I was active duty military, and he is also non-verbal and autistic.
The things she talks about, how focused she was and how hard it is to do any of that now, I've been experiencing exactly the same things. I find it hard to do anything, put anything together, etc. after 3 years of managing his care closely, being at his bedside all hours, having to scream at nurses to call away a code because he couldn't breathe (anaphylaxis), and a ton of other things. All of this while working 50+ hours a week, including remotely from his bedside.
It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it. I get minutes or hours when I can hit that stride again and it's absolutely terrifying to realize that I can no longer keep it up.
I don't know that this comment adds anything to her story. I just felt like I understood her on a level that's hard to communicate and had the urge to share that.
It felt like I was running on adrenaline and cortisol for two years. Scrambling to find anything to help, steadily applying the steel tip of my proverbial boot to the backside of the healthcare industry, doing home IVs, changing ostomy bags, making sure meds were straight, trying to gently urge her to eat something at all, deep diving into the pits and snares of clinical trials, looking at adjunct therapies and arguing with doctors about our right to do those, growing to an ambient, everpresent rage over time.
When she passed, it all went silent, and then the world shut down.
I still feel like my brain has changed. It's difficult to put my finger on how.
In retrospect a lot of the time I spent trying to find options and understand the disease and its treatment would have been much better spent tending to the emotional needs of my family. I should have accepted much earlier that it was over and just prepared for that inevitability rather than clawing and scratching for options right until the end. I just didn't know how to do it.
I’m not sure what comes next but really hope that energy and happiness finds its way back to you with time.
If you're someone who struggles with chronic depression this statement is extremely demoralizing. But it's also hearsay -- you're a stranger on the internet, so you want me to believe based on a stranger's colleague's wife's alleged research, that depression cannot be effectively treated?
If you want to share that researcher's work, provide a link. Keep your rumors, suppositions, and lay-person's doomer psychology to yourself, unless you are planning to make a post with direct citations that is in effect nothing like the comment you did leave.
People's lives depend on this. You can't just post "if you have depression you'll never be able to change it" cavalierly as though you are an expert and your post has no consequences.
Someone is going to read your supposition, your rumor, believe it, and despair.
By
Richard M. Ryan, Edward L. Deci
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30652098-self-determinat...
I finally found treatment that worked for me in the pandemic (Ketamine assisted psychotherapy), and it was life changing. It has been 2.5 years since I stopped treatment and I'm 10x happier. I wake up every day happy and curious about what the day will bring.
However, in the last few years she said that her "negative voices" (not actually schizophrenia, but her own nagging, disrespectful, negative narration) have gotten under control through CBT. She says it's something she needs to work at daily, though, because her brain seems to be wired that way. And she's controlling it and staying healthy without any meds.
So while I think there's something in that anecdote I don't think it means that you can't have a good life.
Wrong. I lost at least a decade of really great years to this belief. It's bullshit. I've made huge strides in my "clinical" depression despite my environment not markedly improving. I did, however, improve myself enough to recognize and stop maladaptive behaviors.
It's hard as hell to change yourself, but you're not immutable.
And yet with the other choice you might have regretted "not having done everything you could have". That is the curse of those with the ability to actually do something. In many ways, those who do not understand and simply place their faith in doctors are less burdened.
You did what you thought best at the time; that is all you could have done. Nothing you did or did not do was a mistake.
There are no "right" answers when facing mortality. My sympathies for what you went through, and I hope you are doing better.
This is so true.
I wish I could write a better response but my wife has her periodic pet-scan in 1hr. Those scan always leave me paralyzed with fear of recurrence of the metastatic breast cancer she has. it's probably off topic so sorry internet strangers but writing it brings a little relief.
All my sympathy to those who lost someone!
I sympathize deeply.
No way. If you had done that you would have felt even worse for not trying everything you possibly could.
This is resonates with me. My father died from cancer a year ago, the bit that survived two treatments was extremely fast moving. I had a business with him, and I spent a year trying to do as much of his job and mine to help him out. But he wanted to work, and I think it was good for him to have forward looking goals.
It feels like every day I am trying to figure out how to make my brain work the way it used to. And almost every day I am trying to decide if we had a bus factor of 1. Fortunately I have family support, and a part time job to keep me busy and bring a bit of money in.
I think about the emotional support and I think we did the best we could have. My dad was clear about listening to the doctors about his options. We spent some time reading about options and researching. But it was clear to all of the immediate family that we lacked the depth of knowledge needed. It was interesting to read about and learn about the techniques. And we were able to get advice from medical family friends. But his team was very good and thoughtful. We also thought the treatments were working. Until a later scan showed a small blip and before we could understand the options and decide he was in the hospital and terminal.
I still feel like I'm moving through the motions of running our business, but not actually doing it. Or something, it is a frustrating feeling that I am trying to fix but maybe I can't. Or maybe it will take years.
My sister died of ovarian cancer right at the start of COVID. My big sis, 1 year older. Even though the oncologists said early on that it was extremely aggressive and wasn't responding to treatment, nobody in the family could process it. Oddly, except myself. I live an hour away from them and I think that separation allowed me space to process the inevitable. I tried to be that person who took care of the emotional needs of the family, and my brother in law. But I didn't have a single person to "confide in" because nobody accepted that she was going to die, including her. She had just had a baby a few months before (IVF, and tbh I'm wondering if that process kicked the cancer off). She had to look at her tiny baby and imagine him growing up not knowing her. You could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. Yet she couldn't bring herself to make little recordings, write emails or notes to him for when he's 12 or whatever. That's how much denial she was in - she denied him that sense of what it would be like to have her talk to him.
The first to give up hope was her husband actually. I suppose because he was closest to the front lines, and saw the toll it took on her, the constant downhill. And the dozens of other things that aren't cancer but are part of the depressing array of events like pleural effusion, blood clots, and the digestive system eventually getting blocked off with tumors. When he finally admitted to me that it was terminal, she had less than two months left.
My lovely wife is sitting across the table from me now wondering what "heavy stuff" I'm typing. I couldn't imagine being able to accept losing her.
I hope your life is recovering.
My brother in law met a lovely woman just over a year ago. She has two kids and he had his one. They make a great family unit and she's good for him. Even in practical ways like taking turns bringing the kids to school or sports, covering for him when he had to work late. My family get along with her too. I know it still hurts him to think about what he lost but he's very much a "get on with life" person, so he gets on.
Which is all to say, I hear you.
I quit my job in 2021, physically incapable of continuing and wanting to end it all, thinking if I just make it through each month it'll eventually get better and it never has. It only got worse like the universe kept ratcheting up the difficulty. My abusive partner only got more abusive as I didn't have a job (but paid all our bills) and couldn't muster any energy towards relationship milestones as the abuse and depression crippled me. Years of enduring this only led to now being abandoned and feeling worse than ever, like there is no upside worth the calamitous downsides in life.
One thing I dont get with similar stories - you felt things are seemingly going to shit in relationship yet no reaction, no quitting but maybe even double down? Abusive people will be abusive with no easy fix in sight, sucking it up for some real estate opportunity is a sure recipe for disaster and misery and no money gained will ever compensate for that. Thats one of 101 of life, there shouldnt be a need to really walk through it to confirm this. Kids do complicate this massively but you dont mention them.
Same for work it seems, working on edge of what you can handle means any little bad thing happening on top can send you over and down the spiral of breakdown.
I dont want to bash anybody and its more for others who will one day experience similar things - listen to your body, its telling you tons of things, and not for just fun. Its your best buddy so dont neglect it, there is no replacement and it really gets weaker with age, sooner than you would like.
I see a lot of high performers ending up similarly - very narrow focus on one brilliance ie work, but deep neglect of the rest. Never a nice story at the end. Nobody will be happy when dying from how much they worked or which investments worked out. If one really has to, set clear short term goals for when to stop it and have a bit of discipline (ie dont get used to better lifestyle that more money brings requiring you to continue).
I doubt there is good statistics or research on this, but anecdotally, it doesn't seem uncommon.
