Ask HN: Any chronically ill founders here? How do you balance your life?

I don't know what advice to give you regarding finding that "balance" in life and I don't even know if I'd be considered a founder but for the last 9 years I've been working as a freelance programmer, I was initially diagnosed with chron's disease in 2014 and was reclassified to having ulcerate colitis a couple years later. The first 4 years of living with this problem was a total mess, It was difficult to balance my work and personal life while managing my health problem. It held back my development as a programmer and my relationships with people. I was constantly filled with anxiety, anger and frustration, It felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel for me and I even considered suicide at one point. Over the last 9 months I started to experiment with taking psilocybin mushrooms as an alternative to anti depressants and I have found it to have helped me tremendously. It has helped me overcome the anxiety and fearfulness of this health condition, come to terms with the passing of my dad and grandparents and also has made motivated to have goals in life again. Things have been looking up since then and I've begun to turn my life around, slowly but surely.

I have a genetic/hereditary disability which has progressively deteriorated over my working career. I took the decision 10 years ago to quit my senior role at a FTSE100 and do a startup instead so that I had full control over my work load and work environment.

Fast forward to today, and I'm now only able to work for a few hours a week. The business I founded is mature, and largely manages without my input.

It's hugely frustrating not being able to do more. Given the limits I have on my output, and that I have no sensible idea of what the future holds, I almost exclusively do stuff that (a) really interests me and (b) is rewarding for me personally.

Inevitably a chronically ill person is likely to be/become depressed: I found anti-depressants really useful. I had no idea I was so depressed.

I've tried counseling, it's just not for me.

I'm actively engaged with the experts in my condition, and have gained an expert knowledge. No one else will do this for you. Neither will anyone else will take a holistic view in terms of your care.

I have a fantastically supportive SO and rarely stop to consider myself as disabled -- this is a doubled edged sword as it leads to boom and bust.

HTH in some way. (Edit - formatting, clarity re startup)

A C3 spinal cord injury has interfered multiple times, especially with finances and insurance.

My advice?

Automate as much as possible; Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes, and kubespray are great.

Build what you can, when you can. Try not to stress when you can't.

Learn to meditate by focusing on your breath. A calm mind is very helpful for productivity.

Establish a routine. Stick to it as best you can. (When my routine is thrown off, I'm very unproductive. Meditation helps reset my focus.)

Buy an Echo Dot. Use repeating reminders to remember the day-to-day stuff (e.g., meds) so you can stay in the zone without neglecting your health.

Keep well-named, well-organized bookmarks relevant to your illness; searching your browser history with a cloudy mind when sick is a PITA.

Learn systems biology. View it as a FSM initially so you can properly debug your body and communicate with doctors when it fails you.

Those are the tips I live by right now.

My coding work won a startup competition a few years back, but the terms of the deal weren't favorable to me due to my disability, so I turned it down.

One grand mal seizure a few months later, I forgot that I was a coder with ambitions. (The flip-side to that: I forgot that learning to code was so much fun, so I focused on languages I previously avoided.)

The project from the competition is almost completely rewritten to be nearly autonomous.

I've been chronically ill for over a decade and founded my first company last year. Perhaps the hardest truth I've had to learn to accept is that I simply do not have as many hours in the day as a healthy person. I spend at least 2 hours a day physically managing my illness, not to mention the mental overhead of my illness being at back of my mind constantly. So I've had to either become more efficient, hire and delegate more effectively, or come to terms with the fact that I can only expect so much output from myself (I've done all three).

As far as finding balance in my life - I've done a terrible job at it, but I was creating a novel product and rushing to get it to market. If I had to do it again, I probably would have done the same thing.

My company is not yet successful and my finances are dwindling, so I'll going to pick up some contract work and build up my reserves again. When I've got enough money saved for another 12 month run at my company, I'm going to jump right back in.

I have no first-hand advice, but this article may be of interest: https://stackingthebricks.com/chronic-illness-the-best-reaso...

Me. We are a specialised consultancy of about 20. Suffering from IBD. Thus far hasn’t been a big problem. If I need to be at the hospital, then that’s where I am.

People understand.

But. Sure. It does require a bit more of me than if I was 100%.

Regarding balancing life. I think everyone needs to figure that out. I don’t think having a chronic illness changes the basic fact. Everyone has problems. Mine just happens to be my physical health.

I've been a cofounder a couple of times, never had any great success though. Getting close to 5 years ago I was working on a startup in addition to my normal job. I'd go to work, work all day, go to the gym for an hour or two, come home work on the startup for 4 or 5 hours. Then I'd spend all day Saturday and Sunday working on the startup.

