Finding Strength in Code: Navigating Emotional Overwhelm as a Software Engineer

Hey, it has been a while since my last post on this platform. With the recent "boom!" of AI, I started to feel like writing blog posts is no longer unique; however, recently, a personal situation broke my entire world, and I would like to do something with this energy in the middle of the disaster.

I have been working in the Tech industry since 2011, and I have had many adventures, challenges, and different situations, you know, standard stuff; we are humans.

In 2016, my father died, and it was the first time my world broke into a thousand pieces. As an engineer, I always look for a logical explanation for everything. My dad's death was sudden, without much time to get used to the idea. But in the end, there was logic: he was an older man who suffered heart failure. You don't know how much I still miss him.

More recently, I found myself facing the fact that I have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. It is nothing too severe and controllable with medication. I have managed to accept that situation, too.

I am now going through a separation from someone significant to me. Life sometimes puts us on different paths from the people we love. Sometimes, it makes you evaluate the things that put you on the same path in the first place and reflect on whether that feature is still in use or should be updated.

"Shit happens!"

The important thing is always to give the best of ourselves. We should always learn from every situation that happens to us. As a failed deployment, I must know where to set up the configurations next time.

The problem I've faced recently is that a failed deployment doesn't hurt as much as a personal loss unless you get fired for it, right? But assuming you don't get fired, trust me, it hurts more. A personal loss significantly impacts our concentration, our daily activities, and the quality of our work. Even if you are an expert in managing emotions (I am not), the feelings knock you out during a meeting or a problem debugging. God knows it is challenging.

Luckily, I work for a company that allows me to be human. However, to maintain trust with an employer, we must first show results and communicate clearly.

During this stage of my life, I might not share details about my situation with my team, but I raise my hand and mention that something important is happening to me, and I could need moments of support. If you work in the correct place, they will say, "You can count on us" (spoiler: I'm in the correct place, I'm very fortunate).

I will share the current list of agreements with myself with you.

• Accept reality, don't force it, and stop overthinking. I know we are engineers, but please stop.
• Seek professional help. A mental health specialist is your ally.
• Let all your feelings flow.
• This is the perfect time to gain new skills.
• Write down your hateful thoughts and burn them or let them go.
• Express only positive emotions and spend time with the people you love.
• Exercise, eat, and sleep as much as you can.
• Take hold of the strong hand of your spiritual source.
• Listen to music that cheers you up.

About my tasks as a software engineer:

• Split objectives and conquer. Focus on small results, and recognize you are giving your best.
• Save your concentration time (check some apps to help with time organization and follow the rules).
• Doing pair programming helps a lot so as not to lose concentration.
• Remember the commitments you made at work and store the fulfilled register.
• Remember that taking care of your work is taking care of yourself.
• Post notes in your workspace that motivate you.
• Ask for feedback to your coworkers.

Last but most importantly, remember that everything happens and ends. We can't control our lives like we control the logs of an application, but we can control how we feel about it. Let go; it's the best thing we can do.
If you got this far, thank you for reading this reflective post.

Today I am closer to the person I will become and I hope you are too. See you on GitHub!