Is startup PTSD real and possible?

I had to shut down a company and lay off a dozen people, losing most of my savings and several years work. Friends have experienced much worse.

These might not compare to the worst horrors of war, but they rank among life's agonies with getting divorced, or losing a parent. They can cause something like PTSD. It can take months or years to be ready to try something big again, and some people never bounce back.

Most people who haven't experienced that kind of failure can't appreciate how much it hurts. So it's worth seeking out people who have gone through big failures to commiserate with. There are lots of them out there. Few will post details online, because it's sensitive stuff that involves other people. So you have to talk 1-on-1.

1999/2000 Toronto, height of the dot com, new grad in a "senior dev" role with no real experience. Our CTO was a paranoid chronic pot smoker who lectured me regularly on knowing the difference between "sharks" vs. "dolphins", our manager, a sweet Hungarian man who excelled in his prior career managing major infrastructure projects, was pulled out of retirement to lead the team and the experience almost killed him... Our ORM mapping product had fatal flaws and only I and our CTO knew it... The CTO was pushed out, I was put in charge briefly... Sleeping at work 4 nights a week, 14 hour days, living off diet coke and veal sandwiches, gained 40 pounds... Experienced my first panic attack prior to a meeting with key investors... One of whom was wanted by the RCMP for fraud. Good times... The thought of experiencing 1/5 of that stress and chaos again still gives me anxiety... 20 years later. After that experience , my tolerance for continued stress is very low without encountering anxiety... I empathize with what you are experiencing.

I now live in a 150 sqft tiny house in the woods, shower under the stars, poop in a bucket, grow food, fall asleep to the sound of frogs and owls... And it's the happiest I've ever been.

Absolutely. I've gone through periods where simply opening my laptop would almost invariably result in what I can only describe as a low-grade panic attack. If that's not PTSD, I don't know what is.

I've been taking a break for most of the last 6 months, and am only just starting to get back to 'normal'. I'm not at all convinced that I'll ever fully get back to where I was pre-burnout, but at least I can check my email again without provoking a fight or flight response.

If you have the financial resources to do so, I strongly recommend you take some time off - be away from all technology and spend time in nature if at all possible. Focus on sleeping well, eating well, and exercise.

Trying to power through what you're feeling might seem heroic, but you could end up doing lasting damage to yourself.

Any harrowing experience can cause PTSD. Usually time makes the feeling fade and understanding what specifically caused the stress during trying circumstances and avoiding or controlling those situations prevents them from occurring again.

I suggest you slow down and write cause, effect and solution for everything that seems to be circling repeatedly in your mind when your mind wanders. I also suggest taking a hike or few.

Healthy living, effective analysis, and time is a fix for most problems.

Disregarding the clinical definition of PTSD as I'm not qualified to diagnose, I will answer a slightly different question:

"Is _career trauma_ real and possible?"

Yes, absolutely.

I had an experience early in my career where I was working with a partner who was toxic, and over months and months I became more and more stressed out, and eventually I ended up having health problems. I finally had to end the partnership, and my health improved significantly -- but I was deeply burned out for a while, it took a long time to get all the way back to productivity.

So yeah, trauma in your work life is very real, it happens to many people, and it's difficult to recover from. But life does get better, and you can recover!

Definitely consider counseling if you aren't getting it already. A professional counselor can be a very big help to your mental health - and remember that in knowledge work our mental health is our vocational bread and butter, so it's worth investing in :)

Having recently been affected by the end of an Intent-based networking startup, I can tell you it is a very emotional thing. I feel like part of me has died and my belief in the industry’s future state shaken. I learned that many people I had trusted were complicit in the failure and that hurts as well. We had money but a complete lack of leadership. I saw people that I felt were true believers like me change overnight.

It was hard to accept the fact that your friends/coworkers will sell you out so quickly, and that no matter how bright the future looks, a stupid founder can ruin the whole thing in an instant.