You also mention "neglect of rest", and in relationships you might also say neglect of the self - but often it's not explicit neglect, instead it's not even being used to or knowing how to recognize or fulfil those needs. As an example, after my tinnitus got worse, rest is simply so hard to achieve that it doesn't matter if I make it my top priority. People saying I need to rest more obviously annoys me, and claiming I'm neglecting rest would be borderline disrespectful.
Not comparing tinnitus and workaholism, just making a general statement about the use of "neglect" here.
I loved them so much that constantly fighting and being abused was still better than their absence now. I believed we would both turn things around, but it only got worse every few months. Being in this situation felt like a 90/100 misery scale, that I couldn't bear, and leaving would be asking me to volunteer for 95/100
> Same for work it seems, working on edge of what you can handle means any little bad thing happening on top can send you over and down the spiral of breakdown.
Also thought it would be temporary and not do permanent damage. In the midst of crisis, I'm thinking "just get through this month, it will get better" and then before you know it years have went by and all those months accumulated their toll
Slowly starting to see some light. My two young kids get me through this, they are with me every other week and give purpose to my life, they are best thing ever.
I hear you too. Don't be scared to ask for professional help. Meds can make a difference.
Seeing people's testimonials made me feel better so I thought I'd post mine.
You don't know how much, when, how or why, but it will happen. I consider someone blessed if they make it to middle-age largely "intact."
When you're young and unencumbered and largely undamaged you need to use that time in any way you can; inevitably you'll end up "walking wounded" one way or another--less than you were--unable to return to who you were before whatever(s) happened.
When I was young I'd encounter older men that struck me as "defeated", tired, incurious, dismissive, and I'd never understood why until the last ~half decade or so of my life.
I really think human "life" and vitality is something that does get "spent", often against your will.
But, also, a part of me died during our attempts to have another kid. At some point it just broke me in that dimension. I have doubts that it can be fully healed. It is grief, and it demands space and an outlet sometimes. And it hurts from time to time. It's no longer debilitating, but it is still there.
I'm slowly healing and learning how to live a new life. A life that I like. But it's been really fucking hard. This wasn't in the manual.
I hear you both (and anyone lurking :). Much love to you all.
Battered husk is the best description I can think of for how I felt.
It took a while, but I was extremely lucky to find the right combination of therapy, SSRIs, and life changes to drag myself out of the hole. I now have a stable job doing something that sparks my interests and makes a meaningful contribution, and my love of life has returned. I still have the occasional day where it feels like I start to backslide, but they are getting rarer.
I want to reassure anyone who feels tired, burnt-out, and hopeless, that things can and do get better.
I feel like I'm constantly mourning who I used to be, like it was a different person entirely and there's no getting that level of empathy or patience back again.
After 9 months what I have realized is that my 30+ year partner was not a good fit for me. The mental space cleared by not worrying about my ex-partner's contentless has feared up most of my brain power.
What I realize now is that my partner was wasting many of my brain cycles that are now freed up. I actually have fallen back into a brain space that feels like my early college graduate brain. The brain I had before I took responsibility for my partner's happiness.
I'm always wondering where the interesting people went, but maybe they became just like everyone else.
And since you mention that you are young, just to let you know: when "celebrating" the latest new years eve, all guests present (40 to 50yo) agreed that the main source of hope for the near future was the early disillusionment of younger generations. More power to you! :)
While I know this thread is self-selecting, it’s amazing how many folks share similar stories of how they feel burnt out in life since 2020.
I fear we’ve yet to hit rock bottom and more societal strife is impending, both in America and elsewhere. But like you, I agree there is some hope that those just starting out will rebuild something better from the ashes of it when it’s all over.
As a 35-year old though I worry I’ll be too old to truly reap the benefits. Although elder millennials, whose formative adult years were defined by the Great Recession and Gen Z, who had them defined by COVID, might have it even worse.
It think the term "good old days" is not some delusion of the aging mind as the media keeps trying to convince us. As I've watched things getting worse during my own life, I've been getting increasingly confident that things really were better in those old days. I mean, even the kinds of people who existed; they were simpler people, happier people. They lived lives of mystery and serendipity.
Now you basically have to be rich to be happy and you usually have to do bad things to be rich... So it's difficult to find happiness nowadays. IMO, success in life is being both rich and also having a clean conscience; then you can have everything you need, yet still have the ability to look people in the eyes and mean what you say when you speak.
I’m half the person I used to used to be, after a painful burnout. And it’s not even close as painful as what the OP experienced.
So many of my friends went through some very hard time that I stopped counting.
So yes, is this everybody?
Zen practice and fitness have made an astronomically large improvement for me, but I guess everyone has to find that which helps them accept their current situation.
My son is non verbal, non mobile.
We live the life of the Servant. We used to define ourselves by our profession, now we define ourselves as "special needs parent". This is a step closer to actually being more human. How trivial our lives were before, how we wasted so many hours on shit that didn't matter!
> It's like I burnt out that part of me. Maybe I'm slowly healing? But I don't feel like it.
You've probably heard it, but maybe to help remind, I just wanted to say - It's okay to be burnt out and do little or nothing. I believe it's the minimum requirement to healing and it _will_ take years maybe even a decade. I was cheated on and that affected me for 2 years and that's trivial to the road you walk.
I've been doing my own thing for close to two years now, trying to heal.
Maybe I will someday. Until then, I somehow manage to keep up with his (still elevated) needs and try to be a good husband and father to my other child.
That level of understanding between you and her should be universally shared between everything that is living. This way, support can always be found.
I wish you and your family all the best. The same goes for Bess, as I told her many times. I wish I could give you a hug, make you feel protected and capable, as the hero that you are.
I apologize if I overshared, hth.
She had a simple fever cramp (her second) in the tub and nearly drowned because of it.
This was roughly a year ago. I remember walking out of the building at work in trance, looking for a cab, after I got the call, thinking my daughter was dead. She was back to normal (apart from the nasty infection that lead to the fever cramp) on the next day. Buy my wife and I have never been the same since. I entered the apartment 2 days later, and the tub was still filled with water and some of my daughters hair, and there was blood on the living room floor because the medics gave her sedatives and she kicked against the syringe. While cleaning my daughter's blood from the floor, I got the distinct feeling that she really died and that I was just in a very long dream in which she survived, and that I would wake up very soon to a world of sorrow. That feeling has never left me. It may explain why most things now feel completely irrelevant to me, including work.
We quickly bought a house 6 months later and left the apartment. I now realize that this was mostly motivated by the fact that we couldn't stand the look of the bathtub anymore. It was also because we simply weren't afraid anymore of the debt, of the additional work, of moving. Fear is something that only remains a numb feeling after such an experience.
She is 5 now. The worst part is that she fully remembers. A few weeks ago, she freely and cheerfully explained in daycare that she once was bathing and then cried "mum" and then "fell asleep under water". At dinner a few months ago, she also explained that to us and then laughed and mentioned that "mum must've thought I am a mermaid" and happily continued eating. It crushes me just thinking of it.
If my wife had folded 2 or 3 shirts before entering the bathroom, my daughter would be dead now. If my daughter hadn't yelled "mum!" the second the fever cramp started, of if she would've yelled it under water, she would also be dead now. In this probabilistic decision tree, the leaf where my daughter survives has a probability that is negligibly small. To my very great surprise, I have found that this inevitably leads to religion. I have never been religious before, but I have indeed found great relief in prayer and sitting around in empty churches.
Life to us is now nothing but walking on a thin crust of ice, which spans over an infinite hell of fire, horror and torture. At any time, without warning, the ice may break.
My life has a stark demarcation of before and after that, and sometimes it feels like nothing is quite real since.
Me and my wife had a horrible experience ourselves where our 2 year old daughters best friend(also 2 years old) drowned in their family swimming pool after figuring out how to open the door herself. I know this wasn't nearly as close to heart as the other stories in this post, but receiving that text on a Saturday evening was super tough and me and my partner was crushed for months after it happened. It's now been 10 months and we rarely think about it anymore although we did end up in a house WITHOUT a swimming pool, so in a way it's still with us.
