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104 CFer Mental Helpers (Stay Sane during Crises) with Jeff Kunkel

Sep 20, 2020

Jeff Kunkel talks about “CFer Mental Helpers (Stay Sane during Crises)” in this episode of the CF Alive Podcast, with host Michaela Light.

Show notes

  • Why now

    • In normal times, 20% of Americans have mental illness every year (APA)
    • Now in lockdown and economic depression, it is >60% ill
      • 30% clinical depressed
      • 30% PTSD
      • (and remaining 40%...)

  • Who is this episode for

    • CFers with mental illness
      • Even if they don’t realize it yet
    • CFers with teammates with mental illness
    • CIOs, PMs, Team Leaders and manager concerned about their staff

  • What is mental illness?

    • Significant changes in thinking, emotion and/or behavior
    • Distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities
    • But can be hidden as it is in the mind

  • Types

    • Depression
      • Hopelessness - negative self-talk, self-hate
      • Numbness
      • Apathy
    • Anxiety
      • Obsessive Worry, beyond reality
      • OCD
      • Paranoia
      • Not dealing well with uncertainty
    • Bipolar Affective Disorder
    • Schizophrenia
    • Dementia 

  • Causes

    • Stress
      • Distress - bad
      • Eustress - good
      • Trauma
    • Isolation
      • Oxytocin
      • Lack of support
    • Poor nutrition
      • Chemical imbalances
    • Lack of sunlight
      • Vitamin- D
      • Serotonin
    • Lack of sleep
    • Lack of exercise
    • Overindulgence
      • Chemical effects
      • Addictions
    • (Mind-body connection
    • The stereotypical ColdFusion developer!

  • What to look for

    • Withdrawn
    • Outbursts
      • Anger, crying, jokes
    • Cries for help
      • Dark humor
    • Denial 
    • Poor attendance/performance
    • Physical sickness eg backache, exhaustion 
    • Sudden changes
      • Eating
      • Sex
      • Drug

  • How can we help?

    • Good boundaries
    • Be a resource
      • Open door policy
      • 1 on 1 check-in
      • Daily stand up brief check-in of feelings
    • Relate personal experience 
    • Show you care
    • Go to groups and churches. Team building activities/outings 
    • Make reasonable accommodations 
    • Recommend professional help

  • Getting professional help

    • Your primary care physician
    • Your insurance company may have a list of covered providers
    • The website for the board of licensed professionals in your state
    • Ask someone how they found theirs 
    • See the end of the presentation for some additional links

  • How not to help

    • Tough it through
    • Blame
    • Panic
    • Diagnose
    • Excuse poor performance
    • Make light of their situation
    • Shaming

  • Potential pitfalls

    • Some people do not want help
      • Denial
      • All ready dealing with it
    • It can be very uncomfortable 
      • To be ill
      • To be around the ill
      • To discuss
        • EQ
      • Shame
    • Forcing the issue can make it worse

  • Suicide

    • Time to talk about the elephant in the room
    • Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US
      • Is 2nd leading cause in 30-year-olds
    • On average, there are 129 suicides per day.
      • Approx 40k per year
      • 1.4M suicide attempts per year (2018)
      • An estimated 9.3 million adults (3.9% of the adult U.S. population) reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year. 
      • Suicide and self-injury cost the US $69B per year (2015)
      • The annual U.S. suicide rate increased by 24% between 1999 and 2014

  • After suicide

    • It is not your fault 
    • Be supportive
    • Support survivors
    • (let’s take a breath!)

  • Prevention - Self-Care

    • Practice what you preach
    • Eat right
    • Get some sleep
      • Blue blocker glasses
    • Go out in the sun
      • Go in nature
    • Accept help from others

  • Working From Home

    • Get dressed
    • Keep a schedule
    • Have a separate work area
    • Limit distractions
    • Have regular proactive breaks away from the computer
    • Get “face time” with colleagues via Zoom etc
    • Allow yourself to be bad at WFH
    • WFH as a skills
    • Good boss for staff WFH
    • Practice

  • Rat race rant

    • We are not looking at these incredible mental illnesses and suicide statistics as being indicative of deep unlying problems with our society’s programming and the rat race. 
    • If society was a CF server then it was misconfigured from the start, has not been tuned, is running a legacy CF version and OS and the programming was crappy.  Don't even look at the database queries being run unless you have a strong stomach. 
    • It needs a good tuning and re-write and upgrades from many years applied.

  • Disclaimer

    • We are not doctors. This is personal advice that has worked for me
    • Seek further information from sources like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

  • Wrap up

  • Why are you proud to use CF?
  • WWIT to make CF more alive this year?
  • What did you enjoy at ITB 2020?

Mentioned in this episode

Bio

Jeffrey Kunkel

Jeffrey Kunkel is an in house web developer for www.lightingnewyork.com. He has been developing for six years, and is excited to start contributing to the ColdFusion community at large.

Jeff has been living with anxiety, depression, and OCD for his entire career. He wants to take the lessons he's learned working around and with these conditions to better the workflow and productivity of his colleagues.

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