Very real and have experienced it. There is a lot of privilege in running a startup, even a failed one, and few people who have gone through it. So finding help is hard because many people won't be sympathetic and nearly nobody will understand your trauma unless they have also run a startup.

There should be more startup mental health groups, or awareness, or something.

End of a startup can also end friendships and relationships and financial security and all of those things together can happen at the same time and honestly be very traumatic.

Yes, absolutely. Any traumatic situation or event can cause PTSD. I don’t think it’s in doubt that some people find their startup experience to be traumatic in some way.

I shut down a successful, profitable startup once because I realized it was growth capped and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing it. By many measure it was a success, but I spent almost 3 years in utter depression for not being the next Larry Page or whatever rock star technical founder.

I think it all comes down to expectations. Whatever they are, if you one day wake up and realize you will never fulfill them, it can break that dreamer part of you in an unexpected way. That startup abyss some people talk about is real and feels like shit.

Oh absolutely.

Aside from the stress of long hours, combined with financial risk - in addition to the conniving, backstabbing and sheer incompetence of many people you get to work with, out in startup-land - there's a huge cognitive dissonance factor. Arising from "you're doing this because you love it, because you're on a mission, because we 'chose' you (out of the pile of other hapless victims we could have chosen), etc. Oh and shitty office space, crap insurance and other benefits, etc.

Add it all up, and you get a perfect storm for PTSD.

Yes.

"Daily Active users" from silicon valley made me cry for days and call and message former early stage co-workers.

The best way to work around it for me, is to accept it, work through it in my head; and if I can identify biases that I am scared of in current work, to at least call them out as things that I have good/bad experience with but encourage my team to work them to instead have a fresh point of view. Some of my spiders include cofounder trust issues; and seeing them can trigger hours of remembering why I am better off.

"Most people who haven't experienced that kind of failure can't appreciate how much it hurts." - tld. Yeah, most people who are not in startups think you just got a bad quarter or launched an underwhelming project. They have no idea. Talking to other founders helps a lot though. You think you are alone, but then turns out your mind wasn't all that f--up at all, comparing to some others. Cheer up, you will eventually put it behind you, maybe.

Hello. Yes. My last startup went bankrupt. After raising $xx million. Laid off hundreds of employees including many college friends.

Experienced symptoms of depression for 1-3 years.

Realized that the primary root cause of my depression was an extrinsic, non-resilient value system.

Am doing better now with a more intrinsic value system but certainly still not 100%. I’ve learned that changing value systems is easy in theory but hard in practice.

Would be more than happy to discuss more here or offline. Either way, best of luck!

Yep it is totally possible.

I would find a therapist who can help you. The other way to help yourself is to re-frame the negative emotional experience into something positive. I recommend Feeling Great and Feeling Good as two books by David Burns that help. He has a podcast too and you can email him etc...

There are a lot of podcasts out there from entrepreneurs and now VCs who had failures. Most of them look back on those days fondly in retrospect and laugh about it.

Startups fail for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with you and out of your control. Most of the time its because the startup was too early. Pets.com and Webvan are the illustrative examples.

When you hit MVP you basically can't keep up with demand so it's really hard to fail when customers want your product.

Before the MVP you are in the search phase to find that product which can be stressful. But don't let it be the fear of failure. Rather be the fear of crap I have to get a regular job!

So the way to think about it is to enjoy the experience and take an undifferentiated view of it. That can be hard to do if you don't have your basic needs met or a safety net.

Life is trauma. The more we take on the more punches we take. Let us not let our ambitions be weapons against ourselves. Leadership takes wisdom based on experience and learning.

The adrenals are the alarm, and the thyroid is the gas pedal. Trauma can offset both.

But yes, life and work is tough unless we have balance and willingness to grow from pain.

Keep breathing deep and take ashwagandha.

These times are more rough than most recent histories.

Sending love.

Technical definition of PTSD? No idea, I'm not a shrink

What the common man things of PTSD? Most certainly yes.

A startup world isn't a literal warzone. The experiences of a startup can be extremely negative, but aren't anything near as bad as what a soldier sees - so lets not get these things confused.

