yo) agreed that the main source of hope for the near future was the early disillusionment of younger generations. More power to you! :)

Woof

While I know this thread is self-selecting, it’s amazing how many folks share similar stories of how they feel burnt out in life since 2020.

I fear we’ve yet to hit rock bottom and more societal strife is impending, both in America and elsewhere. But like you, I agree there is some hope that those just starting out will rebuild something better from the ashes of it when it’s all over.

As a 35-year old though I worry I’ll be too old to truly reap the benefits. Although elder millennials, whose formative adult years were defined by the Great Recession and Gen Z, who had them defined by COVID, might have it even worse.

When my grandmother was alive, she would sometimes say things that stuck in my memory. One of the things she told me was that the only thing which really improved since she was young was medicine. She said that while a lot of technologies improved in a scientific sense, it wasn't a net positive because some of the hurdles which technology helped to remove were part of what made life enjoyable, amusing and meaningful.

It think the term "good old days" is not some delusion of the aging mind as the media keeps trying to convince us. As I've watched things getting worse during my own life, I've been getting increasingly confident that things really were better in those old days. I mean, even the kinds of people who existed; they were simpler people, happier people. They lived lives of mystery and serendipity.

Now you basically have to be rich to be happy and you usually have to do bad things to be rich... So it's difficult to find happiness nowadays. IMO, success in life is being both rich and also having a clean conscience; then you can have everything you need, yet still have the ability to look people in the eyes and mean what you say when you speak.

I'm in the same boat alienated by a 30+ year partner that won't even discuss the issues.

After 9 months what I have realized is that my 30+ year partner was not a good fit for me. The mental space cleared by not worrying about my ex-partner's contentless has feared up most of my brain power.

What I realize now is that my partner was wasting many of my brain cycles that are now freed up. I actually have fallen back into a brain space that feels like my early college graduate brain. The brain I had before I took responsibility for my partner's happiness.

I just want to add my voice to say that my life completely disintegrated a few years ago. I lost almost everything, including my partner of over a decade, and reached a point where I didn't even have the motivation to wash or feed myself... because, what was the point? I was expending energy just to continue a pointless, joyless, struggle.

Battered husk is the best description I can think of for how I felt.

It took a while, but I was extremely lucky to find the right combination of therapy, SSRIs, and life changes to drag myself out of the hole. I now have a stable job doing something that sparks my interests and makes a meaningful contribution, and my love of life has returned. I still have the occasional day where it feels like I start to backslide, but they are getting rarer.

I want to reassure anyone who feels tired, burnt-out, and hopeless, that things can and do get better.

Similar here. Covid happened, lost my relationship of 15 years, had a total mental breakdown, lost my job, lost 20Kg, substance abuse, spent all my savings, struggle to pay bills. Lost my dad 2 months ago. Unemployed for a year now. I'll never be able to get back to where I was professionally. Feel dumb, confused and my memory sucks. Three shitty ass years. Medicated.

Slowly starting to see some light. My two young kids get me through this, they are with me every other week and give purpose to my life, they are best thing ever.

I hear you too. Don't be scared to ask for professional help. Meds can make a difference.

Seeing people's testimonials made me feel better so I thought I'd post mine.

Try and get sunlight on your retina 20 min 3 days a week. It can be through your eyelids but not through glass or glasses. That vitamin C and one of the B vitamins all help load the pathways to make serotonin. It won't magically fix your life but it can also help bootstrap your outlook. It can be grounding to watch the sun shift over the seasons. Best wishes.

Something you're never told when you're young is that life WILL take things from you, will never return them, and you'll never be the same.

You don't know how much, when, how or why, but it will happen. I consider someone blessed if they make it to middle-age largely "intact."

When you're young and unencumbered and largely undamaged you need to use that time in any way you can; inevitably you'll end up "walking wounded" one way or another--less than you were--unable to return to who you were before whatever(s) happened.

When I was young I'd encounter older men that struck me as "defeated", tired, incurious, dismissive, and I'd never understood why until the last ~half decade or so of my life.

I really think human "life" and vitality is something that does get "spent", often against your will.

I don't want to invalidate your feelings but I've had the opposite experience. I've been chronically depressed and have had multiple stays in psych wards but I'm finally starting to heal. I'm able to experience this pure joy that I haven't felt since I was a little kid. My life is still very difficult but I haven't felt this alive since elementary school.

Both can be true. I have been integrating a lot of different sides of myself and the long work of therapy is finally starting to coalesce into a real results.

But, also, a part of me died during our attempts to have another kid. At some point it just broke me in that dimension. I have doubts that it can be fully healed. It is grief, and it demands space and an outlet sometimes. And it hurts from time to time. It's no longer debilitating, but it is still there.

I think it's obvious. Everyone should treat anyone with empathy respect patience understanding and love. Most of all love.

That level of understanding between you and her should be universally shared between everything that is living. This way, support can always be found.

I wish you and your family all the best. The same goes for Bess, as I told her many times. I wish I could give you a hug, make you feel protected and capable, as the hero that you are.

I know nothing of the difficulties you nor the OP face, but

> It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it.

You've probably heard it, but maybe to help remind, I just wanted to say - It's okay to be burnt out and do little or nothing. I believe it's the minimum requirement to healing and it _will_ take years maybe even a decade. I was cheated on and that affected me for 2 years and that's trivial to the road you walk.

I was fortunate enough to be in a place where I could "retire" the month after he rang the bell.

I've been doing my own thing for close to two years now, trying to heal.

Maybe I will someday. Until then, I somehow manage to keep up with his (still elevated) needs and try to be a good husband and father to my other child.

re your son, have you listened to

https://thetelepathytapes.com/

I like to explain this state to people by saying that my circuit breakers popped.

Good one. I’m going to add that to my list of metaphors and analogies. Some people just don’t understand the experience, and this seems helpful.

Throwaway: when my daughter was 4, she took a bath. My wife was in the living room doing laundry, literally 5 steps away. At that point, my daughter had just finished swimming class 3 months before. I was at work. When she called "mum!", my wife said: "Coming" and folded one final shirt. When she then entered the bathroom, my daughter floated in the tub, face down. No breathing, no sign of life anymore. My wife revived here on the floor of our living room while calling 911 and crying for help.

She had a simple fever cramp (her second) in the tub and nearly drowned because of it.

This was roughly a year ago. I remember walking out of the building at work in trance, looking for a cab, after I got the call, thinking my daughter was dead. She was back to normal (apart from the nasty infection that lead to the fever cramp) on the next day. Buy my wife and I have never been the same since. I entered the apartment 2 days later, and the tub was still filled with water and some of my daughters hair, and there was blood on the living room floor because the medics gave her sedatives and she kicked against the syringe. While cleaning my daughter's blood from the floor, I got the distinct feeling that she really died and that I was just in a very long dream in which she survived, and that I would wake up very soon to a world of sorrow. That feeling has never left me. It may explain why most things now feel completely irrelevant to me, including work.

We quickly bought a house 6 months later and left the apartment. I now realize that this was mostly motivated by the fact that we couldn't stand the look of the bathtub anymore. It was also because we simply weren't afraid anymore of the debt, of the additional work, of moving. Fear is something that only remains a numb feeling after such an experience.

She is 5 now. The worst part is that she fully remembers. A few weeks ago, she freely and cheerfully explained in daycare that she once was bathing and then cried "mum" and then "fell asleep under water". At dinner a few months ago, she also explained that to us and then laughed and mentioned that "mum must've thought I am a mermaid" and happily continued eating. It crushes me just thinking of it.

If my wife had folded 2 or 3 shirts before entering the bathroom, my daughter would be dead now. If my daughter hadn't yelled "mum!" the second the fever cramp started, of if she would've yelled it under water, she would also be dead now. In this probabilistic decision tree, the leaf where my daughter survives has a probability that is negligibly small. To my very great surprise, I have found that this inevitably leads to religion. I have never been religious before, but I have indeed found great relief in prayer and sitting around in empty churches.

Life to us is now nothing but walking on a thin crust of ice, which spans over an infinite hell of fire, horror and torture. At any time, without warning, the ice may break.

Your daughter has taken it all better than you. We're all a moment away from death - on the road all it would take would be one yank on the steering wheel at the wrong time - even by some other driver.

I really hope you guys are getting propper help, this state of being must be horrible, especially since nothing happened in the end. Nothing happened because your wife after all made sure to not be too far away and was alert enough to hear her call. We're all 2 minutes away from death should we somehow stop breathing, best we can do is to minimize risk.

Me and my wife had a horrible experience ourselves where our 2 year old daughters best friend(also 2 years old) drowned in their family swimming pool after figuring out how to open the door herself. I know this wasn't nearly as close to heart as the other stories in this post, but receiving that text on a Saturday evening was super tough and me and my partner was crushed for months after it happened. It's now been 10 months and we rarely think about it anymore although we did end up in a house WITHOUT a swimming pool, so in a way it's still with us.

One of my childhood friend lost his little brother in a similar accident. 25 years later, I have a similar phobia of private swimming pools, ponds or any unsupervised water surface. I cannot see a private swimming pool and not think about him. He was a happy toddler, just like my kids today.

You have had a fundamental realization about the human condition in a very traumatic way. This is a lot to deal with all at once.

Thank you for sharing. What a terrifying experience. I hope you get some help to deal with the trauma.

Your description of being in a trance after you found out is eerily similar to how I felt when I got the message that I needed to get to the hospital and start signing paperwork because my son had cancer.

My life has a stark demarcation of before and after that, and sometimes it feels like nothing is quite real since.

Strangely, I feel that my wife was able to come to terms with this demarcation much more quickly than I, although she was obviously much more traumatized than me in the time immediately after the event. (I quickly talked to her on the phone when she was in the ambulance, she was mostly incoherent and it was impossible to even get the information out of her whether our daughter was dead). I think this is mainly because it was entirely and only her who saved her life. She took control of the entire situation just seconds after it collapsed on her, and successfully turned it around completely by herself. I, on the other hand, was forced to be completely passive for nearly 2 hours, alone, with incomplete information, and with periods in which I thought I had lost my daughter. It was me who had a breakdown in the night after the event, in a dark hospital room, and it was again my wife who handled that situation.

This terrifies me. My mom died when of cancer I was 11, and I am much more anxious about things happening to my kids than my wife is.

One day my wife said she was going to give our 4 year old daughter a bath, then I find my daughter by herself in the bath and my wife all the way across the house in the bedroom. I asked “Why aren’t you watching her?” The reply, “She’s fine. She knows how to swim and the water isn’t even that deep.”

I work remotely in the upstairs bedroom and will occasionally come down for water. Half the time I find my one year old eating alone in his high chair in the kitchen, with my wife doing something in the bedroom. “Where are you? What if he chokes?” “You don’t trust me. He’s fine. I can hear him from the bedroom.”

My wife will get in road rage incidents. People flip her off and yell threats at her as she slingshots through traffic with our little kids in the back seat. “You’re going to crash driving like that.” “Stop telling me how to drive.” Someone pretended to pull a gun out on her after she swore at them. “You’re going to get shot.” “No I’m not. I can tell if any of those people would have a gun.”

