

Mental illness: is 'chemical imbalance' theory a myth? - uladzislau
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/10/18/mental_illness_is_chemical_imbalance_theory_a_myth.html

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PaulHoule
I think it is a myth, but there is an underlying reality to it that is
unspoken.

When scientists study animals, it is clear that "underdog" animals have low
serotonin levels whereas "dominant" animals have high serotonin levels.

Last year I was working at a company where I was the final assembly programmer
who threw releases over the wall to the testers, and this usually involved
several iterations over a 25 minute build process.

On top of all that, I was using an off-brand issue tracker where I had to wait
30 seconds to put a trouble ticket in or to assign time to a ticket. The wiki
we were using also added a 30 second delay to the process of updating
documentation.

Never mind the fact that the team had one guy who was good at maven (who, if
asked how to do something the right way, would tell my boss that I "wasn't a
team player") and several other people who built POM files by cut-and-paste.

When performance review came around, my boss told me I was "too slow" and that
I wasn't a team player because I was complaining about how slow the tools
were. (Funny, github works at interactive speed over my crappy DSL connection)

I thought about quitting the day I got that review, but instead I went to see
my doc and I got a prescription for Paxil. About three days after I started
taking the prescription, I stepped in dog shit in my woodshed and instead of
getting furious, I released pressure from my foot at the first minute, and
found that none of the shit had stuck to my shoes.

I can say that Paxil helped me deal with the stress of staying with the job
until the project was ready for customers.

Since then it has helped me deal with the stress of doing a lot of sales work
to make my next venture work. It's helped me have enough confidence that I can
refuse to work with dull tools, even if it means I run up my home equity loan
a little bit.