My grandfather ran me over when I was 6 and nearly killed me. When he ostensibly realized what happened, he took his sweet time to exit the vehicle while it was pinning me down, slowly get out, stare at me, and then made sure to run over me again while moving the vehicle. The only two things that saved me was that he was driving a light pickup truck, and my bike folded around my chest and neck and prevented the wheel of the truck from crushing them. I will never know if he saw me and ran over me intentionally or not, but I was in plain view waiting for the bus and he never expressed any emotion at any point over what happened.
I was crying and shaken up and traumatized, but he made sure I still got on that bus without so much as a quick medical checkup. I felt very numb and isolated for a long time after that. No one around seemed to understand that I'd just experienced a near-death experience. I also didn't receive a new bike for years, seemingly out of spite.
The rest of that event - why I walked away from the group, whether I was called back or just lucky, or even what I thought or felt when I went into the water - all gone. Can't remember. Only that afterwards, it felt odd how panicy mum was, and that she immediately insisted on swimming lessons.
So when I was five, this was an experience like "any" - How was I supposed to understand that I had a close brush with death, or what that even meant ?
(I wish your daughter a long and happy life, and may neither her nor anyone have to experience the feelings that you did, or my mum)
No permanent injuries on our end, but what you said about walking on a thin crust of ice rings true. And feeling like there's another reality where things didn't turn out OK. All the best to you, I am glad your daughter is OK.
One day my wife said she was going to give our 4 year old daughter a bath, then I find my daughter by herself in the bath and my wife all the way across the house in the bedroom. I asked “Why aren’t you watching her?” The reply, “She’s fine. She knows how to swim and the water isn’t even that deep.”
I work remotely in the upstairs bedroom and will occasionally come down for water. Half the time I find my one year old eating alone in his high chair in the kitchen, with my wife doing something in the bedroom. “Where are you? What if he chokes?” “You don’t trust me. He’s fine. I can hear him from the bedroom.”
My wife will get in road rage incidents. People flip her off and yell threats at her as she slingshots through traffic with our little kids in the back seat. “You’re going to crash driving like that.” “Stop telling me how to drive.” Someone pretended to pull a gun out on her after she swore at them. “You’re going to get shot.” “No I’m not. I can tell if any of those people would have a gun.”
She also has severe ADHD. Our daughter got under the sink when she was two and ate half a dishwasher detergent pod before my wife noticed and called poison control. Another day when my daughter was two my wife forgot to shut the gate at the bottom of the stairs when she came upstairs to talk to me during the workday. Suddenly I hear a series of thuds and cries. Our little girl had fallen down the flight of stairs after trying to follow my wife without her noticing. Same thing happened to my 1 year old son under the watch of my wife’s mother.
I’m so scared that one day I’m going to get a call about something horrible that has happened to my kids either because of my wife’s inattention or anger issues.
There's something I wanted to say reading this whole thread. I just hope it does not come off as lecturing or preaching. It's this: Don't feel bad about things that there is no way for you to change. Just do your very best about the things you can. Nobody can ask more of anyone.
This is how I've felt every time a friend has tried and failed to commit suicide. I'm so sorry.
You used to be a superhero. And you still are. Remember who you are.
You were drowned in frustration. But now you acknowledge the reality of the present situation, it's time to execute the new accomplishments that will prove your greatness.
I lost my dad suddenly just two months prior, and my grandma shortly before that, but the loss of your partner (and in this manner after she refused help and I watched helplessly as she spiralled in her last year) eclipses any grief or pain I had experienced before or could have even imagined.
But I wanted to show a little appreciation for the OP and others on here sharing their devastating losses. Knowing love inevitably turns into grief but that that is a more universal experience makes me feel a little less alone. Small blessings but at points like these, we take whatever morsels we can get.
My son took his own life on February 1st, 2023. I feel like someone took a huge melon baller and scooped out the middle of my chest. My wife and I had been trying to get him back on his feet for two years at that point. He died quietly about 10 feet from me. The family cat kept trying to get me to open his bedroom door. I kept trying to respect his privacy. I finally took her hint.
He was the best person I knew. I imagined vicariously living a much better life through him. I still feel like a fragment of my former self. He was a sometime contributor here, by the way, under jwmhjwmh.
Anyway, I give my love to everyone here sharing stories of their losses. I find sharing memories of these loved ones is more comforting than platitudes, and certainly more healing than pretending nothing happened.
The most meaningful thing someone ever said to me, after my daughter was stillborn full term, was: "There is nothing to say."
I would describe my wife similarly, it sounds like. Kind, value-driven, cared too much, was the biggest personality in the room but somehow always made people feel seen and heard. But also deeply troubled and hid a lot of it, even from me I’m discovering.
Sending love your way as well. I agree, platitudes or things like “they’re in a better place now” or “looking down on us” make me only feel worse, but genuine compassion does help feel like the weight isn’t on our shoulders alone, even for a little rest.
I hope it gets better for you. It has for me.
I also decided to go visit one of our favourite places (Thailand) to get away for a bit, meet up with a friend, do some writing, and make some new memories here. It’s been really hard at points but definitely healing too.
I was 14 when, within months: my mom's dad died, my dad died, my mom was diagnosed with the melanoma that took her 7 years later, a fire took the longtime family home. And she developed trigeminal neuralgia - a 9-10 for pain and she had it on both sides of her face. All of this impacted her. And us. For her part, she carried on with work and managing a family.
Fast forward. Well into my own marriage, my wife spiraled into mental health issues that subjected the kids and I to decades of sabotage, abuse and ceaseless, exhausting catastrophes.
I too learned that when I am hallowed out, I can continue on. When I am beyond my own help, someone else might not be and there might be something I can do. At this point, helping others is pure self preservation.
You won't be the same person after, but in some ways that's good. Highly recommend grief counseling. Feel free to reach out if you need help from someone who has been through it.
When I failed to stop an acquaintance from killing himself a few years ago [1], it really fucked me up. I barely knew the guy, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty over it, and I still have nightmares about it.
It led to a severe funk of depression that I still haven't gotten over, and it's led to poor sleep, poor performance at work, an increased irritability towards pretty much everyone, and I'm not completely convinced that that will ever stop.
I've seen therapists, taken various medications for depression and PTSD, trauma dumped onto pretty much anyone who will listen, and I think I'm a worse person now than I was in 2021.
I guess the likelihood of an event like this happening approaches 1 as you get older, but it doesn't mean it's not terrible.
[1] Written in some detail here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29185822
I'm truly sorry for all that you've been through and I hope you find comfort. Reading through your other post it seems likely to me that nothing you said or did could have made any difference.
This inevitability is something you should stave off as long as possible. Meet new people, add new experiences, learn new things while avoiding the siren call of nostalgia and the comfort of limiting yourself to the familiar.
Yeah I know, that's not really why I feel guilty, at least not exactly. I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything. Even if nothing would have changed, I still think I should have tried to do something, even if it was futile.
It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021.
I mean, I realize that no good comes from feeling bad about myself over it, certainly not for three years, but human psychology is pretty annoying sometimes.
Without really thinking about it, I stopped, asked him if he needed help, tried to get him talking. He did talk to me for a while, but when I looked away to try and get a passing car to call for some help, he jumped.
I told my coworkers about it the next day, and it just seemed to make them uncomfortable. I didn't feel quite right about what had happened, but I wasn't sure why.
I had had a pretty crappy youth, my mom died when I was ten years old, and that was followed by a solid decade of rough times. I was no stranger to serious depression and had, by then, consciously decided I would not kill myself, after giving it serious thought.
I called a close friend of mine and told him the story. He had also lost his mother young. He just asked me one question and I immediately understood. He asked "Why did you stop?"
I myself had decided not to take my own life, but I believed I had the right to do so. Here I was, insinuating myself into a most intense and private moment this stranger to me was having. I would not have wanted that for myself.