She also has severe ADHD. Our daughter got under the sink when she was two and ate half a dishwasher detergent pod before my wife noticed and called poison control. Another day when my daughter was two my wife forgot to shut the gate at the bottom of the stairs when she came upstairs to talk to me during the workday. Suddenly I hear a series of thuds and cries. Our little girl had fallen down the flight of stairs after trying to follow my wife without her noticing. Same thing happened to my 1 year old son under the watch of my wife’s mother.

I’m so scared that one day I’m going to get a call about something horrible that has happened to my kids either because of my wife’s inattention or anger issues.

Those don't sound like unreasonable concerns at all. Wish you the best.

There's something I wanted to say reading this whole thread. I just hope it does not come off as lecturing or preaching. It's this: Don't feel bad about things that there is no way for you to change. Just do your very best about the things you can. Nobody can ask more of anyone.

> I got the distinct feeling that she really died and that I was just in a very long dream in which she survived, and that I would wake up very soon to a world of sorrow.

This is how I've felt every time a friend has tried and failed to commit suicide. I'm so sorry.

As a child aged five, I broke through the ice and fell into a pond that had frozen over. The Kindergarten teacher was both alert and quick thinking enough to get me out fast. I never remembered more of the event that a) I wore a velvety-black-colored coat made from corduroy and b) that I woke up in the ambulance soggy wet as was the teacher next to me.

The rest of that event - why I walked away from the group, whether I was called back or just lucky, or even what I thought or felt when I went into the water - all gone. Can't remember. Only that afterwards, it felt odd how panicy mum was, and that she immediately insisted on swimming lessons.

So when I was five, this was an experience like "any" - How was I supposed to understand that I had a close brush with death, or what that even meant ?

(I wish your daughter a long and happy life, and may neither her nor anyone have to experience the feelings that you did, or my mum)

Thank you for realizing what's important. Protect those you love, and see them. I'm glad your daughter is OK, that seems like such a scary ordeal. What you have to do now is find love and interest in the little things again so that you can teach her to do the same. Teach her to trust that the ice won't always break.

My grandfather ran me over when I was 6 and nearly killed me. When he ostensibly realized what happened, he took his sweet time to exit the vehicle while it was pinning me down, slowly get out, stare at me, and then made sure to run over me again while moving the vehicle. The only two things that saved me was that he was driving a light pickup truck, and my bike folded around my chest and neck and prevented the wheel of the truck from crushing them. I will never know if he saw me and ran over me intentionally or not, but I was in plain view waiting for the bus and he never expressed any emotion at any point over what happened.

I was crying and shaken up and traumatized, but he made sure I still got on that bus without so much as a quick medical checkup. I felt very numb and isolated for a long time after that. No one around seemed to understand that I'd just experienced a near-death experience. I also didn't receive a new bike for years, seemingly out of spite.

While at a stop sign, a car veered off the crossing street into my car at about 40 mph. My pregnant wife and 1 year old were in the back seat. Our car was destroyed and the other guy drove off, never to be found.

No permanent injuries on our end, but what you said about walking on a thin crust of ice rings true. And feeling like there's another reality where things didn't turn out OK. All the best to you, I am glad your daughter is OK.

It’s called depression and when it happens because of a situation in your life that you have limited control over it can be very difficult to recover. Get professional help if you haven’t. It is hard. Been there.

What eventually pulled you out of it? Was it a long journey, or one or more specific events?

Time. Focused effort. For me my happiness set point is decent. It takes work to get out of the hole though. No one thing. Exercise. Diet. Forcing myself to do things I know I enjoy. It can feel hollow, but it comes back. Lots of meditation, stoicism, cognitive behavioral therapy. Recognize the negative thought pattern loops early, combatting them, reminding yourself what they are.

The best is yet to come.

My son is non verbal, non mobile.

We live the life of the Servant. We used to define ourselves by our profession, now we define ourselves as "special needs parent". This is a step closer to actually being more human. How trivial our lives were before, how we wasted so many hours on shit that didn't matter!

God bless you and your family. Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom.

My wife died of ovarian cancer in February of 2020, right as covid started.

It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into the pits and snares of clinical trials, looking at adjunct therapies and arguing with doctors about our right to do those, growing to an ambient, everpresent rage over time.

When she passed, it all went silent, and then the world shut down.

I still feel like my brain has changed. It's difficult to put my finger on how.

In retrospect a lot of the time I spent trying to find options and understand the disease and its treatment would have been much better spent tending to the emotional needs of my family. I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end. I just didn't know how to do it.

I’m so sorry for your loss. Something did change, and i think it’s good you feel that. Someone I used to work with, their wife was a professor at Rochester university and her research was around happiness. She would tell me that our baseline happiness in life is virtually constant (on large timescales, we all have good/bad days etc), there’s not much we can do to alter it in adulthood to shift it. There were a few exceptions, loss of a child, partner or critical illness.

I’m not sure what comes next but really hope that energy and happiness finds its way back to you with time.

>Someone I used to work with, their wife was a professor at Rochester university and her research was around happiness. She would tell me that our baseline happiness in life is virtually constant (on large timescales, we all have good/bad days etc), there’s not much we can do to alter it in adulthood to shift it.

If you're someone who struggles with chronic depression this statement is extremely demoralizing. But it's also hearsay -- you're a stranger on the internet, so you want me to believe based on a stranger's colleague's wife's alleged research, that depression cannot be effectively treated?

If you want to share that researcher's work, provide a link. Keep your rumors, suppositions, and lay-person's doomer psychology to yourself, unless you are planning to make a post with direct citations that is in effect nothing like the comment you did leave.

People's lives depend on this. You can't just post "if you have depression you'll never be able to change it" cavalierly as though you are an expert and your post has no consequences.

Someone is going to read your supposition, your rumor, believe it, and despair.

Fully agree. And even if there was a legitimate study, it wouldn't be dispositive. I had horrible anxiety and depression for most of my adult life. I believed I would never be a happy person, and that I would always be tormented by my mental illness.

I finally found treatment that worked for me in the pandemic (Ketamine assisted psychotherapy), and it was life changing. It has been 2.5 years since I stopped treatment and I'm 10x happier. I wake up every day happy and curious about what the day will bring.

This is a well known concept called the "Hedonic Treadmill", which exists since the 70ies, not "doomer psychology". It also does not say treating depression is not possible. Depression is a disease.

Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness

Richard M. Ryan, Edward L. Deci

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30652098-self-determinat...

A lot of psych research is bullshit that doesn't replicate - it's the dark ages over there, medicine before germ theory.

My wife has had anxiety and depression her whole life. I have been carefree and happy all of mine. I've been bullied at school, broke to the point of hunger after college in the 90s, and lost my sister to ovarian cancer 5 years ago. And aside from dealing with "in the moment" problems, my brain is always in freewheeling happy mode. Whereas my wife, no matter how "right" her day went, tens to be negative and beat herself up. It's how we're wired. She did therapy and she thinks that 90% of it is bullshit.

However, in the last few years she said that her "negative voices" (not actually schizophrenia, but her own nagging, disrespectful, negative narration) have gotten under control through CBT. She says it's something she needs to work at daily, though, because her brain seems to be wired that way. And she's controlling it and staying healthy without any meds.

So while I think there's something in that anecdote I don't think it means that you can't have a good life.

The entire point of clinical depression is that it's not environmental, it's intrinsic. Yes, this means it won't change - that's why antidepressants exist. It's why you should see a therapist for it, and should stop listening to people implying you can just eat different or whatever. This knowledge sucks, but you trying to keep that a secret and shaming someone into silence isn't helping.

> The entire point of clinical depression is that it's not environmental, it's intrinsic. Yes, this means it won't change

Wrong. I lost at least a decade of really great years to this belief. It's bullshit. I've made huge strides in my "clinical" depression despite my environment not markedly improving. I did, however, improve myself enough to recognize and stop maladaptive behaviors.

It's hard as hell to change yourself, but you're not immutable.

If you can change it with your environment, you were misdiagnosed

Thank you, I appreciate it.

> I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end. I just didn't know how to do it.

And yet with the other choice you might have regretted "not having done everything you could have". That is the curse of those with the ability to actually do something. In many ways, those who do not understand and simply place their faith in doctors are less burdened.

You did what you thought best at the time; that is all you could have done. Nothing you did or did not do was a mistake.

There are no "right" answers when facing mortality. My sympathies for what you went through, and I hope you are doing better.

》 In many ways, those who do not understand and simply place their faith in doctors are less burdened.

This is so true.

I wish I could write a better response but my wife has her periodic pet-scan in 1hr. Those scan always leave me paralyzed with fear of recurrence of the metastatic breast cancer she has. it's probably off topic so sorry internet strangers but writing it brings a little relief.

All my sympathy to those who lost someone!

My son’s regular survivorship checkups completely destroy me with anxiety.

I sympathize deeply.

Thank you, I appreciate it. The 'doing everything I can' aspect is real. I was only in it for two years and it truly gave me a new perspective for folks that are dealing with similar circumstances over a much longer timespan.

> I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end.

No way. If you had done that you would have felt even worse for not trying everything you possibly could.

+1 to this, my mom died because of COVID in India 1 months after she left US after visiting me, and I still feel guilty that I didnt insist on getting her the vaccine before she left for India, and then at the time of her death India was locked down so no flights and I wasn't even next to her. It's been 4 years but every so often I think about this. I blame myself less now after some therapy, but If you didn't try all that you could you'd probably feel guilty like me.

It's impossible though. Accepting something like that. If it's your own death I think that maybe you can eventually accept its coming. But if it's your wife? Christ, I'd be searching the earth non stop too.

My sister died of ovarian cancer right at the start of COVID. My big sis, 1 year older. Even though the oncologists said early on that it was extremely aggressive and wasn't responding to treatment, nobody in the family could process it. Oddly, except myself. I live an hour away from them and I think that separation allowed me space to process the inevitable. I tried to be that person who took care of the emotional needs of the family, and my brother in law. But I didn't have a single person to "confide in" because nobody accepted that she was going to die, including her. She had just had a baby a few months before (IVF, and tbh I'm wondering if that process kicked the cancer off). She had to look at her tiny baby and imagine him growing up not knowing her. You could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. Yet she couldn't bring herself to make little recordings, write emails or notes to him for when he's 12 or whatever. That's how much denial she was in - she denied him that sense of what it would be like to have her talk to him.

The first to give up hope was her husband actually. I suppose because he was closest to the front lines, and saw the toll it took on her, the constant downhill. And the dozens of other things that aren't cancer but are part of the depressing array of events like pleural effusion, blood clots, and the digestive system eventually getting blocked off with tumors. When he finally admitted to me that it was terminal, she had less than two months left.

My lovely wife is sitting across the table from me now wondering what "heavy stuff" I'm typing. I couldn't imagine being able to accept losing her.

I hope your life is recovering.

My brother in law met a lovely woman just over a year ago. She has two kids and he had his one. They make a great family unit and she's good for him. Even in practical ways like taking turns bringing the kids to school or sports, covering for him when he had to work late. My family get along with her too. I know it still hurts him to think about what he lost but he's very much a "get on with life" person, so he gets on.

Thank you. I recognize what you write in my own experience as well.

