Looking after your wellbeing at DjangoCon Europe | Hacker News Reader

Looking after your wellbeing at DjangoCon Europe

2015.djangocon.eu

129 pointsinglesp45 comments

What a great idea, and how very well done (the anonymous post-it note booking system). Kudos to the organisers for their prescience and understanding of their attendees, more of this please!

Kudos to the DjangCon Europe organizers for setting this up. I was recently listening to a sermon on Abraham Lincoln (the U.S. President in office during the civil war) who suffered from such crippling depression during his life that there's no way he'd be electable today.

Such is the exposure to the details of a persons life in the 21st century, but I feel like that makes it even more important to publicly address mental health issues. Folks should not suffer alone, and should not be made to feel less capable or important because they struggle with mental health.

Winston Churchill suffered from depression he called his "black dog". He wrote to avoid it, and his prolific output, and indeed alcoholism, should be viewed through that prism.

> Kudos to the DjangCon Europe organizers for setting this up.

Yeah, kudos for setting it up... but at DjangoCon? I don't get it. DjangoCons never seemed focused in the first place...

Hooray for mental health awareness! I wonder if any of the big tech companies (Goog, FB, Appl) do anything like this, or more generally, do anything to help with employee mental health wellness.

One example could be Google. It has initiated and developed mindfulness based Search Inside Yourself program. http://siyli.org/

Thanks for linking that. Do you know any more about it? I see a component of their curriculum is "Emotional Resilience", curious to see how much of the program is focused on that aspect as opposed to what signals I choose to broadcast to others.

Microsoft has a program for for employees as well as family members. It has a hotline (crisis or non-crisis) entry-point and can also plug into your standard health insurance for on-going issues. Can't remember the name, maybe something like "MS Cares".

I think it's good to see this outside of an employer-managed context. It avoids the problem of someone being afraid to use a service because they assume their boss will get a report even if it's supposed to be anonymous.

I would love to see this at hackathons and conferences everywhere. So many people need help but are so ashamed to ask for it (particularly in our field) that you literally need to make talking to someone as convenient as getting a McDonald's hamburger to get them to seek help.

I don't think it's so much an issue of shame always, but rather that often one of the symptoms of something like depression is lack of motivation to seek help.

This is the ultimate challenge with mental health - as you said, it has to be exceedingly convenient for someone in that situation to get help. Otherwise it's a perpetual feedback loop.

"To complicate matters, most of the people in the industry are young men, a cohort not good at acknowledging their own problems, or understanding other people’s."

Does this not seem like oversimplification and rampant stereotyping?

I am a "young man" (well, below 30 anyway, though in SV I'm probably a bit long in the tooth), and it hurts to be constantly and systematically belittled in this manner. I have problems, and other people in the industry do too. Singling out one particular gender and age group and making them the bad party doesn't help anyone.

I read the first two paragraphs and thought "finally, something about people having problems without bringing men up as a bogeyman (in the context of tech)". But oh well.

I read that sentence as 'there is a systemic problem in society that young men aren't allowed to be fragile, sad &c' and that with the overlap between men in tech and that problem, we have an opportunity to give you a nudge in the right direction, should you need it.

I read it as that too, and I applaud that sentiment, but I agree that the "or understanding other people's" seems a bit harsh in context.

I'd even agree that in my own early 20s I was quite bad at appreciating the perspectives and life experiences of people from different backgrounds, but it's not the best way to gain the trust of people who might benefit from the service!

I suppose they mentioned it to suggest that you may not feel comfortable opening up to your colleagues and/or social group, especially if they are young men who are traditionally expected to put on a front of everything being fine and may not be open to emotional/personal discussions, which is a valid concern; but it's a shame it sounds like it's questioning the empathy of many of its readers.

Forgot to say: this is a really nice idea, I hope it works well.

Just to clarify: in saying that as a cohort, young men are not good at acknowledging their own difficulties or understanding other people's we don't mean that they don't care, or wouldn't care if they understood.

