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Anna Villarreal
Anna Villarreal

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10

Code Is Therapy

We all probably know someone that was so stressed out, that they quit their [insert title] job. I sympathize with having too many responsibilities, code or not. Without getting too personal, I wanted to share my experience as a beginner and how it has affected my life.

Overwhelmed Lady

Last fall, I was so stressed out by the demands of life I began to fall apart from the inside out. My health was deteriorating mentally and physically for a myriad of reasons, which I will spare you.

Before I quit my dead-end job, I started to fantasize about coding and how cool it would be how to "know how to do that." I started to pick at some courses online when I could find time. That was the beginning.

I quit my job after a "poor performance" review. Never in my life had I experienced something like that. Within 30 days of leaving I had surgery and was stuck on the couch for a month. As a busy-body, this was absolutely dreadful. No, I have a laptop, I can do things! And so began my hyper-focused journey on learning to code.

When I'm trying to comprehend the finer details of a new language, I'm not thinking about all of the 'problems' I think I have in my life. No, you can't be knee-deep in learning CSS animations and React, and thinking about your 900 problems at the same time.

Peace Button

Code has changed my inner dialogue and self-talk. Something no therapy could accomplish (at least for me). Why? Because all of those bad things don't take up that much space in your head when you are playing find-the-bug. And what do I have at the end of the day? A sense of accomplishment and understanding.

I have made new friends and connections because of learning code. It's been a really positive thing for me. You could argue that code saved my life. As a beginner I have a lot to learn. But I ain't goin' nowhere.

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Top comments (4)

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Paulo Henrique •

It baffles me how coding can change lives for the better when it's done with love and purpose. Coding is logical thinking (well, 90% is screaming "WHYYYYYYYY???" at the screen) and logical thinking can be used everywhere, even to calm our inner monsters.

Keep it up! 😊

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Anna Villarreal •

When I came to this realization after some time, I was amazed. I was like wow, im focusing on something that has meaning, instead of all these external things I cannot control. And yes!!! Lots of whhhhhyyyy! LOL.

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Micah Condon •

well said! Even on some of the most challenging days, we can usually make meaningful progress on some project, and have some sense of accomplishment and control

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Anna Villarreal • • Edited

I see challenges as "what not to do in the future", its more constructive that way. To do it better next time. XD

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