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Comment by bed99 | Hacker News Reader

The communication issues were related to a change in the company that they were forcing us to not write in Slack and I accidentally wrote twice instead of opening a Github Issue. My manager got really upset because I did not comply. I understand him but I was suffering very deeply a severe depressive episode which lead me to hospitalization. I missed communicating this until I got scheduled a call with HR at 1am 5 days later. This is were I started suspecting I was going to let go and immediately disclosed my Bipolar diagnosis to HR sending them the letter from my doctor and the medication I was just put in.

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So they knew. They had 3 or 4 days before the let go call to decide what to do. They had all my medical data.

If you really want to keep this issue going you should talk to a lawyer, but just for what it's worth (I'm not a lawyer) them "knowing" probably doesn't matter as much as whether or not you asked for specific accommodations for your communications problems, disclosing to them the medical reason for asking for them.

There's a lot of reasons to think this is a long-shot:

(a) You're non-US and abroad, so the ADA doesn't apply to you

(b) You're probably a contractor and not an employee

I think it's worth talking to a pro about this, but it's not worth spending a lot of money pursuing it, mostly because of (a). If you were a US resident, I'd say (b) and (c) are hurdles low enough that you could plausibly shake a settlement loose, but (a) is a very high hurdle.

Yeah, I am most likely moving on ASAP. Luckily medication which I started a week ago is already working and I feel way better. That's what I disclosed to them, asked for 30 days to see if my medication helps me stabilize (already doing so) and didn't gave a fuck.

I'm glad things are working out. Mental health crises are a motherfucker of a problem and the way our industry treats them is its own clownfire. Based just on what you've said about your situation: it looks like you were mistreated. I'm glad you've found treatment --- it's hard enough to get that far! --- I know lots of people who it's helped a very great deal. I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you too. Luckily Lamictal and a little of Prozac plus therapy is doing magic. It was sad when they said in my face just they wouldn’t wait and believe I can‘t change.

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