[HN Gopher] Show HN: Engineering Schizophrenia: Trusting Yoursel...
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Show HN: Engineering Schizophrenia: Trusting Yourself Through
Byzantine Faults
Hi HN! My name's Robert Escriva. I got my PhD from Cornell's
Computer Science department back in 2017. And three years ago I had
a psychotic episode that irreversibly shook up my world. Since
then I've been applying a skill I learned in grad school---namely,
debugging distributed and complex systems---to my own mind. What
I've found I've put into a [book
(pdf)](https://rescrv.net/engineering-schizophrenia.pdf) on
engineering, my particular schizophrenic delusions, and how people
who suffer as I once did can find a way through the fog to the
other side. This is not a healing memoir; it is a guide and a
warning for all those who never stopped to ask, "What happens if my
brain begins to fail me?" I am writing because what I've found is
not a destination, but a process. It is an ongoing process for me
and for people like me. I also believe it is automate-able using
the same techniques we apply to machine-based systems. I am
looking for others who recognize the stakes of the human mind to
engage in discussion on the topic. Happy hacking, Robert
Author : rescrv
Score : 17 points
Date : 2026-01-11 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
| ada1981 wrote:
| Hello!
|
| I spent a decade hearing voices, in and out of suicidal
| depression and manic psychosis.
|
| In 2012 I started a process of exploration and growth to heal
| without medications.
|
| 13 years later mission accomplished.
|
| Dr. Paris Williams book Rethinking Madness was a huge help, and
| recently become a friend and mentor.
|
| Curious to check out your book and approach and to compare notes
| sometime.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Hi Robert - I have no comments on the human mind, but wanted to
| say that I enjoyed your work on Warp and I'm glad to hear you're
| finding a path that's working for you. I've had two relatives
| with schizophrenia and the difference between the one who found a
| way to make things work and the one who didn't was very striking
| (and sad for the one who didn't).
| rescrv wrote:
| Hi Dave,
|
| I'm surprised you can remember me. We once sat near each other
| on a bus for SOSP, and that's the extent we interacted in
| person, so it warms my heart to hear someone like you remembers
| someone like me.
|
| In case you're looking for the technical, the book doesn't say
| such, but one innovation laid out for me was my work on lsmtk,
| a new compaction algorithm for LSM trees. I'm not sure if I'm
| off my rocker here or not, but I documented it when I released
| the crate: https://crates.io/crates/lsmtk. I know you're busy,
| but in case you revisit this thread and want a neat trick, I
| thought I'd bring it up.
|
| Lastly (and most important as I'm prone to doing), I appreciate
| you sharing something personal like that. Hearing that others
| who have tried to make it work can often do so keeps me going
| on my worst days.
| ktallett wrote:
| I will check out your book as I had what I now believe to be
| trauma schizophrenic response (auditory and visually), and was
| diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia in my late teens. I
| found that dealing with the trauma and dealing with what allows
| my brain to struggle helped solve things. Now in my mid 30's I am
| so used to dealing with it without medication it isn't an issue
| any more but I do have to do a few things every day to make sure
| I do not get to a place where things are possible.
|
| I found computing and the internet to be the support network and
| escape network I needed but I could very easily see with a
| different personality how it could be the source of the issue. I
| work in engineering now, but i always focus on community projects
| such as supporting those with mental health challenges or those
| in prison which allows me to also stay focused on what my
| problems will always be.
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