Blue Hackers Seattle Meet Up, Sunday 5/13
Posted by robindebates on May 9th, 2012
Blue Hackers MeetUp
Sunday, May 13th
Jigsaw Renaissance
(at the Inscape Building, 815 Seattle Blvd S, 98134)
Frank and open discussion about mental health in hacker/maker communities. Join us to get or give support, or just to know you are not alone with your challenges (mood and anxiety disorders, ADHD, Asperger’s/PDD, suicide, self harm, and more).
Homeostasis Check: HALT
Posted by robindebates on April 28th, 2012
The OS works best when the hardware has stability within certain environmental parameters… not to hot, not too cold, not too many yaks yodeling in the alleyway outside.
This is as true for our bodies as it is for computers.
HALT is a handy mnemonic I learned when I was working with kids in a residential treatment program to check parameters of their operating environment. It works by noticing that you feel dysregulated, down, or otherwise kind of out of sorts or off kilter. Then asking yourself:
- Am I HUNGRY?
- Am I ANGRY?
- Am I LONELY?
- Am I TIRED?
Trouble shooting these four items can solve a significant amount of distress.
A mentor of mine also added some other basic functions like
- Do I need to pee or poop?
- Should I drink some water?
- Do I need to take a break from what I’m doing right now?
- When was the last time I moved my body?
Those questions still get at the same basic principles as HALT. They just don’t fit as nicely into the mnemonic.
But I think you get the idea.
Humans don’t come with indicator panels, or alarms that go “bing” when we get low on fuel or full of information. But with a bit of practice, we can learn to recognize the early indicators of dysregulation to prevent a full-scale meltdown.
Especially when at hack-a-thons, all night coding parties, or other projects where you are working intensely for long periods of time, having an easy way to remind yourself about basic needs can be a lifesaver.
So make time to check in with yourself. Scan the environmental parameters of your operating system. It will function a lot more smoothly when you pay attention to it.
Brand Substitutes
Posted by arjen on April 13th, 2012
Pharmacists tend to ask if a substitute or generic brand is ok for a prescription. While I’m generally for that as it tends to save money, I’d recommend against saying yes when it comes to depression-related medication. As you know, getting the dosage right is tricky enough. From my past personal experience, substitutes didn’t work or at least worked differently, thus messing with my head – so basically, once you get to something that works for you (whichever brand that might be), don’t risk messing with it for the sake of saving a few dollars. You can also ask your doctor to put a tick in the “no substitutes” box on the prescription, then the pharmacist won’t even go there.
Hello, Computer
Posted by robindebates on April 8th, 2012
Hi there.
My name is Robin.
I hang out at a Seattle, WA, US maker space called Jigsaw Renaissance. I’m a geek-girl, hobby scientist who likes to put pointless LEDs in clothes, make stars in the microwave, and grow bioluminescent algae in her free time. I’m a social worker by training.
But I’m writing here at Blue Hacker because I don’t want anyone to die.
Yep. That’s it.
That’s the sum total of my investment in Blue Hackers.
When any of us decides to end our lives, we do so because we believe it is the most effective means to end pain and suffering. I don’t fault anyone for that. And I also know that its incredibly difficult to openly discuss depression, suicide, self harm, addiction, and other things that make us feel crappy in the context of hacker and maker culture.
Hackers see things differently than many people. This is a dark gift. On one hand, we have the opportunity, sometimes with blinding brilliance, to make great leaps in our chosen areas. Yet on the other hand, its challenging to find others who share our interests and abilities and connect with those others in meaningful ways.
The world needs all the creativity, skill, and perspective hackers can bring to bear on the problems and challenges we currently face.
I want to be part of the solution. Part of what works. Part of people feeling accepted, seen, acknowledged, validated, cared about in my community.
Once or twice a month I’ll be posting some things here. If you have ideas or questions about mental health, please leave a reply to this post or shoot me an email. I’ll do my best to give you a response that reflects the current best knowledge and practices from a professional mental health perspective as it applies to hackers.
I hope you are kicking ass, and not getting your ass kicked.
Robin
February Blue Hackers Meetup in Seattle
Posted by robindebates on February 16th, 2012
Seven humans and one dog attended the first Seattle area BlueHackers Meetup.
Through a “guided conversation” attendees discussed their own struggles and successes with ADHD, Asperger’s, depression, self harm, and trauma.
During our 2 hours together, we:
- elaborated the ‘why’ of Blue Hackers–the need and benefit of identifying mental health issues openly in hacker/maker culture.
- entertained some pros and cons of vulnerability.
- touched in to a resource Robin made, “How to Stay Alive when Your Mind/Brain Thinks You Should Die.”
We ran out of time to talk about surviving someone else’s crisis without making one of your own. And we decided another meetup would be grand.
To that end, the next Seattle Blue Hackers meet up will be Sunday, March 11th, from 4 to 6pm (come and go as you need to). Location: Jigsaw Renaissace, 815 S Seattle Blvd, Seattle WA 98134. For more info on this meetup, email robin (at) jigsawrenaissance dot org.
