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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce.

It can be quite difficult for folks like this (Disclaimer: IR1) to find happiness. Crowds, high-stimulus environments, external expectations can be quite chafing.

It can also be tempting to latch onto external things and people, to try to heal something that can't really be healed; but only mitigated (long story, but I went through that kind of thing, myself). I can understand anger, when they don't "fix" us.

I can also relate to the "sleep it off" thing. It would be sort of like Miranda, in Serenity.

It's a really sad story. There are quite a few people like that.

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> Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce.

Or he could have bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, C-PTSD or a number of other things.

All of those would explain what I’m seeing.

Personally, I’m bipolar and I share an a lot of traits with autism. You can’t know what’s happening in a person’s head unless you take time to talk to them or they’ve left a detailed journal.

Absolutely. I can only speak to what I know, and this, I happen to know, all too well.

I just found that I could relate to pretty much everything he was about (check out my code for some truly anal coding), with the exception of the abuse, but I could also easily see myself getting into that, if I had the trauma background (although I don't have that, exactly, I am quite familiar with what trauma can do to even neurotypicals).

Yes, that's what I hoped the conclusion would be more about.

I'm quite similar to this guy, some of us find a way to adapt to their environment, their differences, accepting the fact they can't "fix" that real-world environment, but.. that's a harmful experience, mostly for yourself

How is it like Miranda (just trying to figure out your metaphor)? One possible response to extreme over stimulation or aggression is to completely shutdown?

If you remember, the Parliament added some kind of stuff in the atmosphere, and everyone just lay down and died.

When I was working through my stuff, I often would have loved to do that.

It's really a special kind of hell. We can't stand being ourselves. I grew a beard, because I couldn't stand looking in the mirror. Shaving it was actually a watershed, for me.

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