I heard about the Open Sourcing Mental Illness initiative at the PHP UK Conference this year, and thought it would be a good thing to get in touch with you all here, and anyone who turns up in future.
I’m a self-taught developer in the UK, and work in a small business in a team of two. I’ve only relatively recently worked professionally as a developer, and sort of fell into the job while working in a different role in the company, having done web development tinkering as a teenager for personal projects.
I’ve suffered with mental health issues throughout my life (28 now), most affectingly a severe phobia of vomiting (emetephobia), which is the root cause of a variety of extra problems (
) including social anxiety and bouts of intense panic, OCD, and other generalised anxiety.
I’ve tried to get help for my issues a few times in the past, but for one reason or another have ended up back where I started. I aim to seek some help for it again soon. I’m lucky to work for a very understanding company who I know will support me if I need anything from them by way of support in doing so. I know others here probably aren’t so lucky, and I know what that feels like, having worked for a good few uncaring and impersonal national companies in a variety of crappy roles before finding my calling.
Anyway, this rambling is basically saying “hello, I promised myself I’d post on this messageboard when I was at the PHP UK Conference, and here it is”.