[Dig1t]

>You start panicking and soon you have absolutely zero mental bandwidth to accomplish the task and your mind is basically singularly focused with getting out of this terrible situation

This is such a relatable description.

I don't think you even need a panic disorder to have this happen to you, this has happened to me a handful of times and it's absolutely the worst. It really is humiliating, totally ruins your day and you end up kicking yourself for several days after. I think this is just something that a lot of people do, like stage fright or something. The only way I know to avoid this is to do a lot of interviews with different companies that you don't really care about to get more confidence before you finally do get to the interview you care about, just so you don't choke during the one you want.

[jliptzin]

No. Some people have panic and anxiety disorders and need professional help and/or medications to help them. It is this kind of tone deaf advice, “just prepare more, you’ll eventually get it!” that prevents people with a panic disorder from seeking professional help for years. It is like telling someone with diabetes to just try harder to produce insulin.

[ggff67]

And how beneficial is telling people they have a mental disorder if they experience common issues that even healthy people experience? A mental disorder has to significantly impact your life for a long period. A symptom list that consists solely of freezing up when put on the spot in a rare high-stakes situation is not going to qualify. Any teacher can tell you this happens to everyone. Stop right in the middle of lecture, point at one student suddenly, and ask them a quick question that demands a quick answer and wait. The most common response will be "uh!uh!..." even when they know the answer. It's about the situation itself that people weren't ready for, not the specific facts they were asked about. You indeed need to practice retrieving information under the particular circumstances to build the confidence to not freeze up like that.

[dang]

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

[jliptzin]

Spoken exactly like someone who has never had the pleasure of experiencing the vicious and debilitating feedback loop of a panic attack. Of course everyone gets nervous when put on the spot; panic disorders go well beyond that, to the point where you might believe your death is imminent during something like a routine interview, and your fight or flight response kicks in. Rather than concentrating on the problem at hand, your mind is focused solely on survival.

[tareqak]

> You indeed need to practice retrieving information under the particular circumstances to build the confidence to not freeze up like that.

Is that part of the job description now?

What are these characteristics that:

1. Are present in the day-to-day work of a great many impactful software engineers that employers want to hire?

and

2. Do not discriminate against gender, gender identity, race, national origin, faith, sexual orientation, veteran status, age, and any and all other characteristics that employers are forbidden from discriminating against?

and

3. Are present and can be easily recognized in a leetcode-style interview keeping in mind that the number of similarities/amount of overlap between leetcode-style and day-to-day software engineering work is very close to zero if not zero?

[sirmarksalot]

True, though a lot of times the professional help will mostly consist of coaching you through how to "prepare more and eventually get it." The block is around taking the steps that help you improve. Yeah, medication is sometimes necessary, but exposure is a huge component of many different kinds of therapy.