What I wrote down below is a bit jumbled, but I felt like you describe something I hadn't realized yet. That maybe my brain has changed. And I needed to respond and think about your idea. I hope you are finding a way to deal with it.

This is resonates with me. My father died from cancer a year ago, the bit that survived two treatments was extremely fast moving. I had a business with him, and I spent a year trying to do as much of his job and mine to help him out. But he wanted to work, and I think it was good for him to have forward looking goals.

It feels like every day I am trying to figure out how to make my brain work the way it used to. And almost every day I am trying to decide if we had a bus factor of 1. Fortunately I have family support, and a part time job to keep me busy and bring a bit of money in.

I think about the emotional support and I think we did the best we could have. My dad was clear about listening to the doctors about his options. We spent some time reading about options and researching. But it was clear to all of the immediate family that we lacked the depth of knowledge needed. It was interesting to read about and learn about the techniques. And we were able to get advice from medical family friends. But his team was very good and thoughtful. We also thought the treatments were working. Until a later scan showed a small blip and before we could understand the options and decide he was in the hospital and terminal.

I still feel like I'm moving through the motions of running our business, but not actually doing it. Or something, it is a frustrating feeling that I am trying to fix but maybe I can't. Or maybe it will take years.

I think it has to do with low self-esteem.

You used to be a superhero. And you still are. Remember who you are.

You were drowned in frustration. But now you acknowledge the reality of the present situation, it's time to execute the new accomplishments that will prove your greatness.

thank you for sharing. what you describe is akin to what other survivors of utter helplessness describe. usually we think of "trauma" as surviving naked angst, fear for our life or health, uncontrollable horrific events. and that's also in classic medical definitions. but we're slowly learning how many existential crises of utter helplessness, also proxy-helplessness for a dear loved one, can put our brains into a out-of-place state. If that resonates somehow, the good news is that there are exercises, guided approaches to help the brain reconfigure back into the original state of empowerment and optimism. "Somatic experiencing" is one of them, emdr another one (in the hands of an experienced and trained trauma certified clinician), and there are some more. long story short: there are paths forward.

I apologize if I overshared, hth.

Sisyphean is the word I’ve come back to a lot myself since my wife took her life on November 6, 2024. Feeling like I’m now trying to live for both of us, grasping at ways of honouring her memory despite the incredible love we had being unable to “save” her, and somehow not at all myself anymore, but having to keep moving forward feels hopeless beyond belief.

I lost my dad suddenly just two months prior, and my grandma shortly before that, but the loss of your partner (and in this manner after she refused help and I watched helplessly as she spiralled in her last year) eclipses any grief or pain I had experienced before or could have even imagined.

But I wanted to show a little appreciation for the OP and others on here sharing their devastating losses. Knowing love inevitably turns into grief but that that is a more universal experience makes me feel a little less alone. Small blessings but at points like these, we take whatever morsels we can get.

Brother, I can't say anything that will make it better, but all I can offer is what gets me through grief that I've been living with for 20 years: They wouldn't want me to carry it like this. They always wanted the best for me, and walking around like a husk, missing them isn't it.

I hope it gets better for you. It has for me.

Ah I'm crying. Thank you both, for your honesty. These little bits of stories feel like reserves I hope I never need so badly, but I likely will, and so I'm grateful.

It is interesting what might become fuel one day.

I was 14 when, within months: my mom's dad died, my dad died, my mom was diagnosed with the melanoma that took her 7 years later, a fire took the longtime family home. And she developed trigeminal neuralgia - a 9-10 for pain and she had it on both sides of her face. All of this impacted her. And us. For her part, she carried on with work and managing a family.

Fast forward. Well into my own marriage, my wife spiraled into mental health issues that subjected the kids and I to decades of sabotage, abuse and ceaseless, exhausting catastrophes.

I too learned that when I am hallowed out, I can continue on. When I am beyond my own help, someone else might not be and there might be something I can do. At this point, helping others is pure self preservation.

Thank you. It’s definitely the living definition of hell, a constant panic attack for a past you can’t change, but it’s also only been 3 months and I’m discovering resilience and supports I’m so thankful for.

I also decided to go visit one of our favourite places (Thailand) to get away for a bit, meet up with a friend, do some writing, and make some new memories here. It’s been really hard at points but definitely healing too.

John, I'm a perfect stranger but I send you a big hug and lot of love. I can only thinly scratch the surface of what you went through with my mind, and it's already the scariest thought I could possibly have in my life.

Thank you

I sympathize. I won't offer platitudes. I find those don't lessen grief.

My son took his own life on February 1st, 2023. I feel like someone took a huge melon baller and scooped out the middle of my chest. My wife and I had been trying to get him back on his feet for two years at that point. He died quietly about 10 feet from me. The family cat kept trying to get me to open his bedroom door. I kept trying to respect his privacy. I finally took her hint.

He was the best person I knew. I imagined vicariously living a much better life through him. I still feel like a fragment of my former self. He was a sometime contributor here, by the way, under jwmhjwmh.

Anyway, I give my love to everyone here sharing stories of their losses. I find sharing memories of these loved ones is more comforting than platitudes, and certainly more healing than pretending nothing happened.

>I sympathize. I won't offer platitudes. I find those don't lessen grief.

The most meaningful thing someone ever said to me, after my daughter was stillborn full term, was: "There is nothing to say."

I can only imagine such a loss based on my own, and from the many conversations I’ve had with my wife’s mum as well, trying to be the best supports we can for each other.

I would describe my wife similarly, it sounds like. Kind, value-driven, cared too much, was the biggest personality in the room but somehow always made people feel seen and heard. But also deeply troubled and hid a lot of it, even from me I’m discovering.

Sending love your way as well. I agree, platitudes or things like “they’re in a better place now” or “looking down on us” make me only feel worse, but genuine compassion does help feel like the weight isn’t on our shoulders alone, even for a little rest.

You're still in the valley. It does seem Sisyphean and it will for ahwile. I went through this in 2021 and it took a few years to get to the point where it doesn't feel hopeless.

You won't be the same person after, but in some ways that's good. Highly recommend grief counseling. Feel free to reach out if you need help from someone who has been through it.

Thank you. I’m definitely still very “in the valley” since it’s only been a few months, but I am in counselling which helps. And I’ve lost close friends to suicide and addiction in the past, so going through those before has helped me not feel quite so lost, at least knowing how to be gentler with myself this time.

There's an unavoidable amount of guilt. I should be remembering them more, I should be honouring them by keeping them in my thoughts, but I can't think about them 24/7 and now I feel guilty that I'm doing them a disservice. The callous answer is life goes on and you need to go on with it. The friendlier answer is you have to give yourself permission to live for yourself, thinking about them only some of the time is still keeping their memory alive. It can help to have a representation, be it a specific day like their birthday you assign to their memory or a physical item. I lost a parent when I was a teenager, it turned my world upside down, I found what helped was having a thing as dedication to them. It let me compartmentalise the emotion to that object and gave me permission to not think about them all the time because they're being remembered by that item existing. It's not easy but does get easier, ultimately just be kind to yourself. It's not a quick process.

It's weird how a series of big things happening in a short period of time changes who you are as a person, and not always for the better.

When I failed to stop an acquaintance from killing himself a few years ago [1], it really fucked me up. I barely knew the guy, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty over it, and I still have nightmares about it.

It led to a severe funk of depression that I still haven't gotten over, and it's led to poor sleep, poor performance at work, an increased irritability towards pretty much everyone, and I'm not completely convinced that that will ever stop.

I've seen therapists, taken various medications for depression and PTSD, trauma dumped onto pretty much anyone who will listen, and I think I'm a worse person now than I was in 2021.

I guess the likelihood of an event like this happening approaches 1 as you get older, but it doesn't mean it's not terrible.

[1] Written in some detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822

I was reflecting just yesterday how, as we get older, gradually more and more of those who have been part of our sphere for significant portions of our lives (whether direct acquaintances, or just people who we know because of their public actions) begin to leave us, and how everyone who passes, whoever they are and however well we knew them, leaves a space that can't be filled.

I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.

> I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.

Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile.

It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021.

I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it, certainly not for three years, but human psychology is pretty annoying sometimes.

For what it's worth, don't do this, you also know you need to give people space and in hindsight, because of what happened, you only now think should've done something but I'm sure there were wholesome reasons why you avoided intervening in the first place.

Just as easily they didn't make the attempt and you would've thought you made the right call.

It's not on you.

Guilt and shame are two of the most complex and difficult to grapple with human emotions. You definitely didn't do anything wrong, but some people's brains will latch onto guilt like a vice regardless. And it can happen regardless of the rational part of the brain knowing that you didn't do anything wrong.

I have the same type of problem. The one thing that's finally helped a little bit is allowing myself to feel the guilt (and all the emotions surrounding it) fully. Normally I try to push it down (because I don't actually have anything to feel guilty for), but suppressed emotions continue to live forever, and they will surface in your body and mind in many ways. Allowing myself to feel it gives me room to process the emotion finally.

Easier said than done, of course. You can't just turn the emotions on and off like a light switch, especially because the brain forms protective mechanisms to prevent you from feeling it. I've had some luck with IFS and somatic therapies.

I read your original post and almost every reasonable person would have paused, but then have written it off as dark humor by someone they didn't know that well.

The only reason you might think there were "signs" you should have caught now is because of what happened but no one could have known in advance.

From a total Internet stranger, give yourself some grace. Or what I have also heard: Judge yourself the way you would judge a good friend in the same situation. We often judge ourselves super harshly!!

> The only reason you might think there were "signs" you should have caught now is because of what happened but no one could have known in advance.

Not quite that simple. I remember sitting in my bed that night, wrestling with whether or not I should call the police or something, and I explicitly chose to do nothing because I didn't want him to think I was weird.

Maybe my mind is blowing it up worse than it was, but that's how I remember it.

One thing to also consider: generally speaking you likely had no chance in convincing him or saving him. It’s awful to feel powerless. I recently had a somewhat similar situation with a friend. I knew he was struggling. I was going to reach out to him the day he was found dead. It was under somewhat strange circumstances so it took a couple of months to get the report back on what the authorities thought happened, which turned out to be a spontaneous health issue and not any deliberate act. But when a healthy man in his 20s is found dead you rarely think “brain aneurysm” so I and other people in his life struggled to make sense of what happened.

One of the more helpful things I was told was that there is nothing you can do if someone is determined to end their life. No intervention, no amount of reaching out, nothing. And that is a powerless place to be but it also means that you not calling the police the night your acquaintance died is likely not the deciding factor in this case.

Find a way to forgive yourself. Talk about your experience. To friends, to strangers, to a therapist. EMDR is great, from what I hear but even talk therapy is a really good place to start processing. I hope you find a way out of this, one internet stranger to another.

> Maybe my mind is blowing it up worse than it was, but that's how I remember it.

This is important actually - human memory is much more fragile than most people realise; we can and regularly do invent entire episodes in our heads, to retroactively explain some fact we have later come to know, or to fit some other thing that we have misremembered.

It's entirely possible that it didn't go down exactly as you remember, but rather your feelings are sharpening the memory and exaggerating your perceived misstep.

