MountainWest RubyConf 2013 Devs and Depression by Greg Baugues

I am so sorry you're going through this. Remember, you can always procrastinate ending it all, and do it later while you examine other options. There is a community at DevPressed[1] of developers who struggle with depression. I am a developer and gave a talk on my struggle with depression and the greater issue of Developers and Depression [2]. Email me if you'd like to chat - greg at baugues.com 1. [LINK] 2. [VIDEO]

There is a discussion forum specifically for this: [LINK] Please check it out, and also any of the talks [1] by its founder, Greg Baugues. It's from a ruby conference, but is applicable to all developers. [1] [VIDEO] )

Here's a great talk by Greg Baugues in which he discusses his own mental illness (bipolar type II and ADHD) and notes that often there is a fine line between a symptom of depression/mental illness and a trait of a successful developer: [VIDEO]

I've watched the video by the author of this newsletter, and a lot of things did ring true for me. [1] I moved to the Bay Area all the way from Russia, as a student, with the intention of diving deep into this startup and developer world. Eight months later, however, I still have no clue at all what I'm doing. Don't have enough projects for a portfolio, don't have enough proper skills for a resume. Got overwhelmed with classes due to not paying enough attention in class, decided not to take any classes in summer - with the intention of working on some projects and maybe figuring my life out. Here we are what, three weeks later, and all I have is a static mockup page for the project and I haven't opened a code editor in a week. I still don't know if I actually have a problem or if I'm just lazy, however. On bad days I feel like it'd be really great if I could just get some magic pill that would make everything great and solve all my problems. On better days I almost feel like I can defeat all of this and just go marching forward. On days like that I can spend twelve hours staring into code and produce something, but then days, weeks, months will go on with nothing at all. [1] [VIDEO]

As someone who has, and still is struggling a lot with mental health issues, it’s immediately obvious how big the gap is between the impact of mental health, and the amount of attention it gets in the media/social circles. The social stigma of mental illnesses are so strong that you rarely hear sufferers of depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc speak out about it, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen. Making it known that you have a mental illness is simply not the same as having a physical handicap (please note I am not trying to downplay the pains of physical handicap or any other illnesses). People simply do not know how to react to mental illness. Or they’re incapable of understanding. Many people would like to help their friends in these situations but without proper understanding, it’s arguably worse than being a bystander. Comments like “cheer up!”, “just get over it!”, “it’s not that bad” often are not that helpful at all. Even if their struggles seem reasonable to an outsider, the pain that the sufferer feels is very real, and to them, insurmountable. Never mind the fact that the social stigma often means speaking up about these issues means social or professional suicide, resulting in most of us not speaking out about it and feeling hopeless. Posts about mental health show up on the HN frontpage every once in a while (or more frequently, in /ask), which is a step forward because there is simply not enough awareness on these issues that are so prevalent,

I don't suffer of depression myself, but I think this initiative is worth supporting. This talk might be relevant: [VIDEO]

I think it's worth looking into for sure. I ran across this when I was suffering from some depression and was trying to see how other devs deal with it. [VIDEO] It's a talk about Bipolar Type II which doesn't have the same kind of full blown manic episodes as regular bipolar type I has. It has hypomanic episodes that are not often reported to the doctor because they seem like happiness or something good, or a sudden drive to do something productive. I've been getting looked at for it myself now and normal depression meds(SSRIs) can actually negatively effect it. It may be worth looking at OP!

I would for sure talk to your doctor about it. Normally your doctor can recommend medicine and services such as a psychologist(more talk therapy) or psychiatrist(more prescription based) that will work with them and be in your insurance network if that's a thing you need to worry about. That said, I would do a lot of research before going in, but do see your doctor for sure. I say do research because depression can be a symptom of other things such as Bipolar type II or Cyclothymic disorder. Hypomania is the main hallmark that you would look into with those. I would also read and be prepared to talk to your doctor about anxiety symptoms as well as panic attack or ptsd symptoms. You may not have them but knowing the signs can help as depression can easily present with those, and you may need treatment for more than one thing to feel better. Knowledge is power in this case. Jobs in IT and doctors are similar in some regards. Someone comes to us with a problem and we need to fix it. The more they know(symptom identification) and the better they can articulate why they think they may have some condition the easier it is to diagnose and fix a problem. Also both professions start with 'safe' treatments. We reboot the computer first, they try for pills or treatments with few to no side effects. We also go for the most obvious diagnoses first before getting into the esoteric,(the power is unplugged rather than the cable to supply power to the motherboard being bad) just like a doctor

I recommend this talk about depression and software developers: [VIDEO] There are newer versions of this talk, but I think this one has the most powerful storytelling.