In SF until Sat.

Stack: Ruby, CoffeeScript (backbone.js, spine.js and their ilk)

Github: https://github.com/k2052 Book I wrote on CoffeeScript Frameworks: https://leanpub.com/building-coffeescript-frameworks

Contact: k@2052.me

I know MV* js/coffeescript frameworks like the back of my hand. I can code clean API-first ruby apps that are fully tested and easily deployed. I'm most productive with Sinatra/Padrino/Grape/Scorched/Other Minimal frameworks but can easily tackle Rails to. I'm a polyglot that has played with everything from Clojure to Nimrod; could easily dive into anything and get up to speed quickly.

All the resources for the socially isolated tend to be directed at;

1. Those that are depressed or insane. As I mentioned (albeit in a very hyperbolic manner) people tend to assume you're depressed and the only help I have ever been offered was to help cure my non-existent depression. I think it's because most people cant imagine cutting themselves off from the world. They'd only do it if they had a serious mental breakdown, so they assume we must have had one.

or

2. Autistic people that are severely socially disabled.

I'm neither depressed nor severely social disabled. I imagine most shut-ins aren't.

The judgment and inaccurate labeling that comes with seeking help severely deters people like us from seeking it. The very reason I withdrew from society is because I couldn't take the labeling and social judgment.

I'd encourage you to read up on Hikikomori. Japan has a culture that causes a great deal more shut-ins than we do and there is a significant body of work on the phenomenon. Shutting Out the Sun http://www.amazon.com/Shutting-Out-Sun-Generation-Departures... is a pretty good book. There is a good introductory article here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15japanese.html?p...

Simply reading about others like me was enough to give me the courage to share with a few online friends and from there I got the courage to publish my story. There are lots of people like us, you're not alone. Feel free to email me anytime "k@20252.me". We can chat about whatever.

It might be insightful to you, that you made a substantial Singular vs Plural mistake there. There's more than one society / culture, more than one way of life, more than one mode of socialization... Its a big planet, now go find the rest of it. Much like your story related numerous different places to physically live without getting the point there are numerous different cultures/societies to live in. As a much older dude than you, I found several (sub)cultures I like and happily socialize in. Lifestyle and culture of the masses, some parts are OK, some, maybe most, no. Reason, analyze, freely pick and choose, that is a feature, not a bug. Take reasoning engine, enter inadequate information, test and get confusing output, assume problem is the reasoning engine, not so. Its a big planet, there's more out there than just extroverted dominant media culture or nothingness. How to figure out the right way to live, that is the true education.

Find professional help (NOW) to starting approaching it and dealing with it.

Find professional help (NOW) to help manage your mental disorder (depression) which carries an enormous and present risk of self-harm.

Get whatever the fuck is wrong with your foot fixed, and start walking out the door on the regular.

You appear to be bright, talented, and a capable writer. Resume applying those gifts to the people around you instead of yourself. You are the best person in your own life, now be the best person in other people's lives.

...Why?

I've spent most of the last ten years trying to do just that. Do you know what it has gotten me? Let me tell you what it has gotten me: friends and family that never call unless they need something; an utterly depleted bank account; a complete lack of respect or even human regard from my peers; a pile of strife and struggle and pain and misery and not one single positive thing to show for it other than impotently small differences in the lives of sycophants.

No, do not live for others. Never live for others, because nobody will laud you for it -- in fact, people will find it laughable and openly sneer at you for it.

He wrote, "In the aftermath of emotional implosion; friends, family, colleagues and even strangers will metamorph into an invasive species from planet Concern," and I thought, "pfft, that must be lovely."

Further, I really wish people would stop talking to people with depression as though they were in boot camp for Turning Their Lives Around. e-shouting "find professional help!" is a sure sign of someone who has never actually tried seeking professional help, because here's the thing about a lot of "professional help": the professionals really suck. How do you think someone feels after sharing their troubles with a cold stranger for an hour, getting merely a few minutes' advice and another appointment at the end, and then paying for that? And when that person has tried 2, 3, half-a-dozen professionals, how do you think they begin to feel then?

