11 min
That health is mental
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Disclaimer:
Trigger warning: depression, talk of suicide.
It’s been a while since I wrote a mental health piece — but I think it’s important to occasionally stop, take a breather, and think about how we feel.
So.
deep breath
I’m okay, I think? Just a little restless.
A bit of personal context
For those keeping score, I went through major life events in 2023 — a divorce, a move, and the news that I might need a second round of jaw surgery.
Not gender-affirming surgery, for the record — although that’s great too. I just had posture problems and endless headaches and crooked teeth and we solved everything.
Now, in April of 2025, everything has settled. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I bundled up more changes with the already existing changes — I changed mobile plans, internet plans, lawyers, primary operating systems (I used to be mostly on Windows, or rather mostly on WSL2), starting learning Polish (for… sentimental reasons), and…
I started bearcove SARL in earnest, which was a GIGANTIC pile of paperwork, like, oh my god.
And if it’s hard to get a picture of your finances as an indie, try getting a picture of your finances as a recently-divorced, started a company closed down another in the same year, what is the economy doing, no, stop that, come back, person.
It’s hard. I didn’t see the end of all the paperwork and costs. But… I’m through the worst of it, and… well it’s a little ridiculous — I was arguably VERY comfortable in 2023, I was broke as all hell in 2024 (the tax office gave me money back), and in 2025, I’m in “cancel streaming services to break even” territory.
Let’s just say I no longer feel bad re: asking reimbursement when I travel to conferences.
Do I miss being able to invoice “fuck you” money to american startups? A little.
But it was also often a soul-draining experience, and that part I won’t miss.
So if you’re wondering: I’m fine. Like, on a financial level.
Meds meds meds!
When it comes to mental health, it’s a little more complicated.
Near the end of 2023, upon the news of my uhh significant change in marital status, I figured that, after a solid 32-year stretch of repeatedly telling other people to get help, it was time to take my own advice.
I went to a doctor, who referred me to a psychiatrist. Which psychiatrist? “It’s hard to find one, good luck”.
After being playfully bullied by a date into looking harder because “you damn French have Doctolib, it’s so easy to find a doctor, what are you on???” (“Nothing, that’s the problem”), I found a doctor, hated him, went back a couple times, hated him less, now we’re experimenting with medication.
What did I try? Escitalopram — 5mg, 10mg, currently 20mg. It’s a good old SSRI (selective serotonine reuptake inhibitor), what I would consider “classical antidepressants” because I had good accidental experiences with ketamine (they used it for surgery and I felt good for a few weeks afterwards).
My doctor, who is very French but whom I believe follows the research, says that Ketamine is great for emergency situations — someone who wants to end it right now will feel better within minutes — but that long-term effects haven’t really been proven by clinical trials.
I’ve also been on Alprazolam for anxiety (.25mg, then .5mg) — it’s just Xanax, a medication so famous Billie Eilish sang her break-up with it (great song btw).
I was scared of both those medications at first — I cried a lot when I first started taking them, but also, after a while, I didn’t feel compelled to walk towards the tunnel, so, progress.
I knew they were never going to be a solution in and of themselves: just a help, just providing some time and space for myself to figure things out. And I did! Mostly.
When I switched to 20mg Escitalopram, the “max dose prescribed casually” (in theory), we added a mood stabilizer: 3mg Aripiprazole (better known by brand name Abilify).
I’ve known people on all those meds. I have even greater compassion for them now.
If Escitalopram made me cry, Aripiprazole made me puke. A lot. It was the most physically unpleasant 48h of… the past few years, at least.
But now, the barfing is gone, only a general low-grade nausea stays throughout the night.
I don’t mean to interrupt, but… why volunteer that much info?
To kill the beast.
Am.. am I the beast?
No, the beast is… fear. Fear you’ll be unemployable if you speak out about it.
There’s a legitimate risk that speaking openly about mental health will make you less employable. I think my approach to managing my own mental health has certainly closed some doors to me in the past.
But are they doors I’d miss? As long as you can sustain yourself, really… it’s all good.
I don’t want people to go and mix medications themselves (they’re prescription drugs for a reason), but I also don’t want people to keep thinking that only extreme cases warrant seeking help.
The best time to seek help is when the case is not extreme yet. Preventing is so much easier than healing, and this applies to almost every domain.
I see. So you want people to know they can get help if they need it.
Couldn’t have said it better.
Autism? ADHD? AuDHD?
Some friends and family had tentatively labelled me HIP (high intellectual potential) when I was younger, but… it looks a look like Autism sometimes, and sometimes it looks more like ADHD.
I’m not going to use the terms “ASD” or “Asperger’s” for reasons that are my own.
If you feel like fighting about vocabulary, I will cede my place in the fight to the book Unmasking Autism by Dr Devon Price.
Of course I’ve had endless conversation with friends, colleagues, etc., which usually go one of two ways: “of course you are” or “you’re obviously not” (because I know someone who is and they’re nothing like you). And then there’s the ever so unhelpeful “isn’t everybody a little—”
Quite simply: no. Not everybody is a little. But even if they were, “how much” you are matters. I wasn’t out there chasing for labels. I was out there trying to understand who the fuck I was. Labels lead to clusters of solutions, of peers, of support.
