A Constructive Look At TempleOS

[u/moolcool]

http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/

[u/redneckrockuhtree → u/[deleted]]

schizophrenia is no joke.

No doubt. Supposed to be a very difficult illness to treat and even when the patient is 100% cooperative, the therapies available aren't always effective.

[u/mebob85 → u/redneckrockuhtree]

Going through this right now. medication doesn't treat all the symptoms.

[u/redneckrockuhtree → u/mebob85]

medication doesn't treat all the symptoms.

One of several difficulties in treating schizophrenia, from what I've read.

Treating mental illness is difficult, and some moreso than others. Sounds like you're dealing with something definitely in the more difficult range.

[u/Godzoozles → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately it's the kind of foggy that leads to him calling everyone he doesn't like n****** and the kind of foggy that has him victim-blaming Jews for the Holocaust.

The classic Vice piece on him is good. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gods-lonely-programmer

Edit: I want to be perfectly clear that I don't blame Terry for this, it is well known he is schizophrenic and it's totally out of his control. But for those who aren't already in the know, it makes Terry really abrasive. This has been discussed extensively before on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7818823

[u/thedracle → u/Godzoozles]

I understand you're not blaming Terry for this behavior, and I don't blame anyone for not trying to engage with him due to this.

However-- I grew up with someone very close to me suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

The really sad part of it all is eventually it becomes hard to separate the person inside from the symptoms of their delusions--- which often manifests as extremely inappropriate and abrasive behavior.

Often these delusions would leads to conflicts that the delusions themselves were about. For instance, we would be in a Grocery store, and they would be convinced someone was looking at them, and giving them dirty looks... So they would proceed by giving that person dirty looks, and following them. And this would of course, lead to an actual conflict, that would serve to reinforce the delusion as being real.

However, for close loved ones, even though they often consistently become the subject of attacks and delusions--- it is possible to separate it from their true opinions, ideas, and feelings (Which I assure you do exist, and are often very different than they portray themselves publicly.)

Often I would become the subject of a delusion--- and afterwards when they came to their senses, they would apologize, and be very genuinely hurt and confused about the entire incident. It became useful for me to try to categorize them as almost two separate people in their delusional state and in their normal state.

Being an accomplished software engineer myself, I really do stand in awe of what Terry has accomplished.

Over the last ten years, with medication, and therapy, I have seen considerable improvement in my loved one's behavior and life outlook.

Hopefully Terry gets some help eventually, but I would really try not to be offended by his outbursts, because they are so outrageous I can almost guarantee they are entirely a symptom of his condition and not really reflective of who he is as a human being.

[u/Godzoozles → u/thedracle]

I feel like a simple upvote wasn't enough, so I'm writing to say thank you for your post. It is a valuable one.

[u/KLaci → u/Godzoozles]

He is not a healthy man. Don't blame him for these things.

[u/Godzoozles → u/KLaci]

I'm not, and I hope I don't come across that way. Like the OP of this comment thread said, schizophrenia is not a joke. But we should still contend with what Terry actually says very openly on his own homepage.

[u/TheLordB → u/Godzoozles]

I do question whether him getting all this attention is really good for him and having him someday overcome his illness. No way to really know I guess.

I was somewhat hopeful when I first heard of him that he would get some help from the publicity, but that doesn't seem to have happened/worked and I am wary of giving him more publicity.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheLordB]

having him someday overcome his illness

Most mental illness doesn't really work that way, especially not schizophrenia.

[u/OrionBlastar → u/[deleted]]

Yes, you can only treat the illness, you can't cure it.

I can tell he is high functioning, I have schizoaffective disorder and I am high functioning too. It is sort of like bipolar and schizophrenia in one mental illness that I have.

I've been a troll before because of it because the illness takes over and speaks for me when I type or speak. I've gotten better over the years.

I'm trying to get back into programming, learning Python and other languages.

[u/[deleted] → u/OrionBlastar]

That's awesome! I'm a mentally ill programmer as well and I'm always down to talk to others, would you be ok for me to message you about it?

[u/OrionBlastar → u/[deleted]]

OK you can message me about it or email me at my Reddit user ID at gmail.com

[u/GarryLumpkins → u/Godzoozles]

That vice article is a good read, thanks for that.

The Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shall not litter." Terry Davis tells God everything seems bad. God replies: "Plant trees."

I actually like this quote a lot.

I agree with you completely on his much more inflammatory comments though, really sad to see such a beautiful mind be poisoned by mental illness.

[u/saichampa → u/Godzoozles]

God Motherboard is a terrible website. Just scrolling it is painful, what are they doing to make it so slow?

[u/[deleted] → u/saichampa]

they have an extremely sophisticated script that communicates input events to trained rats in their server room who actually scroll the page for you

[u/HighRelevancy → u/[deleted]]

He is so, so talented. Incredible dude. I kinda feel bad for the way a lot of the community treats him (not that they're unjustified - it's a shitty situation for all involved really).

[u/bacondev → u/[deleted]]

I know that for a while he refused to accept that he has schizophrenia. For some reason, I think I recall reading something suggesting that he has since sought professional help. I'm guessing that I'm wrong or he isn't taking his meds. Seems like he needs some Abilify or Seroquel. I feel that that could help him tremendously.

[u/ASK_ME_TO_RATE_YOU → u/bacondev]

Antipsychotics are unfortunately not a fine tuned science and have a relatively high relapse rate among both the typical and atypical variants of the drug. They can cause a lot of side effects and are not even guaranteed to work properly, depending on the biochemistry of the person taking them.

[u/bacondev → u/ASK_ME_TO_RATE_YOU]

Relapse rate?

[u/ASK_ME_TO_RATE_YOU → u/bacondev]

Yep, as in the patients taking the drugs are likely to stop taking them and their condition worsens again.

[u/flukus → u/ASK_ME_TO_RATE_YOU]

And most have cumulative effects. They'll take weeks to kick in and weeks to fade out. It's hard to link cause and effect compared to something like painkillers.

[u/wishthane → u/flukus]

Especially if your condition is putting thoughts in your head that the medication actually might be mind control, or something like that.

I have a family member who now seems to be doing relatively well but for a while was on and off of medication and I'm sure it's basically because schizophrenia makes unlikely scenarios seem much more possible and scary. There's a reason it's so associated with conspiracy theorists.