It's certainly not blaming them, or making a moral judgement. It's absolutely nothing to do with being "emotionally stunted". The gap is one of understanding, and it's a cultural one.

Since young men make up most of this industry, this tends to make the industry as a whole bad at understanding and dealing with these kinds of problems, which in turn makes it harder for the individuals in it to understand better.

Men don't have a monopoly on "burnout, exhaustion, depression" so the negative blanket statements about men could be left out entirely.

The first part of that is true, but they are the ones who are least likely to seek help, and the most likely to be at DjangoCon. This is why we are addressing young men in particular.

I see what you mean; you were addressing the major target demographic.

I think the part about "not good at acknowledging their own problems, or understanding other people" could have possibly been phrased better (your "least likely to seek help" makes far more sense). However, given this broader background, I see that the intentions of this counseling are good.

Thanks a lot for making it happen!

I think we have to forgive Daniele for making a bull-headed statement, since he is probably not that socially sensitive by virtue of being a man.

I guess you didn't read the part about "have problems understanding other people's"? It seems like we need more awareness of mental health because (young) men are too emotionally stunted to relate to other people's problems.

Yes, it's also nice that they acknowledge that men sometimes have issues that they don't feel like they can tell other people about.

EDIT: Though strictly speaking there is a difference between "not being good at acknowledging your own problems" and "not being able to acknowledge your own problems because of societal factors". So I'm still not totally sure what they mean.

I read the whole thing, but I didn't read as a mens issue at the root (again) but a issue with how we as a society bring up boys and how we expect them to be as young men.

(If it helps to understand my perspective, M/29 history of anxiety, panic attacks and depression).

I don't understand why you support your linked article but not Djangocon's statement. They're saying the same things: men have problems too, we shouldn't dismiss them just because they (usually) aren't caused by structural oppression, men are not typically encouraged by society to deal with their problems in a healthy way and it's nice to fix that where we can.

The linked article validates my choice of never getting involved with those groups concerned with so-called structural oppression.

Men are statistically less likely to seek help for health problems.

Such a fantastic idea. There really needs to be more awareness on Mental Health and this is a great step towards that.

Go Daniele, such a great guy and a passionate organizer.

I only know Daniele from usenet a good few years ago now, but certainly "great" and "compassionate" are two words that would certainly be applicable to him. I had no idea he was involved with Django or its conferences, but it's no surprise to me that he's having a positive impact.

>Booking a slot will simply be a matter of taking a Post-It note with a time on it from the appointments board, anonymously and discreetly.

It will take less than an hour before some ass removes all the post-it notes. Sorry, but that system has too much fate in humans.

correct the typo DjanoCon -> DjangoCon

Burnout and exhaustion are a mental health issues?

I though they were more of a problem with prioritizing things in your life.

Edit: I have suffered from both of these things myself, and I never considered myself to have mental health problems. In my case it was (still is) a case of taking a step back and re-prioritizing things. Apparently I shouldn't tell myself that?

These are exactly the kind of assumptions that I think this programme is taking aim at. Not to critisise you for thinking them - I think this is how most people, and society in general, view these issues.

Telling someone whose burnt out that they just need to reprioritise their life is like telling a depressed person to just cheer up. It's more complicated than that, and there are often deeper things that need to be untangled before someone can get better.

It's unclear whether you're asking a genuine question, or just using a rhetorical one to dismiss the idea altogether. I guess the lack of question mark on the second line points to it being the latter.

Consider that if you're already burned out - even if they "just" had to do with bad life prioritize - it's often not like you can just quit whatever you're doing and go on a retreat. You still have that 9-5 job, or whatever more heavy-weight responsibilities. Then it doesn't really matter what the original cause was - it's a mental health issue.

I would say it is a work life balance issue.

I am not saying its not a problem, but I am struggling to see it as a mental health issue.

The first hit I got on Google doesn't talk about exhaustion or burnout. It does mention depression, which I agree with.

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/an-introduct...

