[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Experienced software engineer - but unable t...
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Ask HN: Experienced software engineer - but unable to consistently
work
I have a strong case of ADHD. Can't take medication that would help
me due to other medical reasons. I'm also not a social person and
now have developed strong anxiety after consistently failing for a
decade (working on that with a psychologist/psychiatrist but it's
been a year and so far no significant improvement). I have long
periods when I just can't focus on doing anything at all (2-10
weeks) followed by short periods of extreme focused activity (1-3
weeks). I'm unable to hold a job. I'm "the best programmer they've
ever seen" but only for the first month - then they start to hate
me because I'm not working. Programming is the only thing I can do
- and the only thing that makes me enough money to survive. I was
unable to finish high school, anything resembling academia sounds
like absolute torture. What to do? Please help me.
Author : Throwaway49202
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-11-22 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
| savryn wrote:
| check out this paper I found here recently
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16846100/
|
| for self 'therapy' I highly highly recommend the book Focusing by
| Eugene Gendlin, it is the unlock key for all other self-help.
| Jump to ch3 and read a dialogue example, it's figuring out the
| inside forces, underneath the words and 'theories'.
|
| You can do it by yourself (I use a stuffed animal) and there's a
| pdf on library genesis.
|
| (Honestly better than pay-a-person therapy for me, where i just
| wasted time trying to out-smart my therapist with insightful
| theories, intellectualization is a defense mechanism, as is self-
| pity i realized of late)
|
| A huge amount of 'distraction' is just emotional flinching in my
| experience.
|
| the order i would do things
|
| --Get the magnesium and the b vitamins (get the methyl b12 and
| methyl folate b9 if u can, they are the superior forms and
| cheaper than genetic testing),
|
| --get on animal meat and fat keto or the carnivore diet, with
| fasting when the food is too boring. The high animal fat/ meat
| version is a must try for anyone with any hint of mental issues.
| Plus just eating one thing (meat) is easy, no planning, no
| distractions. If vegans don't like that, feel free to stay sick i
| say, it's your life...
|
| --read the Gendlin book and do the process every week, instead of
| 'meditating on your breath' and other stuff that takes ten years
| to get anywhere. Focusing will bring up lots of dark emotions,
| good thing no one can see you sobbing so it does not matter
|
| --Quit all caffeine, all my anxiety disappeared after a month.
|
| These are all the interventions that legit helped me, take it or
| leave it
|
| good luck
| kortex wrote:
| I definitely relate to this. Have you tried Upwork or similar
| temp work? I know it can be rough in its own ways, but it was
| critical for me to stay afloat during a particularly rough
| period.
|
| Your best bet aside from temp work is finding a company whose
| culture is very open and compatible to your neurotype. You may
| even find success working with or even for an NGO/company which
| works with disability placement. We call them "Disability
| resource center" here, the name may vary.
|
| Do you keep a mood journal, or otherwise track your productivity?
| I'd try to track what causes your down periods in the hopes of
| mitigating them. But also I know how random and arbitrary the
| fluctuations can feel.
| saperyton wrote:
| Many unmedicated people with ADHD have this problem and have
| figured out their own process for working through the funk
| period.
|
| On a personal level, exercise and coffee have been magical for
| me. When I'm not feeling it, the task is getting to the coffee
| pot, but once I'm there the motivation comes on its own. Walking
| 40-60 minutes outside does wonders as well.
| Throwaway49202 wrote:
| Unfortunately coffee even in small doses makes me paranoid and
| anxious so much I become absolute clusterfuck (literally start
| believing aliens are coming). Same with marihuana. This is part
| of the reason why I can't get medication - Ritalin does this to
| me too.
| saperyton wrote:
| How about working out? I recently found out that the most
| productive engineer on my team runs every morning before work
| which makes a lot of sense. He's always firing on all
| cylinders.
| Throwaway49202 wrote:
| I admit it feels great and it does help - but it doesn't
| really help me turn the tide when I'm in the 3+week phase
| of inability to focus on anything at all. It's also super-
| hard to do it in this phase.
|
| But I will try again, thank you for reminding me it feels
| good.