Put it this way: the next time life puts a similar decision before you, would you still "fail"? If you believe in life teaching you lessons, one way to frame it is to look past how you feel and look at the actions/decisions concerning other people you've made since then. Are they the same decisions/actions you would have made before? Or did that one particular interaction manage to change your behavior?

I have tried to be a bit more sensitive and observant about this kind of stuff now.

I don’t know you personally, so what I say may not be relevant, but these sentences stood out to me:

> I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything.

> It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it.

So why not choose to do something different now?

Perhaps why you feel enduringly bad is because those events disrupted your self-narrative and that never recovered. Why not create facts that support a new narrative about how failing then led to you being a better person now? — eg, volunteering.

To have a purpose and to give meaning to things are important parts of how we, as humans, process such events. At least, according to Frankl.

Regardless, I hope you feel better.

> So why not choose to do something different now?

I mean, sure, I haven't really had the same level of "moral character test" since then, I would like to think I'd do better now, but it's of course impossible to say.

> Why not create facts that support a new narrative about how failing then led to you being a better person now? — eg, volunteering.

I tried teaching for a few semesters primarily for emotional satisfaction reasons, and that had its moments, though that also made me realize that I am have a lot of emotional baggage that I need to work through.

At this point I have been just trying to keep myself busy with personal projects and diving deep into useless computer science theory. Fortunately, I never got into drinking or doing drugs, so all things considered reading used textbooks isn't the worst vice.

Many years ago, when I was a very young man, out late one night walking home from the bar, I happened upon a man standing outside the railing of the bridge I was crossing.

Without really thinking about it, I stopped, asked him if he needed help, tried to get him talking. He did talk to me for a while, but when I looked away to try and get a passing car to call for some help, he jumped.

I told my coworkers about it the next day, and it just seemed to make them uncomfortable. I didn't feel quite right about what had happened, but I wasn't sure why.

I had had a pretty crappy youth, my mom died when I was ten years old, and that was followed by a solid decade of rough times. I was no stranger to serious depression and had, by then, consciously decided I would not kill myself, after giving it serious thought.

I called a close friend of mine and told him the story. He had also lost his mother young. He just asked me one question and I immediately understood. He asked "Why did you stop?"

I myself had decided not to take my own life, but I believed I had the right to do so. Here I was, insinuating myself into a most intense and private moment this stranger to me was having. I would not have wanted that for myself.

I don't regret stopping that night. I would however, do things differently should it happen again.

I realize that some words on your screen are unlikely to make you feel much better about it, but I hope you do.

Now the shitball who yelled "jump" out of his window as he drove by, I hope that asshole is wracked with guilt still, twenty-five years later. Probably not though, feeling bad, like you have been, is the sign of a good person.

I think actually you likely improved the last moment of that man's life. You were a last witness to his existence. He didn't die utterly alone.

> Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile.

I understand; I have some similar regrets although perhaps not on the same scale. You held yourself to a certain standard, so you're disappointed in yourself that you didn't reach it.

I suppose this is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path - in theory we all know how we want to react in such a situation but when the time comes, the reality is often not exactly what we imagined and so we are still unprepared and make a choice that we come to regret. I think it's like any disaster - you'll get it wrong the first few times, no matter how prepared you think you are.

Thin consolation I know; like I said, I hope you can come to terms with it.

We all fuck things up. Life is really hard and complicated.

It wasn’t a character test. That’s a narrative that you are telling yourself. It was a thing that happened. In the past. Same thing with “it shouldn’t take 3 years to get over this”. Says who? It takes what it takes.

Our life is a garden, we can only tend it as best we can. The plants grow how they grow.

Let yourself grieve as you let go of old narratives and rediscover yourself and your life in each moment.

For me, narratives like this were an attempt at being a “good person” who “deserved to be loved”. I’ve slowly and painfully learned that isn’t how it works. We are all worthy of love. Love isn’t earned, it is a gift that we give and receive. I’m learning how to receive it, most importantly from myself. It’s the hardest and most beautiful thing.

I offer these words in the hope that they are helpful and to share things I’ve learned. Take them if they are, forget them if they are not.

Sending love and wishing you the best. I’ve been there. It’s hard. But time will pass, things will change, and it gets better.

> "I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it"

I have listened to a lot of Dr David Burns' podcasts[1] (and recommend them) and there is a relevant part here which I will try to explain enough to tempt you to look at it more, in the hope it helps[2]. He observed that patients came asking him to make their bad feelings go away but the more he tried, the more they held onto the bad feelings ever tighter. After years of this, he came to understand that there is good which comes from feeling bad and helping the patient see it makes them realise they don't want to get rid of the bad feelings after all, only tone down the intensity.

The crux is: what kind of person would notice someone feeling suicidal and do nothing and learn the person suicided and then not feel bad or even feel good? Someone with no compassion who doesn't care about other people's suffering, someone with no moral compass, someone who takes no responsibility, someone who doesn't value living over dying, someone who thinks their actions in the world are meaningless, someone with no agency who needs other people to solve everything for them, someone who holds themselves to very low standards, someone selfish who doesn't want to help other people, someone cruel, etc. etc. Some of these things may resonate with you and those reveal things you value and like about yourself:

- feeling guilty shows I care about other people suffering. ("is that important to you?")

- regretting my choice to do nothing shows I am introspective, reflective, striving to do better. ("is that something you value?")

- wishing I had tried shows I value being helpful instead of selfish. ("and do you value that?")

- feeling that it's a bit my fault shows I want to take responsibility for my behaviour and don't shirk it and seek to blame everyone else. ("is that a trait you respect in others and want in yourself?")

- etc. for each of those things (and more).

OK if you can magically stop feeling bad at the push of a button, but the monkeypaw cost is that you become the uncaring, nihilistic, selfish, lazy, ignorer-of-suffering, who never reflects, lives on autopilot, never wants to do better... do you push the button? After finding some positive sides of your specific feelings which are things you specifically care about, you stop wanting to get rid of the feelings and grok that the good which comes from negative feelings is them protecting traits you value and want to keep[3]. Having negative feelings is not the problem, having them dialled up to 11 is the problem. You want to keep the feelings around as the guiding angel on your shoulder, just less intense. More of Dr Burns' work is on the therapy methods to make that change and dial the intensity down to a level you think would be a reminder, a guide, not a tormentor, but the insight in seeing principles you really do value hiding in the silver lining is sometimes enough to relax the feelings by itself.

> "It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021."

We aren't born perfect, and then fail the tests so the universe can laugh at us failing. We are born sinners and the test-driven-development helps us develop. It wasn't true in 2021 and the bad feeling is trying to be an adjustement which makes it more likely to be true from then on, but stuck on hard-lock. You're wishing to get rid of the bad feeling, the more you push it away the more it gets louder to try and make you hear it. Be guided by it, agree with it, then it's job is done and it can quieten down.

[1] https://feelinggood.com/list-of-feeling-good-podcasts/

[2] (Please excuse me being lecturing; it's all I know how to write. It has a nice 'understanding and debugging a system' feel which I like and keep hoping will resonate on HN)

[3] """During this phase, the therapist, paradoxically, does NOT try to “help” the patient, but instead assumes the voice of the patient’s subconscious resistance, helping the patient suddenly “see” why she or he actually should NOT change. Paradoxically, the moment the patient “gets it,” there will be an illumination, and the patient will suddenly lose his or her resistance and become way more open and collaborative. This what makes the rapid recovery in TEAM-CBT possible. The patient also discovers, paradoxically, that his or her symptoms, like depression, hopelessness, and feelings of worthlessness, anxiety, or rage, are NOT the expression of what is wrong with him or her, like a “mental disorder” or “chemical imbalance in the brain--but the manifestation of what is right with him or her."""

Not the OP, but that is a really interesting perspective, thank you for sharing it.

Yes, one of the things that often gets overlooked about aging is that if you live long enough everyone you knew, and knew you, from certain eras of your life are gone... and that tends to make your life more ephemeral. Even the settings of your life are slowly removed, be it the house you grew up in, schools you attended, parks and other areas you played in with friends, businesses, styles, products, and technologies. One day you may find yourself looking around and finding nothing and no one that anchors you to the present.

This inevitability is something you should stave off as long as possible. Meet new people, add new experiences, learn new things while avoiding the siren call of nostalgia and the comfort of limiting yourself to the familiar.

As a youngest child by about 15 years it kinda hurts knowing that likely I'll be the one attending everyone else's funerals.

It is likely, but life has very strange ways.

Oh no. Am 32 and I really like the comfort of familiar. I've lived a hell of a life in my 20s, spanning multiple countries and continents, and now feel like I've lived many lifetimes worth of life, and am really loving the peace and quiet I now have.

I’m sorry to hear that. And you’re right, the likelihood approaches 1 as we get older. And that’s if we’re lucky!

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those who have experienced loss understand that sometimes we have to step back from things, life, our careers. It’s ok to do it. It’s your life, and the one of the greatest joys of life is: you get to choose how to live it.

I hope you bounce back. But take your time.

I’m sorry you went though that.

I had a friend die by suicide. Shortly after I met him for the first time IRL. It messed me up.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before but for the gallery, there’s the “in the moment” suicides where the thought comes and people act on it. If anyone feels that way, please call a hotline, it really is just a temporary feeling that will pass. Then there’s the “sick for a long time.” My therapist described this group as having an unhealthy brain. They’re taking in inputs like normal, but producing harmful urges. That sickness isn’t a thing others can counter or take on for themselves. There’s professional help if you (the reader) are feeling like this constantly. But like all sicknesses sometimes even the best treatments aren’t enough. (Therefore we should not blame ourselves for what we could have done differently).

Knowing that still doesn’t make it better, but it makes it lighter. For me, anyway.

In my opinion, there’s also a third (and certainly controversial) option: suicide is the ultimate expression of freedom, self actualization, and human dignity. I don’t plan to kill myself in the foreseeable future, but the thought that I could gives me hope, power, and removes any fear from my life. A friend of mine is 94 and lives in constant, non-treatable pain, and the thought that she can end her life when she decides to do so makes things bearable for her.

I know that this ultimate freedom is also ultimate selfishness, because the loss is felt by your close ones, not you. But this makes me perhaps an asshole, but not sick.

What you describe is how I've always thought about the phrase memento mori.

988 in the us in telephones

The idea that something is fundamentally wrong with your brain when you do it is very naïve. Despair exists and the problems aren't always "just in your head".

Over the past decade I've come to the conclusion that there is no healing from some things. There will remain a pit in one's soul where something was torn out of it, and the only thing to do is build past it. Reroute around the damage.

I was someone's last phone call. I lost her when I was 16.

it's unfortunate, and it's so bad a feeling like that eroding someone just because they're kind or emphatetic.

which is why I feel like I'm slowly becoming assholes because it's hard to have that kind of emphatetic feeling while still being sane in nowadays world. It's kinda sad that to have a healthy mental someone need to be less emphatetic.

I resonate with what you say, but try to think of it differently: if you are able to take better care of yourself, even if that feels like in an egotistical fashion, you will have more energy for empathy. smaller slice of a bigger pie.

don't know if that's actually true, of course.

Fuck. Reading the original post on Something Awful, then your experience in 2021 in the days leading up, and then this all these years later... it's just harrowing. I'm so sorry.