Second Guessers Question Their Way to Depression – Sara Novak
Posted by arjen on February 8th, 2012
You surely know someone like this or maybe that someone is you. Second guessers research and research decisions before hesitantly stepping forward only to wonder whether they made the right decision in the in.
Navigating Love and Autism
Posted by arjen on December 26th, 2011
Navigating Love and Autism (NY Times)
Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two college students living in Greenfield, Mass., discuss how aspergers/autism affects their lives and relationship.
Seasonal Consideration
Posted by arjen on December 2nd, 2011
The time of Christmas and New Year can be troublesome. I’ll provide a couple of examples, and offer some ideas on what you can do to make this a good time for people around you!
Certainly, some people don’t care for it at all and are fine doing stuff on their own. If they get time off work during the period, those people will be the ones going on a nice cycling or hiking holiday. Awesome. But that’s not everybody.
Consider this
- There are lots of social activities. Some people don’t want to partake in big events, but would be fine with something small.
Invite a friend (yes, an individual one) over for dinner or another explicitly small activity. This means you’re specifically making time for them: it shows real care. - Many social events have costs (gifts, food at a restaurant, drinks in a cafe) and it all adds up – for many this is a significant burden, and it becomes a toss up between feeling left out, or potentially overextending financially. You can imagine how the choice alone makes for stress and anxiety.
If you do a potluck style event, people can bring something small or home made, or do something else to contribute. When going out, there are also ways to be inclusive without creating awkwardness. - Around Christmas, “everybody” tends to be busy with their family. But what if you don’t have nearby family? You can be on-your-own throughout the year, but that’s not the same as being-alone while you know “everybody else” is having fun. It’s fairly crap. This is of course relevant whether or not you care about Christmas as an institution.
Of course it’s not always suitable to have a “stranger” partake in say a family dinner, but hey with some families that works perfectly – please do it then!
Perhaps you can do a more general event on another day, and invite a few extra friends. - A single parent can find it difficult to participate in adult-only events (who will be available to mind the smurfs?), and some activities you’d normally undertake with other parents tend to not happen at this time because they’re busy or away. If you’re one of those other parents, perhaps you can find time to do those things together anyway, and suggest some playdates and sleepovers! It’s fun for you and the kids, but it’s so easy to forget with lots of things going on.
People regard it as a time of caring, but restrict it to a very restricted subset. I do understand why that occurs, the time can be ridiculously demanding and overwhelming. Expectations…
Tweak “the rules”!
- Stuff the complaining retailers, you don’t have to buy everything that’s advertised. And, home made gifts are extra awesome.
- If you don’t like spending time with your relations, don’t!
You pick your own friends, organise something! You can always pretend you got that special invite from one of the others, providing you with an excellent excuse to pike out of the family event “for once”. - Look around you, add to your own family as you see fit.
You will know people around you for whom these things can make all the difference – with a few thoughts and actions you can make extra awesomeness this year!
(comments and extra suggestions welcome, as always)
Patching your own Brain
Posted by arjen on November 24th, 2011
This video is from the Open Source Developers’ Conference in Canberra, November 2011. The term patching is used in the hacker/programmer sense: you find a bug, figure out what’s going on, and fix (aka patch) it.
Apart from my lightning talks over the last three years, this is probably the first specific “bluehackers related talk”. For this reason I was actually a bit nervous beforehand, but it worked out very well. Those present found it fun and educational, with plenty of questions and chats triggered later – which is excellent. Feel free to talk more here in the comment thread!
Refs:
- Prof Martin Seligman, numerous books and papers in the space of cognitive psychology (and connections to depression) incl. “Learned Optimism” and “The Optimistic Child”.
- The OpenOffice ODS and Excel XLS files referenced in the talk will remain online. Note that the talleys have to be adjusted from the explanations in the Learned Optimism book, in part because I use used fewer questions (42 rather than 48) and also most questions were mine rather than the originals. Still, they provide a rough indication, which was the intent.
Note: Yes, the video does show a prototype game board at the end. It was an unexpected spin-off during the talk preparation months ago, and I’ll post on that separately!
Sleep Cycles
Posted by arjen on November 7th, 2011
Jenson Taylor made an insightful post on Google+, I’m reproducing it here as its topic -sleep- is important and has already come up several times. From my own experience, the observations hold quite true.
Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy. Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain- wave patterns.
For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes: 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep; 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream); and a final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. The REM sleep phases are shorter during earlier cycles (less than 20 minutes) and longer during later ones (more than 20 minutes).
If we were to sleep completely naturally, with no alarm clocks or other sleep disturbances, we would wake up, on the average, after a multiple of 90 minutes–for example, after 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, or 9 hours, but not after 7 or 8 hours, which are not multiples of 90 minutes.
In the period between cycles we are not actually sleeping: it is a sort of twilight zone from which, if we are not disturbed (by light, cold, a full bladder, noise), we move into another 90-minute cycle.
A person who sleeps only four cycles (6 hours) will feel more rested than someone who has slept for 8 to 10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed.