DEV Community

It's okay to not be okay

Andrew O'Rourke on July 31, 2017

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I'm just someone who suffers from depression. Always seek help from a mental health professional if yo...
Collapse
 
kaydacode profile image
Kim Arnett 

<333333333333333

I needed this today.

Thank you for sharing. I love mental-health posts and think it's very relevant to dev.to. Dev's with depression/anxiety/etc are more common than I ever could have imagined. It's important that we talk about it and help lift each other up. I'd love to hear more on how you navigated telling your team/manager and how they reacted, if you're up for it.
Again, thank you!

Collapse
 
andrew profile image
Andrew O'Rourke

My current boss used to work with me at a previous job and offered me my current one when my previous employer wasn't handling my depression very well. He knew right from the start the situation I was in, as we worked together when I was first struck with depression.

Collapse
 
greggyb profile image
Greg Baugues

Andrew,

Thank you so much for sharing this. Incredibly difficult to do, but it's so valuable for the rest of the community to hear a story like yours, and to hear small things that you have done to help.

Super interesting too about the caffeine. That seems like the hardest item on the list. :) Any advice on how you went about doing that?

Collapse
 
ben profile image
Ben Halpern

I'd encourage anybody who feels affected by the subject matter here to check out Greg's talks.

youtube.com/watch?v=Z6x9wmlFz_c

Or podcast appearances.

dev.to/codenewbie/ep-142--codeland...
dev.to/rubyrogues/142-rr-depressio...

Collapse
 
andrew profile image
Andrew O'Rourke

Quitting the caffeine took a lot of pure willpower, especially when I was on four cans of Monster a day. Killer headaches for two weeks solid. :x

Collapse
 
vgrovestine profile image
Vincent Grovestine

We spend so much time in front of a screen, it's sometimes easy for us--no to mention coworkers, managers, etc.--to forget that we're humans, not machines!

Thanks for taking time to remind folks about mental health and the stigmas of "hidden illness". (In my case, 35 years a migraineur and I still have to educate people that it's not just a headache.)

Collapse
 
andy profile image
Andy Zhao (he/him)

Thanks for writing this. I think it helps a lot to have occasional reminders like your article.

Also, I'm glad you wrote some actionable steps. A lot of times I have similar thoughts and don't follow through with them, and for me it really validates + motivates me when someone else thinks the same thing.

Collapse
 
strredwolf profile image
STrRedWolf

Here's the main thing that gets me:

How do you know you're in trouble?

I mean, I try to stick to a routine in an effort to have stability, and inadvertently breaking that routine requires some time to get back on it (vacations are intentional, of course). But I've had times where I look back and ask myself "Am I just existing?"

I have to wonder.

Collapse
 
andrew profile image
Andrew O'Rourke

Realising and admitting that something is wrong is possibly the hardest part of it at all, in all honesty.

I only realised I needed to seek help when I was getting home, going straight into my bedroom and not leaving until the morning. I was barely eating and having suicidal thoughts, feeling that my existence was a net negative on the world.

It took a lot of strength to book an appointment with my GP and admit this was how I was feeling. I was immediately prescribed SSRIs and referred for counselling, and that was the start of my recovery.

Talk to your doctor, get some advice. They can help you. 💙

Collapse
 
mhabibi profile image
Mohammad Mehdi Habibi

Yo man. It seems relevant to me, because we coders sometimes work all the time in a room alone and we forget that we exist.

Collapse
 
damcosset profile image
Damien Cosset

Important things to talk about.

Thank you for sharing.