[MUSIC PLAYING]
GREG BAUGUES: Thanks
so much for coming.
I just want to
acknowledge, first off,
that the title of this talk is
"Developers and Depression."
You probably had other,
seemingly more fun, things
you could do at 1 o'clock
the first day back
from a long holiday.
And so I just wanted, first,
to say thank you for showing up
and just wanted to--
over the course of
this talk, I wanted
to talk a little bit
more about things
we can do to destigmatize
mental illness in the industry.
And just the fact that you're
willing to show up and listen
to a talk like this today
really means a lot to me.
So thank you so much for that.
Just a couple things about me--
like Sam said, I work at Twilio.
I lead the developer
community team.
I was on the evangelism
team prior to that.
And I'm a developer, and
also I have bipolar and ADHD.
And what I want to do over
the next 30, 40 minutes or so
is just tell you a little bit
about my story as a developer
having mental illness.
Wanted to talk a little bit
about how mental illness seems
to specifically impact
the tech community
and then wanted to chat
a little bit about what
we could do about it.
So let me tell you just a
little bit about my story.
So I started programming
when I was pretty young.
I had a TRS-80.
I started learning BASIC on
that and I was probably--
on this machine, I think I
was probably doing Pascal.
And for some reason, my
parents bought a computer
when they were really young.
My dad's a pastor.
My mom's a nurse.
And there wasn't really reason
to have a computer in the '80s,
but they got one.
And I just took to it.
And there was no internet,
and so programming
was about the most fun
thing that you could do.
It gave you lots of
instant gratification.
And then I ended up
graduating high school
and then going off to college.
And I hated college.
I was a really bad student.
This is the engineering library
at the University of Illinois.
And I remember going
to this library
and looking at all these
people sitting down
and studying and just being
like, how do they do that?
How do they just
sit there for hours
and just read books and
study and be so studious?
And I was kind of like, when
I got to school, smart enough
that I could get by
my first couple years
by cramming and trying to learn
everything the night before
and doing OK on the exam.
But that strategy
kind of stopped
working once I got to
300-level math classes.
It turns out you can't learn
linear algebra in a night.
I tried twice and it
didn't work either time.
And for me, things
really came to a head,
and I really started
to get very depressed
on my fifth year of college.
It's the victory lap,
as they like to call it.
But it wasn't particularly
victorious for me.
I had just moved to this
shitty, shitty apartment.
Can I say "shit" at Google?
Is that fine?
Sorry.
All right, cool.
All right, great.
It was a shitty apartment.
And I was living up here on
the top floor, the third floor
up here.
Most of my friends had
graduated in four years.
And I was trying to
wrestle with, why didn't I?
I had just broken up
with a girlfriend,
my first girlfriend.
It was my first time
ever living alone,
and I was on my way to fail out.
And I didn't know how to tell my
parents, a pastor and a nurse,
that they were $80,000 deep and
I wasn't going to get a degree.
And I just got really depressed.
And when I get depressed, one
of the most obvious symptoms
for me is that I just
end up sleeping a lot.
Back then, I was sleeping
12, 16 hours a day.
I actually remember
one day when I woke up
and I was at the 20-hour mark.
And I was like, if I just
sleep for four more hours,
then I'll be able to brag
that I slept for 24 hours.
So here I am.
I have that thing.
I can pull it out at
parties and stuff.
And the problem
with this was that I
was really good at hiding.
And most of my
friends had graduated.
And I stopped going to class,
I stopped going to work,
and I put on a good front.
And I had one
friend who noticed,
this guy Bill that
I worked with.
And then he noticed that I
hadn't been to work in weeks.
And he sent me a couple of
emails just saying, hey, Greg,
what's going on?
Are you OK?
And I ignored him
because I didn't
know how to tell him, how to
explain what was going on.
And I was just so ashamed.
And one day, it's a
Wednesday at 2 o'clock,
and I'm still in bed.
And my phone rings.
I roll over.
I look.
It's Bill.
And I ignore it.
And then it rings again
and I ignore it again.
And then a few minutes later,
I hear a knock on my door.
And when you're
forgetful like I am,
there's these certain
life maintenance tasks
that you just kind of accept
aren't going to happen.
And back then, locking
my doors was one of them,
because it was way
more likely I was
going to forget my keys
than someone was going
to break into my apartment.
And so I'm laying there in bed.
I hear the knock on my door.
And when I hear the
doorknob start to turn,
I panicked a bit.
And at the time, I
was sleeping on this--
my apartment had
hardwood floors,
and I was sleeping on this cheap
mattresses on the metal bed
frame that had the
plastic casters on it.
So the bed would roll
around a little bit.
And the bed had rolled this
far away from the wall.
And so I very slowly
slid into that gap
between the bed and the wall.
And I just pulled the
covers over my head.
And Bill walked
into my apartment
and he poked his
head into my bedroom,
and he poked his
head into my office,
and then he walked
out the front door.
