Last story hit hard. I had a colleague who killed himself in his apartment. The reaction from the university and his PI was essentially to sweep it under the rug. Absolutely callous. Thank you for talking about this.
Big respect from me for getting through that last story. We all need to normalize mental illness and make it ok to reach out for help. It sounded like you were really struggling, so I just wanted to mention that you matter, too! You also deserve a friendly ear if you're struggling or have struggled in the past. Thank you for all the work you put into your content and the enjoyment you bring to us. May we never lose another friend in pain.
I was struggling because it is a tragedy *every* time we lose anybody at all - the world is a darker place without the light that each person brings into it.
@@That_Chemist currently gearing up life to put a sales job on hold so i can go back, finish my degree, and study physics. was hospitalized for mental health back in early high school. being a walking reminder to myself every day that new chapters exist, its so important to never give up on what you're capable of. thank you for sharing that message, I could tell how hard that story was to get through for you. it means a lot.
@@wiild9088 Switching careers like that takes a lot of guts. You should be proud of yourself for refusing to settle and really going for it. I'll be cheering for you!
I considered taking my own life with the cyanide in my lab during some of the worst crunch of my career in my lab and a horrible breakup about 5 years ago. I didn't go through with it and I have also never spoken out about this or told anyone about this before. I also didn't give up on my plans because things got better. I just decided it would be a lame way to go. My PI at the time was brutally militant and would frequently tell me "your best isn't good enough". Truth be told, I honestly don't think he would have cared either way apart from the headache and paperwork. I have a new PI now once my old one retired and I have never had those thoughts since. I have never held his words as something to hold against the University as a whole, just him in particular. I can understand as a PI the frustration of a new hire not getting results, making mistakes and wasting your funding, no one enjoys that. But I was genuinely trying my best. I still work at my university and love it. Things have gotten much better over the last 5 years, and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else or stop doing chemistry. But I caution advisors against being so results driven, and so shackled to milestones. Funding can be found given enough time, a human life cannot. Also, I actually took it upon myself after all this to collect our cyanide and other poisonous reagents in a locked cabinet so others could not have easy access to these things.
My gosh, I've never heard you so close to tears before. Honestly, yeah, over-tenacity does exist and it's especially brutal on mental health sometimes. I hope that whoever was Andi's friend can help others through their degrees.
I usually watch these chempolation videos to get a fun laugh. The final part of the video suprised me. This was the first time I have ever shed tears from a youtube video. I have so much respect for you. This is one of the biggest modern day issues, yet few people actually speak about it.
The only reason my little brother and I both survived suicidal phases in our lives was because we were so young we didn’t have the agency or know-how to even properly research a method. My little brother tried to freeze to death at around 10 or 11 years old. My whole family, myself included (12 or 13, tbf) treated it like an outlandish temper tantrum in spite of clear evidence he was going through a lot more than that. Our family was dysfunctional, we were new to the area and had no relatives nearby, people at school picked on us, and we hated each other. There wasn’t anyone else there for us if we needed it. Every time a teacher, parent, or some other stranger inserted themselves into our day or our lives, it was a step towards a much healthier future. Don’t be timid if you think someone needs someone to be there for them. Even if all you do is pat them on the back regularly, a small connection can go a really long way towards keeping people safe and aware that they’re not alone, forgotten, or hated. Also? Be nice to weirdos. They might not make sense, they might be a little annoying, but unless their behavior needs to be corrected on the basis of safety or boundaries or something similar, it’s just not right to make a mountain out of molehills and punish someone for being different. I’ve been friends with so many weirdos over the years that were offbeat in really minor ways and also so desperate for companionship that all I did was listen when they talked in order to make friends. Just be respectful, y’know? Goes a long way
Thank you for this comment. I’ve spent a lot of my life dissociated so it’s not always easy to understand my own reasoning in the past. This comment made me remember that I wanted to die when I went outside in the cold as a child. Thank you very much for your comment as I had forgotten about it. And I’m glad that we are both still here despite everything.
That last passage was tough to get through. I admire your courage to not only talk about the humorous stories, but also the tragic ones as well. The National Suicide Prevention Hotlines number was updated a few days ago to make it easier to reach help when you need it. The new number is 988.
