
The Weight - pmcpinto
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/mardy-fish-us-open
======
seibelj
Anxiety and depression very nearly derailed my career (and my life itself)
right at the end of college. I was working 35 hours a week at a startup and
studying two difficult subjects at my university (computer science and Latin)
while maintaining an active social life.

I kept pushing myself harder and harder, and essentially collapsed. Somehow I
managed to stay at my job while I entered the mental health system and started
taking care of my mind.

I had an extremely bad reaction to Prozac and then tried to manage my issues
with diet, exercise, and meditation. For 2 years I was surviving but I
certainly wasn't better.

Then I decided to try medication again, and started lexapro. Within 2 weeks my
mental state had drastically improved, and I was actually feeling joy and
excitement again. The panic attacks disappeared, while the general anxiety is
much reduced.

It's been several years since then, and I'm still on a low dose of lexapro
while eating healthy, exercising, and meditating. I'm much more aware of my
mental health and don't push myself past the breaking point.

Yet my output, productivity, and drive is higher than ever, much better than
it was before entering treatment.

If you are suffering from similar issues, I highly suggest entering the mental
health system and doing everything in your power to try and get better. Stay
positive and don't give up.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
> essentially collapsed

What were the symptoms when this happened?

~~~
seibelj
Multiple panic attacks a day, irrational and excessive worrying, insomnia,
depression, feelings of impending doom, loneliness, lack of interest in
subjects and activities previously enjoyed, lack of confidence and self worth.
The usual stuff I suppose.

After dealing with these on a daily basis for a year, I added suicidal
ideation to the list. Death no longer seemed scary, but a way to escape the
nonstop overwhelming pain of continued existence.

On the plus side, after entering treatment, and then understanding and
overcoming my mental illness, I am without question far, far stronger than I
was before. I live every day to the fullest and have no regrets. My life is
full of what's important to me- satisfying work, nonstop learning,
appreciating art in various forms, and socializing with friends and family.
This is what gives me pleasure and defines my life. I also have enormous
appreciation for being healthy in a way that my peers seem to lack. Every day
is a gift and it shouldn't be squandered.

------
onedev
People on HN always focus on "changing the world" as something that means
building a billion dollar company. But this can't be further from the truth.

Storytelling, like what Fish has done here, is certainly changing the world
and it is this incremental progress which we should all celebrate. His
beautiful story, among others like his, will inspire people to be more open
about their mental health and hopefully in the process inspire a better
future.

Entrepreneurship is not the only way to make the world a better place, and
neither is an incredibly high level of success (as Fish has had). But what
resulted from his high level of success is a story that many can and will
relate to. That's something to celebrate.

~~~
tajen
> People on HN (...)

People _talking_ on HN...

There's an immense majority of silent people on HN who just learn. I've learnt
my startup skills by reading HN for two years, and I'm very happy that I've
learnt the difference between bootstrapping and VCing. I'm the pleased owner
of an LLC now.

There is a place on HN for lifestyle businesses and bootstrapped companies,
the latter being much less generator of stress. There is patio11 who is really
renowed, and although he's a hard worker, I don't believe he ever put
"Advancing Humanity" in any of his pretentions. Lastly:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169782)

I often point out that happiness is what actually advances the world.
Unbeloved people who surround us, or unbeloved busy people who spend their
time at work, accumulate frustration, unmet expectations, and sometimes
accumulate hate. Unhappy and excluded people are the most extremist in
politics, and they're often the most part of the warmongers.

Maybe spending time to love the people around us will make 1, or 2 people
happy. It's not an app, it's non-scalable. But if that prevents extremist
votes and wars, aren't we the ones advancing humanity?

~~~
rev_bird
> bootstrapped companies, the latter being much less generator of stress Maybe
> it's because I've never been at a funded startup, but I can't imagine "this
> needs to bring in money from day one or my house goes away" being less
> stressful than "oh gee, our $4 million could run out soon."

~~~
tajen
It's rather "We've signed off this term sheet, so either each of the managers
earns $1m at the end of the two years, either we earn nothing and we're in
personal bankrupt".

