Career change / mid-life crisis.

[dinny_g]

I like “Just make a plan and stick to it”

I tend to forgive them now because they obviously just don’t understand Mental Health at all.

[drcarlos]

IT seems to be a breeding ground for greasy pole climbers and people suffering burnout.

I stopped the continuous push for promotion and have stood still just doing a good job with what I do for about 6.5 years. Got fed up with the weekly battles to justify our existence though so I've moved on to another role in security.

Will see how this goes and if it can reinvigorate my motivation mojo for IT, but somehow I think I've come to a similar crossroads. If it wasn't for the kids and mortgage I'd already be doing something like this.

A friend of mine has just moved to a role as a school caretaker after doing about 30 years as a mechanic and I'm just a little jealous of you both.

Good luck.

[simon_g]

Yeah, I've just cruised since having kids. Had loads of spare time before that for studying/research/exams which helped progress but I just can't be bothered any more. Should probably be trying to pivot to the next big thing (for the fourth time - IT is roughly a 6-7 year cycle) but meh. Friend in his early 50s got out of senior IT management, he's a really good DIYer and his wife got him to help out a couple of people in their village as he had time on his hands. He's booked out for months now, village is on a hill so no end of retaining walls, patios, etc to build. He's really enjoying it and I'm pretty envious.

BBQ looks amazing Dave!

[Gavster]

I know what you mean Newt...

It can be difficult to explain to people thought because, conventional wisdom says that life is all about "Challenging yourself" and "the only way you can grow as a person is to get outside your comfort zone". I had friends suggest that the best way I could deal with my anxiety and depression was to quit my job and get another job, significantly higher up the food chain because it would force me to "Be OK" because I wouldn't have a choice - mortgage to pay, Son to look after etc. All this while careering towards a Nervous Breakdown.

There's nothing wrong with Challenging yourself in other ways away from work. Going into work, doing your job, going home and collecting your salary is absolutely fine. But not everyone sees that.

Unpopular opinion - it's not the worst advice... hear me out.

If that was their initial advice, then I agree that they can take a running jump. If, however we imagined that they had been supporting your ongoing downward trajectory for a longer period of time, then it can be incredibly helpful when people suggest a seemingly un-sympathetic solution, as it's promoting a more stoic approach to the problem. It's like a mini dose of CBT that can provoke different thought patterns and cuts through any lingering self pity - which us humans like to savour like a fine wine.

Besides, in all of these situations, the most important part of finding a solution is not the spending the longest time considering which is best in terms of being 'right', it's how quickly we perform the action of making a decision. And that's backed by science.

[Gavster]

I don’t think I realised how tightly wound / stressed out I was and how I needed to stop until I actually stopped to do my PhD and finally got some breathing space. I didn’t realise why at the time, but it was the best decision I could have ever made, mental health wise.

LOL if a PhD gave you breathing space then work must have been crazy stressful. About two thirds of the way through a PhD seems to be a sure-fire way to elicit some dark night of the soul-style depression when you've got your data but haven't got a clue what the findings are yet

[dinny_g]

Some interesting stuff...

In my case, the friend's dad suffered really badly with depression and didn't deal with it correctly to the detriment of him and his family, He has, therefore "very little time" for depression and thinks it should just be grasped by the scuff of the neck and just fucking dealt with.

A lot of people who don't understand depression often think in the same way. "Oh, you're very unhappy in life ?? Well, decide what you want in life to be happy, make a plan to achieve it and then stick to the plan - simples"

not too dissimilar to "Oh your and Alcoholic ? Well Stop drinking and then, you won't be an alcoholic anymore. Simple"

If were so simple, there would be no mental health crisis.

It took me 20 weeks of counselling and I'm still only half way there I reckon...

[Beany]

As I tell people, if I could just pull myself together, my depression would be an annoying character quirk, not a full blown debilitating mental illness.

I often call them ignorant cunts after that. Because fuck 'em.

[Gavster]

Some interesting stuff...

In my case, the friend's dad suffered really badly with depression and didn't deal with it correctly to the detriment of him and his family, He has, therefore "very little time" for depression and thinks it should just be grasped by the scuff of the neck and just fucking dealt with.

A lot of people who don't understand depression often think in the same way. "Oh, you're very unhappy in life ?? Well, decide what you want in life to be happy, make a plan to achieve it and then stick to the plan - simples"

not too dissimilar to "Oh your and Alcoholic ? Well Stop drinking and then, you won't be an alcoholic anymore. Simple"

If were so simple, there would be no mental health crisis.

It took me 20 weeks of counselling and I'm still only half way there I reckon...

Of course, it's entirely subjective and what works for others might not for you - I'm not disparaging your situation and the fact you're taking conscious action is what's vitally important. Yet at the same time a critical eye on progress is important. We have everyone self-diagnosing as ADHD because they can't concentrate during a pandemic (surprise) and then saw a TikTok about ADHD symptoms. Even if someone is ADHD, they still have to learn how to exist in the presence of their neurodviergent personality because taking Ritalin every day isn't exactly a bag of laughs. It comes down to balancing what we can do to heal ourselves and what we cannot.