> not always for the better

Things happen and you adapt to survive it. And survival mode isn't made to make you happy, to become more generous or to expect more loyalty. And once your worldview changes for a pessimistic one, it'll taint everything around you (especially the new interactions with people)

Yes, some people change to be better: and that means (and I say it painfully) that many of them were the ones that caused unnecessary pain in others.

Some reference: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experie...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_...

https://europepmc.org/article/med/33126037

Very sad. In case you didn't open the link yet, this is from the widow of Jake Seliger, who was very active on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jseliger. He died a few months ago.

Grieving while being a new mom must be brutal.

Checked his profile. His last comment was an archive.ph link to bypass a paywall. If that's not a great HN legacy, I don't know what is.

It was on the day he died, too.

I noticed the same. What a guy.

> Grieving while being a new mom must be brutal.

As always, yes and no. I'm a single father, my partner died when our daughter was 1.5 years old. A baby requires constant attention and care, so I didn't quite have the option of falling into some kind of depression and just doing nothing.

That said, I quite miss the abundant free time I used to have in my other life. Nowadays is constant battle about the littlest things. I pour the milk the wrong way and get screamed at for 15 minutes.

> I didn't quite have the option of falling into some kind of depression and just doing nothing

Don't know if this was your intention but this comes across as if having a depression was a choice, which it rarely is with any kind of illness.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted; plenty of new parents let mental illness come between them and their responsibilities to their child/ren.

They didn’t have the option of neglecting their kids either; somehow it doesn’t stop them from doing so anyway.

Wikipedia says "Depression is a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity" - that's what I meant.

Mental illness is I think a different thing. Depression doesn't imply mental illness, nor does mental illness imply depression. I understand and agree that many people let mental illness come between them and whatever. It's a problem. It's just a different problem.

Yet you used the word "let", which implies agency and choice.

It's difficult to say what is a choice and what isn't. Is anything my choice? Perhaps the world is deterministic, so nothing is anyone's choice. But also, I have seen people who seemingly choose to wallow in their grief.

Also what is depression? I'm very sad that my partner died. I miss her. Some people have a chemical imbalance in their body. These are entirely different things. Perhaps I shouldn't have used that word, which has so many different meanings as to lose meaning altogether.

When you have a kid and don't want to get out of bed the whole day, eventually the kid is hungry enough to start screaming, and it will keep screaming until you get out of bed and feed it. It really is in everyone's mutual interest, depression or not. It's harder to stay depressed when you have to do things. It's easier to stay depressed when you can lie in bed the whole day.

Thanks for restating, I get where you're coming from. Also your reply to another comment made me realize this is also a language mixup on my side. I didn't realize there is a depression (mood) in English. My native language has the major depressive disorder as depression, not sure if there is a term for the mood. Sorry for not checking this assumption before but I guess my perception of suggesting 'have you tried not being depressed?' just didn't sit well with me.

"Depression" isn't just the name of a disorder.

No, it's rarely a choice, but having people (or even pets!) that depend on you is literally life-saving for many.

It is never a choice and it is always a choice because it is fundamentally an internal psychological battle.

I personally think that viewing it as a choice is the more productive of the two. That is to say, people have the choice to persevere, keep trying to improve, and trying to recover. Nothing will change without intent.

> I pour the milk the wrong way and get screamed at for 15 minutes.

All too familiar.

Occasionally I stop to think what would I do if my SO passed away suddenly. I've found that it's easier to think about my own death than this.

Anyway, I hope you'll get some much needed downtime eventually.

We all do! It's called death. The great equalizer :)

I was on the fence whether to add "...and not in a coffin" to that last paragraph.

This resonates with me very deeply. In the last few months of my 40th year, I exited my 2nd company - somewhat against my wishes (although I could've chosen differently). The day that deal closed my mother went into coma after complications from a routine hip surgery, and died after 9 weeks of intensive care. A few months later my dad had a brain hemorrhage leading to dementia; and due to a variety of factors I ended up taking care of a 4 year old and a 2 year old alone during weekdays; the emotional fabric of my marriage fell apart too.

It was a quadruple loss - losing the company I wanted to continue, losing my mother (who had provided emotional support), my father (who had previously been full of good advice), and then realizing that the support system that remained was not available.

Obviously this is different from losing a partner and father-of-a-child to cancer, but emotionally I recognize my own state ca. 2.5 years ago in this article - complete with the realization that the person I was before all of this is not around any more.

For quite a number of people the early 40s have some pretty brutal transitions in store.

That said, the nadir of the grief and loss is also in the rear-view mirror, and a few years later things are definitely looking up. We may not be the person we used to be, but there is such a thing as wisdom, and I think I have a much more nuanced and empathetic world view today, and a deeper appreciation of the value of lifetime.

>>For quite a number of people the early 40s have some pretty brutal transitions in store.

For me it was caring for my dad in the hospital during COVID and his surgeries around the time. I had to often wake in the nights to drain his catheter. For some reasons, my mom would find it disgusting. And for some reason, not only did I not, my love for him only increased. We also spent a lot of time together which made me almost see him as an entirely a different person than the one I had known all life. It also increased my respect for him tremendously.

40s is such a coming of age time for us men. Its almost like the dawn of a new age.

My knees do feel like they hurt slight. Like just a little. And of course the hair begin to grey. All of a sudden you are in a totally different phase of life altogether.

I lost my father in the big Covid wave of May ‘21 and it took me a while to get over that intense trauma. That, along with the midlife crisis hit harder and I can feel that I’m not the same person anymore. I now find myself doing things that I’ve never thought of doing before. Things like regular 10K runs, climbing mountains, solo trips etc. maybe it’s the sense of urgency that we feel after a major event.

Interestingly during that crisis a comment I found on HN about a book (Hannibal and me) helped me a lot to overcome that phase.

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” - Aeschylus

This was a tough story, and the comments show an ocean of additional human suffering on top of the OP's.

After reading a hand full of the comments, I am scrolling over the rest, thinking "wow", it's HN, which I read it almost daily to scrutinize nerdy blogs, startup gossip and API critiques. In a way, it feels good that these same people are indeed "real" people with "real" problems, not robots or perfect beings of sorts who only IPO their tech and end up billionairs, flesh-and-bone humans.

Reading this I wished I could just give a big HUG to everyone out there suffering for whatever reason; we all just have one life, let's live it in meaningful ways, let's help each other and be good to one another because anything else is really not worth it.

Worn out, grief-struck after enountering death or other loss, sad, traumatized - it is all horrible but I believe anything can be overcome. No, you won't be the same, but the other version of you can heal, can still live a good - perhaps more aware, humble, slower and more thankful - life, taking it one day at a time.

I'll be throwing in a "prayer for anon." - for everyone who posted here and the OP tonight: may their (your!) suffering cease, wounds heal, and meaning become clear in the end.

We had a similar thing happen to us in COIVD. My child was born and a few weeks later, my FiL died. We were the primary caretakers for both as one came into the world and one went out.

One thing I will suggest is a death doula. Birth doulas are very good if you can afford them and worth the money, at least ours was. I really wish we'd gotten a death doula too, to help out with all the dumb things about dying. The paperwork, the adult diapers, the cleaning of a large human, bedsores, the funeral homes, etc. It's a lot of dumb little things that add up in your head that will make it want to pop.

Anyway, reading this piece was going back to a place and a person I was. I get that feeling of living on stress and adrenaline. I took up drinking at night to help out, and that wasn't smart, it wrecked the little sleep I was getting. I should have gone coffee addict or vaping instead. No, honestly, nothing was going to help in the end.

I get the alonenese, the total burnout. For about 3 years afterwards, it was nothing but mechanical robot me. Not a lot of real feelings beside rage, which I barely had the energy for. The first year flus didn't help at all either.

It is better, but like some Dr. Who transformation, I'm a new me now. I have all the memories, but I'm not the old person. I know that sounds like 'Duh, we're all like that dummy', but this time, maybe due to the compression and intensity, it feels different. Like, you thought your first kiss would change you, and it did, but not as much as you though it would. The experience of being a new parent and having that kid's grandfather die within a month, that changed me a lot more than I thought it would. And I really don't like who it changed me into.

It gets better? Maybe, I don't know yet. I hope so.

> One thing I will suggest is a death doula.

My in-laws already prepaid for their funeral burial and arrangement and my wife's, and his own fathers as well. So when it all happened, it as a lot less stress. It was still emotional, but everything was handled ahead of time.

It might seem morbid to think about, but if you can preplan your funeral arrangements so your loved ones don't have to, it's definitely one of the better things you can do. Also leaves them free of having to foot the bill.

something of note though, if it's with a specific funeral home, plan to follow up with them yearly to make sure they are still around. Dad found that out the hard way when his mom passed. He called up the funeral home and the number was disconnected.

He had to scramble NYE to find somebody to take the body and then scramble and replan everything because the funeral home had been investigated by the state after a fire and was no longer operational

Good call out, and also really sad.

Also, make sure to do with with Wills and Trusts. Going through probate is a nightmare.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/probate.asp

Also, if you can, just put your loved ones as joint users on your banking accounts. That way when you die, it just rolls over to them without much hassle. I know not everyone has that kind of trusting relationship, but if you do, this is one little way to enjoy the fruits of it.

And don't leave your will in your safety deposit box, because they may need the will to legally open it.

(at least in Massachusetts, 15 years ago)

Thank you for sharing your story. As someone who's trying to get over my mom's passing (and not getting far) it helps so much to hear others. It wasn't until I entered the 'dead parents club' that others told me 'you never go over losing them'. Why is that some secret to bare after the fact? All my friends say 'just do some counseling'.

When my child was born, they filled a hole in me I didn't even know was there.

My FiL's passing has left a yawning chasm in me and an empty ocean in my SO's life. The club members are right, I think, you never really get over it. Time is not long enough to heal that wound.

And it's impossible to understand unless you've lived it. I think that's why its a 'secret', those on the other side just aren't going to understand. It's like trying to talk to someone in French by speaking English slower and louder. You have to go back a long ways down the communication chain, down to pure emotions. And no one wants to do that unless they have to, not just because it's too raw (and it is), but also just because it takes a really long time.

I have heard the 'just go to counseling' part too. Its ... well ... rage inducing. As if that could ever do any good and get me back to the person I was. I hear that too about veterans and their experience back home. Like we just defective and just go get fixed so that way we can go hiking and go to bars and concerts again and so you're not so sad and a bummer all the time.

Like, um, fuck you, you fucking child? Sorry ... ? Have some compassion and ...

But no, it's that they weren't there, they don't know, they can't, and that's a good thing.

You've crossed a bridge, you can't go back. They haven't, yet. They will, and then their pain will let them know your pain. And it will suck, together, for a little while, until that pain comes again in a new way.

Honestly, I can see why old people are so dour now. All these holes in their souls from all these dead people they knew.

Yeah, so, therapy didn't really help, I think you can tell.

Throwaway account. I'm fairly open about this, but don't really want it associated for all time with me.

About a year after my marriage split up I went to the marriage of someone close to me. During the ceremony I had severe chest pains and was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. I didn't want to disturb the ceremony (they were exchanging rings!) so I figured I'd wait 5 minutes then get up and call an ambulance.