Then one day I just stopped working on the Startup, quit going to the gym, and was having to drag my ass to work where my productivity dropped to nearly zero. I ended up quitting the the startup and giving up most of my equity. The other founder went on to find another cofounder, they got an investment and are doing pretty good.

Anyways I ended up feeling like crap for a few months and started to feel good again. I had started a new job as a manager at my old job had went to a new company and hired all the good people as soon as his non-compete expired. I was productive at work, going to the gym again, and had started several personal projects, bought a house and was making improvements there. I attributed this to no longer working in a place that sucked.

Then I hit the wall again. Productivity in the toilet, quit going to the gym, just stayed home all day watching reruns of MASH. This time it was pretty bad, so I ended up going to the doctor.

I was diagnosed bipolar type 2. Well that sure explained a lot. I'm on meds now that control it pretty well. I still have the swings, but they are not as severe as before.

I haven't founded a company since I was diagnosed, but I did working for an early stage startup for a couple of years. A couple of changes I've made.

1. Really focus on saving money. If I decide to found another company I want to be able to quit my day job and focus on just that. Saving money is easier to do without the hypomanic spending sprees. Boy do I have some stories there. Like the weekend that I spent $300 on socks.

2. Set realistic goals for myself and time box what I am doing. I have to understand that I still have the depressive cycle where I am not as productive, but don't have the hypomanic cycles to make up for it. The big driver here is setting a reasonable amount of work hours and sticking to it. Hence why if I found another company I need to be able to quit my day job.

3. I vet ideas a lot more throughly now. In the past someone would approach me with an idea or I'd have one. I'd get all excited and run off and start implementing it. Now that I have the requirement that I'd quit my job to work on it, I research them better now. And I also ask my self do I really want to be in that business. I've turned down a few ideas just because I don't want to be in that business. I also look at the realistic return. Since I have to draw down personal capital to work on an idea, I ask myself, would I be better off just leaving the money in VTSAX? So far every time I've determined it is better to just leave it in VTSAX.

I'm actually building something specifically for the chronically ill. x YC founder. Want to chat?

I'm a freelancer working from home for the past 8 years. I have:

- Bipolar 1 - Severe eating disorder - Moderate/severe GI issues - Moderate/severe Anxiety - Moderate/severe Agoraphobia - Moderate Carpel Tunnel Syndrome

There isn't much to balance at this point. I have averaged 10-15 hours of work/week, which takes the form of a 1-2 months of working pretty hard followed by 1-2 months of being unable to work due to depression/anxiety leading to mental & physical paralysis. It's frustrating because I'm in a super momentum-driven sales role, with high volume and consistent work required to keep earning money. So I'm essentially shutting down the business and its inertia every couple of months...then restarting! I'm good at what I do and very fortunate that I can cover my bills and save on my meager workload, but it's frustrating because my inability to work has deprived me of at least $1 million over the course of my freelance career (based on my earnings rate, my missed hours have cost me $100K+ per year). It's the missed potential that is most frustrating. ...And don't get me started on the substantial portion of my net worth I've gambled in the markets and partied away during my periods of mania.

It has been a constant decline since a BP relapse and recovery in 2015, with the above physical problems especially accelerating since then. In late 2016, my GI problem escalated to a point where I couldn't make plans due to unexpected multi-hour flare-ups that occur at least twice/week. This boosted an already-serious eating problem (it's been my chosen method of self-medicating for 20 years now) to a full-on functional disorder. That has made the GI problem worse...and the cycle continues.

I haven't socialized, talked to a friend, or been on a date in 2+ years (neither in-person or text/online). I text with my sister occasionally - she lives 2 blocks from me, but I haven't seen her or her family in 3 months. I try to see my parents once every 2 weeks.

The Carpel Tunnel only started a few months ago and has made both work and reading extremely difficult. It's a pretty cruel one, having caused me to cut my reading from around 60 to 10 hours/week (reading is my life). And work-wise, I have this new physical obstacle to face - typing, scrolling, and clicking are super painful - when I finally get in the moods to work. Gah!

I'm finally forcing myself out of the house to the Orthopedist tomorrow, so fingers crossed (ouch, heh).

I'm not even sure I answered the question - feels like it devolved into a rant. But it has taken so long to type this (breaks needed in between!) that I'm just going to submit the comment anyways.

If you’re chronically ill, you shouldn’t be risking your health by founding a company. Take care of yourself first, you are competing with others that are in tip-top shape.