I don't regret stopping that night. I would however, do things differently should it happen again.
I realize that some words on your screen are unlikely to make you feel much better about it, but I hope you do.
Now the shitball who yelled "jump" out of his window as he drove by, I hope that asshole is wracked with guilt still, twenty-five years later. Probably not though, feeling bad, like you have been, is the sign of a good person.
The only reason you might think there were "signs" you should have caught now is because of what happened but no one could have known in advance.
From a total Internet stranger, give yourself some grace. Or what I have also heard: Judge yourself the way you would judge a good friend in the same situation. We often judge ourselves super harshly!!
Not quite that simple. I remember sitting in my bed that night, wrestling with whether or not I should call the police or something, and I explicitly chose to do nothing because I didn't want him to think I was weird.
Maybe my mind is blowing it up worse than it was, but that's how I remember it.
One of the more helpful things I was told was that there is nothing you can do if someone is determined to end their life. No intervention, no amount of reaching out, nothing. And that is a powerless place to be but it also means that you not calling the police the night your acquaintance died is likely not the deciding factor in this case.
Find a way to forgive yourself. Talk about your experience. To friends, to strangers, to a therapist. EMDR is great, from what I hear but even talk therapy is a really good place to start processing. I hope you find a way out of this, one internet stranger to another.
This is important actually - human memory is much more fragile than most people realise; we can and regularly do invent entire episodes in our heads, to retroactively explain some fact we have later come to know, or to fit some other thing that we have misremembered.
It's entirely possible that it didn't go down exactly as you remember, but rather your feelings are sharpening the memory and exaggerating your perceived misstep.
I have the same type of problem. The one thing that's finally helped a little bit is allowing myself to feel the guilt (and all the emotions surrounding it) fully. Normally I try to push it down (because I don't actually have anything to feel guilty for), but suppressed emotions continue to live forever, and they will surface in your body and mind in many ways. Allowing myself to feel it gives me room to process the emotion finally.
Easier said than done, of course. You can't just turn the emotions on and off like a light switch, especially because the brain forms protective mechanisms to prevent you from feeling it. I've had some luck with IFS and somatic therapies.
> I feel guilty because I noticed signs of someone who was suicidal, and explicitly chose to not do anything.
> It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it.
So why not choose to do something different now?
Perhaps why you feel enduringly bad is because those events disrupted your self-narrative and that never recovered. Why not create facts that support a new narrative about how failing then led to you being a better person now? — eg, volunteering.
To have a purpose and to give meaning to things are important parts of how we, as humans, process such events. At least, according to Frankl.
Regardless, I hope you feel better.
I mean, sure, I haven't really had the same level of "moral character test" since then, I would like to think I'd do better now, but it's of course impossible to say.
> Why not create facts that support a new narrative about how failing then led to you being a better person now? — eg, volunteering.
I tried teaching for a few semesters primarily for emotional satisfaction reasons, and that had its moments, though that also made me realize that I am have a lot of emotional baggage that I need to work through.
At this point I have been just trying to keep myself busy with personal projects and diving deep into useless computer science theory. Fortunately, I never got into drinking or doing drugs, so all things considered reading used textbooks isn't the worst vice.
Just as easily they didn't make the attempt and you would've thought you made the right call.
It's not on you.
It wasn’t a character test. That’s a narrative that you are telling yourself. It was a thing that happened. In the past. Same thing with “it shouldn’t take 3 years to get over this”. Says who? It takes what it takes.
Our life is a garden, we can only tend it as best we can. The plants grow how they grow.
Let yourself grieve as you let go of old narratives and rediscover yourself and your life in each moment.
For me, narratives like this were an attempt at being a “good person” who “deserved to be loved”. I’ve slowly and painfully learned that isn’t how it works. We are all worthy of love. Love isn’t earned, it is a gift that we give and receive. I’m learning how to receive it, most importantly from myself. It’s the hardest and most beautiful thing.
I offer these words in the hope that they are helpful and to share things I’ve learned. Take them if they are, forget them if they are not.
Sending love and wishing you the best. I’ve been there. It’s hard. But time will pass, things will change, and it gets better.
I have listened to a lot of Dr David Burns' podcasts[1] (and recommend them) and there is a relevant part here which I will try to explain enough to tempt you to look at it more, in the hope it helps[2]. He observed that patients came asking him to make their bad feelings go away but the more he tried, the more they held onto the bad feelings ever tighter. After years of this, he came to understand that there is good which comes from feeling bad and helping the patient see it makes them realise they don't want to get rid of the bad feelings after all, only tone down the intensity.
The crux is: what kind of person would notice someone feeling suicidal and do nothing and learn the person suicided and then not feel bad or even feel good? Someone with no compassion who doesn't care about other people's suffering, someone with no moral compass, someone who takes no responsibility, someone who doesn't value living over dying, someone who thinks their actions in the world are meaningless, someone with no agency who needs other people to solve everything for them, someone who holds themselves to very low standards, someone selfish who doesn't want to help other people, someone cruel, etc. etc. Some of these things may resonate with you and those reveal things you value and like about yourself:
- feeling guilty shows I care about other people suffering. ("is that important to you?")
- regretting my choice to do nothing shows I am introspective, reflective, striving to do better. ("is that something you value?")
- wishing I had tried shows I value being helpful instead of selfish. ("and do you value that?")
- feeling that it's a bit my fault shows I want to take responsibility for my behaviour and don't shirk it and seek to blame everyone else. ("is that a trait you respect in others and want in yourself?")
- etc. for each of those things (and more).
OK if you can magically stop feeling bad at the push of a button, but the monkeypaw cost is that you become the uncaring, nihilistic, selfish, lazy, ignorer-of-suffering, who never reflects, lives on autopilot, never wants to do better... do you push the button? After finding some positive sides of your specific feelings which are things you specifically care about, you stop wanting to get rid of the feelings and grok that the good which comes from negative feelings is them protecting traits you value and want to keep[3]. Having negative feelings is not the problem, having them dialled up to 11 is the problem. You want to keep the feelings around as the guiding angel on your shoulder, just less intense. More of Dr Burns' work is on the therapy methods to make that change and dial the intensity down to a level you think would be a reminder, a guide, not a tormentor, but the insight in seeing principles you really do value hiding in the silver lining is sometimes enough to relax the feelings by itself.
> "It feels like the universe was giving me a character test, and it feels like I failed it. I would like to think that when push comes to shove, I'd do the right thing, at least in regards to someone's life being on the line, but I guess at some fundamental level that's simply not true, or at least it wasn't in 2021."
We aren't born perfect, and then fail the tests so the universe can laugh at us failing. We are born sinners and the test-driven-development helps us develop. It wasn't true in 2021 and the bad feeling is trying to be an adjustement which makes it more likely to be true from then on, but stuck on hard-lock. You're wishing to get rid of the bad feeling, the more you push it away the more it gets louder to try and make you hear it. Be guided by it, agree with it, then it's job is done and it can quieten down.
[1] https://feelinggood.com/list-of-feeling-good-podcasts/
[2] (Please excuse me being lecturing; it's all I know how to write. It has a nice 'understanding and debugging a system' feel which I like and keep hoping will resonate on HN)
[3] """During this phase, the therapist, paradoxically, does NOT try to “help” the patient, but instead assumes the voice of the patient’s subconscious resistance, helping the patient suddenly “see” why she or he actually should NOT change. Paradoxically, the moment the patient “gets it,” there will be an illumination, and the patient will suddenly lose his or her resistance and become way more open and collaborative. This what makes the rapid recovery in TEAM-CBT possible. The patient also discovers, paradoxically, that his or her symptoms, like depression, hopelessness, and feelings of worthlessness, anxiety, or rage, are NOT the expression of what is wrong with him or her, like a “mental disorder” or “chemical imbalance in the brain--but the manifestation of what is right with him or her."""
I understand; I have some similar regrets although perhaps not on the same scale. You held yourself to a certain standard, so you're disappointed in yourself that you didn't reach it.
