Please (please) append the word "Essays" (or "Book") to the post title ASAP. This reads like an obituary and I'm sure many others will be concerned when seeing it in this form like I was.
First time I ever had to leave a comment surrounding the HN Guidelines, but "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
Just today you wrote "[...] Russians, you're a fucking Trump supporter!"
HN is the best and I'm sure you agree. Please take it easy with these kinds of comments.
"It seems that most likely I exhausted my coping mechanism pool".
Been there, done that! I have about 10 "core" mechanism that have stuck, but some stop being effective because I needed to change them up to make it more suitable to address my suffering.
The psychwards I went to before my Dx/meds taught (DBT) (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) it's more about coping and life skills to execute on. You can also find therapists that practice with this modality. In a nutshell, DBT is all about "mindfulness" and "skills" (basically more involved coping mechanisms). It's more "actionable" than regular CBT in my opinion - but I'm biased.
You can skip the DBT therapy and look up all of the skills and practices on your own too. It's good to have a professional as a therapeutic guide and hold you accountable, however. I won't go too far into that, but you have to track "bad habits" (PG-13) and if you followed through with what you set out to accomplish for you illness.
Also, if you're in the US, you can freely/anonymously join the local DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support) meeting. The name is misleading though - it's basically for any mental or "advanced" mental illness. My sample size is 1, but their were folks in the meetings that had debilitating anxiety / anxiety disorders soo..
(Note: if you feel that this is just "regular" anxiety and it can pass, my wall of text is something you can skip. Only thing that should be considered are developing coping skills! I'm just trying to be helpful.)
I'm thinking you'll reach the end of this dark tunnel here soon - but with a bit of work! The posters here have been thoughtful and there's a lot of good stuff to consider - I may be able to touch on this from another angle.
If you have the funds, I would strongly encourage you to see either a psychologist or psychiatrist. I have suffered with clinical anxiety and regular panic attacks for over a decade. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and Psychosis about 2 years ago, which are very rough and sometimes "team up" to make my existing anxiety/attacks worse.
Even though this "teaming up" effect has been given me more anxiety than I can handle... trying out a 1 or many medications, reading books on coping skills/etc, and putting in the effort to test out said coping skills are great for many people.
If you don't want to go this route, I would at least spend some time looking into and testing out various coping skills. You can use them as soon as things are headed in the wrong direction. This approach will also help if you have non-clinical anxiety as well.
note: not a doctor... just a "patient" and can relate :) - I think you got this!
I'm very passionate about the UFO subject ("ufology" as some call it) and am happy that we're getting more "official" reports like this which leads to public awareness. I follow the subject pretty closely and 90% of it is all about book sales so it's annoying/pushes it back from being taken seriously in terms of science.
As far as I'm concerned this ^ and the Phoenix Lights are the most credible UFO sightings.
Personal note: I'll never forget the first time I saw a UFO and it was with my Dad! We couldn't believe it - my cheap Virgin Mobile flip phone camera was not capable of... well anything, unfortunate. I have seen 2 or 3 UFOs since then (one with an ex-partner so I wasn't just seeing things).
BTW, I'm you're typical "smart" logical programmer and don't just believe whatever I hear... I'm betting on more of these reports coming out and hope that science starts to factor into the subject.
Can't say I was a narcissist, but I had an epiphany at one point about "being too full of myself" as well as taking over conversations too often. I really dug into certain philosophies to help course correct.
The most useful philosophies (for me) were/are Secular Humanism and Utilitarianism PLUS all of the sub-philosophies inside of each. There are definitely some problematic ideas in each, but I think you'll gain some new perspectives.
There are other areas to look at, but what I listed is a good start. Stoicism can also help with emotional control and being more aware of your thinking. It's kind of like a "practice".
You can buy books or browse the web for this stuff, of course.
NOTE: I have ZERO credentials in philosophy... it's just my hobby. However, I don't think my recommendations here are out-of-line as they are pretty high level. Would love to have more seasoned folks comment/point out other areas of philosophy that are useful in gaining insights for the OP's issues.
Nice! It sounds like you are keeping tabs on this anecdotally/with studies for multiple mental disorders. Maybe my comment is sort of useful to some! Also, I'd like to expand a bit, actually.
My "version" of BP is "Type 1 with Psychotic Features" - it's a rough one, so doc recommended __total__ sobriety (for me, that was only quitting marijuana). The reasoning was because of potential med interactions and a higher chance of going into mania/depression. My comment above says "[Kava] was great for me at first" because it was like 20% of a marijuana high, very calming, and I thought it was safe/not a "drug". I actually felt like I was cheating and then noticed instabity pretty quickly after that.
I've been sober for over a year and a half (strictly for my disorder, not because of typical reasons e.g.: drug addiction). At this point, I'll take stability over any tea (or anything) that provides a light high. :-)
For everyone else, I'm hopeful Kava is a helpful medicine.
People with Bipolar: Seriously talk with your psychiatrist before trying Kava - it was great for me at first, but then I noticed some undesirable mood changes. I wish we knew more about Kava and also drug interactions.
(This comment doesn't really need a thread or arguments about natural solutions :-P ... just a note/data point to maybe save someone a bit of trouble)
Hi all. This project uses Ansible to install all kinds of desktop software for the "Everyday User", "Programmer", "Artist", "Musician", "Engineer", and "Gamer". It works on Ubuntu 18.04 and related systems (found in README).
Please let me know what your thoughts on the solution are.
If you are interested in helping to evolve it, these are the top TODOs:
- Currently, Snap, Apt, Pip3, and NPM are the main package managers. We need to also harness Yum, Pacman, and RPM.
- Simplify the install process.
- Consider building a very user friendly GTK UI application where programs can be individually selected in a given persona.
Thanks.