Your commandments here strike me as being like an extrovert's advice to an introvert: "these are my values, and you must live by them! It is unacceptable for you to not go to parties!"

If a person wants to change, then perhaps you might be of some help to them -- and then only if you spend more than a minute's effort banging out a comment on your keyboard. I haven't yet finished reading his screed, but so far it sounds to me like he is not only not asking for help, he is openly rejecting it, in which case I doubt anybody else should have much to say about it.

Yes, many shrinks suck. It sucks dealing with them. I'll still shout "Find professional help" if that's what it'll take for that person. And that's the case here.

You(OP) don't go and write a whole long screed how you'd like to be left alone to then justify said screed on a site like HN without actually, at some level, wanting to interact with people.

Which means you(OP) have an issue - what you(OP) say and what you do is not congruent. Find somebody you can relate to, and ask for their advice. Doesn't need to be a shrink. Priest, Guru, Life Coach, whatever works for you. Work out which one of the two you want, and then live accordingly.

Edit: Clarifying "you"

I can't tell from your comment if you think I'm the author, but just FYI, I'm not.

> I'll still shout "Find professional help" if that's what it'll take for that person. And that's the case here.

OK, here's the thing, and it's really the only point I care to try to make here: telling someone to find professional help is not helpful. In fact, it's probably harmful, because it's the number one, most predictable piece of advice anybody can expect to get. So, being told over and over again to "find professional help" -- a task which is dramatically more difficult than the effort required to write those three words -- just makes people want to talk about their problems openly even less. i.e., "I'd talk about it, but they'll just tell me to find professional help, I really don't need to hear that again."

It's also harmful in that it's another kind of a dismissal. Surely you can see that "find professional help" could be interpreted as another way of saying, "Go away, I can't help you"? "Go find someone else and pay them to listen to you." -- I'm sure this isn't what you or anyone else means to say, but this is what it sounds like to someone with depression.

What you've said is something I understand and its a nice angle on an issue I haven't seen in this particular way in a while.

I'm on the opposite side of your stand. I've seen far too many people "Help". In all cases, the damage they cause casually is far greater than if they just said "you need help, get a doctor!"

So (1), in general saying "hey you need to get to a professional" is the least bad thing people can say, and for the sake of the sufferer, this is all I can hope for.

I've spent, or once HAD spend, an inordinate amount of time listening to people, both with and without unusual issues. I Listened in the way I learnt I would want to, with focus, concern, and no judgement.

I would still tell people to go get to a doctor.

But, I would never let it come across as a shut down or a brushing off. "hey, this is a question I can't answer for you. I believe someone with training and experience would be able to help you with this better than I could. The last thing I want to do is say something and make your life harder."

(I believe this can be put better, preferably without any of the "I")

So it comes down again to the kind of person listening on the other end. From what I can tell, this will always be someone who isn't cut out for the job, especially if you are depressed.

In all practicality saying "you need to see a doctor" is the average least bad thing that can happen to them.

I pay the $5 because it encourages me to get the best use of my time.

I have a similar philosophy with going to work instead of working from home, and also with vegetables (I hate vegetables and do a lot of gardening).

I think "find professional help" is more akin to "you can get that if you want it and are willing to do the hard work" than "I can't help you", although I understand that it's hard being the recipient of that comment, which is often casually thrown out (and not at all out of the ordinary for K's story), and easy to take a negative view of it. Objectively it's not bad advice--everybody needs a sounding board IMO, it's a helpful tool to unwind after an eventful day.

Thanks for spelling out the truth. For those who are young and impressionable, listen to this man. Let me paraphrase his two points,

1) Being a nice person will not only earn you any affection you crave but the opposite, contempt for being an agreeable person.

2) Professional help is an oxymoron. Psychiatrists waste money and time.

In my humble opinion, fundamental human problems involve three things, social class, money and sex. Sanitized into our civilized world, it means "pursuing your passion," "entrepreneurship," and "being a good citizen." Shrinks will not grant you any of those things. You have to do the dirty work yourself.

This has not been my experience. I like nice people, and dislike assholes. I know plenty of other people who feel the same. Of course, there are people who are attracted to assholes, but if you're interested in their affection then you might want to take a deep, hard look at why.

