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by padolsey·4y ago·view on hn ↗
It seems that some people are misunderstanding the value in these questions and the insight they lend.

It seems potentially very useful for those with various types of executive dysfunction or mental illnesses that prevent them from either bodily or environmental introspection. If you have experienced these levels of dysfunctions or panics then you'll hopefully understand how a mindful and procedural reflection on your current state and surroundings can be very useful, and can let you escape from attacks, flare-ups or endless cognitive loops. Being prompted by such questions helps. For me, after a brain injury, I found it very useful, when in a panic attack, to step through possible issues and try to alleviate them one by one. Any marginal improvement is worth it if it helps you escape distress.

Also, some people have problems finding internal ways to articulate feelings. Emotional wheels (google it!) are very useful in those who are perhaps neuro-divergent and less able to differentiate internal states without prompts.

Of course a website like this is not exhaustive or entirely encompassing all experiences. But that doesn't necessarily reduce its utility.

1 comments
I envy those somewhat insensible people in this thread, because it shows they probably never felt something close to this. It's not something I would wish upon anyone, that's for sure. The questionable diet advice is likely the only thing they can sympathize (or "antipathize"?) and pick up upon Hacker-news style.

Apart from the dieting advice, for me the flowchart was actually pretty useful, specially for someone that ends up paralized when you have too many small chores to do. Then you go through the day smelling like shit, with the house looking like crap and every hour you just feel worse for not having done that yet.

I'm thinking of printing a flowchart in the style of these questions to help me through the mornings. And thanks for the "emotional wheels" tip, it does seem like something that would help me

Are you suggesting that a badly made website is something that helps people that need a mental health professional? The website is bad with bad unscientific advice. It's a questionary about feeling shit and not ONE of the answers is see a professional if you end it with "I still feel like shit" the answer is "Well that just happens sometimes".
Honestly I had a number of quite expensive sessions with a therapist, and the main benefit I got from them was the message "how you feel is almost completely down to your physical state". This site could have been made personally for me. It doesn't replace the therapy, because in the beforetimes I would simply have not taken the message seriously without hours of someone hitting me over the head with it - but the site could have been tailor-made for me, and with it I could have skipped maybe half the sessions.
> Apart from the dieting advice

> The questionable diet advice is likely the only thing they can sympathize (or "antipathize"?) and pick up upon Hacker-news style