That's what shame feels like.
I failed out.
I moved back home to
Indianapolis, my parents.
I was so ashamed.
I didn't know how to tell them.
And so I lied to them.
I told them that I graduated.
And I thought maybe
the problem was school.
I thought maybe the
problem was just
the wrong environment for me.
I was a pretty good programmer.
And I thought maybe if
I just did more of that,
then life would get better.
And so I started doing freelance
web development work in PHP.
This is around 2003.
And all the same stuff
just kept happening.
I would put off the project
with the client until the night
before I said I'd have it done.
They'd start calling.
I'd dodge the call.
They'd call the house.
I'd start coming home
late, dodging my parents
when they'd ask about it.
And this just went
on for months.
And I had this
friend in college.
He said, Greg's one of
the smartest kids I know,
but he's also the
laziest person I know.
And I believed that, because I
didn't have any other excuse.
I slept all day.
I didn't do work.
I had these awesome
opportunities
to be able to go to
school and whatnot,
and I had squandered them.
And this pattern
just kept repeating
over and over and over again
and I couldn't figure out
how to stop it.
There's this verse
in the Bible that
says, "I do not
understand what I
do, for what I want
to do I don't do,
but that which I hate, I do."
And I hated what I was doing.
So one night, in desperation--
I was feeling at
the end of my rope--
I went to that place
that you go when
you have questions about life
that seem to have no answers.
And I googled it.
I just typed in "chronic
procrastination," because that
was the best way I could think
to explain what was happening
to me, the best way I could
think to explain my behavior.
And it wasn't long before the
technology y'all work on was
telling me about ADHD, or adult
attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder.
Colloquially, we
typically just say ADD.
And I go down to Barnes &
Noble a couple days later
and I find this book, this book
called "Driven to Distraction."
I'm sitting at Barnes & Noble.
I read the whole
thing there in a day,
and I simultaneously want
to start jumping for joy
because it's explaining all
these people who have stories
that are so similar to mine.
I don't feel as alone anymore.
But I also want to
cry, because it's
explaining so much of the
desperation that I had felt.
And it's telling these
stories about people
whose lives were
ruined by so many
of the same behavioral patterns
that I was going through.
And so it still took me about
a year after finding this book,
reading a couple other books
and basically self-diagnosing
as ADHD.
It took a year and
leaving my parents' house,
moving to Chicago,
thinking maybe
if I could just start
over in Chicago,
of working different jobs, and
working a job for a few months,
and starting off really strong,
and then getting to a place
where I felt like I
was about to get fired,
and bouncing to a different
job before they could fire me.
But eventually I set up an
appointment with a therapist.
I probably used Google
to find her as well,
so thank you for that.
Her name is Laurie.
I went to see her and
go through the tests.
And I'd come back--
basically, it's like you
kind of get a Scantron.
You fill out kind of a survey.
You have some folks
you work with,
or folks who've known you
for a long time, and do it.
You give them to them.
They go through the results.
You come back a
couple weeks later
and they give you the diagnosis.
And Laurie says-- when I
come back later, she says,
you definitely have ADD.
She's like, you
are off the charts.
And at this point,
I'm like, yes!
Because you see, this was
finally an explanation for me.
It was an explanation
for my behavior
that wasn't just me
being a lazy bastard.
It was a way to explain what had
kept happening to me in a way--
and not only that,
but it was a way
to point me towards a group
of folks who struggled
with similar
struggles that I did,
and so that I could
learn from them,
and I could learn coping
mechanisms from them.
But she goes, but I
think you might also
have type II bipolar.
And I was like, no.
I'll take the ADD and
you can keep the bipolar,
because that's what
crazy people have.
And I didn't know anything
about bipolar back then,
aside from what I'd seen in
the movies and stuff, which
isn't particularly accurate.
So bipolar is also
called manic depression.
You'll cycle between
periods of mania,
which are like the good parts.
It's actually-- mania
can feel quite euphoric.
You get really hyper.
You have a lot more confidence.
A lot of people,
actually, who have bipolar
don't want to go get
treatment because they don't
want to give up the mania part.
And then you'll cycle
down through depression.
And for me, for type II
bipolar, basically, the cycles
are a little bit more elongated.
Instead of full-blown
mania, I'll
have what's called
hypomania, and so it's not
quite as severe.
And how it would
typically play out for me
is that I would have weeks
when I would be depressed.
And when I was depressed,
I would sleep a lot.
Just going through my day felt
like walking through a swimming
pool.
Everything felt heavy.
It felt like I was
constantly trying
to climb up a rocky
incline, and the gravel just
kept coming out
from underneath me,
and I could just never
make any progress.
If I could just feed myself and
show up to work before noon,
that would be a good day.
And then sometimes,
for some reason,
something would
happen to trigger it,
or sometimes for seemingly
no reason at all,
I would just get
a lot of energy,
and I'd get really
optimistic, and I'd get--
if you found me on those
days, I'd talk really fast,
and I'd have all these
great ideas for projects,
and I have to start
them all tonight,
and I have to ship them
by tomorrow, in part
because if I don't
ship it tomorrow,
I don't know if on
Friday I'm going
to have enough emotional energy
left over to leave the house,
let alone keep
working on a thing.
And this cycle would
just keep going for--
looking back, for years.
And I think I was fortunate
in that I had journals.
And so when I went to
meet with a therapist,
I could look at the
pattern over time
and say this kept happening.
And a lot of people
who have bipolar
will end up getting diagnosed
with just depression,
because you tend to go
see the therapist when
you're depressed.
And if you don't look at
the long time frame, then
oftentimes it's easy to
have it be misdiagnosed.
But I wasn't ready to accept
any of this stuff today.
I was ready for the ADHD.
I had been living
with that diagnosis
in my head for a little bit,
and I was able to accept that.
So I start taking meds for
ADD, basically stimulants
like Adderall or Ritalin.
I take something called
dextroamphetamine.
And I remember, the first day
I took it, 10 minutes later I
was like, holy shit!
I was like, is this what
everybody else feels like?
Like, I could make a list and I
could do everything on the list
and do it in that order.
I spent an hour
cleaning my house.
It was amazing.
But a big problem about
me taking the stimulants
and not treating the bipolar
is that the stimulants
helped me focus.
And when I would
get depressed, I
would focus a lot on
how depressed I was.
And so it actually
exacerbated the depression
and it made things worse.
Now, around the same time,
I met this guy, Josh Golden.
I had started playing
a lot of poker
after I failed out of school.
It turns out people who
have bipolar actually
have significantly
higher risk tolerances
than the general population.
And I met Josh playing poker.
He ran a small web
consultancy in Chicago,
and I had started
working for him,
and it was my dream
job at the time.
I was doing good work,
especially when I started.
It was a really
small team, working
with a lot of different clients.
And then same pattern
started to appear that had
been happening everywhere else.
I just started to get depressed.
I stopped showing up to
work until afternoon.
And finally it came
to a head after I'd
been there for about a year.
And I had this project that I
was supposed to be working on,
and I hadn't even started it.
I had been in the office till
2:00 in the morning every night
that week, just trying
to get started on it,
not even trying to finish it.
And then Josh was leaving
for this trip on Friday.
Josh and I lived a few
blocks from each other.
And he had been trying
to check in on the status
of this project, hadn't
gotten a hold of me.
And so he decides to come
see, make sure I'm OK.
And so for the second
time in a few years,
I had a co-worker
walk into my apartment
while I was still sleeping
and ask if I was OK.
And this time, I just
couldn't hide anymore.
I think what I had-- the deal
I sort of made with myself was,
I don't know how to change this.
So what I'm going
to do is I'm just
going to contain the
damage to myself.
I'm going to make sure
no one else gets hurt.
And I think what I
finally had to realize
was that if I was suffering
from a mental illness,
everyone close to me
was suffering too,
whether it was my friends
from unkept commitments,
whether it was my parents from
their fear and frustration
about me turning out OK, whether
it was my co-workers from me
continually dropping the ball.
I was hurting so
many people around me
by trying to keep
things to myself.
I also realized that I was
very fortunate to be employed
and to have health insurance.
And that on the
trajectory that I was on,
those two things weren't
likely to continue.
And if I didn't see
someone right away,
then I might lose
my chance to do so.
So I set up an appointment
with a psychiatrist.
This was about two years
after a therapist, a trained
professional, told me
that I have bipolar.
I finally went to see a
psychiatrist to talk about it.
And I go see this psychiatrist,
and I tell him the story.
And he comes back.
He's like, yeah, type II
bipolar sounds exactly
like what you're describing.
And he's like, you're
actually really fortunate.
We have really good meds
for type II bipolar.
We got this stuff
called Lamictal.
It is really effective
at treating people
who have type II bipolar.
There's basically
no side effects.
Well, actually that's not true.
There is one side effect.
A really small percentage
of people who take Lamictal
end up getting a
life-threatening
rash inside their anus.
And I was like, wait, hold up.
I actually said
to him, I'm pretty
sure if I get a life-threatening
rash inside my anus,
I'm still going to be depressed.
But didn't happen.
It's been about 15
years or thereabouts
or so, and so so far, so good.
And life, once I started
taking these meds,
just slowly over time
started to get better.
It was very different than
taking the stimulants.
Stimulants, right away, it's
like I knew they kicked in.
This was just like,
over a few months,
things started to get better.
And this was--
I guess this was about
12 years or so ago.
And I am so
ridiculously fortunate.
The Lamictal worked
for me the first time.
I didn't have to try med
after med after med, trying
to find something that worked.
The side effects are pretty low.
I sometimes think they might
affect my memory a little bit.
But for the most part, no
noticeable side effects.