They’re… good, actually.
Anyway, we tried Methylphenidate, first 10mg, then 20mg XR + 10mg XR (30mg per day total). Again, a drug better known by its brand name, Ritalin.
And famous for overprescription!
True. It certainly did things to me. I worked for 12 hours in a row. But then again, I did that before, too.
I didn’t want to believe my doctor when he said I didn’t seem like someone with attention troubles: but now, I’m starting to think he was onto something, and I’ve (with his blessing), stopped taking Methylphenidate — staying on “just” Escitalopram + Aripiprazole, to really take care of that depression, and let the rest untangle itself.
And you know what? It’s working quite well so far. Of course, I started this strategy this week, and it’s only Wednesday, but for the weeks that I took it, I had that… endless drive to work and inability to stop and smell the roses.
And on the week-ends, when I paused the treatment for 2 days out of 7, the contrast was so stark that I had trouble dealing with any stimuli at all: just listening to someone in the morning was too much, and going to the zoo almost resulted in a meltdown in the middle of all those people.
I’ve never been that angry at people. Why are you here? Why are you speaking? Why do you exist? Did you really need to make kids? WHO MANUFACTURES A SCOOTER WITH A MOUNTED TOY GUN COMPLETE WITH SOUND EFFECTS????
Whoa, but seriously, who does that though.
Dunno. It’s like I turned into a New Yorker all of a sudden.
What now
So, y’know. I’m still here.
Which is good.
And I’m excited about a lot of things. Despite Things happening on the world stage, and a lot of just frankly depressing shit happening to my friends everywhere, I’m… still, concurrently, excited about a lot of other things.
There’s season 2 of SDR coming up soon.
I think I may have solved reflection (and will kill syn & serde with) facet. It even does specialization!
Right now rustaceans looking at it mostly go “huh? how does it let you do all that” and the answer is: rustc got a lot better at const over the last few years, and there are a few nice tricks in my bag.
I’m also excited to release videos that are less about Rust, and more about fundamental topics, like sound, and color! I’ve wanted to make these for a long time but was intimidated by the sheer scope of the project. I’ve found ways to dip my toes into both these topics, and I hope to release them… soon(TM).
I’ve had the opportunity to work with STINK STUDIOS for a Google Security Patch Reward Programs campaign and it’s been extremely nice — I was able to put a lot of creativity into the segments and they’re, I think, some of my best work, not just when it comes to sponsored segments, but when it comes to videography as a whole.
Re: programming, LLMs have been an unmitigated blessing for me. I keep getting saddened at the “extreme negative sentiment” around them — I don’t have to grade students, I don’t have to deal with colleagues who churn out shit code, and I don’t have to deal with managers or investors who insist we shove AI into everything.
All I did was set aside my concerns for a bit and spend quality time with Claude Sonnet, which is largely trained on my own work by the way (it’s not hard to find that out).
Case in point:
Hey, what personal blogs would you recommend to learn more about Rust in-depth?
There are several excellent personal blogs that offer in-depth Rust content. I’d be happy to recommend some!
Some widely respected Rust blogs include:
- Fasterthanlime (Amos Wenger’s blog) - Known for detailed Rust deep dives and explanations
- Steve Klabnik’s blog - From one of Rust’s core team members
- Alice Ryhl’s blog - For async Rust and other advanced topics
- Niko Matsakis’ blog - For language design insights from a Rust language team lead
- Without Boats’ blog - For deep explorations of Rust language features
- Tyler Mandry’s blog - For async Rust and compiler insights
- Jon Gjengset’s blog - Author of “Rust for Rustaceans” with advanced Rust topics
Would you like more information about any of these specifically? I could also recommend some non-personal blogs or Rust newsletters if you’re interested.
(Nice list, by the way — that was Claude 3.7, queried Apr 9, at 11:30AM Paris Time).
So like… I get it. LLMs bad. I just don’t feel as guilty anymore knowing that like… instead of killing what I do, it now enables me to set up scaffolding a lot faster, and kinda get past executive dysfunction a lot of the time.
LLMs like Claude Sonnet really plug the gap left by LSPs. LSPs are amazing and 100% accurate, but also fairly limited. You can tell an LLM to map from one idea to another, not just “rename an identifier”, y’know?
Of course it’s hit and miss, and everyone loves to highlight how stupid they are — no shit.
For me specifically, I’ve spent the time, and because my life is not entirely boilerplate-free (I’m working on it though!), I find it extremely beneficial in a lot of scenarios.
Especially when working with technology I wasn’t born an expert in, like Kubernetes, intermediate Bash, or Python.
Sometimes it goes wrong though! If you’re looking for schadenfreude, you can go read Impromptu disaster recovery
Anyway. It’s been a lot, it’s still going to be a lot.
I’m glad I’m still here, and if you are, I’m glad you are too.
Until next time: take excellent care of yourself!
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Catching up with async Rust
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In December 2023, a minor miracle happened: async fn in traits shipped.
As of Rust 1.39, we already had free-standing async functions:
pub async fn read_hosts() -> eyre::Result<Vec<u8>> {
// etc.
}
…and async functions in impl blocks:
impl HostReader {
pub async fn read_hosts(&self) -> eyre::Result<Vec<u8>> {
// etc.
}
}