The pain went away, and I didn't do anything about it for a while. Later I had a panic attack when at a new GF's place and had to leave.

Eventually I went to a therapist, and they pointed out these are symptoms of PTSD and trauma.

Anyway, I'm fine now. But it wasn't until I had the physical symptoms that I believed the impact of these things wasn't just something I could ignore.

Possibly takotsubo, "Broken Heart Syndrome"?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/takotsubo-cardio...

Being at a wedding might trigger a strong physical reaction from your breakup.

Wizard here, that's totally normal. Just life giving you a little nudge to remind you you're not dead! The only way to deal with it is to grit your teeth and clench your butt.

Once you can endure that pain while remaining calm enough to hear Bateman narrate my pain is constant and sharp... in your mind, you'll be "alright".

Grief and postpartum is a very dangerous combination. I know someone who landed in a mental facility for 5 weeks when her baby was barely 4 months old. Seek help, consult a psychiatrist, get therapy. Don't be afraid of medication, there are antidepressants that don't filter into your milk, and the doctor will know which ones they can safely give you, just tell them you're breastfeeding. You can manage going to therapy with a baby, many therapists allow you to bring your child. Don't let other people take control when they assume you're weak and failing, you're not. Take care.

I can relate -- without getting into too much detail, I lost my son at age 16 to an undiagnosed heart condition... same thing that took my mom when I was 7. It was genetic, and passed through me. I can't describe the depths of the grief I had, definitely changed me forever.

I'll pass along some wisdom that was imparted to me at the time. A friend told me: "Life is for the living". I'm still here. It's my duty to keep carrying on in spite of it all. It's what my son and mom would have wanted. Honor their lives by carrying on in the life you still have.

While not quite the same, my partner was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer a few months ago, a few days after my daughter's 1st birthday.

I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.

It's been traumatic for myself personally, but it hasn't been ...I'm still highly functional and I'm still continuing to live life to the fullest.

I am really sorry to hear you are going through this and hope you have family and friends supporting you guys. <3

My wife died suddenly when my son was two years old. He’s almost seven now.

So far, he’s completely fine without her. He claims he has memories of her, but I think he just remembers photos and videos that we’ve watched together. I don’t think he knows what he’s missing.

Do you think it's important for your child to have a relationship his mother, if that makes any sense at all? Like do you celebrate her birthday etc.

How do you retain that connection, or do you just leave it in the past?

To your first question, I don’t know. We do celebrate her birthday, light a candle whenever we walk past a church / go into a temple etc. If I’m brutally honest I think it’s more for my own sake than his.

To retain the connection, we look at photos together every week and I tell him stories about her, and their relationship.

I spoke to him just now, and he says that he misses her but is unable to articulate how. Perhaps these ceremonies will grow more important over time, and as he grows older perhaps he will appreciate that we took the time to celebrate her.

I have an adult friend, who lost his mother at a young age too. He tells me that he only really started to miss her once he got older, around 12, and as an adult. He doesn’t remember who she was or why, but he misses the idea of having had family dinners at home every day etc. The dynamic in a household is very different when there is one adult and one child at home, versus two adults to a child.

Did you decide to date again? Do you think having a mother figure for your child is important for them?

Yes, but not for the reason that I want a mother figure in the house. Only recently, have I been able to date without comparing any new prospective partners to my late wife. I have yet to meet the right person.

It’s also a very big ask of a new partner for them to step in and fulfil the role of mother to your child.

Fair enough. I feel it's not uncommon for people with children to remarry, but yeah I imagine it has it's own challenges.

I feel like for me it would be a) Wanting someone I have a deep connection with and b) Someone who's interested in children. I feel that keeps it simple.

But yeah, I just think about how much I wouldn't be able to provide my daughter as a male, given I know so little about hair, make up etc. I mean, I'd obviously learn it all, but it would be easier to have someone who was already on that page.

> I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.

Don't worry about that! My daughter lost her mother when she was 1.5 years old. It's important to have a sensible female role model. A grandma or an aunt will do just fine.

Please do take good care of yourself!

That's part of the issue, there is no one like that unless if I were to remarry.

Tough, then. Hang in there!

When my partner died, I read up a bit about the problems children face when being raised by a single father. By far the biggest problem was the father's alcoholism. So I decided not to become an alcoholic (a prospect which actually looked rather enticing at a certain point in time). Also I try to be gentle with myself: it's ok to mess up.

Again, hang in there and best of luck to you and your family!

I’ve read this thread with familiarity and empathy and want to say: some people here are describing symptoms of PTSD. A traumatic event, however brief, can cause lasting repercussions in our body and mind. If you find yourself listless, ruminating over the event, scared, over-reactive, walking through a fog — and it goes on and you seemingly don’t get better — this is exactly what PTSD feels like.

The initial conditions don’t have to be war or child abuse. A car accident can cause it. A variant, Complex-PTSD, is often caused by traumatic events over time that cannot be escaped, like caring for a dying loved one.

It’s dangerous to you and it can be hard to treat, but it often is treatable. The best thing I’ve read about it (and boy, have I read a lot about this) is The Body Keeps the Score — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th.... Pete Walker also has published several books, and has many important and useful writings on his website — https://www.pete-walker.com/

PTSD doesn’t go away. You just cover it up until it explodes again. Please, if you think this is you, read more and try to get some help.

You get used to it.

Shit goes crazy then you pick up the pieces and move on. The trick is to not drag anyone else down with you.

"How is this our life?"

I asked that question so many times (for reference, see my comment on Jake's thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41163619 ). I asked it of my late wife. I asked it of my therapist. I asked it of my daughter, when she was sleeping.

"Is this my life now?"

The first few months were terrible. Then things started to get better. Before anyone jumps and says "a few months?! That's nothing!", there's a thing called "anticipatory grief". Look it up. (Besides, each grief journey is individual. Besides, who are you to criticize me?).

Then things stopped getting worse. For a while life was flat. Colorless. Dark. I moved through the motions. Dropped my daughter at preschool, worked from home, picked her up, went to the playground, went home, dinner, bedtime story, lie in bed doing nothing. Rinse and repeat. Go to sleep early to avoid feeling.

Then it started getting better. And better. And even better than that. Therapy, meds, pushing (omg so much pushing), friends, a new love. Things got continuously better. I'll never forget that year, but I also now know that I can survive what I think is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to a person. I know it cannot break me.

And I think Bess found that out too. Parts of us died with them, but new parts are growing. Parenthood parts. Discovery parts.

I remember watching my wife to make sure she was breathing. Then at the hospital. Then she wasn't. And it was terrible. A loss I cannot even describe, a part of your own soul that is torn out of you. Yet, that part was painful. Not just that, also in pain. In some sense, I was relieved she was no longer in pain. Even more relived she didn't have to witness her mom passing away. The world turning darker and more despair filling in. She missed on milestones, but also on sadness. And, at the end, I miss her but that part, slowly, became more bearable.

To Bess - I can't promise it'll be ok. No one can. But it'll get easier to bare.

I’m happy to see the reference to your comment from last year again.

It was a few months out from my wife’s passing, and your Irreverent Guide recommendation has been one of a few genuinely helpful things for me so far.

At the time I passed over the children’s book suggestions, but my daughter might appreciate them now.

I'm so happy (well... I'm something. happy is somewhat hard to come by these days) that I helped a fellow widower. We're in this alone, but together.

My personal view is to hide nothing, NOTHING, from my daughter. The tears, the grief, the pictures, the videos. Talking about death using "death" and not "passed away". Talking about the memories and feelings. About a person no longer being here (not spiritual so no "heaven" for us, no waiting to be reunited). And, so far at least (just closing on 2 years, daughter grew from 4.5 to 6.5), it seems to be working very well. She's happy, active, well adjusted, charismatic and not prone to tantrums or worrisome behavior more than any other 6 years old. And her being happy makes me happy. I KNOW my late wife would've been proud of us both.

This is ageing, for most people, unless you're one of the few lucky ones.

Death and destruction is the outcome of age, on a molecular, cellular and mental level. The foundational issue addressed by religion, because how else to deal with the unfathomable dread of "nothing gets really better, ever".

Take solace in the fact that this is true for most of your fellow creatures.

The concept of a happy ending, living happily ever after is a dangerous illusion. The best part is likely in the middle, or not at all. The end is pretty much always shit.

Zen, Stoicism, Rebirth ... so many concepts to cope with this simple, basic fact. You get born, you grow up - and then you start dying.

Very well said.

Beautifully written but...heartbreaking. Hard to get through this one.

In a few years I probably won't be able to. I'm a married father of two, and every year stories like this hit me harder.

The other posts on her substack are also worth reading (and the earlier ones from his perspective) - I read through a bunch of them last August when one was posted. A tragic story well told, something that waits for all of us.

The only measure for love is loss

I don’t understand that at all. Would you explain what you mean?

I can take a crack. This is Jake's brother, Sam. The Japanese poet Yakamochi wrote:

We were together Only a little while And we believed our love Would last a thousand years.

Oh man, I’m really sorry to see Jake passed. I read their updates every few months when they’d land on HN; it made me sad to see the past tense of “dying” this time. Rest in peace

The death announcement FWIW: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41201555>

“A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” by William Irvine has an entire chapter dedicated to letting go of past trauma and moving forward. The Stoic advice was “fatalism”. The Stoics' advice was “fatalism” in relation to the events that fate deals us. This is in stark contrast to the psychologizing approach of modernity where everything must be turned around and the answer must be found, preferably within the individual.

Here is an excerpt where author William Irvine highlights Marcus Aurelius' thoughts on fate and grief:

> Marcus also advocates taking a fatalistic attitude toward life. To do otherwise is to rebel against nature, and such rebellions are counterproductive, if what we seek is a good life. In particular, if we reject the decrees of fate, Marcus says, we are likely to experience tranquility-disrupting grief, anger, or fear. To avoid this, we must learn to adapt ourselves to the environment into which fate has placed us and do our best to love the people with whom fate has surrounded us. We must learn to welcome whatever falls to our lot and persuade ourselves that whatever happens to us is for the best. Indeed, according to Marcus, a good man will welcome “every experience the looms of fate may weave for him.

Today, when I experience regrets and sadness that I can't control, I think; it couldn't have happened any other way.

> Today, when I experience regrets and sadness that I can't control, I think; it couldn't have happened any other way.

I think of things in a similar way. All possibilities collapse into the only outcome that was ever truly inevitable. Reality is like the centre of a ven diagram with an infinite amount of circles. No "would of" no "should of' or "could of". Just "is". Only once we accept something can we move past it. Some people don't like this idea but I think that they just don't understand or want to acknowledge how much power the current moment holds.

There is a lot more suffering to be had when we try to escape our current suffering. A good example of this is drug addicts. On a long enough time line all forms of escapism eventually turn into prisons.

If you are reading this and want to disagree or explore these ideas I suggest the following. Sleep 2-4hrs one night then take a cold shower in the morning. As you find your mind and body trying to move away from the discomfort accept your circumstance. Stand still with the water passing over your face and focus on the freshness and crispness of the icy cold water.

> And in the darkest hours, of which there are many, I try to remind myself that I didn’t know what happiness looked like before I had it the first time, either.

I'm sorry to deflate the mood, but holy damn, that is one banger of a line. So much said so briefly.