I don't have to do hard
math that a lot of people
who are trying different
meds for mental health
have to do of
like, what's worse,
the condition or
the side effects
that I take to
treat the condition?
I also met my wife right
around the same time.
This is Rachel.
And she and I met right
around this-- actually,
we met the same day I
set up the appointment
with the psychiatrist.
And she came alongside me and
just helped me, supported me,
helped me out of the hole.
My parents were
super-supportive,
despite their frustration.
Basically, everything
after having bipolar
was kind of a best-case
scenario for me.
A lot of people who
have what I have
aren't nearly as fortunate.
These stats are from
the National Association
of Mental Illness.
The estimates are that one
in five adults in America
experience a mental
illness, and one in 25
live with a serious
mental illness.
And here, they estimate
about 2.5% of the population
have bipolar.
And about 10% to 20% of
people who have bipolar
actually die from it, in
large part because about one
in three people who have
bipolar will attempt suicide
at some point in their life.
It actually has a
higher mortality rate
than some forms of cancer do.
So all of this kind of
begs the question of,
why am I here today
speaking about this?
Just as a show of hands, how
many of you know someone--
a friend, a family
member, a co-worker--
who has gone through some
sort of mental health crisis?
And if you're willing,
how many of you
have been through
something yourself?
Thank you for-- thanks
for raising your hands.
I'm going to go through a couple
symptoms of bipolar and ADHD.
And these are chosen
for effect, all right?
These are-- I'm not a doctor.
I'm not trying to
prescribe anyone.
But these are things that
I personally deal with.
So hyperfocusing-- so that's--
it's hard to get started on
something, but once you do,
you lock in on it.
It's really hard to get
distracted or get pulled away
from it.
You forget to eat, forget
to go to the bathroom.
There's racing thoughts,
which is basically
what it sounds like.
There's pressured speech, which
is when the racing thoughts try
to escape through the
small hole of your mouth.
There's irregular sleep,
especially onset insomnia.
It's hard to fall
asleep at night.
It's impossible to
wake up in the morning.
Social isolation,
thoughts of grandiosity,
thinking that you
can change the world,
thinking that you can
solve problems that no one
else has ever solved before.
If you're a young
adult or an adolescent
and you're experiencing
some of these symptoms,
finding the tech
industry probably
feels a little bit like
coming home to you.
We will accept the
socially isolated.
We will accommodate irregular
sleep patterns and inconsistent
bursts of productivity.
And thoughts of
grandiosity, I mean,
if you want to change
the world, what company
has changed the world more than
Google over the last 20 years?
What industry has changed
the world more than the tech
industry over the last 20 years?
There's this famous
commercial from Apple.
They say, here's
to the crazy ones,
because where the rest
of the world sees crazy,
we see genius.
And it's the people
who are crazy enough
to believe that they can change
the world are the ones who do.
I don't know of any
study or anything.
This is just me guessing.
But my guess is that whatever
the rate of mental illness
is in the general
population, that it's
higher in our industry.
And in fact, the history
of computer science
is rife with tragedy
related to mental illness.
Alan Turing, often
credited as the grandfather
of modern computer
science, committed suicide.
And then about seven
years ago, there
was a New York hacker called
Aaron Swartz who we also
lost in the same way.
And in 2006, Aaron wrote this.
He said, "Surely there are
times when you've been sad.
Perhaps a loved one
has abandoned you,
or a plan has gone
horribly awry.
Your face falls.
Perhaps you cry.
You feel worthless.
You wonder whether
it's worth going on.
Everything you think
about seems bleak--
the things you've
done, the things
you hope to do, the
people around you.
You want to lie in bed
and keep the lights off.
Depressed mood is
like that, only it
doesn't come for any reason and
it doesn't go for any either.
Go outside and get
some fresh air,
or cuddle with a loved one,
and you don't feel any better,
only more upset at the joy that
everyone else seems to feel.
Everything gets
colored by the sadness.
Depression causes nearly
half of all disability.
It affects one in
six and explains
more current unhappiness
than poverty.
Sadly, depression is
not seen as real enough
to deserve the investment and
awareness of other conditions.
And there is, of
course, the shame."
The shame is what's killing us.
It's the shame and the
stigma around mental illness
is why we don't talk about it.
See, we don't have cures
for mental illness,
but we have pretty
good treatments.
Therapy has changed the
lives of millions of people.
Meds have worked wonders in
my life and many others'.
But the reason why our
friends and our family members
and our co-workers aren't
getting to those treatments
is because of the stigma.
It's because we
think differently,
as a society, about
the conditions that
affect the brain
than we do anything
that happens below the neck.
If I stood up here and I
told you that I took insulin
for diabetes, no one would
think, well, aren't you afraid
you're going to be
dependent upon that?
No one would be like, hey,
aren't you afraid maybe
you're just using that
insulin as a crutch?
But we think about these
things differently.
We actually even-- we
use different words.