I suppose this is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path - in theory we all know how we want to react in such a situation but when the time comes, the reality is often not exactly what we imagined and so we are still unprepared and make a choice that we come to regret. I think it's like any disaster - you'll get it wrong the first few times, no matter how prepared you think you are.
Thin consolation I know; like I said, I hope you can come to terms with it.
I had a friend die by suicide. Shortly after I met him for the first time IRL. It messed me up.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before but for the gallery, there’s the “in the moment” suicides where the thought comes and people act on it. If anyone feels that way, please call a hotline, it really is just a temporary feeling that will pass. Then there’s the “sick for a long time.” My therapist described this group as having an unhealthy brain. They’re taking in inputs like normal, but producing harmful urges. That sickness isn’t a thing others can counter or take on for themselves. There’s professional help if you (the reader) are feeling like this constantly. But like all sicknesses sometimes even the best treatments aren’t enough. (Therefore we should not blame ourselves for what we could have done differently).
Knowing that still doesn’t make it better, but it makes it lighter. For me, anyway.
I know that this ultimate freedom is also ultimate selfishness, because the loss is felt by your close ones, not you. But this makes me perhaps an asshole, but not sick.
I was someone's last phone call. I lost her when I was 16.
Things happen and you adapt to survive it. And survival mode isn't made to make you happy, to become more generous or to expect more loyalty. And once your worldview changes for a pessimistic one, it'll taint everything around you (especially the new interactions with people)
Yes, some people change to be better: and that means (and I say it painfully) that many of them were the ones that caused unnecessary pain in others.
Some reference: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_emotional-impact-pain-experie...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341577702_Lacan_on_...
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those who have experienced loss understand that sometimes we have to step back from things, life, our careers. It’s ok to do it. It’s your life, and the one of the greatest joys of life is: you get to choose how to live it.
I hope you bounce back. But take your time.
which is why I feel like I'm slowly becoming assholes because it's hard to have that kind of emphatetic feeling while still being sane in nowadays world. It's kinda sad that to have a healthy mental someone need to be less emphatetic.
don't know if that's actually true, of course.
Grieving while being a new mom must be brutal.
As always, yes and no. I'm a single father, my partner died when our daughter was 1.5 years old. A baby requires constant attention and care, so I didn't quite have the option of falling into some kind of depression and just doing nothing.
That said, I quite miss the abundant free time I used to have in my other life. Nowadays is constant battle about the littlest things. I pour the milk the wrong way and get screamed at for 15 minutes.
All too familiar.
Occasionally I stop to think what would I do if my SO passed away suddenly. I've found that it's easier to think about my own death than this.
Anyway, I hope you'll get some much needed downtime eventually.
Don't know if this was your intention but this comes across as if having a depression was a choice, which it rarely is with any kind of illness.
Also what is depression? I'm very sad that my partner died. I miss her. Some people have a chemical imbalance in their body. These are entirely different things. Perhaps I shouldn't have used that word, which has so many different meanings as to lose meaning altogether.
When you have a kid and don't want to get out of bed the whole day, eventually the kid is hungry enough to start screaming, and it will keep screaming until you get out of bed and feed it. It really is in everyone's mutual interest, depression or not. It's harder to stay depressed when you have to do things. It's easier to stay depressed when you can lie in bed the whole day.
I personally think that viewing it as a choice is the more productive of the two. That is to say, people have the choice to persevere, keep trying to improve, and trying to recover. Nothing will change without intent.
They didn’t have the option of neglecting their kids either; somehow it doesn’t stop them from doing so anyway.
Mental illness is I think a different thing. Depression doesn't imply mental illness, nor does mental illness imply depression. I understand and agree that many people let mental illness come between them and whatever. It's a problem. It's just a different problem.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/secure-a-bright-future-for-bess-a...
It was a quadruple loss - losing the company I wanted to continue, losing my mother (who had provided emotional support), my father (who had previously been full of good advice), and then realizing that the support system that remained was not available.
Obviously this is different from losing a partner and father-of-a-child to cancer, but emotionally I recognize my own state ca. 2.5 years ago in this article - complete with the realization that the person I was before all of this is not around any more.
For quite a number of people the early 40s have some pretty brutal transitions in store.
That said, the nadir of the grief and loss is also in the rear-view mirror, and a few years later things are definitely looking up. We may not be the person we used to be, but there is such a thing as wisdom, and I think I have a much more nuanced and empathetic world view today, and a deeper appreciation of the value of lifetime.
For me it was caring for my dad in the hospital during COVID and his surgeries around the time. I had to often wake in the nights to drain his catheter. For some reasons, my mom would find it disgusting. And for some reason, not only did I not, my love for him only increased. We also spent a lot of time together which made me almost see him as an entirely a different person than the one I had known all life. It also increased my respect for him tremendously.
40s is such a coming of age time for us men. Its almost like the dawn of a new age.
My knees do feel like they hurt slight. Like just a little. And of course the hair begin to grey. All of a sudden you are in a totally different phase of life altogether.
Interestingly during that crisis a comment I found on HN about a book (Hannibal and me) helped me a lot to overcome that phase.
After reading a hand full of the comments, I am scrolling over the rest, thinking "wow", it's HN, which I read it almost daily to scrutinize nerdy blogs, startup gossip and API critiques. In a way, it feels good that these same people are indeed "real" people with "real" problems, not robots or perfect beings of sorts who only IPO their tech and end up billionairs, flesh-and-bone humans.
Reading this I wished I could just give a big HUG to everyone out there suffering for whatever reason; we all just have one life, let's live it in meaningful ways, let's help each other and be good to one another because anything else is really not worth it.
Worn out, grief-struck after enountering death or other loss, sad, traumatized - it is all horrible but I believe anything can be overcome. No, you won't be the same, but the other version of you can heal, can still live a good - perhaps more aware, humble, slower and more thankful - life, taking it one day at a time.
I'll be throwing in a "prayer for anon." - for everyone who posted here and the OP tonight: may their (your!) suffering cease, wounds heal, and meaning become clear in the end.
One thing I will suggest is a death doula. Birth doulas are very good if you can afford them and worth the money, at least ours was. I really wish we'd gotten a death doula too, to help out with all the dumb things about dying. The paperwork, the adult diapers, the cleaning of a large human, bedsores, the funeral homes, etc. It's a lot of dumb little things that add up in your head that will make it want to pop.
Anyway, reading this piece was going back to a place and a person I was. I get that feeling of living on stress and adrenaline. I took up drinking at night to help out, and that wasn't smart, it wrecked the little sleep I was getting. I should have gone coffee addict or vaping instead. No, honestly, nothing was going to help in the end.
I get the alonenese, the total burnout. For about 3 years afterwards, it was nothing but mechanical robot me. Not a lot of real feelings beside rage, which I barely had the energy for. The first year flus didn't help at all either.
It is better, but like some Dr. Who transformation, I'm a new me now. I have all the memories, but I'm not the old person. I know that sounds like 'Duh, we're all like that dummy', but this time, maybe due to the compression and intensity, it feels different. Like, you thought your first kiss would change you, and it did, but not as much as you though it would. The experience of being a new parent and having that kid's grandfather die within a month, that changed me a lot more than I thought it would. And I really don't like who it changed me into.
It gets better? Maybe, I don't know yet. I hope so.
My in-laws already prepaid for their funeral burial and arrangement and my wife's, and his own fathers as well. So when it all happened, it as a lot less stress. It was still emotional, but everything was handled ahead of time.
It might seem morbid to think about, but if you can preplan your funeral arrangements so your loved ones don't have to, it's definitely one of the better things you can do. Also leaves them free of having to foot the bill.
He had to scramble NYE to find somebody to take the body and then scramble and replan everything because the funeral home had been investigated by the state after a fire and was no longer operational
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/probate.asp
Also, if you can, just put your loved ones as joint users on your banking accounts. That way when you die, it just rolls over to them without much hassle. I know not everyone has that kind of trusting relationship, but if you do, this is one little way to enjoy the fruits of it.
