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Ask Slashdot: Working With Others, As a Schizophrenic Developer?
An anonymous reader writes: "I hope there are a few open source developers on Slashdot who understand this. As a developer who works alone and remotely (while living with my own family) — and is schizophrenic — there would be times I would feel very high (a surge of uncontrollable thoughts), or low because of the kind of failures that some patients with mental illness would have, and because of the emotional difficulty of being physically alone for 8 hours a day. This led me to decide to work physically together with my co-workers. Have you been in this situation before? If you have, how well did you manage it? (Medications are a part of the therapy as well.)"
Your ability to be productive and stay on the "happy path" will come from the ability to trust your team, trust yourself, and have your team trust you. I'd start with setting and achieving goals, and asking for help early in the process if you feel things start to slip.
What with the usual tenor of Slashdot comments, wanted to say early: awesome that you're working, doing it, trying to live in the "normal" world, where the normals don't often understand. My heart and thoughts are with you.
You might try telling any new co-workers right away that you have schizophrenia. That way, there will be less confusion and misunderstanding by others. You could just mention it in a matter-of-fact sort of way, by talking about schizophrenia as just a chronic illness like so many others. That might de-mystify it for some people.
I worked with someone who had schizophrenia, and she simply told new co-workers right away. I thought it was a good way of handling it.
Best of luck.
First, I really understand what you're saying. This is a tough situation, but I'm certain you can make it through.
You're being really wise not to isolate yourself. Spending time with people will make a very substantial difference in both how you feel and your general recovery. Isolation, even with caring family will hurt you. Please keep on trying to interact with people.
In terms of mental health... what you're describing sounds more like bipolar and less like schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be medicated, if you're serious about it, carefully monitored, and have a good support system. Bipolar is a bit rougher, and you'll have to recognize what's happening to you yourself, and with the help of family and friends. Be very careful when you're manic - I know it can feel awesome, but the code you produce can be pretty damn awful. Depressed code is less of an issue as you'll likely not write that much.
You'll find that folks in CS tend to be very understanding of mental health issues. Very, very understanding. We're in an industry filled with intelligent and generally caring people, and you'll find support. Just be honest with your colleagues about how you're doing, and most importantly, make sure your first priority is taking care of yourself.
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Attempting to treat an honest-to-goodness thought disorder like schizophrenia without medication is akin to treating near-sightedness with counseling. There's a place for cognitive therapy in schizophrenia but it's considered adjunctive treatment (among mainstream practitioners). There are a smattering of schizophrenics who can ignore auditory and visual hallucinations that are the hallmark of the disease, and anti-psychotics may indeed make some people feel less sharp (though that isn't universal). I'd wager that most people with schizophrenia are more capable of getting things done when they aren't beset by what are typically very vivid and often intrusive hallucinations. There are, of course alternative viewpoints, such as that of the Church of Scientology.
I think your advice was reasonable, based on your experience, and it was reasonable for you to offer it.
I do have a partial disagreement with it though. Medications have side effects, often significantly undesirable, and there isn't a clear, universally applicable line which distinguishes all schizophrenics from all non-schizophrenics. I have had symptoms which meet the definition of schizophrenia, and I had them a lot more for a couple of years before they went away again. Suppose I had decided it was a problem worth getting medication for. Then I could never stop the medications again? That would seem like a good reason to be very cautious about ever starting treatment.
My sister is a doctor in a big city ER, so I can imagine what your experience is like. But that's a skewed sample. It doesn't include the much larger number of mild schizophrenics who never wind up in the ER. Also, many doctors are not very interested in understanding the more subtle tradeoffs with medications and their significance, and they prescribe drugs casually if the patient seems to be asking for it, or for the sake of doing some kind of treatment to cover their own liability or to justify the visit. How large a portion of doctors have that kind of arrogance I don't know, because I've encountered both. But the percentage who went into medicine because of some combination of attraction to money, having power over people, and vicarious sadism is not small. Particularly in the more difficult areas like mental health and ER work.