Even that phrase, "use
them as a crutch,"
has anyone here ever
used crutches before?
Using crutches are really hard.
I don't know how
"using it as a crutch"
became a euphemism for
taking the easy way out.
It's way easier just
to stay on your couch.
But some people
who have injuries
decide to use these medical
assistive devices so they
can go on and live their life.
And for some people,
they'll use crutches
for a short period of time
until their body gets healthy.
And other people
will use crutches
for the rest of their life.
But we never walk
up to someone who
busted their ankle and say,
hey, aren't you afraid maybe
you're using that
padded pole as a crutch?
There's no other industry.
We don't go to someone
who wears glasses and say,
have you tried seeing harder?
We talk about these
things differently.
That's what we talk about
when we talk about the stigma.
And so just as we
finish up, I wanted
to chat a little
bit about things
that you could do to help here.
I wanted to talk from two
different perspectives.
The first perspective
is just for-- are there
any managers in the room?
Folks?
A few.
Cool.
And just things that you can
do if someone you work with
or someone on your team
might be struggling.
And the first is to just
cultivate vulnerability
here at your workplace
and your team.
I want to share another
story from my life.
And the story I just
shared is from--
like I said, it's
over a decade ago,
when I was going
through the worst of it.
And I've been taking--
I have my meds here.
So this is my Lamictal.
And I remember, it's funny.
When I very first started
taking, actually, my Adderall--
for me, my dextrin--
I remember going to work and
being really ashamed about it.
I'd go to the bathroom.
I didn't want anyone to see that
I was taking anything, right?
So this is my
Lamictal that I take.
I take it every day.
I've basically taken it every
day more or less for 15 years.
So this is what it
looks like when someone
takes their crazy pills.
It's just like everything else.
Now, I've taken
those meds every day.
Side effects aren't great.
But like I said, I do wonder
if they affect my memory.
And so about two years ago,
it had been about a decade.
I was like, maybe I
should just see what
life might be like off of them.
So I went off them.
And after a couple months,
they were out of my system,
and a few things
started to happen.
First thing that I
noticed that happened is I
got really into chess.
I started playing so much
chess, especially these speed
games, two, three-minute games.
And I remember, I read two
biographies of Bobby Fischer.
I remember this quote.
There was this quote from--
I don't remember the
name, but it was something
like, "Chess doesn't
make sane people crazy.
Chess keeps crazy people sane."
And I think the fact
that that quote resonated
with me probably should
have been a sign that I
needed to go back on my meds.
But the second thing
that started to happen
is I got really depressed again.
And when I got really depressed,
I started sleeping late again.
I got off all my routines.
And then my work
output just plummeted.
And at the time, I was trying
to hire someone for my team.
And I remember writing
up this job description
and basically getting
a sentence into it
and then just being
stuck for a week.
I remember showing up to work.
I was like, I'm going
to do this thing.
I'm going to get
this done today.
I want to ship it.
And I told people, hey,
I want to ship this.
And I just couldn't do it.
I just could not make
my brain type the words.
So I would play a game of chess.
I'll just play one more.
I'll play one more.
As long as I start on
this by noon, I'll be OK.
And then noon would come,
and then, OK, well, 12:30.
Maybe just one more, and
then I'll just go do a thing.
OK, it's not going
to happen today.
I'll try again tomorrow.
And this just went on for days.
And then I was like, man, I'm
not getting any work done here!
At some point, someone's
going to realize
that I don't actually
do any work here,
and I'm going to get fired.
And it would be really
embarrassing to get fired.
So maybe I should just quit.
I'd been-- at this point,
I had been with Twilio
for about four years.
I've been there about
five and a half now.
I was like, maybe I should just
quit before anyone finds out.
And I am so fortunate to have
a manager-- this is Ricky,
my manager--
who I've talked to
about this stuff.
And one day, on our one-on-one,
he was like, how are you doing?
And I knew that it was safe
for me just to say, not good.
I said, I'm really
depressed right now.
And he just said, "All
right, what do you need?"
and took some
stuff off my plate.
I said, again, I'm fortunate.
I know what meds work.
I just need to go see my
psychiatrist, get back on them.
It's going to take
me a few weeks.
And he worked with me.
And I got healthy again.
It took a few weeks, and
I had work I had to do.
But I can tell you that I
had started this spiral that
started with not being able
to get my work done and then
just spiraled so very quickly
to, maybe I should leave.
And as soon as I was
able to say to someone
I worked with,
especially my manager,
"I'm depressed right
now," that spiral stopped.
And then I was able to
start making progress again.
And I feel so fortunate that
we have a place where I work,
at Twilio, where we can--
at least on my team,
if nothing else, but more
broadly at Twilio, too,
I've seen it--
where we could chat about this.
And it's not just--
it seems like it's
not just our company.
It seems like the tech
industry as a whole,
as evidenced by
the fact that I'm
standing here speaking to you
all today at a work event.
And we're seeing this more.