I have a habit of doing things to the extreme, so spent a few years working through various types of therapy and personal development from Freudian psychoanalysis to drinking Ayahuasca in the Peruvian rainforest, via untold psychological and spiritual development processes. My brain has been fully detailed from front to back and my third eye squeegeed clean, so I'm largely done with that stuff now, accepting that I'll always be a capricious, narcissistic guy but I'm happy with that . Nonetheless, I've found Seerut Chawla very useful recently to gain a bit of perspective on mental health

https://instagram.com/seerutkchawla?utm ... =copy_link

[dinny_g]

That’s exactly right Gavster - I now know where I am, what I need and more importantly, what I don’t.

I have a blueprint for happiness and know how to get there which is, I suppose, 3/4 of the battle

[Sundayjumper]

I have a blueprint for happiness and know how to get there which is, I suppose, 3/4 of the battle

I misread that as 3/4 of a bottle and that it's how much you need to be happy


<waves at Freud>

[dinny_g]

I’m Irish, it’s an honest mistake…

[Explosive Newt]

I don’t think I realised how tightly wound / stressed out I was and how I needed to stop until I actually stopped to do my PhD and finally got some breathing space. I didn’t realise why at the time, but it was the best decision I could have ever made, mental health wise.

LOL if a PhD gave you breathing space then work must have been crazy stressful. About two thirds of the way through a PhD seems to be a sure-fire way to elicit some dark night of the soul-style depression when you've got your data but haven't got a clue what the findings are yet

I was lucky, I think - great supervisor, supportive team and an interesting project I could get my teeth into. It was pressure rather than stress, if that is the right turn of phrase. I had a lot more control over my life, there were no night shifts and no one dies if you get it wrong.

Medicine has a relatively macho culture of "can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" and there is, or was, that idea of earning your stripes by doing these stupidly stressful jobs and never asking for help. I remember turning up for some shifts where I was the most senior person in the hospital genuinely feeling sick with worry about making a mistake, and being kept up at night re-living past mistakes. I think there has been some change now, but it is gradual. The NHS provides some counselling services which are actually easy to access and you can self-refer to, which I really wish I had taken advantage of back then; fortunately more people are doing it now.

[Gavster]

What were you researching in the PhD?

[unzippy]

As I tell people, if I could just pull myself together, my depression would be an annoying character quirk, not a full blown debilitating mental illness.

I often call them ignorant cunts after that. Because fuck 'em.

I can't tell you how much good the change of environment did me. I'm a different person, for the better.

Get a new job

[Beany]

As I tell people, if I could just pull myself together, my depression would be an annoying character quirk, not a full blown debilitating mental illness.

I often call them ignorant cunts after that. Because fuck 'em.

I can't tell you how much good the change of environment did me. I'm a different person, for the better.

Get a new job

On the cards, on the cards...

[Explosive Newt]

What were you researching in the PhD?

How long have you got

We looked at cardiac metabolism. The heart uses sugar (glucose) and fat (a variety of short and medium chain fatty acids) to produce the energy it needs to beat. In certain conditions like heart failure, energy production is reduced, which is linked to a reduction in the amounts of sugar and fat taken up. My research looked at ways of altering sugar and fat uptake as a novel treatment for these conditions. We used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure energy production in living human hearts during different infusions of fat and sugars to look into this more closely.

To put it another way… I got people to lie in MRI scanners while I gave them weird infusions. It’s cool in a kind of sci fi way to be able to measure a chemical reaction inside of a living, beating heart inside someone without so much as using a needle

[V8Granite]

What were you researching in the PhD?

How long have you got

We looked at cardiac metabolism. The heart uses sugar (glucose) and fat (a variety of short and medium chain fatty acids) to produce the energy it needs to beat. In certain conditions like heart failure, energy production is reduced, which is linked to a reduction in the amounts of sugar and fat taken up. My research looked at ways of altering sugar and fat uptake as a novel treatment for these conditions. We used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure energy production in living human hearts during different infusions of fat and sugars to look into this more closely.

To put it another way… I got people to lie in MRI scanners while I gave them weird infusions. It’s cool in a kind of sci fi way to be able to measure a chemical reaction inside of a living, beating heart inside someone without so much as using a needle

I would like to volunteer for this “go eat this bacon and have a nap in that machine” experiment

Dave!

[unzippy]

Had a chap come back into the shop today after eating.
I quote:
"I've eaten at Franklin's and this is easily as good"

Taken nearly 2 years, but mic drop

[Jobbo]

That's fabulous - can you get a prominent foodie to agree and make you go viral?

[duncs500]

Excellent!