"Professional help is an oxymoron. Psychiatrists waste money and time."

There are lots of different types of psychiatrists and psychologists in the US and around the world. The most popular type of therapy in the US right now is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), but there are many, many others. If one therapy (or one therapist) doesn't work for you, that doesn't mean that another won't.

"In my humble opinion, fundamental human problems involve three things, social class, money and sex."

You might want to look at Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.[1] From most basic to the highest needs, they are:

* Physiological needs

* Safety needs

* Love and belonging

* Esteem

* Self-actualization

* Self-transcendence

Your "social class, money and sex" only really cover the bottom four levels, and completely ignore the need for self-actualization and self-transcendence. While Maslow's heirarchy is controversial, I personally think it's quite myopic to ignore the need many people have for getting beyond the lower levels in to the quest for self-discovery, self-development, and self-transcendence.

"Shrinks will not grant you any of those things. You have to do the dirty work yourself."

Psychologists and psychotherapists can certainly never "grant" you anything except a (hopefully) sympathetic ear. A good therapist can also help you get insight and offer good advice, but you will certainly have to do a lot of hard work in the therapy session and as homework. To think that on your own you can achieve anywhere near the amount of insight, healing, and growth that you could with the help of a good therapist is (usually and for most people) overly optimistic.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Thanks for your detailed response with details. I'll address about being a nice person, CBT and Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

a) On Being Nice

My experience of dealing with "nice begets nice" have been situations where, a) both parties are equitable in some context and have something to gain from one another (emotional need met in relationships, being on the same sports or business team etc) or b) where someone who's in a higher position of power and doesn't find the less empowered person threatening. This may sound very clinical but often-times, people confuse themselves unconsciously about their capacity to be a altruistic person vs. their need to feel altruistic. Common example include some people's need to feel like a good person in romantic or social context but in the end lead on the more needy lover/friend, some people's need to feel like a "creative" person but find themselves resorting to "capitalist sins" about their career/promotion in critical times.

For me personally, it's more honest and accurate for myself to say that I enjoy the feeling of giving and being loved and it's important to my well-being; but that feeling is subordinate to my self-interest. I feel this is true love rather than confusing my ultimately selfishness, misrepresenting and leading myself and someone else on.

b) CBT

IMO, most therapy tries to change the way you think or feel about your problems but not how to go about fixing the problems themselves. I don't want to dive into the exact mechanics of CBT/NLP/Psychotherapy/SSRI, but I find them to be more evasive and ultimately ineffective ways to confront emotional issues.

I want to be a professional basketball player in the NBA. Correcting negative emotional triggers throughout the day as to why I'm not 6' 5'' is ultimately not going to be effective. I have to apply domain-specific knowledge in basketball for undersized guards such as floaters and dribble-attack moves to compensate for my shortness. Or if I'm past a specific age, it's pretty unrealistic and I should divert my attention/resources to more realistic goals. The same binary logic applies to relationships, career's and yuppie ambitions. Psychology is too vague to solve my domain specific problems such as how to talk to girls, whether to work for a RoR or Python shop or how to start a vegan bakery-shop that would impress my friends. I don't want to suppress my negative thoughts or "sublime" them into more positive one's, they are there to force me to either do correct my shortcomings or admit that I suck. And I'd rather concede to my realistic conditions and progress realistically than to delude myself with the magic bullet of positive thinking that will never come.

c) Maslow's Pyramid of Needs

I believe that self-actualization and self-transcendence is too abstract for me. Helping to start a school or free clinic in Africa to me is a vanity like owning a yacht because I wouldn't do it unless I have more free time or money. I don't see any of my artistic/creative activities like creative writing, composing music etc. as "higher-lifting" as much as playing World of Warcraft or programming. They are fun things that I like to do to get into the flow of one particular thing and to assign a higher purpose and say I'm a "maker/tinkerer" or "chronicler of human condition" is ludicrous and egoistic. In my humble opinion, Einstein, Shakespeare or Tom Brady whoever don't do necessarily write or think differently than I do. They just do it in orders of magnitude better which doesn't put them in a different "creative class" of "free-thinkers" which somehow one day I hope to associate with, it just means that I suck and will most likely suck for the rest of my life. My problem isn't "finding myself," I did that exercise in kindergarten But it's how to make my life better now.