(at least in Massachusetts, 15 years ago)
My FiL's passing has left a yawning chasm in me and an empty ocean in my SO's life. The club members are right, I think, you never really get over it. Time is not long enough to heal that wound.
And it's impossible to understand unless you've lived it. I think that's why its a 'secret', those on the other side just aren't going to understand. It's like trying to talk to someone in French by speaking English slower and louder. You have to go back a long ways down the communication chain, down to pure emotions. And no one wants to do that unless they have to, not just because it's too raw (and it is), but also just because it takes a really long time.
I have heard the 'just go to counseling' part too. Its ... well ... rage inducing. As if that could ever do any good and get me back to the person I was. I hear that too about veterans and their experience back home. Like we just defective and just go get fixed so that way we can go hiking and go to bars and concerts again and so you're not so sad and a bummer all the time.
Like, um, fuck you, you fucking child? Sorry ... ? Have some compassion and ...
But no, it's that they weren't there, they don't know, they can't, and that's a good thing.
You've crossed a bridge, you can't go back. They haven't, yet. They will, and then their pain will let them know your pain. And it will suck, together, for a little while, until that pain comes again in a new way.
Honestly, I can see why old people are so dour now. All these holes in their souls from all these dead people they knew.
Yeah, so, therapy didn't really help, I think you can tell.
About a year after my marriage split up I went to the marriage of someone close to me. During the ceremony I had severe chest pains and was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. I didn't want to disturb the ceremony (they were exchanging rings!) so I figured I'd wait 5 minutes then get up and call an ambulance.
The pain went away, and I didn't do anything about it for a while. Later I had a panic attack when at a new GF's place and had to leave.
Eventually I went to a therapist, and they pointed out these are symptoms of PTSD and trauma.
Anyway, I'm fine now. But it wasn't until I had the physical symptoms that I believed the impact of these things wasn't just something I could ignore.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/takotsubo-cardio...
Being at a wedding might trigger a strong physical reaction from your breakup.
Once you can endure that pain while remaining calm enough to hear Bateman narrate my pain is constant and sharp... in your mind, you'll be "alright".
I'll pass along some wisdom that was imparted to me at the time. A friend told me: "Life is for the living". I'm still here. It's my duty to keep carrying on in spite of it all. It's what my son and mom would have wanted. Honor their lives by carrying on in the life you still have.
I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.
It's been traumatic for myself personally, but it hasn't been ...I'm still highly functional and I'm still continuing to live life to the fullest.
Don't worry about that! My daughter lost her mother when she was 1.5 years old. It's important to have a sensible female role model. A grandma or an aunt will do just fine.
Please do take good care of yourself!
When my partner died, I read up a bit about the problems children face when being raised by a single father. By far the biggest problem was the father's alcoholism. So I decided not to become an alcoholic (a prospect which actually looked rather enticing at a certain point in time). Also I try to be gentle with myself: it's ok to mess up.
Again, hang in there and best of luck to you and your family!
So far, he’s completely fine without her. He claims he has memories of her, but I think he just remembers photos and videos that we’ve watched together. I don’t think he knows what he’s missing.
How do you retain that connection, or do you just leave it in the past?
To retain the connection, we look at photos together every week and I tell him stories about her, and their relationship.
I spoke to him just now, and he says that he misses her but is unable to articulate how. Perhaps these ceremonies will grow more important over time, and as he grows older perhaps he will appreciate that we took the time to celebrate her.
I have an adult friend, who lost his mother at a young age too. He tells me that he only really started to miss her once he got older, around 12, and as an adult. He doesn’t remember who she was or why, but he misses the idea of having had family dinners at home every day etc. The dynamic in a household is very different when there is one adult and one child at home, versus two adults to a child.
It’s also a very big ask of a new partner for them to step in and fulfil the role of mother to your child.
I feel like for me it would be a) Wanting someone I have a deep connection with and b) Someone who's interested in children. I feel that keeps it simple.
But yeah, I just think about how much I wouldn't be able to provide my daughter as a male, given I know so little about hair, make up etc. I mean, I'd obviously learn it all, but it would be easier to have someone who was already on that page.
The initial conditions don’t have to be war or child abuse. A car accident can cause it. A variant, Complex-PTSD, is often caused by traumatic events over time that cannot be escaped, like caring for a dying loved one.
It’s dangerous to you and it can be hard to treat, but it often is treatable. The best thing I’ve read about it (and boy, have I read a lot about this) is The Body Keeps the Score — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th.... Pete Walker also has published several books, and has many important and useful writings on his website — https://www.pete-walker.com/
PTSD doesn’t go away. You just cover it up until it explodes again. Please, if you think this is you, read more and try to get some help.
Shit goes crazy then you pick up the pieces and move on. The trick is to not drag anyone else down with you.
I asked that question so many times (for reference, see my comment on Jake's thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41163619 ). I asked it of my late wife. I asked it of my therapist. I asked it of my daughter, when she was sleeping.
"Is this my life now?"
The first few months were terrible. Then things started to get better. Before anyone jumps and says "a few months?! That's nothing!", there's a thing called "anticipatory grief". Look it up. (Besides, each grief journey is individual. Besides, who are you to criticize me?).
Then things stopped getting worse. For a while life was flat. Colorless. Dark. I moved through the motions. Dropped my daughter at preschool, worked from home, picked her up, went to the playground, went home, dinner, bedtime story, lie in bed doing nothing. Rinse and repeat. Go to sleep early to avoid feeling.
Then it started getting better. And better. And even better than that. Therapy, meds, pushing (omg so much pushing), friends, a new love. Things got continuously better. I'll never forget that year, but I also now know that I can survive what I think is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to a person. I know it cannot break me.
And I think Bess found that out too. Parts of us died with them, but new parts are growing. Parenthood parts. Discovery parts.
I remember watching my wife to make sure she was breathing. Then at the hospital. Then she wasn't. And it was terrible. A loss I cannot even describe, a part of your own soul that is torn out of you. Yet, that part was painful. Not just that, also in pain. In some sense, I was relieved she was no longer in pain. Even more relived she didn't have to witness her mom passing away. The world turning darker and more despair filling in. She missed on milestones, but also on sadness. And, at the end, I miss her but that part, slowly, became more bearable.
To Bess - I can't promise it'll be ok. No one can. But it'll get easier to bare.
It was a few months out from my wife’s passing, and your Irreverent Guide recommendation has been one of a few genuinely helpful things for me so far.
At the time I passed over the children’s book suggestions, but my daughter might appreciate them now.
My personal view is to hide nothing, NOTHING, from my daughter. The tears, the grief, the pictures, the videos. Talking about death using "death" and not "passed away". Talking about the memories and feelings. About a person no longer being here (not spiritual so no "heaven" for us, no waiting to be reunited). And, so far at least (just closing on 2 years, daughter grew from 4.5 to 6.5), it seems to be working very well. She's happy, active, well adjusted, charismatic and not prone to tantrums or worrisome behavior more than any other 6 years old. And her being happy makes me happy. I KNOW my late wife would've been proud of us both.
Death and destruction is the outcome of age, on a molecular, cellular and mental level. The foundational issue addressed by religion, because how else to deal with the unfathomable dread of "nothing gets really better, ever".
Take solace in the fact that this is true for most of your fellow creatures.
The concept of a happy ending, living happily ever after is a dangerous illusion. The best part is likely in the middle, or not at all. The end is pretty much always shit.
Zen, Stoicism, Rebirth ... so many concepts to cope with this simple, basic fact. You get born, you grow up - and then you start dying.
In a few years I probably won't be able to. I'm a married father of two, and every year stories like this hit me harder.
We were together Only a little while And we believed our love Would last a thousand years.
It pulls no punches, and is completely devoid of self pity. Relentless, ruthless reality, coming close to detachment even, but it's all so personal.
Incredible post.