There's one caveat with that hotline, by the way. They are in favor of calling cops and involuntary hospitalization, which can be dangerous to some people. If you don't want to take that risk, there are many other helplines that you can find. Just keep that in mind if you decide to call 988.
@@nerd_nato564 That's actually false information. It is the same service. They just changed the number. If you are an immediate threat to yourself or others, law enforcement will be called. This was the same with the old number as well.
@@MattJohnVO Yeah, and that's not great. Cops are very good at escalating mental health situations and really shouldn't be called. If they called mental health professionals, it would be better.
@@nerd_nato564 Unfortunately that's the current system the United States has in place. I heard that some cities across the US are starting to implement "Crisis Psychologists" That attend the call with the LEO. Not all communities can afford to do so, however.
As an organic chemist PhD student working on total synthesis of oligosaccharides, the last story is very relevant to me, and I guess to all total synthesis chemists out there. And sometimes I do feel the pressure of getting out results on the synthesis every time my professor while other PhD students seems to be able to publish more results than I am. For whoever you are out there, whether you are a PhD student working on total synthesis project or other areas, or whether you are just a curious person coming to this channel, do remember that you are living a life, not working as a robot. Sometimes you hit a brick wall, and that is okay. Do know when to rest from your work, and seek help when you or your friends around you feel that you need it. I wish you all (and myself) the best! :)
man, that last comment was crushing. I know the dread of going to your lab, worried about failing or having not enough time. The competitiveness and time pressure can ruin the fun that working in a lab should be.
Not really related to the last story but close enough when it comes to mental health issues (+ I'm not even a chemist): At my Uni there was a girl in the Political Science Department who suffered from schizophrenia. She had it under control most of the time, but she had her moments. At some point people there were fed up with her "antics" and basically dropped her like a hot potato. Being isolated like that, she struggled to complete her coursework, missed more and more seminars, failed assignments, and was basically kicked out by the end of that year. All of which of course exacerbated her symptoms and things got ugly as you might imagine (that was the first time I heard what went on there). No one has heard of her since, I hope she's better now. But yeah, support for people with mental health issues... really not a thing at most institutions I had to deal with. I guess she was seeing a psychiatrist and had medication. but that alone doesn't do much when your social environment suddenly goes into ignore or even hostile mode around you.
Total ostracization is a far more serious punishment that people realize. I don't know the situation, but there are so many constructive ways to build boundaries that preserve your own mental health without "punishing" the other person. Yes, it takes some bending and flexing on your part, too, maybe changing some schedules around or making compromises that both can live with. And so much of the time, just talking to them like they're a friend. Ask them how they're doing. Show interest. Watch a funny youtube video with them. Break the tension, do something fun and humanizing together, connect. It feels really backward when you have a ball of irritation built up around someone to actually go toward them and work to get to know them more, but seeing the person underneath the maladaptive behavior or the "weirdness" or the stress or whatever, it's honestly really soothing for you in its own way. They stop feeling like an enemy combatant and seeing that human core gives a sense of grounding to the whole situation, suddenly things don't feel like a battle, just work to find out how to get along and get everyone's needs met.
I do have a similar story to the last one to share with a different ending, more upbeat ending. My inorganic chemistry prof told us a story about his studies in the 70s, when one of his female colleagues, suffering from relationship problems, attempted to commit suicide by ingesting some form (I don't remember and I'm not a chemist) of cyanide as well, however, she ingested it from a bottle which was super old (we're talking "from before WW1" old), so the cyanide was already decomposed. She survived, but the products had an extreme laxative effect. As far as he knows, she's happily married now.
task failed successfully! I know couple of people who also failed, though not with poisons and one who went to the doctors straight from the roof. Antitiredness effects of antidepresants are wild, gives just the energy to end it, does not fix borked brain chem...
@@mechadrake Less antitiredness, more pro-motivation. You go from too demotivated to do anything and wanting to kill yourself, to still wanting to kill yourself but having the motivation to do it. It's especially common in younger people, and it's tragic. That's why antidepressants on their own aren't always a good solution, and therapy is necessary to bridge that gap.