> I would say it is a work life balance issue.

Did you even read my second paragraph? Even though it might be caused by a bad work/life balance, that doesn't mean that it isn't a mental issue when you eventually become burnt out.

It's like a depressed person who starts exercising and gets some relief from that - "Oh, then it seems that your problem was your physical fitness, not anything to do with depression". It seems a bit myopic.

Again, burnout and exhaustion have morphed into "stress" in your counter argument. I sure you could relate pretty much anything negative to some kind of "stress", which means anything negative is now a mental health issue according to your logic.

Put physical stress on your body for too long and it will take damage. Why should the same principle not apply to your mind?

Well for starters your mind isn't physical.

And if you think about it, stressing your body makes it stronger. That's why working out builds muscles.

That's only true for certain movements, performed for a certain period of time and potentially with only a cetain amount of force applied to your body. A movement performed incorrectly, performed for too long or with too much force will damage your body.

And of course, this only applies, if the stress doesn't take the form of your head being hit by a hammer.

Besides whether your mind is physical or not doesn't really matter all that much. What matters is that it's mutable. It can be changed, for better or worse and that change depends on the environment.

It can be a work life balance issue.

The work life balance issue itself can also just be a symptom of something else entirely.

It's a bit like calling addiction a willpower issue. Yes, the lack of willpower is the direct cause, but the underlying causes can be entirely unrelated (which is why recidivism is a common occurrence if you just dump the "healed" addict back in the same environment he came from).

Burnout is mostly used as a more socially acceptable synonym for some cases of depression, so it's difficult to talk about. Mental health issues are complicated enough as it is. Especially because even those suffering from them often fail to address them for what they are.

The first sentence: "Mental health problems range from the worries we all experience as part of everyday life to serious long-term conditions."

EDIT: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-healt...

> All sorts of situations can cause stress. The most common involve work, money matters and relationships with partners, children or other family members. Stress may be caused either by major upheavals and life events such as divorce, unemployment, moving house and bereavement, or by a series of minor irritations such as feeling undervalued at work or dealing with difficult children. Sometimes there are no obvious causes.

> Stressful events that are outside the range of normal human experience, for example being abused or tortured, may lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

> Some stress can be positive. Research shows that a moderate level of stress makes us perform better. It also makes us more alert and can help us perform better in situations such as job interviews or public speaking. Stressful situations can also be exhilarating and some people actually thrive on the excitement that comes with dangerous sports or other high-risk activities.

> But stress is only healthy if it is short-lived. Excessive or prolonged stress can lead to illness and physical and emotional exhaustion. Taken to extremes, stress can be a killer.

Isn't that the main issue? We can easily dismiss depression because everybody feels sad sometimes, we can easily dismiss burn-out as you just don't feel motivated, etc.

Yes, sadness is a normal part of life and we don't want to treat sadness as a medical condition. Sometimes that sadness interferes with day to day life, and it doesn't seem to be going away. Most people who experience grief will work through it; the grief changes. So when these problems start interfering with day to day living is when people need help.

And for most people that's going to be small interventions - having a coffee with a friend who is talking to you for example. The interventions taper up as the severity of the illness increases. Talking therapies; medication; hospital in-patient stays; rarely, if someone is at risk of death or of harming other people they can be hospitalised against their will; even more rarely there's ECT.

We know that early intervention is important. And modern mental health services should be talking about "resilience" which increases someones ability to cope with daily life.

Lots of strawmen. I talked about burnout and exhaustion, not stress.

Note that "mental health" doesn't just refer to chemical inbalances or miswiring or whatever else - in a more general sense, it refers to literally what it says, the health of your mind. If you're suffering from burnout or exhaustion, that is not a healthy state to be in.

(I'll note that the DSM-V apparently does not contain burnout because it's problematically close to depressive disorders, and exhaustion is a symptom of a lot of things.)

If you can help yourself, that's awesome, but for a lot of people, a professional who has experience helping people in dealing with these problems might be able to help them too.

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