The tech industry is a
lot more progressive.
There was this tweet
a couple years ago
where this woman Madalyn tweeted
the email that her CEO sent her
after she had told the whole
company that she needed
to take a mental health day.
And this tweet got
16,000 re-tweets.
There is a hunger in our
country to work at a place
where people can bring their
whole selves to work, where
they don't have to hide the
illnesses that keep them
from doing their jobs.
So if you as a manager are
able to cultivate vulnerability
in your team, to create a
place where people on your team
can talk about this stuff, it's
just going to pay dividends.
You're going to retain folks.
People are going to
be more productive.
We have this myth of the
10x developer, right?
But if you take a
developer who's depressed
and you help them get
the right treatment,
their productivity will 10x.
Mine did.
Second thing-- if you are
going through this yourself,
the best thing you can do is
to talk to someone about it.
This is my guy.
This is Dr. Mark Dollar.
He's a psychiatrist who I
see not too far from here.
And over the last
12-whatever years,
I've had a number of
psychiatrists and therapists.
And I know there's
a huge stigma.
I know I was reluctant
to go see someone.
And it's weird that there's
that stigma to see someone,
to talk about this stuff.
I know that when I go see
my therapist, sometimes it's
really tempting, at work,
just to tell folks, "Oh,
I have a doctor's
appointment," not,
"I'm going to go
see my therapist."
But I had the opportunity
go to the US Open last week.
Has anyone been to
the US Open before?
A couple of you?
Yeah, so I'm not
into tennis at all.
My dad is.
My dad is a lifelong tennis
player and tennis fan.
And it was a bucket
list thing for him.
And the cool thing
about tennis is--
it's actually a really
spectator-friendly sport.
As one of the women I work
with explained to me today--
she's a tennis--
or last week.
She's a tennis fan.
She's like, here's
the rules of tennis.
There's a yellow ball.
Hit it between the white lines.
Done.
And then she's
like, and then let
me explain the scoring to you.
And then there's
15 minutes of that.
But it's actually a
lot of fun to watch.
And so it was an
amazing privilege.
I got to--
I flew my parents to New
York, bought the tickets,
and we got to go see it.
And one of the
really cool things
is how close you can
get to the players.
And so here's Serena Williams.
Serena Williams wins
her first round match,
20-some-thousand people
in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
She wins in under an hour.
She just crushes her opponent.
This is 10 AM the next day.
10 AM the next day, she's back
out on the practice courts.
And the guy standing
next to her is her coach.
Serena Williams,
greatest of all time.
She's got a coach.
If you are-- unless
you are better
at managing your emotions
than Serena Williams is
at playing tennis, chances are
you could probably use a coach.
You could probably use
an objective third party
who has studied how to help
people get better at this thing
and to help you live your
life a little bit better.
And you should feel
just as ashamed
about admitting that you
need that help as Serena
is ashamed as admitting
that she has a coach.
But again, we have
this stigma, because it
has to do with our brain.
And I think sometimes,
for the folks like us
in this room, that stigma
and that reluctance
can be even stronger, because
all of us make our livelihood,
and to some extent
our identity is
based on how well our
brain works, especially
at a place like
Google, where there's
this mythology about how smart
you have to be to be here.
And it can be really
terrifying to admit
that something in
your brain's not
working the same way
that you would like it to
and to admit that
you need help there.
But working with a
therapist or a psychiatrist
is a way that you
can get better,
a way that you can improve
the quality of your life.
Finding a therapist,
finding a psychiatrist,
can be a huge pain in the ass.
It is by far the worst
part of this process.
If you don't have--
if you don't work for a company
that makes this easier for you,
Zocdoc makes it relatively easy.
There's also Psychology Today.
Folks who work at
Google, you probably
have an employee
assistance program.
I've actually heard that
the benefits here are
pretty generous in that regard.
And so you can--
I think Google has done a good
job, and a lot of companies
these days have done a good
job, in reducing the friction
to getting you your first
appointment, because that
can be really difficult. But
there are very few moments
in my life where I can
look back and I can say,
that's the day when the
trajectory of my life
changed for the better.
And the first day that
I set up an appointment
with a therapist is one
of them, and the day
that I set up an appointment
with a psychiatrist is another.
And finally, just to
wrap up a little bit,
for those of you-- anyone
here who's in the midst of it
right now, again, I just
want to acknowledge,
it's 1 o'clock on a Tuesday
after a long holiday.
There's other things you
could have been doing today.
I'm sure you have email.
For some reason, you showed
up to this room, right?
I just want to acknowledge
there's probably
something going on in your life,
whether it's a friend or rather
something you personally
are going through.
There's some reason why you
chose to come here today.
And if things seem
really dark right now,
if it feels like
there's no hope,
I just want to
encourage you that when
I was living in that shitty
apartment in college,
I had many, many nights
when I went to bed praying
that God wouldn't wake me up.
I didn't think things
could ever get better.
