The cost of transparency: Living with schizoaffective disorder in tech

It's central to understand that mental health can alter perception and judgment, even common mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

I have chronic depression, and even after treating it for 15 years, I still realizes after the fact, despite being attentive to how I behave, that I just think differently when I am depressed.

It's very common for mentally ill people to think they are being persecuted. We also should still inform people more about mental illness, so both are true.

Illnesses that involves psychosis are not a joke and more severe than your average depression, and sadly I would be careful and not 100% trustworthy of somebody who is having such illness.

Totally agree, but it can get a bit weird. I struggle with depression, and at times I have felt like I owed my co-workers/manager/boss an excuse as to why I "suck" sometimes. IE; I didn't show up late for the meeting because I am irresponsible, rather because I'm just in a bad spell this week and have brain fog. If I don't tell them, they may think the former. If I do tell them, who knows.

If you write concise but with some panache, people will think you LLMed it. I've had the accusation leveled at me with rising frequency since ~2023.

It really sucks. In a similar vein, before LLMs my friends always used to call me "the walking Wikipedia" because I tend to always have a fact or trick or trivia in my back pocket. These days more often than not, I get told "okay and now for a non-AI ass answer".

I completely understand why people have that reflexive response to it, but it also feels really vile.

For what it's worth, I do also notice it. Especially on Reddit, you'll start reading a comment and halfway through your gut feel tells you it's likely written by an LLM.

However, the article in general certainly reads like it is coming from the author's own voice. Painfully so, even, because this guy is clearly suffering.

emdashes have been pretty popular among net native folks for the last 20+ years, e.g. if you were to look back at the most popular Kuro5hin stories from ~2001 - 2005, you'd see them everywhere. People just aren't used to the average person being able to write well, so it looks weird to them.

I can't stop seeing this LLM verbiage everywhere I look. I feel like once you recognize the repeated syntax that got RLHF'd into all of these models you never stop seeing it. Maybe everyone is learning those patterns from reading AI-generated language now too.

I also struggle with my mental health, and was diagnosed with PTSD and OCD a few years ago. Until I started treatment, and even some while in treatment, I managed to hurt a lot of people around me. I struggled to take accountability for my actions, and often felt I was being persecuted in one way or another. The world is awful, and we don't have the support systems or safety nets for those with mental health struggles that we should. Most of what I'm seeing in discussions about your actions, and what I'm getting from your post, is a lack of accountability. That said, I recognize that you're trying.

A lot of people, myself included, have struggled to learn how to take accountability for harm while still holding compassion for themselves, and that seems to be where you are. You are correct that workplaces often discriminates against people with mental illnesses, but true understanding and compassion means holding you accountable for your actions. You're more than your illness, but it's still a part of how you engage with the world and others, and is your responsibility. Obviously, I don't know why you've been let go so much, or if there was more to it then just being open about your struggles, but I wanted to give my two cents as someone who has often felt the way you speak about feeling.

Best of luck <3

Feeling attacked in these situations is a relevant issue, and, if one struggles with mental health issues but can recognize the symptoms from within, this is one of those moments when you take a step back and try to deescalate your own response, not only for the benefit of others, but for yours as well.

Back then the language felt like a quiet little also-ran behind Perl and we looked with jealous eyes as Ruby On Rails took over the mindshare. If you were a python advocate then, you were really singing into the void.

My personal low-effort view has been that Python is only on the map today because MIT switched to teaching it as the language of choice in their CS classes. A quick internet search says that happened in 2009 though so ... maybe that's not fair. I thought it happened around 2005 causing the popularity to surge around 2010 but... them starting in 2009 seems like it wouldn't've been that quick to spur change. Sounds like I should go watch the documentary. ;)

This sort of framing assumes the author bears no responsibility at all, and it's just society that has failed. The thing is though, even in an ideal society, it would be not reasonable to expect people to deal with someone's issues indefinitely, particularly when they chalk up all criticism as "discrimination"; I'm quite certain there are legitimate reasons, completely unrelated to his mental health, that he was fired or passed over for promotions.

You're not wrong. I thought it was a good read and some awesome honesty if not also leaving some things unmentioned or undescribed. Sometimes the details matter a lot.

Let's imagine another, non-existing, person so as to clearly differentiate from the author. Said imaginary person gets violent due to socialization and a anger issues. How should the company handle an episode that leaves another employee with a broken nose and bruises? Disclosure doesn't defend a company from it's duty to protect the bodily health of that person's coworkers does it?

Most people have some mental unwellness or at least experiences they struggle to navigate or understand. Their experiences can make the problem worse and some conditions lead to behaviors that add processing load and tax their capacity to remain well. At times that exceeds a capacity to navigate and injury occurs. While invisible that injury has impact and costs. Employees have a right to not be harmed by their coworkers and a right to demand employers protect that right. I'm making that argument on a basis of common decency but there are legal liabilities to consider as well. All of this sort of thing is a distraction from the work the employer needs done.

Our world is better off to the extent we help everyone be productive and contribute at their maximal capacity. While some of the affects we have on one another are very positive, today we are struggling with how to balance the negative hard affects.

I can report leaving a really wonderful job after being socially attacked by a coworker that lost reality and falsely convinced my team that I had harmed them. Despite sharing evidence from the third party involved that it was a departure from reality, my boss decided not to help correct the problem. This has very negative impacts on my mental health, finances, marriage, and it derailed my career for a while. I probably had good standing to sue for damages. I certainly was damaged. There had been many poor behaviors from that person prior.

It is complicated and messy. As much as I appreciated it, the essay reads to me as though it minimizes the negatives. Without discounting it and while being understanding and inclusive we still need to manage impacts and the distractions those negatives create.

I'm not sure how to resolve the interests of everyone involved - I just know that when I've had to work with a colleague who was volatile or prone to yelling at me it made my own life and mental health much worse.

I agree that "Companies tout their mental health benefits and neurodiversity initiatives" really should not do this token performative crap without fully understanding what they are implying.

The difficulty begins with the treatment- the medications can be extremely unpleasant, and it is not uncommon for patients to cease taking them.

Unfortunately, people with the condition can be unreliable narrators, so to speak, and so any deviation from perfectly normal becomes suspicion of medication refusal, as the author noted in the article. Even when they are perfectly honest and accurate, just having a rough day will mean being met with distrust at best.

The thing that struck me as odd in the article is the repetition of fear as a reaction in others. There's not enough information to understand if this is accurate or not. One of my friends growing up had a cleft lip; his low self image had him constantly assuming the worst in others despite it (from my observations) contributing far less to people's reactions than he'd imagined.

So, we are left wondering: is the author of the post a reliable narrator, or are their symptoms coloring their perception of the interactions with others in a way that they are misjudging?

In my experience there is sort of a discrepancy often times. Someone discloses a severe mental health diagnosis and the company just goes on pretending they are just like every other employee - making no changes to accommodate them.

On the flip side, employees with severe mental health disorders often want to be treated exactly the same as other employees - so it seems a bit of an un-winnable situation.

I think this is less true than you're stating. It has been a drum beat of the business schools though. The rich, influential, and socially active people I know are far more free and diverse than any of the working people I know. A sizable contingent of them believe society should be run to maximize everyone's ability to be productive. It's part of why there are many laws mandating so.