So many profound lines. The beauty in the tragedy.

Love = loss. If you think that equation requires less from either side, you have not felt. To love, you have to lose. Lose yourself, and all that currently holds you. What are you waiting for?

And when your love dies and leaves you an empty husk, you can look back and embrace that loss that emptied you. Don't hide from love/loss. Life won't leave you alone, life has infinite love and loss.

Just going through this thread has reinforced the stark reality that while my struggles and issues are real and difficult, I'm incredibly fortunate to not have had to (hopefully ever) fight some of the battles others here have had to face and/or are currently facing. My issues pale in comparison.

You guys are some incredibly admirable and resilient people. Infinite respect.

Not sure if this is biology only (turned 50) or COVID or intense (work in my case) life, but I also distinctly feel that I am clearly not the same for the past ~5 years.

My self-diagnostic is mild burn out with a stressful work trying to get our start up to service, mild depression due I think to working remotely in my apartment, barely going outside even on weekend (my only human interactions are through zoom).

I am trying to improve, but it feels that the energy spent during the past 5 years to dig that hole, is equal to energy to get out of that hole... and honestly at this point, I don't know if I can.

Quitting could be an option, but I have been working since I was 20yo without interruption, never had to really interview, just got hired or pulled from current job. And that feels scary to me now over 50yo to quit and maybe change career for something more social and less taxing.

I honestly do not know how long I can keep doing what I am currently doing. I need to keep myself in check to make sure that I do not go too far in that hole.

I lost my father when I was 13. I never had a really good relationship to my mother. After 2 years of grieving, she directly went into a subtle type of depression. She basically soaked me in her negativity until I was finally able to move out. We have a very bad relationship these days, mostly because she is still unable to fathom how much pain she caused me in the 4 years I had to stay with her.

Whatever it is you are fighting with, never forget that you have far more subtle influence on your kids ten you might think. Letting things slide can have far more devastating conseuqneces to your relationships then you might think. If you dont get your act together, you might end up as an estranged parent a decade or two down the road.

It's critically important to note that whilst some people have loving families and strong relationships, many don't. Along with all else, this generally makes dealing with loss both harder (fewer support options) and increasingly conflicted (grief but also often some measure of relief). Not to mention the awkwardness of customary expressions of grief or compassion, whether rituals or specific words and phrases.

I'm sorry for what you've gone through but appreciate your sharing it.

we are millions of streams that never stop flowing -- but we love to pretend that there's consistency to it. we like to imagine ourselves as a continuous person.

but we're not. we change, moment to moment, forever, endlessly -- it doesn't stop, ever. not when we go to sleep. not when we go through a traumatic event. not when we die.

a stark reminder of our fragility. i hope the author can find peace.

When my parents died, starting with my mum that shattered the world. My family didn't stay together. I was cut adrift.

Time does heal though. It never stops you loving someone but it lets you gradually put something together out of the wreckage. The person you loved is no longer in pain, no longer suffering. The problem is feeling that nothing can replace the hole blown in your world.

Nothing does replace it exactly but you gradually build a different structure that makes life bearable. Other people need you (especially your child) to create that structure for them and when you start to do it you will see the value of overcoming your own pain.

I have yet to have a reason to use this, but I keep it in my pocket until do.

> Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little and have a cup of tea. > > — Elder Sophrony of Essex

It's a quote from the end of Lars Doucet's post, Losing my son.

Stay strong, and if not strong, then just stay.

https://www.fortressofdoors.com/i-lost-my-son/

Amazing writing. When you become parent, the person you were at that point goes away. Growing as parent is part of letting that person go.

Remember this tragedy and the millions like it when you read the news today.

Trump and Musk are killing the very research that has a shot at saving lives and preventing these families from being torn apart. NIH and NSF are being gutted. Universities won't be able to do bio research at all under the new 15% cap on NIH indirect costs.

These decisions which save no appreciable amount of money have a real impact on people whose children must now grow up without them. As a new father this is really heartbreaking.

It's really hard to comprehend, and what's more incredible is that people are "cheering" for this? What the actual hell is going on.

People don’t believe indirect costs actually fund research and accordingly see this as directing more money into important, life-saving research.

From their perspective, the origin of this thread is someone using a tragedy to emotionally manipulate on behalf of bloated institutions and their administrations — and every bit as monstrous as you believe their views are. Perhaps even more so.

Bio research needs buildings. Electricity, heat, lights need to be on in those buildings and they need maintenance. Labs need equipment and often very specialized and expensive space. Not to mention someone needs to do accounting, payroll, taxes, immigration, maintenance, legal, ethics, etc. And all of these people need facilities, offices, computers, etc. Just like any corporation!

These are indirect costs. You cannot do research without them.

What's going to happen if the government cuts off most indirect costs is that we're going to be forced to do research that can be covered by those costs.

So, no, more money isn't going to go to better research. It's going to go to much worse research and it will be a massive waste.

Instead of doing the best research I can, I'll need to think about the lowest overhead projects so that my department doesn't go bankrupt. That means taking no risks, avoiding new data collection, not starting up anything radically new that might not have an immediate payoff, etc. That's a bad deal for everyone!

Good scientists don't want to do bad research. The best will leave.

This will destroy the lead that the US has in science and technology over the rest of the world. Never mind kill countless people who would have been saved by new treatments.

> What's going to happen if the government cuts off most indirect costs is that we're going to be forced to do research that can be covered by those costs.

The whole debate is whether 15% indirect costs is sufficient or whether it needs to be 30%+. Without a doubt universities are bloated and many don’t invest appropriately in their facilities — but where is the appropriate line?

Unfortunately, you didn’t add to that debate: you assumed the conclusion and then catastrophized based on your assumption. That exact style of argumentation is what makes people distrust that 30%+ really is needed — because nobody itemizes how, they just immediately resort to shaming and emotional manipulation.

> That means taking no risks, avoiding new data collection, not starting up anything radically new that might not have an immediate payoff, etc.

That’s compounded by all your personal examples of how this impacts you being direct costs — which have greater funding, with this change. And your claim that you can no longer do them dubious at best.

This thinking is completely backward. If there is an established threshold, and you want to change it, it is on you to do the homework to determine that the lower threshold will be sufficient and won't cause harm. It's not the responsibility of the people currently doing research (the way they've done so for years) to justify the current threshold.

The executive in charge of the grant-giving agencies changed policy — after looking at rates from other grants, which fell in the 10-15% range.

If you want the public to believe that was wrong, you’ll need to make that case.

May I ask what your actual gripe is with level of spending that was going into research before?

Is there actual evidence that shows there was an issue that needed to be immediately addressed the way it was? Some evidence of "fraud" perhaps ?

Discussions with university researchers I know personally indicated an inappropriate amount was going to the university at large, rather than project funding.

Why not just address that singular issue (if true and truly problematic) just be addressed then get back to business as usual ?

How do you know the money going to the university isn't just forwarded onto the professors so they are funded? Doesn't sound that suspicious to me.

No they didn't look at other grants!

They looked at a handful of cherry picked charities that love to donate to high profile projects. Universities subsidize these grants internally to get other donations!

When I get money from say the Gates foundation, they are almost always topping up existing research not doing something new. On a high profile topic donors are attracted to.

These cherry picked foundations also give very little money; well under 1% of what we bring in. So the lack of indirect costs has a minor effect on the system that gets balanced by other well meaning donors.

Had they looked at other grants they would have seen that the indirect costs are in line with what NIH was paying. The bulk of other grants includes NSF, DARPA, ONR, etc.

Or they could have asked, when a corporation gives a university money, what do they think is a reasonable overhead rate? Because we don't accept money from for profit entities at anything less than the full overhead rate. And corporations pay it because it's reasonable. That's because they fund a lot of research and because they aren't a charity we would subsidize with other donations.

Or they could ask. When a corporation gets an NIH grant, what are their indirect costs? Are university indirect costs in line? After all everyone needs to keep the lights on.

Corporations are not subject to the cap at all! They can get a grant and charge 100% overhead. This only applies to universities. The government could not give a biotech company a grant with 15% overhead, no company would ever take it.

I have seen the indirect costs that some major corporations charge. 100% is low for them! And the government pays it. In every single contract with industry.

Except for universities. That they single out to dry to drive into insolvency.

So no. They didn't look at other grants. They could have computed countless statistics against tens of millions of grants for hundreds of billions of dollars. They picked the most elite nice small charities that give out a few hundred grants that we fund ourselves for the most bleeding heart projects.

> The bulk of other grants includes NSF, DARPA, ONR, etc.

You only listed peer government grant agencies — which people believe have similar problems to NIH.

> And the government pays it. In every single contract with industry.

And the same people generally believe that’s also full of fraud and waste. So what’s your argument?

> They could have computed countless statistics against tens of millions of grants for hundreds of billions of dollars.

So why don’t you do that, to prove them wrong? It sounds really easy.

> You only listed peer government grant agencies — which people believe have similar problems to NIH.

No. I also gave two other options.

Get the overhead rate of corporations from government contracts.

Or get the overhead rate that corporations pay to universities, just like the government.

> And the same people generally believe that’s also full of fraud and waste. So what’s your argument?

So then compare overhead rates in commercial contracts between corporations.

> So why don’t you do that, to prove them wrong? It sounds really easy.

Oh yes. I will send NIH, Musk, and Trump a letter, they will realize the error of their ways and change course. Come on. Now you aren't discussing things in good faith.

Although for the record major universities, including mine, have already written such letters to the administration. Much good that did.

All of these numbers are publicly available. Feel free to look them up. It's bread and butter economics.

But no. This isn't about proving anyone wrong. These people don't care about right or wrong. We are so past that. This is about their attempt to break the system. The fallout of which will be disastrous.

The impact of the wholesale dismantlement of our research capacity won't be seen by the average person for a while. Maybe a good 10 to 20 years. Then slowly you'll notice that all of the new companies, medicines, etc. have a different language on them, their names sound a bit foreign, that foreign stock markets are getting attractive, and that someone else is getting rich instead of us.

Restarting research will be nearly impossible. Europe has been trying to restart its research enterprise for more than half a century and the US still dominates despite massive EU investment. The biggest winner will be China who is paying a lot to attract researchers.

I call bullshit because as the other poster said, research will not happen in an island, there are much much less invasive ways to cut spending than what is happening.

I have a friend who is caught up in this and it is chaos.

Putting the fox in charge of the hen house is where it went wrong.

I just can’t believe people are so naive. I do believe a lot of voters to their anger to the booths. They saw their “retribution”and voted for it.

This vividly remembers me of "The Year of Magical Thinking" [1] It hit hard, and I didn't finish the book.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_Magical_Thinking

Very good recommendation

I rarely cry when I read (or in general) but the poignancy of this article was too much . I remember how many changes my wife's body went through during our second pregnancy . Juxtapose all the things that Bess went through, it is too cruel to even think of . Have strength Bess <3

> Friends have told me that they’re relieved I seem “like myself” even after everything that’s happened. I don’t understand how that’s possible when I frequently don’t feel like I have a self to be. Jake and I became so entangled in these last few years that it still seems like many of my thoughts belong to both of us.