But anyone can experience trauma from anything. Be it a loss of someone you care about... or a horrifically bad boss. Extreme stress be it in a warzone or in a startup is still stress. It's hard on the body and can cause a lot of negative reactions in the short or long term.

My experience was mild in comparison. Got a new boss at a high stress, high growth, no-life startup job (the kind where you boast that you work 80 hours a week, 6.5 days a week minimum). He was terrible, I started to look for a new job but it was slim pickings at the time. Eventually I did get an out but for the first two weeks after I left, I had nightmares every single night about that boss. Continued to happen less regularly for quite some time after that.

I am not a psychiatrist however I grew up in the midst of conflict. It just doesn't sit right considering startup failure in the same context as individuals experiencing those they know being murdered...or the many other horrors people experience.

I do not say this to underplay the difficulty of tech failure. However, within that failure there is probably plenty of privilege. Opportunities that others could only dream.

You are trying to grow and learn from your experiences. Being at peace with yourself can be hard work. I did the leave my job, accelerator programme, back to the workplace journey. I think it's best not to frame your experiences in terms of PTSD. I think this may shape your understanding in a way which is overly negative. There's the old saying you may not see the wood for the trees. In your case I would say come to HN and talk about the trees you have experienced. Rather than try and give the wood a name.

It is real. And it’s been debilitating for me as well. I’m working through the process too, holding on to the hope to rise back to a steady normal state of sorts. On my good days, journaling, mediating, exercising, good diet, and fresh air / outdoor time help.

It is. I started up and failed, then got a job and everything was fine. But after 9 months, I was down for 6 month. I think I was still in startup-sprint mode for the first months at the new job but PTSD finally hit me.

I not sure PTSD but burning out mentally and physically is gonna cost you time in this life and not fun time. However, while it’s incredibly lonely in that room, like everything hard, there is so much to learn. Just know that it’s very difficult to get a handle on it till life moves on and you can see it with cleaner eyes. There is a reason why old, wise dudes/dudettes are relaxed, humble and kind. They’ve had their asses handed too them and got through it without turning bitter.

Counsel. Properly.

I would suggest to seek professional help on this. Almost none of the commenters in this thread are actually qualified to answer.

Speaking from experience of a close friend though - PTSD can come about in different ways and not necessarily from one key event (e.g. it can be a result of prolonged abuse or bullying). Additionally if you have been emotionally or physically abused in childhood the level of tolerance for stress can be severely limited, exasperating the issue.

Good luck! Mental health issues suck :(

I have been working on a game solo for the last while. It can be extremely rewarding and extremely stressful. If you decide to go back to your startup role, it can pay off to take some time completely off (a day? A month? Longer?) and then go back to things very slowly and gradually in a low stress way, until it becomes enjoyable and feels manageable again. I wish I could say something more helpful than that

It is definitely real! Making big life changes for anything -- whether it be a startup, marriage, or new job -- can bring extreme highs and lows.

The most effective thing for me was confiding in supportive friends. I noticed I stopped thinking about it when I traveled far from the people/places that reminded me of it. Getting invested in new projects also helped.

Feel free to email me if you want to talk about it!

The aftermath of trauma is real. If you can tackle it on your own, great. If not, therapy can help teach you how to cope. Good luck!

If you'd like to talk with other folks who've been there:

#PTSDChat on Twitter - Every Wed 9pm EDT since 2014

The categories were made for man, not man for the categories (as a wise man once said). If you can improve your lot without hurting someone else you should do it. The name of the problem doesn't matter if you have a solution available.

> but struggle to find authoritative related resources

I'd like to start a subthread with the question:

"What is an effective way to find a trustworthy therapist for problems close enough to 'startup PTSD' to ask?"

I for sure think its possible! A really effective treatment is EMDR. Have a look and try it out. It really helps people to quickly process negative emotional reactions.

Trauma comes in many forms. Of course it is real and possible.

