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Comment by unsupp0rted | Hacker News Reader

Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.

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A mentally healthy person wants to be helpful. They want to be seen as helpful and they expect others around them to be helpful as well. This is the foundation of "pro-social" behavior: I benefit the group as much or more than the group benefits me.

Tying your identity to the place where you're helpful and where that help is appreciated and acknowledged isn't mental illness.

But this person was laid off. His help was (apparently) not appreciated, and he's not helping anyone by sitting alone in his car on the parking lot.

Do you think it is healthy behavior to go to a parking lot at 0900 every day and do nothing because you mentally cannot face the idea of not going to an office?

Coping mechanisms are complex and diverse. The individual in question lost a major source of meaning-making in their life and was struggling to cope with that loss. I don't believe this is any less healthy than other common responses, which range from societal withdrawal to substance abuse.

> His help was (apparently) not appreciated

That's just your take. We don't know where he sat in the team, so we can assume the idea that he wasn't appreciated by his teammates as incorrect. He didn't make the cut based on unknown metrics from upper management, but they have their own reasons for doing things.

Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all.

> Getting in to the parking lot of the old office sounds way healthier than not making it out of bed at all.

Missing your ex and lying around depressed in bed is less unhealthy than getting into the car and sitting outside their house.

You've cherry-picked a situation where there is an obvious social norm being broken. A better example would be going to the park and sitting on the bench you used to sit on with your ex. I agree with GP that this is healthier than lying despondent in bed.

They could go anywhere though - why not go to a coffee shop at 9 with a laptop or on a morning hike? I agree sitting in bed depressed would be bad but it seems like avoiding the issue to specifically sit in the parking lot of an old employer.

At minimum I think it would be healthier to tie part of your identify to an aspect of your career you enjoy rather than a specific employer itself.

What a weird dichotomy. It's not between "sitting in your old employers' parking lot" and "lying in bed all day", it's between "sitting in your old employers' parking lot" and "learning new skills", "finding a new job", "discovering new hobbies", "spending more time with your loved ones" or almost anything else.

Instead he chose to sit alone in a parking lot so he could feel "normal". Feeling compelled to do a specific action (excluding things like breathing) just to feel normal has a name, and that name is "addiction". It is not usually considered a good thing.

He didn't just drive there and sit in the car for a week or so either, which could be a shock reaction or wanting to keep the routine going whilst looking for the next thing to do... He was doing this for 6-8 months. It reveals a lot about a "rational" crowd.

I hear what you're saying, but routines, especially long-lived, are difficult to break/change. It's normal to have phantom limbs when they are cut off.

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