Here is an excerpt where author William Irvine highlights Marcus Aurelius' thoughts on fate and grief:
> Marcus also advocates taking a fatalistic attitude toward life. To do otherwise is to rebel against nature, and such rebellions are counterproductive, if what we seek is a good life. In particular, if we reject the decrees of fate, Marcus says, we are likely to experience tranquility-disrupting grief, anger, or fear. To avoid this, we must learn to adapt ourselves to the environment into which fate has placed us and do our best to love the people with whom fate has surrounded us. We must learn to welcome whatever falls to our lot and persuade ourselves that whatever happens to us is for the best. Indeed, according to Marcus, a good man will welcome “every experience the looms of fate may weave for him.
Today, when I experience regrets and sadness that I can't control, I think; it couldn't have happened any other way.
I think of things in a similar way. All possibilities collapse into the only outcome that was ever truly inevitable. Reality is like the centre of a ven diagram with an infinite amount of circles. No "would of" no "should of' or "could of". Just "is". Only once we accept something can we move past it. Some people don't like this idea but I think that they just don't understand or want to acknowledge how much power the current moment holds.
There is a lot more suffering to be had when we try to escape our current suffering. A good example of this is drug addicts. On a long enough time line all forms of escapism eventually turn into prisons.
If you are reading this and want to disagree or explore these ideas I suggest the following. Sleep 2-4hrs one night then take a cold shower in the morning. As you find your mind and body trying to move away from the discomfort accept your circumstance. Stand still with the water passing over your face and focus on the freshness and crispness of the icy cold water.
I'm sorry to deflate the mood, but holy damn, that is one banger of a line. So much said so briefly.
And when your love dies and leaves you an empty husk, you can look back and embrace that loss that emptied you. Don't hide from love/loss. Life won't leave you alone, life has infinite love and loss.
You guys are some incredibly admirable and resilient people. Infinite respect.
My self-diagnostic is mild burn out with a stressful work trying to get our start up to service, mild depression due I think to working remotely in my apartment, barely going outside even on weekend (my only human interactions are through zoom).
I am trying to improve, but it feels that the energy spent during the past 5 years to dig that hole, is equal to energy to get out of that hole... and honestly at this point, I don't know if I can.
Quitting could be an option, but I have been working since I was 20yo without interruption, never had to really interview, just got hired or pulled from current job. And that feels scary to me now over 50yo to quit and maybe change career for something more social and less taxing.
I honestly do not know how long I can keep doing what I am currently doing. I need to keep myself in check to make sure that I do not go too far in that hole.
Whatever it is you are fighting with, never forget that you have far more subtle influence on your kids ten you might think. Letting things slide can have far more devastating conseuqneces to your relationships then you might think. If you dont get your act together, you might end up as an estranged parent a decade or two down the road.
I'm sorry for what you've gone through but appreciate your sharing it.
but we're not. we change, moment to moment, forever, endlessly -- it doesn't stop, ever. not when we go to sleep. not when we go through a traumatic event. not when we die.
a stark reminder of our fragility. i hope the author can find peace.
Time does heal though. It never stops you loving someone but it lets you gradually put something together out of the wreckage. The person you loved is no longer in pain, no longer suffering. The problem is feeling that nothing can replace the hole blown in your world.
Nothing does replace it exactly but you gradually build a different structure that makes life bearable. Other people need you (especially your child) to create that structure for them and when you start to do it you will see the value of overcoming your own pain.
> Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little and have a cup of tea. > > — Elder Sophrony of Essex
It's a quote from the end of Lars Doucet's post, Losing my son.
Stay strong, and if not strong, then just stay.
Trump and Musk are killing the very research that has a shot at saving lives and preventing these families from being torn apart. NIH and NSF are being gutted. Universities won't be able to do bio research at all under the new 15% cap on NIH indirect costs.
These decisions which save no appreciable amount of money have a real impact on people whose children must now grow up without them. As a new father this is really heartbreaking.
From their perspective, the origin of this thread is someone using a tragedy to emotionally manipulate on behalf of bloated institutions and their administrations — and every bit as monstrous as you believe their views are. Perhaps even more so.
These are indirect costs. You cannot do research without them.
What's going to happen if the government cuts off most indirect costs is that we're going to be forced to do research that can be covered by those costs.
So, no, more money isn't going to go to better research. It's going to go to much worse research and it will be a massive waste.
Instead of doing the best research I can, I'll need to think about the lowest overhead projects so that my department doesn't go bankrupt. That means taking no risks, avoiding new data collection, not starting up anything radically new that might not have an immediate payoff, etc. That's a bad deal for everyone!
Good scientists don't want to do bad research. The best will leave.
This will destroy the lead that the US has in science and technology over the rest of the world. Never mind kill countless people who would have been saved by new treatments.
The whole debate is whether 15% indirect costs is sufficient or whether it needs to be 30%+. Without a doubt universities are bloated and many don’t invest appropriately in their facilities — but where is the appropriate line?
Unfortunately, you didn’t add to that debate: you assumed the conclusion and then catastrophized based on your assumption. That exact style of argumentation is what makes people distrust that 30%+ really is needed — because nobody itemizes how, they just immediately resort to shaming and emotional manipulation.
> That means taking no risks, avoiding new data collection, not starting up anything radically new that might not have an immediate payoff, etc.
That’s compounded by all your personal examples of how this impacts you being direct costs — which have greater funding, with this change. And your claim that you can no longer do them dubious at best.
If you want the public to believe that was wrong, you’ll need to make that case.
They looked at a handful of cherry picked charities that love to donate to high profile projects. Universities subsidize these grants internally to get other donations!
When I get money from say the Gates foundation, they are almost always topping up existing research not doing something new. On a high profile topic donors are attracted to.
These cherry picked foundations also give very little money; well under 1% of what we bring in. So the lack of indirect costs has a minor effect on the system that gets balanced by other well meaning donors.
Had they looked at other grants they would have seen that the indirect costs are in line with what NIH was paying. The bulk of other grants includes NSF, DARPA, ONR, etc.
Or they could have asked, when a corporation gives a university money, what do they think is a reasonable overhead rate? Because we don't accept money from for profit entities at anything less than the full overhead rate. And corporations pay it because it's reasonable. That's because they fund a lot of research and because they aren't a charity we would subsidize with other donations.
Or they could ask. When a corporation gets an NIH grant, what are their indirect costs? Are university indirect costs in line? After all everyone needs to keep the lights on.
Corporations are not subject to the cap at all! They can get a grant and charge 100% overhead. This only applies to universities. The government could not give a biotech company a grant with 15% overhead, no company would ever take it.
I have seen the indirect costs that some major corporations charge. 100% is low for them! And the government pays it. In every single contract with industry.
Except for universities. That they single out to dry to drive into insolvency.
So no. They didn't look at other grants. They could have computed countless statistics against tens of millions of grants for hundreds of billions of dollars. They picked the most elite nice small charities that give out a few hundred grants that we fund ourselves for the most bleeding heart projects.
You only listed peer government grant agencies — which people believe have similar problems to NIH.
> And the government pays it. In every single contract with industry.
And the same people generally believe that’s also full of fraud and waste. So what’s your argument?
> They could have computed countless statistics against tens of millions of grants for hundreds of billions of dollars.
So why don’t you do that, to prove them wrong? It sounds really easy.
No. I also gave two other options.
Get the overhead rate of corporations from government contracts.
Or get the overhead rate that corporations pay to universities, just like the government.
> And the same people generally believe that’s also full of fraud and waste. So what’s your argument?
So then compare overhead rates in commercial contracts between corporations.
> So why don’t you do that, to prove them wrong? It sounds really easy.
Oh yes. I will send NIH, Musk, and Trump a letter, they will realize the error of their ways and change course. Come on. Now you aren't discussing things in good faith.
Although for the record major universities, including mine, have already written such letters to the administration. Much good that did.
All of these numbers are publicly available. Feel free to look them up. It's bread and butter economics.
But no. This isn't about proving anyone wrong. These people don't care about right or wrong. We are so past that. This is about their attempt to break the system. The fallout of which will be disastrous.