I can only recommend to read « Éloge de l'amour » from Alain Badiou (and Nicolas Truong). It defends love as a conscientious and willing alterity of yourself, but a non-controlled alterity, an alterity puts in the hands of another.

That’s why, I think, people does not help that much someone that lost a love saying him/her will be more focused on them-self. Because the lost was absolute part of them-self, and not something they actually suffer from.

Her words lived.

So expressively and beautifully written.

In January 2022, my mother died in the hospital. At the time, she had severe dementia and COPD. I moved back to take care of her, but I also lost my job. The stress was insurmountable: caregiving, sleep deprivation, and poor financial condition. It's like I used up all my energy at that time, just to fight the inevitable.

It's been three years and now I can manage my life on a certain level. But all those unsightly, dark struggles still haunt me. I never overcome them. Deep down I know, I'm a runaway, forever.

You all are writing about the loss of loved ones, and I'm like

> You guys had loved ones?

There's so much societal attention to loss, but any complaint about the inability to form meaningful relationships in the first place is usually met with enthusiastic "git gud". Nobody cares about the slow burnout of knowing that you'll always be on your own.

Which makes sense if you think about it. A person going through loss must've had the skills to get what they want in the first place, which means they might useful to the society, they deserve a second chance. A person who cannot get what they want most likely is inherently incapable of reaching their goals, which means they're not as useful, and not worth crying over. It's like all those people paying attention to celebrities and their problems, but ignoring the homeless. The former might release another beautiful song, the latter will not.

People don't form meaningful relationships with celebrities. Relationships are actually largely divorced from what is "useful to society".

> Relationships are actually largely divorced from what is "useful to society".

Adorable. Your mom loves you because it's tremendously beneficial to the survival of the species and the culture, not because of some higher ideals.

Loss of what of could have been can be just as painful as loss of what was. I hear you. Your feelings are valid. Wishing you best and sending love.

Having a child is hard, so having a child by yourself must be harder. All I know is that our hearts don't fill up and can always fit more love.

Beautiful words. I am so sorry for all that hardship. I know it sucks. There is no right path.

All i can type is that it reminded me of some music and songtext that may or may not help give it all a place and time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpV3fO5Alto

If you didn't make it to the end of the article, there's a GoFundMe to help with care for Jake and Bess's daughter, Athena: https://www.gofundme.com/f/secure-a-bright-future-for-bess-a...

It's not directly related to the article, but the music video for "Moving On" by James is singularly the most moving video I've seen about coming to terms with death and birth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcN4BRpmGI

That terrible brutal grief is what death leaves us every time. I remember Jake's posts. He fought, and he all of us to fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY

I lost my mother last Wednesday and today would have been her 85th birthday. Her life wasn't truncated like the OP's story or many of the comments here but ... These anecdotes are making me realize that I'm not really recognizing my loss yet.

Odd, I have the Substack app (on my phone). When I click on the link, I'm sent to the Substack app, which subsequently sends me back to the website, which suggests I open the app, then I open the app, and I see the Substack app without the article.

I can relate. I am a stubborn person, but I also have childhood trauma that sank its way deep into me. I had a gigantic fear of relaying any negative information to my family because they would often turn it back against me regardless of whether I was at fault or not. So I just didn't respond, even when things were pretty bad.

About a month ago, I checked myself into a local hospital. I had severe ascites. My CO2 levels were 70%. My heart ejection fraction was 20%. I could barely walk much less breathe. I weighed 340 pounds. I had severe edema to the point that not only could I not put on socks, but flip flops barely fit on my feet. I could sit, tilt backward, and the edema in my back would act as a kickstand. Drinking a cup of coffee or eating anything more than half a burger would put me into a bout of physical pain that would last 2+ hours, and the only way to get past it was to lay down.

The hospital staff did paracentesis on me. They extracted 6, 10, 17, and 4 liters from me via a tube shoved into my abdomen. They put me on an around the clock Lasix drip and put a catheter in me. I urinated 2 gallons a day for 2 weeks. I entertained myself by watching the tube running from my junk to the catheter drainage bag, watching as I would periodically have bloody urine because I was passing kidney stones with so much force that they didn't have time to hurt due to the sheer amount of fluid coming off of me. After those 2 weeks, I weighed 215 pounds. My heart's ejection fraction improved to 50%.

Turns out my right lung did not have a connection to my right artery. And I have an unknown mass in my right kidney that they suspect is cancer. I had basically been operating my entire life with half an oxygen supply. As a teen, I had big time CFB athletic talent but didn't have the stamina and it was frustrating. And now I knew why. My right heart had started to weaken. They did ultrasounds and CT scans and angiographs. The cardiologist said that my heart had no signs of damage and my arteries were completely fine, so at least I had that going for me.

So after not having seen a doctor since 1992, I was stuck in a hospital for a month getting around the clock medication and daily blood work and weekly paracentesis (which will be happening forever). All my blood work is normal. I also have AFib, which is the main thing they need to treat and might even help to fix some of the backflow which causes my abdomen to fill with fluid. My blood pressure is normal for the first time since I was 6 years old. When I entered the hospital, it was 187/114. Now it's 105/80.

So in the course of a month, I went from having no doctor and no time in a hospital to a month long hospital stay accompanied with short term disability and a prognosis of needing weekly drainings forever along with 4 specialists and a primary care physician and about 8 prescriptions. I also saw a psychiatrist for the first time ever after having struck out multiple times with Betterhealth goons who wouldn't listen and kept trying to make me meditate.

I am a fundamentally different person than I was when I went in. I refuse to be that person ever again. I will prioritize my own needs over other people's feelings. I will be active because I want to be. I've got a plan to take my life back from the depression that hung over it for years. I have 3 or 4 product ideas that would make a hospital stay better and make the staff's lives easier without dealing with HIPAA. So yes, it sucked, yes, it was expensive, but it helped me gain perspective and while I wish I wasn't sick, otherwise it was totally worth it.

This is beautiful writing.

So sad to hear. I know the words of a stranger probably do not matter but trust me when I say this, you'll get through this. Sending you virtual hugs.

Should we have a content warning for all the bad stuff happening here? Holy shit, I am in tears after two paragraphs.

I dont think the title is hiding its intend

Just tears.

fk COVID, I lost my mother

    When I look in the mirror now, I notice all the places where my body reveals what I’ve been through. And I wonder, in a way that I wouldn’t if Jake were still alive, how this new body appears to others who don’t view it through a lens of love.

At 20 I fell hard for a 35yo. We also became close friends and my pursuit of her was almost separate and apart. After a very long time I conceded; I met other people and eventually started a family with one of them.

35 years down the road I am single again and thought of that girl who didn't happen. I did a little digging and found a recent selfie she'd taken. She's in her 70s and I still see the same artist and dancer I fell for a lifetime ago. That she stayed with me that way - it makes me feel hopeful about what people can be to each other.

That's beautiful, thank you.

Beautiful in that painfully human way, I agree.

Give her a call. Your lifetime isn't over yet! She may be open to your love now, and likely would at least want to revive your friendship.

Thank you for this hopeful suggestion. I think a relationship isn't in the cards, atm. In her case, I live 1k miles away from her life. More generally, me+5sons live in tight quarters with all incomes needed to make basic bills.

What I left out of my OP is I was competing with her longtime boyfriend and my odds never were good (I did come close a few times tho). He owned an upscale restaurant, for starters. He was also a genuinely good guy. I know they were together a long while; I'd be happy if they still were.

Regardless, I'll be up that way this fall and hopefully we can get caught up.

Don't wait until fall.

I know it wasn't the intention of the author in the slightest, but I feel so small and incapable after reading that piece. Good luck bess.

not intending to be rude but this probably doesnt belong on hacker news. I come here to read about tech.

I couldn't disagree more strongly.

Her husband was a frequent HN user, and their story was known here. This is a continuation.

I love seeing the human side of HN. This is an extremely unique perspective, a beautifully written but horrific snapshot of a woman's life when her husband - a man like many of us - dies prematurely while she's pregnant.

It's relevant in ways that another LLM article can't be.

whatever dude ive got like three major deaths in my family and more coming. this is just poetic literature. this is HACKER news not lit girl orange reddit.

I understand why you feel that way. There's a little "Hide" button under every story. It makes the stuff you're not interested in go away. There's no shame in using it. Story's gone, no harm done, move on to stuff you are interested in instead.

sure but thats true about the entire internet.

people dont come here for sad life stories they come here for hacker news.

if people post stuff like this I cant find the cool tech news, and people who want to post or see cool tech news wont post or comment on it either. there is a dynamic range of attention on the front page and this consumes it. I see it as an emotional ddos attack. Because you cant criticize it. If you do people get mad. This post is like a viral email that tells you to resend or else you hate jesus or something.

Plus it just violates common sense. why dont i go to cats.com to see some cats. oh thats weird its all sad posts about dogs that ran away. "why dont we post that on dogs.com". then they get mad at me because its insensetive or something. sucks dogs ran away but why even come to cats.com if its all dog posts. Half of hacker news posts are midlife crisis posts some days and when it hits that threshold i cant find anything about lisp or compilers or whatever, I leave and dont come back for months and then you lose the tech interest. curation is important.

somebody died. thats sad. makes u sad. maybe deep to some people. but its not hacking news.

theres nothing novel about this post or perspective anyway. somebody important dies in your life you get sad and have to rebuild and forget. youll have to redesign your own personal religion to get through it. it sucks this person was sad. its the worst thing in the world to them. hope they get better. okay but i dont want to see it on coolcatpics.com.

and THIS is HACKER NEWS.

>ive got like three major deaths in my family and more coming.

>this is just poetic literature

>theres nothing novel about this post

There's certainly something in there that I can agree with. Though I dont think you'd appreciate the irony as well as I do.

eh im not sensetive. sounds interesting. lets hear it.

(to comment on the deaths im in my early thirties. big family members are going. step dad died of cancer when i was 17. had a near death experience once or twice.

at some point you just accept death is a part of life. you dont want people to die. youve been through the recovery twice before. you dont wish it on other people. but the artistic wallowing doesnt do anybody any good. because youre only getting out on your own. when i catch my friends doing it i slap them.

now theres a big difference in my case since I was a man and the author was a woman (and pregnant). her social circumstance probably treats her like she has intrinsic value. allegedly i dont.

anyways im here for tech news. my step dad would have showed me hacker news 15 years ago if he had known i cared. and if he had, id hope it has fucking tech news on it like it presumably would have had he bothered. (he was a programmer))

Sometimes you gotta pick your battles. I don't think this is one you're going to win. Best to find a way to live with it, like using the Hide feature :)

i watched some of my favorite irc channels degrade due to lack of curation. theyre dead now. it isnt that nobody is online. the culture was just totally lost. they used to be cool places where people helped eachother code and would talk about math, now they are erotic role play and trans safespaces.

the code people left.

Yeah I get it. I'm just saying screaming at a community that they're doing it wrong is a low success rate method, and will probably only further frustrate you. Better to learn to go with the flow and do your small part to influence it; or else find a place that suits you better.

this is part of the small part. im a canary

Please see the first paragraph of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

read the second paragraph.

i dont come here for middle aged emo bait. i wanna read HACKING NEWS

Reply on news.ycombinator.com