Never heard that phrase, but your description sounds like burnout. You may have better luck researching it as such.

That depends if you mean PTSD in a clinical sense, or PTSD in the pop-culture-phrase sense. And also, you're asking a yes/no question, but it's probably better to ask "how likely is it". There are a lot of humans in existence, so a whole lot of really unlikely things are technically possible just by the laws of big numbers.

In the pop culture sense, PTSD is basically just residual stress/anxiety from some negative event that happened in the past. Burnout, or even generalized anxiety disorder with work-related triggers... these are all totally legitimate things that have a very negative toll on quality of life, and that people conversationally might refer to as PTSD, but from a clinical standpoint, they aren't the same.

PTSD has very particular clinical diagnostic criteria [1]. If you read carefully, they're perfectly understandable. But I want to make some key points: in a clinical sense, the trauma referred to in "post-traumatic stress disorder" is explicitly and exclusively "actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence". That's it, end of list. Among other things, a PTSD diagnosis requires some kind of repeating, severe negative episode(s) -- night terrors, dissociative reactions, panic attacks, that kind of thing. It has to last more than a month, and it has to cause significant disturbance in your life. PTSD is a disorder, but it is almost always a qualifier for a disability, because it is extremely common that PTSD precludes your ability to live a normal life. PTSD, in the clinical sense, is something I would find extremely, exceedingly rare in any kind of business situation, startup or otherwise.

To be clear, I don't want to be relativizing either PTSD or burnout or anxiety disorders. I don't want to be comparing anything; I've yet to see anything productive come out competitions about who has the worse health problems, mental or otherwise. There are plenty of other very real conditions that can and very likely do result from the stressful environment of a startup, and they can be very serious, even leading to suicide, and I really don't want to trivialize that. But I want to make one thing clear: from a clinical standpoint, PTSD is a distinct entity with concrete characteristics. I've personally been dealing with pretty severe mental health issues my entire life, and I've also had friends with diagnosed PTSD, and to be completely honest, even though I doubt you meant anything by it, conflating the two feels deeply disrespectful to all of us.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/box/part1_ch3.b...

How is someone else’s negative reaction to your business a “trauma”?

I will say the year 2020 into 2021 has not been very good for behavioral health. But PTSD is like so old right now. The girls don't want that. They really go for the diagnosis that is currently found in a virtual parade being promoted on a website. romaticised. encouraged. Now start up PTSD? I think that it not really what you are talking about. Sounds like you like it is commonly found and many professions ups and downs problems mistakes failures and during the resilient or you're not. And I know that you said that it's like maybe possibly hindering your performance? Find a mentor in your industry. Southwest might be a little bit rattled from this you know the stress of it but it's not a disorder. I mean I'm not saying your experience doesn't qualify to be stressful but I am saying I'm sorry that you're going through it and you need to find a way like she said to grow through it. And I don't really think you're going to find a libertarian source on startup besides maybe like a startup that writes content about start ups.

Business without a net at the hemorrhaging edge is like war is like life. Been homeless, went bankrupt, and just idled a bit, for a while.

It's better to look at it as a game and an experiment. If someone gets too in-love with their "baby," emotionally or identity/ego, then they won't be able to pivot, chop it up, exit, or strangle it.

Take a break, get a job, go on a coke bender, sleep with 3 affiliates of VCs, become a Twitch DJ, vlog from India, sell windmills, have a kid, whatever it takes to get back to making a living or trying to make livings. It can be difficult to unfuck your shit after a big loss, do whatever physical or emotional labor is necessary to get back to an even keel. Psychological and/or pharmacological assistance could be needed for some people.

There are a number of things you can do to help.

* EMDR - have someone adequately trained assist.

* CBT

* Third Wave therapy

* In consultation with a doctor, alter meds, supplements, what you eat

* Proper exercise

* Elimination/addition of certain foods, drinks, nutrients, or meds

Jocko, whom I think has a good handle on PTSD, swears by limiting intake/fasting and not eating crap food. Also: exercise and self-motivation.