Our culture has become increasingly individualized and isolated, in contrast to millions of years of evolutionary selection for tribal behavior in the great apes. Anxiety is a natural response to being separated from your tribe, since it increases your risk exposure to many things. It's not enough to just have colleagues or acquaintances, but people who actually know and care about you and will notice if you're missing or if something is wrong.

A fantastic book. I borrowed it from the library, but I think I'm going to buy my own copy.

As for the symptoms, it is indeed astonishing how "physical" anxiety can be. Most people conceive of anxiety as just an emotional state, and think a "panic attack" is what you have when you're really nervous about a math test and get a cold sweat. The true horror of a real panic attack can't be described to someone who hasn't experienced that level of mortal terror.

And it's definitely true that once the trauma is "etched" into you like you describe, your mind can reconstruct it again much more easily. I find physical sensations that used to be mildly annoying, like a stomach cramp or post-exercise exhaustion, can summon the anxiety right back again.

The scientific evidence for the long-term effectiveness of SSRIs is dubious at best, so I'm attempting a more comprehensive life change to improve my outlook, including trying to build stronger connections with people and community. Isolation is one of the most intense causes of depression and anxiety, among other health problems, so addressing it is a good idea for anyone.

There goes my fantasy that in the west at least health care was top notch and affordable compared to Africa.

Considering it has GCC 9.1.0, I'd say it's still maintained.

I'm only about halfway through, but the central thesis appears to be that the powerful, even if they truly want to make a good-faith effort to improve the world, will naturally gravitate towards forms of social change that don't challenge their power. He describes this kind of thinking as "win-win" in that only solutions that don't involve those in power sacrificing the conditions that made them powerful will be considered by the philanthropic class. These "win-win" solutions then displace more direct "win-lose" solutions that actually address the underlying power dynamic.

The arguments put forth ring pretty true to me, and this GoFundMe stuff fits the model perfectly.

I thought it rather interesting that he was able to hold this kind of talk at Google - after all, his audience there probably consists of people that are probably part of the "winners" he is talking about.

I used to push myself to go to dev meetups and such, even gave a few presentations, but eventually stopped. The emotional cost of going was high, and when I would get back home feeling wiped out and reflecting on it, I realized I actually gained very little from the experience. All the socializing was just hollow small talk and no lasting connections were ever formed. Interest-based meetups I've found to generally be transient, ephemeral, and unfulfilling for those who can't muster the enormous social buy-in to get any meaningful results. Volunteer work was more satisfying, but also fleeting and temporary.

On the plus side I did gain experience in public speaking and discovered it really doesn't bother me (although the mingling afterwards is social anxiety hell). Unfortunately that skill on its own isn't terribly useful.

> I feel terrible for those of us on the spectrum without that option, as if I couldn't live this way I would end up being entirely dependent on my spouse or family. I can imagine that burning out + feeling guilty about being a burden financially makes recovery from that state even more difficult.

It is. I was swinging a remote-work career and doing the whole order-groceries-online shut-in routine as well. Eventually I succumbed to burnout for a host of reasons and the career crumbled to dust. Extended unemployment pulls you in like quicksand and I've been out of work for over a year now. I live in a converted tool shed in my parents back yard, and the guilt and shame is crushing. The erosion of self esteem saps your will to improve yourself, creating a vicious circle.

My last recourse at this point is to try to use this as an opportunity for learning and personal enrichment. While working I was myopically focused on programming and industry issues, and utterly ignored the wider world. I'm now trying to rectify that by reading more about philosophy, politics, history, etc.

There's so much more to the world than tech or vocation, and I regret ignoring that for so long. My advice to anyone in this situation is to, as much as your circumstances permit, expose yourself to a wider range of culture and find value and human dignity in ways other than your potential for capital generation. The value of a life is not measured in dollars, and don't let the world convince you that it is.

It feels like this is becoming a blog post or something, so I'll stop. Needless to say this topic hits home for me, as it seems to for many others here.

I agree entirely with your conclusion. That is frankly another reason I'm leaving. The connections I've made here around tech (and other hobbies) are largely shallow and unfulfilling. I feel like all my income got eaten up by rent, and bad habits I justified as coping mechanisms. I can save up and use the money to actually build something back home (NC) to help people there in tangible ways. I do hope I find some time to catch a breather at some point so I can dedicate myself to that type of effort completely.

Thanks for sharing your experience and findings. I wish you well and hope you dont dwell on that regret. We all have to learn how wrong we have been sooner or later. I know I have. It's an unfortunate necessity of developing into a better person. Still sucks though.

You have to be the one who moves the conversation from chit-chat about the weather to interesting topics. Sure, it's fine to show up to a dev meeting and chat about your favorite APIs and all, but that won't help you make friends.

The vague process chart I personally use looks like this:

1. Determine if you share common interests with the person (eg, small talk about things you do)

2. Talk at a higher level about a single interest. A good trick is to treat the other person a bit like an expert about that interest - "Oh, what board game would you recommend for X?"

3. Make an offer to hangout in the future. It should be in a situation with multiple people and a public place. You're not trying to invite them to a date, but instead communicate that you're already doing something and want them to join: "Hey, I hang out Tuesdays with some folks at the comicbook shop and play boardgames. You should come join us."

4. If the person finds that agreeable or reciprocates, exchange contact info. I usually just hand them my phone with my contact info on the screen so they can choose their preferred method, but you can also give them a personal card.

Congrats, you've now made a new person you know. Hang out with them, invite them to things. Relationships are like gardens, they require regular tending and maintenance at first but as they get established, they only need occasional check-ins.

Why is it always up to me? I feel the same as parent poster - I go to events or work functions or what-have-you and the onus is always on me - the one with stunted social skills - to advance things along.

