I think you're jumping to conclusions a bit, based on your own experiences. It's textbook bipolar behavior, sure, but it's also textbook a-hundred-other-things behavior as well.
Take me, for instance: as far as I know, I'm not bipolar, or anything else. The best framework for understanding myself I've found is that I'm an INFP.
Though it might look like I prefer to work in bursts and then chill out for a while, the reality is that few things stress me out more than deadlines, and getting into a flow can take a while; while I'm in it, I'm reluctant to let it go prematurely, so I end up going until I tire out, and then I need a rest, which (in a perfect world) can sometimes take two or three times as long as the preceding flow period. I'm also only really motivated internally -- doing things just because I'm supposed to is a recipe for me doing them badly, but doing things I care about is nearly always a recipe for producing very strong work.
I'm also pretty emotionally-driven (from the MBTI standpoint, I'm Fi-dominant) and am drawn towards my negative (Te-inferior), so it's no surprise that I do creative work (music) that requires lots of control and technical know-how (writing music to picture i.e. solving a problem, lots of gear to understand; this draw-towards-the-negative is why I've ended up frequenting a place like HN -- I like the control that programming gives me, even I'm still quite an amateur). This industry has terrible deadlines though, so that's still a problem that I simply endure, and do my best to work around with workflow and efficiency hacks.
Being primarily motivated by my feelings and values means that I can easily get into a slump. It's like depression, but as far as I can tell, probably not "real" depression. Just more like "Highly-Sensitive Person" living.
From the outside, I suppose that my way of being could totally be seen as bipolar or something like that. But the devil is in the details. All sorts of states can produce similar results.
I have bipolar disorder, and the behavior of these "brilliant" engineers working late at night and exhausting themselves for days runs very true for me. It's really the only way that I've found to work successfully in any sort of deep manner. Essentially, this sort of behavior is in response to my disorder.
Mental health disorders are very, very, very, very hard. Not giving engineers with mental health disorders the room that they need to grow is doing everyone a disservice. And yet, the stigma around mental health disorders is so high that that conversation will not happen anytime in my lifetime. At the end of the day, myself and the others like me, are pushed into the dark further and further. It really sucks, and the only place for conversation about it is in therapy and close friends. Mentioning it at work leads to risk of retaliation. So, we cope. And then people write blogs about people like us, without taking into consideration that there's likely some mental health issue going on.
And, for what it's worth, talking about things in terms of MBTI isn't helpful in a conversation about mental health disorders. You might as well be talking about horoscopes.
I'll put it this way: if you are able to regularly and productively work 48 hours straight of your own volition, you already meet a lot of the criteria for hypomania.
Yeah, I saw that as well. Regardless, I think my point stands -- I find it pretty alarming how quick the internet is to armchair-diagnose people with serious mental illness.
For example, a good friend of mine was internet-diagnosed with Schizophrenia. He believed it, and going down that rabbit hole screwed him up for a while.
Turns out that he and a long-term daily weed habit just weren't really a good mix (the paranoia led him to take it more seriously than he should have -- and the fact that "paranoia" was one of the supposed "signs" of Schizophrenia only made it more believable). He stopped smoking, and within a couple weeks saw just how ridiculous a turn things had taken.w
My point was simply that people are complex, and one single behavior isn't really enough to go around stating that a person might be X. A person can be inclined towards a certain work habit for loads of reasons.
While not directly what the OP/GP mentioned, sometimes it's worth noting that, if a person suffers from some symptom, they'll probably benefit from advice to (a group of) people who suffer said symptom. This is true regardless of whether said person is part of said group.
If Greg has issues concentrating, and someone says "I know people with autism can suffer from that, and they find stimming helps", then even if Greg is not autistic, they may be well served by that advice.
That said, they won't necessarily be well served by all advice (Ask your doctor for Ritalin!), and I'd personally rather leave it to themselves and their medical practicioner to diagnose/decide whether they're actually part of any given group.
I'm not trying to give offence internet stranger, but Myers-Briggs is bollocks, and it certainly sounds to me like you should see an actual professional to see if you're bipolar.
Sigh...I'm not bipolar. I thought I made that pretty clear in my post.
I am literally never manic. Sometimes I get pretty down -- that's it. Very well within "normal" range. And yes, I've talked with a professional about these sorts of things (when I saw a therapist for a couple of years), and the notion that I am mentally ill, beyond perhaps being a so-called "Highly-Sensitive Person" (a classification I find fuzzy and dubious, but whatever), was outright dismissed and was honestly found to be kind of laughable -- me brining it up was more a sign of my own insecurity/difficulty in accepting that I was seeing a therapist than anything else.
I don't really care to get into a discussion about Meyers-Briggs, as they don't really go anywhere on this site. If you care to read, I've explained my views on the topic elsewhere on HN in more detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20888175
Take me, for instance: as far as I know, I'm not bipolar, or anything else. The best framework for understanding myself I've found is that I'm an INFP.
Though it might look like I prefer to work in bursts and then chill out for a while, the reality is that few things stress me out more than deadlines, and getting into a flow can take a while; while I'm in it, I'm reluctant to let it go prematurely, so I end up going until I tire out, and then I need a rest, which (in a perfect world) can sometimes take two or three times as long as the preceding flow period. I'm also only really motivated internally -- doing things just because I'm supposed to is a recipe for me doing them badly, but doing things I care about is nearly always a recipe for producing very strong work.
I'm also pretty emotionally-driven (from the MBTI standpoint, I'm Fi-dominant) and am drawn towards my negative (Te-inferior), so it's no surprise that I do creative work (music) that requires lots of control and technical know-how (writing music to picture i.e. solving a problem, lots of gear to understand; this draw-towards-the-negative is why I've ended up frequenting a place like HN -- I like the control that programming gives me, even I'm still quite an amateur). This industry has terrible deadlines though, so that's still a problem that I simply endure, and do my best to work around with workflow and efficiency hacks.
Being primarily motivated by my feelings and values means that I can easily get into a slump. It's like depression, but as far as I can tell, probably not "real" depression. Just more like "Highly-Sensitive Person" living.
From the outside, I suppose that my way of being could totally be seen as bipolar or something like that. But the devil is in the details. All sorts of states can produce similar results.