And one thing that is
important to recognize
with mental illness is
that almost by definition,
your brain is lying to you,
that your brain is taking
in the data, it's running
it through a faulty analysis
process, and it's spitting
back what is often
an incorrect conclusion.
And I see that now when
I look back on the life
where I was then, and I
thought that life could never
get better.
I thought I would
never get a job.
I thought my parents would
always be disappointed in me.
I thought people would never
be able to depend on me.
And like I said, last
week, I had the opportunity
to take my dad to the US
Open, whereas I thought
that he would forever be
disappointed in the way
that I performed in college.
I thought he'd never
get out of that rut.
I thought I'd never be
able to make him proud.
I thought that I
would never get a job,
that I'd never have
professional opportunities.
And today, I've had the
incredible privilege
of standing on stage at
Google to speak to you all.
And I thought that no one would
ever be able to depend on me.
And on Thursday, my daughter
is going to start kindergarten.
And I never could have
imagined the absolute joy
that would have come
from having her,
or how great it'd be to
be married to my wife.
So for those of you who are in
the midst of things right now,
and things just
seem dark, and it
seems like things can
never get better, just know
that things can get better.
And the first step on the path
towards improving your life
is to talk to someone about it.
Thank you all very much.
[APPLAUSE]
SAM: Thank you so
much for coming
and sharing with us today.
GREG BAUGUES: Thanks for--
SAM: That was great.
GREG BAUGUES: Thank
you for having me.
SAM: Of course.
How are you feeling?
GREG BAUGUES: I feel good.
SAM: Yeah?
GREG BAUGUES: Yeah.
SAM: Cool.
So I wanted to sort
of start by saying
this isn't the first
time I've seen this talk
or spoken to Greg.
And I want to tell a little
bit of a story of my own,
if that's OK.
GREG BAUGUES: That'd be great.
SAM: So about a year
ago, in April, we
got coffee at the Washington
Square Park fountain.
I was like, Greg, I'm
burned out, can't do this.
This is when I started looking
for the job that eventually
led me to Google.
And I was like,
what should I do?
And you were like,
go see a therapist.
And like a year later,
in April of this year,
that's officially when I
started doing therapy as well.
So you directly
inspired me to do that.
So yeah, thank you.
It's been life-changing.
GREG BAUGUES: Well,
I mean, first off,
it's amazing to hear, and
thank you for saying that.
Thanks for sharing that
here, because sometimes I
think my fear in
doing talks like this
is that, it's like, oh, that
one person did the thing.
But I think that it's so
much more powerful when peers
see a peer go through this.
And also to hear
that it's not me--
right, lots of people
are seeing therapists.
And I think just you
sharing the story is--
the more folks who share the
story, the more common it
becomes.
SAM: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: As much as you talked
about the lifelong process,
pretty much, to get to a
point where you accept,
where you deal with,
what's going on,
if you had to look back and give
advice to folks around you that
might recognize some
signs, what advice would
you give to help through
the process and not giving,
hey, take these pills!
You're going to feel better.
GREG BAUGUES: Yeah, right.
You know, I really try to be
careful when I give this talk.
The only thing that I personally
can speak authoritatively on
is my story.
Anyone-- and folks will
come up and say, hey,
I wonder if I
might have a thing.
You know, what do you think?
Or-- the answer is
see a professional.
These folks go to
school for a decade
so that they can be
professionally qualified
to diagnose-- and these are
very nuanced conditions--
and to point you in
the right direction.
And so the cost of doing--
insurance is hard,
and a lot of folks,
especially in New
York, San Francisco,
you have to pay them.
And finding someone's hard.
So I don't want to pretend
like it's inexpensive, effort
or financially, to do so.
But the opportunity is so great.
And really, in the same way that
if someone came to me and said,
hey, I have this
lump here on my arm.
What do you think it is?
I'd be like, you should probably
go see a doctor and find out.
Don't ask me.
But I can tell you what
happened when I had a lump.
And so that's generally--
I think just seeing
a professional is
the best possible first step.
Yeah.
SAM: Neither of us are
mental health professionals.
GREG BAUGUES: Exactly right.
SAM: And yeah, I guess for
the Googlers in the room,
so we have EAP.
And through Lyra Health, you can
get 25 therapy sessions covered
for therapists here in the US,
for all US employees, which
is pretty great.
And we have a program
called Blue Dot, which
is basically like,
I'm OK to just
talk to about mental
health in general--
not necessarily what's
going on with me,
but this idea of being open
about having conversations
with mental health
as something actually
encouraged in the workplace.
And you can go to
go/bluedot if you want
to find out more about that.
GREG BAUGUES: That's cool.
SAM: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: So I think,
like a lot of people,
you often end up in the
situation of knowing
a friend or family
member who's been
diagnosed with a condition.
And you don't
necessarily want to ask
them to explain
to you in detail,
what does this condition mean?
