Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by simon83 1051 days ago
> I can't reason as well or as quickly. Things go over my head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.

Is that while being high on THC, or being sober but having consumed lets say the day before?

2 comments

Both. When I'm high at work it's very very acute. When I'm not high but I was high yesterday I can tell I'm lower-functioning but it's not as bad.

Weed and untreated bipolar disorder are directly responsible for me losing my jobs at SpaceX, Google, and 2 other smaller companies.

Do you still consume cannabis?
Yes
why if its cost you so much? Are you seeking treatment or is treatment something you even want? This is not an attack, genuinely interested. My sister is bipolar and she saw positives from stopping cannabis use.
Because I don't care. I'm burnt out. I have lost motivation. I used to care but I let my bipolar disorder get the best of me and there were consequences. I fell off the wagon and it stuck. I started smoking a lot in the pandemic and it compounded.

I work a dead end job now. It pays a fraction of google and is nowhere near the prestige of SpaceX. I don't care at this point.

Sorry you reached that point. You are clearly a smart person to have landed those jobs in the first place. I hope that everything works out for you, really do
Personally I care more about continuing to use marijuana than continuing to work. I've made enough money that I don't really need to work at least for the next decade and don't have anyone depending on me being responsible so the motivation to quit isn't really there.

I would guess marijuana only makes me about 10% worse at my job so it's not like I'm being fired like the other guy.

Not the GP, but for me it can be both. Depends a lot on your overall usage pattern.

Right now I only really smoke once a month at most, when the opportunity presents itself. In these cases, I'm obviously completely non-functional under the influence. But I also smoke a lot less because I have no tolerance, I feel pretty much completely fine the next day, possibly even better than usual, because the resulting night of REM suppressed sleep gives me a jolt of antidepressant effect without the downsides of sleep deprivation.

If I'm in a binging mode, it means I have a huge tolerance, smoke a ton more, and honestly it takes at 2-3 weeks of abstinence before I'm back to baseline for working memory, possibly longer.

But paradoxically, if I'm in such a binge, I'm probably more functional if I've had my morning smoke compared to skipping it for the day, because abstaining would then cause me to be highly irritable and unable to focus on anything in addition to the state of temporary dementia I'd be in. And since there's a massive tolerance, one dose won't have acute deleterious effects to the same degree.