On the other hand, finding a good professional takes money and energy and time, and many people lack one of the three. Commanding them to spend money, energy, or time isn't likely to make them do something they can't do.

If you've reached the stage where you no longer want help, then having random people on the internet tell you to go to a professional doesn't do you any good.

Being a jerk gets you nothing. The jerks who achieve success do so in spite of being a jerk. (There is more to life than your affect.)

People who say things like "nice guys finish last" are not actually being nice, they are being martyrs. There's a difference.

You know what sucks worse than trying to find competent professional medical attention in America? Blowing your head off with a gun and leaving your decomposing meat for someone to find and clean up. Those are the stakes here.

This author wrote a novella about watching his life reduce to nothing, then wrapped it in a wordpress, threw a vanity domain up, and submitted it to a hivemind. If it was about the quaint, quirky charms of a minimalist lifestyle then you special electronic snowflakes could give each other all the handjobs you want and nobody would mind.

But as this piece documents severe emotional trauma from a childhood marked by abandonment, drug abuse, emotional abuse, (and probably sexual/physical violence) it seems to -me- that he needs help, is looking for social oxygen, and is trying to figure his situation out.

It's not a pretty picture, and the more he rambles about how his sister won't let him eat ice cream the more confused he's going to be about the issues in his life and the fundamental plumbing in his head. Don't confuse depression with a lifestyle choice.

I think I can help you with your message in some small way by noting that social integration is not good because it's 'normal'. It's good because it's vitally necessary for survival. Human society is entirely synthetic, artificial. We are born depending on others. The doctor. The hospital. Our mothers. We are raised depending on others: the teacher, our classmates, our siblings. We live in structures built by others eating food grown by others.

The interesting contradiction here is between Ken's desire to make money and his desire to withdraw from the world. These are totally incompatible desires. One of them has to give. And given that 'not making money' means, essentially, starvation and death, it suggests that perhaps he should rethink the normalcy of withdrawing so completely from the world.

I would only add this argument to yours, not replace it. Thanks for your comments.

I can't even begin to imagine where do you live to have that drastic views...

-For some people, writing it all out is therapeutic. That's probably the best time (most suggestible time) to suggest therapy.

-CBT is useful, and the #1 long-term cure for depression. A good CBT therapist is what the author should look for.

-Author is making plans for the future, which is a good sign that things aren't totally dire right now.

Yes, "ask a professional" can be misread as "I don't care about that person". What it means when I say that is "I am not qualified to help you. You're in deep shit, and you need help. You really should find somebody who is qualified".

If I happen to know the person, and they're in my area, it comes together with a number or two where they could find somebody competent. And with a clear statement that I expect them to call, plus follow-ups from me if they called. I'm a persistent nag if I have to :)

I'm also pretty clear about the fact that if they keep coming to me with their problem, I expect them to do something about it.

On the Internets, it's hard to do more than say "go see a professional". The OP laid their soul bare, but I don't know them enough to give them any better advice.

He wrote, "In the aftermath of emotional implosion; friends, family, colleagues and even strangers will metamorph into an invasive species from planet Concern," and I thought, "pfft, that must be lovely."

I know that I'm just a stranger on the Internet, but it sounds like you need to find yourself a better peer-group.

One of the weirdest things I've encountered was how much the brain internalizes its existence from a very young age. Without going massively philosophical on people the question of what is 'normal' is really really fluid. Nearly everyone I've met baselines their own childhood experience as 'normal' even though people have widely different sets of acceptable/unacceptable behaviors, language usage, religious views, Etc. These get injected into the pliable and undiscriminating brain of a child, and children of dysfunctional families usually can't express their discomfort as a function of their own upbringing because human brains don't work that way.

So while I agree the author would benefit greatly by deconstructing his earliest inputs and re-contextualizing them in a way that allows him to move forward with his life, that has to happen somewhat on his timeline.