Are there really no people that can at least bootstrap things for me? Or is it the case that those people with social competence already have a healthy social life and aren't actually interested in any deeper connection to begin with?

Herein is where my "you're a dummy" thought loops kick in on this. I can see it is a little spoiled to demand that a social life be handed to me with no work involved, but on the other hand, I see a bootstrapping problem here:

How am I supposed to invite new people to the comic book shop when I don't have the aforementioned "some folks" or the shop itself?

Gardens are great when you have good soil and plants already in place, but I feel like I am tearing up old blacktop and trying to build a garden on top of it.

> Are there really no people that can at least bootstrap things for me?

There are, it's whoever assembled your meetup/function/etc. Getting a bunch of people in a room together who share at least some kind of commonality is a borderline magic trick, and it's a ton of work.

Your job is to pair it down from there, because you don't have anyone who knows you well enough to do that last mile for you. You might get there - if you make good friends with organizers, you will be the person they introduce new folks to.

> How am I supposed to invite new people to the comic book shop..

There's two elements to this. One of which is just actually leaving your house to go to meetups or places on a regular basis - find your local board game shop (or other interest - hiking, old movies, food, etc) and go to that thing with some regularity.

The second element is to talk with folks. Maybe even folks with whom you don't have a connection yet, but enough to exchange your lists of interests and whatnot. If you struggle for things to talk about, use tools like FORD (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) or the interview strategy ("Oh, and what got you into hiking?").

You don't have to have a deep connection to have folks you enjoy spending time with, even if it's just playing Catan once a week - but that's at least your bootstrap.

Ties into the other article on the front page about mitigating climate change.

Thinking back, I recall feeling uncomfortable commenting on or diverting the conversation towards anything that was unrelated to the prescribed topic of the meetup. It felt rude to divert time away from the topic that everyone there had specifically chosen to allocate their time to, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.

With places like school, even college, there's still a general feeling that you have to be there, and so diversions from the topic at hand are more welcome.

To put it another way, interest-based groups seem to be about the interest first and the people second. The people there are compartmentalized away as being related to the specific topic, and not generalized friends. In this way the group lacks that crucial idleness factor that others here have mentioned, since everyone is there with a purpose to fulfill that they don't want to distract others from.

It probably doesn’t help that a lot of my hiking and camping trips are a few hours’ drive away from home and thus tend to draw people who live fairly far away from me.

I'm of the belief that you don't "create" close friends as much as you "discover" them. So the purpose of going to meetups, events, parties, etc. is to just cast a wider net.

Sure by socializing more you become a better conversationalist and can carry them on better with strangers, but at the core, close friends are like significant others--special just they way they are.

It can't be overstated how confining it is when anything you'd like to do or see involves logistical wrangling to work out when exactly you need to be there, how long you'll be there, when you need to be picked up, etc. I've lost count of the number of times I've just decided to not bother with all that and just stay home, which makes for a pretty depressing existence after a while.

Things like uber can help, but you're still placing your trust in someone you've never met to be able to get you there, and more importantly, to be able to get you back home. Not to mention having to do an upfront value analysis to determine if the trip is worth it, and for disabled people this can be a tough call given the difficulties with employment and income in general.

If you do live in an area that is more car friendly than anything, a van might be the better option: https://nicolagriffith.com/2018/05/26/new-car-an-accessible-...

My logistical disability is a visual impairment, so while I'm able to walk, there's relatively little to walk to in the area other than suburban sprawl. Unfortunately, operating any kind of motor vehicle is right out, and while it would be legal for me to bike around, I'm not confident that it would be safe given my poor vision, particularly in any kind of traffic.

Of course, then we'll have to deal with whatever the next platform is, but that's just the reality of the industry.

I fear we will lose the Microsoft as the silent steward of backwards compatibility, DirectX support, getting manufacturers to make great hardware drivers, the list goes on. It's this part of Microsoft that Windows will lose, because it isn't customer facing.

I think the fallout is exactly the opposite of what you want. A de-emphasized Windows means that the customer experience stuff is pushed forward while the above suffers. The only bulwark against that is how deeply invested most enterprise companies are in the Windows universe, driving many of those behind-the-scenes fixes and changes.

> Of course, then we'll have to deal with whatever the next platform is, but that's just the reality of the industry.

Gaming on the PC was, in many was, a repudiation of that idea. We could have one continuous open system that ran everything from old games to new games. That's part of the point the emulation crowd wants to make as well. We don't have to live with platform churn.

But I'll be the first to admit Stallman was right. We collectively ceded this power to a private corporation, and we could lose much of what we had because we weren't good stewards.

EDIT: Spelling and grammar because I lack coffee.

One thing I'd suggest, if you haven't already, is look into your family history for any for signs of it. In my case, there's a very clear hereditary line of panic disorder and other similar ailments that came down through the generations, eventually landing in me as well.

We like to think of our "mind" as something that exists completely separate from the physical reality of the brain, but in the end it's an organ like any other, and any malfunctions within it can affect us in subtle ways. For example, during the run up to a panic attack, I tend to get very irritable and easily frustrated. I've come to recognize it as a sign of what's to come and take steps in advance to try to curb it.

Agreed. Members of my mother's side are especially known to be "worriers". Sporadic levels of anxiety on my father's as well.

> I've come to recognize it as a sign of what's to come and take steps in advance to try to curb it.

Via therapy, I've discovered my own version of this, mostly around breathing. I tend to hold my breath as I start to go into my head. If I catch myself doing this, I can sometimes reduce most of the physical effects by focusing on breathing again. It's easier said than done.

There's also some great Space Quest games made by the community, such as Space Quest 0, Space Quest 2 Remake, and Vohaul Strikes Back. Worth checking out for any SQ fan.