

The Dark Place – A story on startups, depression and coming back - alpotryvayev
http://alexpotrivaev.com/writing/the-dark-place-or-there-and-back-again

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mindcrime
Well said... a very poignant and moving article. It really resonates with me,
as I'm feeling a bit depressed right this moment. The "numb feeling" thing is
SO true. Being depressed isn't being sad, it's just feeling empty, numb,
disconnected.

The sad thing is, we haven't even failed. In fact, in some regards things are
going really well. We have a great opportunity to demo our products this week
at the CED Tech Venture Conference, and we have some other cool stuff coming
up[1]. But... like TFA says, it's the weight of your expectations that crush
you. And while we have some good stuff going on, we're not where we want to
be, and the road forward looks pretty bleak sometimes. And for me personally,
being on the older'ish side (41), the pressure seems amplified, since I feel
like I'm running out of time to achieve things I want to achieve.

Lately, I think the hardest part is how I've been starting to doubt myself.
I've always been pretty confident and optimistic, but something lately has me
starting to look around and go "Am I really good enough to do this?" and "why
should I believe I can make this happen?", stuff like that.

I attribute most of it to overwork and burnout. Working full-time, plus
slaving away on the startup by night and weekend, working 100+ hour weeks over
and over and over and over and over again... and having the pressure of
getting ready for this demo thing, and these upcoming talks, etc., it just
wears you a bit thin.

I think if I make it to the end of October, I'll be able to ease off a bit in
Nov and Dec., and recover a bit. Maybe take a brief vacation to let the
batteries recharge, and then get back at it.

[1]: [http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/09/come-meet-fogbeam-
labs.h...](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/09/come-meet-fogbeam-labs.html)