He/she doesn't sound depressed - depressed people don't walk 5 miles a day and still want more

It's normal to be a hermit/anachorite/anything, countless people have done it over the centuries (under the pretense/justification of religion)

He/she doesn't really have a writing talent - in fact he/she doesn't seem well read.

Perhaps it would be best to enjoy their alone time, read tons of books. The will to start giving to this cruel world will develop after their teenage angst years when their weltschmerz starts to subside.

...and you're being abusive under the guise of trying to help.

Aggression is not a good answer and if you can't make your point succinctly without it then now would be a good time to learn. Not to mention the arrogance of presuming you know what's best for someone to the point where you feel you should attempt to force your opinion upon them.

And now I will presumptuously bully my way into forcing my opinion on him with abusive HATECAPS under the self-serving, egotistical guise of trying to help:

AUTHOR. YOU ARE THE SURVIVOR OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE. THIS FACT HAS LED TO INGRAINED BEHAVIORS THAT ARE CAUSING UNDESIRABLE OUTCOMES IN YOUR LIFE. YOU, LIKE VIRTUALLY ALL PEOPLE, REQUIRE A GREATER SOCIAL CONTEXT IN WHICH TO EXPLORE THESE EVENTS, UNDERSTAND HOW THEY TAUGHT YOU MALADAPTIVE EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIORS, AND PERHAPS MODIFY THEM FOR A GREATER RESULT.

It's the first step to wellness, but people (especially the types that are drawn to technology) put way too much weight in analysis. "Getting better" stalls, more often than not, in analysis. It's why your friend or cousin or mother or whoever tells you they went to therapy for 10 years and accomplished nothing.

The root cause is this: feeling bad about yourself is easier than the pain of actually doing something about it. So if you can stay in analysis mode and take a couple hesitant shuffles in some direction, that's good enough. You'll never get better, but at least you don't have to change.

That's why the author should get into therapy today. With a good therapist, and some willpower, he can begin actually changing his life. As it stands, I expect a couple more blog posts and another existential crisis sometime around Thanksgiving.

The problem is that you're interested in the wrong aspects of your side project. You're interested in learning and solving the code problems that come with your project. You have to shift your perspective to the human side of your project. You have to learn to see the user's issues as the problem to be solved.

Let's use an "reviews" site as an example. Your users cant find reviews, that annoy them. What you're solving is not a programming problem; your problem is "make it easy for users to find reviews". That is your problem. Your problems is not what the best algorithm for ratings. None of the code stuff matters. These users do not care about code.

When you've shifted your perspective to the human side you'll start to see hacky solutions differently. A crappy algorithm for ratings isn't a poor solution, it's a perfect solution. You've solved the reviews problem. You have a perfect solution.

The problem is that most of aren't actually excited about the human side of our side projects. This is because we get excited about things that interest us, and what interests a programmer is usually programming. It's not surprising we choose projects with interesting code problems.

Start reflecting on the human/sociological side of things before you choose a project. You might be surprised at what you find. Projects that seemed interesting may suddenly become dull and the one's you thought were dull might suddenly become interesting. A human perspective doesn't exclude building stuff with a code focus, just make sure coders are your audience. You and your users just need to be excited about the same things.

There is this classic saying about "building something for yourself" resulting in the best products. As with most sayings, they left out some important information. They forgot to tell to you to make sure that what you're building for yourself is the same thing you're building for your users.

Make your goals align with your users. Otherwise, you'll find yourself trapped down the rabbit hole.

Some extra thoughts

Don't forget that all your tricks to solve programming problems work on human problems. For example, for a reviews site it's easy to phrase the problem as "make it easy for users to find the best reviews in the most efficient and enjoyable way possible while allowing them to simultaneously book and view and and and....". Break it down into it's simplest elements first, just like you would a programming problem. The simplest element of the problem is "make it easy for users to find reviews"; best reviews are a separate problem.

You're probably good at solving programming problems, breaking them down and being productive. You know all the 37signals posts, all the design patterns, and can quote re-work by heart. Use those principles you have learned and apply them to the human side. Everything your learned about productive programming applies to productive life.