------
PeterWhittaker
An amazing story. Debilitating anxiety at the highest levels of his
profession, anxiety so severe it threatened his physical health. His purpose
in writing? To help others, to make it acceptable for others to admit they
need help.

~~~
ommunist
It truly is. What amazes me is what this anxiety is all about? Tennis is not
life and death, his mind makes it so. Why, what chemical bounds makes human
mind to attach co tightly and cruelly to really unimportant things?

------
bmajz
The thing that always amazes me as I read about professional sports is how
much mental strength and discipline is required by athletes. This story shows
how much that mental strength is on the edge and susceptible to "injury", just
like the physical skills.

------
acjohnson55
Wow, what a powerful piece, and sharing it might just impact the world for the
better so much more so than being the world #1 in tennis. It reminds me a lot
of another piece from a year ago: [https://stories.expost-news.com/screw-
stigma-im-coming-out-6...](https://stories.expost-news.com/screw-stigma-im-
coming-out-6809e83f355e).

I've learned it can be really dangerous to tie so much of your identity up
into something that's external and not fully under your control. But maybe
that's something that's particularly true for people predisposed to anxiety?
It would be interesting to know if, for example, Fish's contemporaries
identify at all with what he's going through. Maybe it's a matter of degree.

I've had anxiety issues for most of my life. I'm 31 now, and until I was about
22, I think my anxiety and related issues were one of the defining features of
my life experience. I've never really gotten professional help with them
because I only realized what was going on with me in retrospect, after
managing to wrestle my anxiety under control, with a lot of support from
people close to me. It's almost like anxiety cloaks itself so that the
sufferer feels like their experience is truly unique and untreatable. I look
back and feel silly for having felt that way. But I hope I know enough now to
identify anxiety and call for help if it ever rears up again.

What has helped for me is a great deal of meditation to reframe what's
important in my life, taking on of tasks that challenge my fears, seeking
balance and diversity in my activity and thought patterns, development of
self-awareness of my thought patterns and deeply held assumptions, a very
intentional focus decoupling of my self-worth with success in tasks I take on,
and being lucky enough to friends patient enough to really shepherd me through
some difficult times.

What hasn't helped are self-medication, over-reliance on any single source of
comfort, value and/or security, and adherence to belief systems that emphasize
extremes.

------
kohanz
Wow. After only reading the first few paragraphs of the article, my mind was
already racing back to my youth experience as a competitive chess player. It
really struck a chord with me. Obviously my accomplishments were not even
close to the magnitude of Fish, but I can relate intensely to the performance
anxiety and urge to _quit_ rather than compete. Wanting to choose flight over
fight, so badly.

When I was a teenager, I became quite a good chess player for my age,
culminating in me winning the U20 championship for my province (pop. ~13
million). I was at a level where I could compete well in adult tournaments,
but I dreaded the youth tournaments simply because the expectation was
generally that I would finish 1st and not lose (or even draw) a game. Anything
less was a disappointment. This pressure did not come from my parents, they
were very relaxed and did not push me at all. The expectation just built up
over time, each 1st place finish built up more expectations for the next time.
I remember getting very close to physically ill before many matches. Not
wanting to eat anything. The overwhelming feeling of _relief_ when it was all
over.

The tournament where I won the provincial championship is one I will never
forgot. It was a round-robin between 6 of the top players in the province. I
was so nervous. Even though I was one of the lowest-ranked players in the
group (I was tops in my region, but not the province), I couldn't shake the
expectations and nervousness. I lost my first two matches and felt devastated.
I didn't belong there. I had been a complete imposter up to that point. I had
just been lucky. Those were my (ridiculous) thoughts. I had dinner with my dad
and cried and cried and told him I wanted to make the 3 hour drive home and
just forfeit my remaining matches. My parents never pushed me, but my dad
_would not let me quit_. He talked me off the ledge. Through something that
has always felt a bit like fate or divine, I won my remaining through matches
and somehow the rest of the competitors managed to the perfect storm of
results such that I finished tied for first. Miraculously I won the playoff
for the championships.

I ended up leaving competitive chess when I was 18 to focus on my engineering
studies. That's the reason I tell myself and most people, anyway, but to be
honest, part of it was being able to _quit_ and leave that competitive world
behind. I love competing and playing sports where I know expectations of me
are reasonable or none at all, but in a competitive setting where the stakes
are high, my body chooses flight over fight every time.

I'm also extremely grateful that this has not extended into my professional
life. My mind does not view work, or competing professionally for business,
the same as it does competing for trophies.

------
cjf4
Thanks for posting this.

I have a sibling that's dealt with anxiety attacks like this for 10 years now,
and always had a difficult time understanding what the experience was like
until recently he told me "it feels like I'm physically going to die." If
nothing else this seems like it will help me sympathize what he's going
through.

------
a3voices
"I lost the final in Cincinnati to Federer 6-4 in the third, a match I easily
could have won."

Probably something thought by the countless people who have lost to Federer
time and time again.

------
ommunist
That I do not understand. Why he could not just calm down and carry on? Like
normal Londoners did under Nazi bombs, which was not exactly tennis.