The impact of the wholesale dismantlement of our research capacity won't be seen by the average person for a while. Maybe a good 10 to 20 years. Then slowly you'll notice that all of the new companies, medicines, etc. have a different language on them, their names sound a bit foreign, that foreign stock markets are getting attractive, and that someone else is getting rich instead of us.
Restarting research will be nearly impossible. Europe has been trying to restart its research enterprise for more than half a century and the US still dominates despite massive EU investment. The biggest winner will be China who is paying a lot to attract researchers.
Is there actual evidence that shows there was an issue that needed to be immediately addressed the way it was? Some evidence of "fraud" perhaps ?
How do you know the money going to the university isn't just forwarded onto the professors so they are funded? Doesn't sound that suspicious to me.
I have a friend who is caught up in this and it is chaos.
Putting the fox in charge of the hen house is where it went wrong.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_Magical_Thinking
I can only recommend to read « Éloge de l'amour » from Alain Badiou (and Nicolas Truong). It defends love as a conscientious and willing alterity of yourself, but a non-controlled alterity, an alterity puts in the hands of another.
That’s why, I think, people does not help that much someone that lost a love saying him/her will be more focused on them-self. Because the lost was absolute part of them-self, and not something they actually suffer from.
It's been three years and now I can manage my life on a certain level. But all those unsightly, dark struggles still haunt me. I never overcome them. Deep down I know, I'm a runaway, forever.
> You guys had loved ones?
There's so much societal attention to loss, but any complaint about the inability to form meaningful relationships in the first place is usually met with enthusiastic "git gud". Nobody cares about the slow burnout of knowing that you'll always be on your own.
Which makes sense if you think about it. A person going through loss must've had the skills to get what they want in the first place, which means they might useful to the society, they deserve a second chance. A person who cannot get what they want most likely is inherently incapable of reaching their goals, which means they're not as useful, and not worth crying over. It's like all those people paying attention to celebrities and their problems, but ignoring the homeless. The former might release another beautiful song, the latter will not.
Adorable. Your mom loves you because it's tremendously beneficial to the survival of the species and the culture, not because of some higher ideals.
All i can type is that it reminded me of some music and songtext that may or may not help give it all a place and time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpV3fO5Alto
About a month ago, I checked myself into a local hospital. I had severe ascites. My CO2 levels were 70%. My heart ejection fraction was 20%. I could barely walk much less breathe. I weighed 340 pounds. I had severe edema to the point that not only could I not put on socks, but flip flops barely fit on my feet. I could sit, tilt backward, and the edema in my back would act as a kickstand. Drinking a cup of coffee or eating anything more than half a burger would put me into a bout of physical pain that would last 2+ hours, and the only way to get past it was to lay down.
The hospital staff did paracentesis on me. They extracted 6, 10, 17, and 4 liters from me via a tube shoved into my abdomen. They put me on an around the clock Lasix drip and put a catheter in me. I urinated 2 gallons a day for 2 weeks. I entertained myself by watching the tube running from my junk to the catheter drainage bag, watching as I would periodically have bloody urine because I was passing kidney stones with so much force that they didn't have time to hurt due to the sheer amount of fluid coming off of me. After those 2 weeks, I weighed 215 pounds. My heart's ejection fraction improved to 50%.
Turns out my right lung did not have a connection to my right artery. And I have an unknown mass in my right kidney that they suspect is cancer. I had basically been operating my entire life with half an oxygen supply. As a teen, I had big time CFB athletic talent but didn't have the stamina and it was frustrating. And now I knew why. My right heart had started to weaken. They did ultrasounds and CT scans and angiographs. The cardiologist said that my heart had no signs of damage and my arteries were completely fine, so at least I had that going for me.
So after not having seen a doctor since 1992, I was stuck in a hospital for a month getting around the clock medication and daily blood work and weekly paracentesis (which will be happening forever). All my blood work is normal. I also have AFib, which is the main thing they need to treat and might even help to fix some of the backflow which causes my abdomen to fill with fluid. My blood pressure is normal for the first time since I was 6 years old. When I entered the hospital, it was 187/114. Now it's 105/80.
So in the course of a month, I went from having no doctor and no time in a hospital to a month long hospital stay accompanied with short term disability and a prognosis of needing weekly drainings forever along with 4 specialists and a primary care physician and about 8 prescriptions. I also saw a psychiatrist for the first time ever after having struck out multiple times with Betterhealth goons who wouldn't listen and kept trying to make me meditate.
I am a fundamentally different person than I was when I went in. I refuse to be that person ever again. I will prioritize my own needs over other people's feelings. I will be active because I want to be. I've got a plan to take my life back from the depression that hung over it for years. I have 3 or 4 product ideas that would make a hospital stay better and make the staff's lives easier without dealing with HIPAA. So yes, it sucked, yes, it was expensive, but it helped me gain perspective and while I wish I wasn't sick, otherwise it was totally worth it.
When I look in the mirror now, I notice all the places where my body reveals what I’ve been through. And I wonder, in a way that I wouldn’t if Jake were still alive, how this new body appears to others who don’t view it through a lens of love.
35 years down the road I am single again and thought of that girl who didn't happen. I did a little digging and found a recent selfie she'd taken. She's in her 70s and I still see the same artist and dancer I fell for a lifetime ago. That she stayed with me that way - it makes me feel hopeful about what people can be to each other.
What I left out of my OP is I was competing with her longtime boyfriend and my odds never were good (I did come close a few times tho). He owned an upscale restaurant, for starters. He was also a genuinely good guy. I know they were together a long while; I'd be happy if they still were.
Regardless, I'll be up that way this fall and hopefully we can get caught up.
Her husband was a frequent HN user, and their story was known here. This is a continuation.
I love seeing the human side of HN. This is an extremely unique perspective, a beautifully written but horrific snapshot of a woman's life when her husband - a man like many of us - dies prematurely while she's pregnant.
It's relevant in ways that another LLM article can't be.
i dont come here for middle aged emo bait. i wanna read HACKING NEWS
people dont come here for sad life stories they come here for hacker news.
if people post stuff like this I cant find the cool tech news, and people who want to post or see cool tech news wont post or comment on it either. there is a dynamic range of attention on the front page and this consumes it. I see it as an emotional ddos attack. Because you cant criticize it. If you do people get mad. This post is like a viral email that tells you to resend or else you hate jesus or something.
Plus it just violates common sense. why dont i go to cats.com to see some cats. oh thats weird its all sad posts about dogs that ran away. "why dont we post that on dogs.com". then they get mad at me because its insensetive or something. sucks dogs ran away but why even come to cats.com if its all dog posts. Half of hacker news posts are midlife crisis posts some days and when it hits that threshold i cant find anything about lisp or compilers or whatever, I leave and dont come back for months and then you lose the tech interest. curation is important.
somebody died. thats sad. makes u sad. maybe deep to some people. but its not hacking news.
theres nothing novel about this post or perspective anyway. somebody important dies in your life you get sad and have to rebuild and forget. youll have to redesign your own personal religion to get through it. it sucks this person was sad. its the worst thing in the world to them. hope they get better. okay but i dont want to see it on coolcatpics.com.
and THIS is HACKER NEWS.
the code people left.
>this is just poetic literature
>theres nothing novel about this post
There's certainly something in there that I can agree with. Though I dont think you'd appreciate the irony as well as I do.
(to comment on the deaths im in my early thirties. big family members are going. step dad died of cancer when i was 17. had a near death experience once or twice.
at some point you just accept death is a part of life. you dont want people to die. youve been through the recovery twice before. you dont wish it on other people. but the artistic wallowing doesnt do anybody any good. because youre only getting out on your own. when i catch my friends doing it i slap them.
now theres a big difference in my case since I was a man and the author was a woman (and pregnant). her social circumstance probably treats her like she has intrinsic value. allegedly i dont.
anyways im here for tech news. my step dad would have showed me hacker news 15 years ago if he had known i cared. and if he had, id hope it has fucking tech news on it like it presumably would have had he bothered. (he was a programmer))