But looking up information
about mental health conditions
on the internet is a
rather hazardous approach.
Do you have any recommendations
on just when you
want to find out about
a particular condition
that someone might
have and want to get
some useful general information
without falling down rabbit
holes of made-up nonsense?
GREG BAUGUES: Oh,
that's a good question.
And do you find that
you don't necessarily
want to ask that person
directly about it?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
You know, there's
sort of-- you don't
want to make someone
explain everything
if they don't necessarily
feel comfortable explaining.
GREG BAUGUES: Yeah.
Oh, that's a good question.
I'll answer it-- this is
not going to directly answer
your question.
But I think maybe to kind of--
on that bit about
they don't necessarily
feel comfortable
explaining, I think
maybe one tactic might be to--
how could you make them feel
more comfortable explaining?
And I think that's one--
the way that I experience
type II bipolar
is probably different than
the person next to me.
And there's probably
this generalized bucket.
But our experience
would be different.
What I have generally
found-- and truthfully,
the reason why I gave this talk,
the first time I ever gave it,
is that we had a coworker who--
he was struggling
with similar symptoms
that I had been struggling
with in the past.
And one day, kind of
was chatting with him
and just shared my story.
And when I got done
sharing my story,
he said, yeah, I've kind
of wondered if maybe I
have something similar too.
And unfortunately, he
ended up passing away
before he was able to get help.
But that kind of is what
spurred me to start just
sharing my story more broadly.
And that seems to be--
when I meet people who I think
are struggling with something,
I've found it's not effective to
go up to them and be like, hey,
I think you might have bipolar.
Have you considered that?
But what it seems like works
is to be vulnerable first.
And it might not
be mental illness.
Everybody has something
that they are ashamed of,
and everybody has something
that society has told them
they shouldn't talk about.
And sharing that often
cultivates that vulnerability
that creates a space where the
person might feel comfortable
sharing their
experience with you.
But ultimately, it's going to
be their journey to go through,
and it'll take time to open up.
But that's what I've found,
is just to be vulnerable first
and to create space for them
to be vulnerable and then hope
that they take the invitation.
SAM: Oh, I was just
going to follow on that.
One of the things
I've heard from folks
is that they can find
it just exhausting
to have to explain the
basics of what's going on
with them over and
over again to everyone
that they meet as well.
And so letting them sort
of tell you what they want
but not necessarily
pushing beyond that
can also be really good.
GREG BAUGUES: That's great.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thanks.
I know you said that when
you shared with your manager
what you were going through,
he was able to kind of take
some stuff off your plate.
And I was wondering,
outside of that,
if there was anything
in your work environment
that you felt was really helpful
for you to handle the symptoms
that you were having or any
kind of other accommodations.
GREG BAUGUES: Yeah, that's
a really good question.
I feel really fortunate
in the role that I have,
and that there's so
much that I can do.
And I've been given permission
and then also given myself
permission over the years to
gravitate towards the stuff
that I'm good at and to
do less of the things
that I'm not good at.
And so I'm not very
good at admin-type work.
And so I try to do
more public speaking.
I enjoy this.
And so I think that--
that's kind of broadly speaking.
But I feel like, at companies
that are growing rapidly,
there's a lot of
opportunity and a lot
of different types of roles.
And whether explicitly
or implicitly, just
having the ability to not
feel shame about the stuff
that I'm not good at--
because expense reports
still just crush me.
And I have to get them done.
But I'm trying to get
to a place where I don't
feel guilty about that anymore.
I have to get it
done, but I'm not
going to beat myself up over
it, because I can provide
other value to the company.
And then just to kind
of more proactively
go out and try to seek out
those opportunities that
play to my strengths
instead of beating myself up
over my weaknesses.
SAM: Great.
Anything else you'd like to add?
GREG BAUGUES: I mean, just for
the folks in this room, again,
from what I hear, Google makes
it really easy for you to--
easier than you're going to
find anywhere else in the world,
probably, outside of
a company like this,
to see a professional.
And I heard from some folks who
had good experience with that.
It's not perfect, but
if some of this stuff
here just rang true
for you, it really
can be a life-changing
experience for you.
And I would just
really encourage
you all to take Google
up on the offer there
to help you get some help,
some professional help
there, if you're
leaning that direction.
Other than that, thank
you all very much.
I mean, seriously, it's-- when I
told my mom I was going to come
speak at Google, she was
pretty stoked about that.
And then I actually told my
five-year-old this morning.
I was like-- my wife's
like, tells Emma, hey,
Daddy's got a talk today.
And Emma's like, oh, OK.
I'm like, I'm going
to go speak at Google!
And Emma's like, Google?
And then I'm like, yeah!
And thank you, Sam,
for setting this up.
I know it took a lot of work.
It's truly an honor to be here
and to be able to speak here
on the stage.
So thank you all for
coming and showing up.
And it was really quite an
honor to be here, so thank you.
SAM: Great.
All right.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