| [deleted]
| savy91 wrote:
| Some ideas that work for me: - become a freelance, only accept
| short time jobs so you can deliver, get paid, and enjoy the free
| time when you can focus - ideate, advocate, and work on short
| interesting projects that can give you dopamine when your regular
| job becomes too boring to do. Example? I was feeling like this
| and I proposed I'd create an internal tool to read sms messages
| from Twilio to be used internally when we do manual QA of our app
| - try to change the physical location where you work at.
| Sometimes I go working at food halls in malls or at coffee shops,
| the change of environment resets something in my brain and I can
| focus again - find some sports that helps you. For me it's
| running, I tried other sports but it looks like what works for me
| is the prolonged effort and energy drain of running, which you
| don't get when doing weight lifting for example
| ivraatiems wrote:
| You could certainly look into temp or contract work for very
| short duration one-off projects, etc. That kind of work is out
| there, but setting up a pipeline to get it reliably is probably
| hard.
|
| > Programming is the only thing I can do - and the only thing
| that makes me enough money to survive.
|
| I think you may want to re-evaluate this. Some people with ADHD
| do better in environments where they are on their feet, actively
| doing work, rather than sitting at a computer screen. It sounds
| like you need a job that you can still do even when you are not
| at your mental/emotional best, and where minimum focus is
| mandatory but not hard to achieve. Programming may just not be
| that job, or not all the time.
|
| There are now lots of "gig economy" jobs that you can do whenever
| you want to do them. They're not always the highest-paying, but
| in exchange for that you get a ton of flexibility. Maybe you
| could parley some of those into a hybrid approach - work in food-
| service or as an Uber driver or something else that is lower-
| paying during your downturns, and do short-term contract work
| during your upswings.
|
| Plus, if you feel like a failure - and it kinda reads like you do
| now - having some small successes in another field could help you
| turn that feeling around.
| dimitar wrote:
| Have you tried work that comes to you? Like clearing a queue of
| tickets in technical support or even accepting calls?
|
| You basically have to show up to work and you are micromanaged by
| the queuing software. Sounds horrible, but it leads to consistent
| performance and when your shift is over your mind is clear from
| work. You are not stressed about procrastination - you just have
| to respond to stimuli.
|
| You don't have to be very social, the communication is basically
| a ritual/protocol. If you can clear the first hurdle it might
| turn out that the formed habits will help you for life.
|
| There are more technical support jobs out there, you just need to
| make sure they are not organized around projects or a particular
| big client, but a queue. You are in Eastern Europe so there might
| be some opportunities around you.
|
| You can give it a try and see how it feels for you.
| hackyourbrain wrote:
| Throwaway49202 wrote:
| To expand, I am in the European union but since I've never paid
| social insurance I'm not eligible for any state help. I'm already
| in debt, this is just something I can't afford to pay. I had a
| lot of trouble paying my health insurance debt so I could go to
| the psychiatrist.
|
| Regardless, in the POV of the state I'm a high income individual
| so I am not eligible anyways. I make about $50/hour and they
| don't care I'm out of a job for 2/3 of a year. Unemployment
| allowance office actually tried to call the police on me because
| they thought I'm trying to steal from the government.
|
| ADHD is not recognized adult medical condition here so I can't be
| recognized as disabled.
| searchableguy wrote:
| Where in European union?
| Throwaway49202 wrote:
| Slovakia
| notRobot wrote:
| Please add an email address to your profile so that people can
| reach you if they have potential solutions to your problems.
| achempion wrote:
| Some random advice from the internet, try to find out what works
| for you. As much as you're aware of your problem and looking for
| a solution, all should be good.
|
| It might be a good idea to start writing a list of things which
| can help you overcome focusing issue, and things which
| exacerbate.
|
| Random list of what to try - listening to music, specific
| playlist - working from co-working/cafe, separating workspace -
| amount of meetings - stress factors, how it affects the focus
| level - overall distractions (news, social feeds) - reading
| habits
|
| and so on. In theory, it should be possible to find & maintain
| routine which works for you and things which can put you back on
| track once you notice your focus is drifting away.
|
| There also could be unreasonable expectations from yourself, not
| enough rest and bunch of other things.
|
| Good luck
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(page generated 2022-11-22 23:01 UTC)