@@mechadrake hear hear about the "be happy!" meds......I'm somebody who can literally _feel_ when the meds start trying to kick in to try and force me to be happy, and all it does is cause me to be more depressed and upset since I start thinking "what's wrong with me? why do I have this forced happiness occurring?" It also sure as hell don't help the borked brain, especially when mixed with meds to help with my ADHD. Uppers and Downers mixing and mingling in the skull of a depressed (not diagnosed, but the thoughts never shut up, they just hide in the very far corners of my psyche until something happens to bring them back to the forefront.) idiot.
Thank you for including the last story and your words. I feel it is important, as I have struggled with my mental health myself. This kind of outreach matters, it shows that there are ways to get help.
The soil eating story reminds me of the time I visited a perfume synthesis lab. The gas chromatography 'detector' they used was just a guy wearing a mask coupled to the GC column, identifying the substances by smell. This is apparently a serious technique, called Gas Chromatography-Olfactometry. The lab techs endearingly called it "GC-Sniff".
The human nose might be one of the crappiest in the mammal world, but it's still better than a mass spec (sub-ppb detection thresholds) for a whole bunch of compounds. I work at a giant ethanol (including drinking-grade) plant, and I can't tell you how many times a beverage-grade product has come out smelling like ass despite being totally clean on both the GC-FID and the GC-MS. I've rarely been able to identify the culprit molecule(s) whenever this happens, despite making a variety of SIM methods on the MS to look for ppb amounts of stinky compounds. I wish we could set it up to do olfactometry!
@@grebulocities8225 I'm currently working with sulfides so I placed an H2S sensor next to my glovebox antechamber. It's nice to have, but at the same time I know that my nose can detect H2S roughly 200x better than the sensor (~5ppb vs 1ppm detection limit)
@@gamingmarcus I've thought about that, but I'm not sure I can justify the expense to get a good headspace sampler. Since we're dealing with ethanol containing no non-volatiles, we'e just been doing direct injection so far. Perhaps the SPME fiber might be able to concentrate less polar odor compounds preferentially though? It's probably worth looking into.
poor Andi. I've been suicidal for the longest while (not anymore, thankfully), it really wasn't/isn't easy to ask for help in that position. when there's a will, there's a way. if you have no friends, there's family. if there's no family, there's forums and spaces online, along with suicide hotlines and therapists, counselors and psychiatrists. self-help books, even podcasts. there's ways to ease the pain, even if the pain feels impossible to rid. death is inevitable, which is why it can wait. reach out if you need to, please.
I have a friend doing a PhD in algae biology. The guy pulls all-nighters regularly for some experiments. His supervisor is seems the researcher cliché of being obsessed by science and not being very socially aware. She pushes him for results when he really needs some time for himself. He seems to cope with alcohol, which is really bad. With friends, we're trying to help him get some air but he's kinda stubborn and he fears that if he doesn't produce satisfying results, he won't go in a lab in Japan, which is his dream country. I hope it won't go to the same length as Andi. I have been very lucky personnally to never feel such pressure, either from my supervisor or my research project.
For the second time already, my comment just can't get through youtube's censors. I want to give up, but I also want to stick it up to the man. Kind of torn right now. Anyway, bear in mind that Japan is not the obvious choice if your friend seeks a healthy work-life balance.
@@PCSExponent We see your comment now. That sure is true about Japan. No wonder they're starting to have the population growth go from BOOMING to "wait, there's such thing as children?" compared to say, a couple decades ago.
Thank you for sharing that last story, and thank you as well for doing it justice with your heartfelt emotional contributions. I am no longer suicidal, but for more than ten years every day the hardest thing I had to do was decide not to swallow my own vial of cyanide. I hope you don't mind my sharing this, but as a suicide survivor I feel something too often unsaid needs to be said: Sometimes there really just isn't efficacious institutional or systematic or professional help available for what the person who is struggling is going through, and the only thing holding someone like that back from taking their life is the kindness you and others show them in your daily interactions with them. It's the "little things" like tone of voice and if someone smiles when they see you for the first time that day and how they respond to your small talk and all the other "normal seeming" little things of that keep some of us going. Yes, it's important to spread suicide and mental health awareness, but for those of you who aren't the ones struggling with mental health or specifically with suicide, it is important that you don't make the mistake of thinking that the only thing that the person has to do is make the effort to reach out for help an accept help and then they'll actually be given the help they need. That's not how this world actually works, at least in the USA. All too often someone preaches the suicide hotline (for example) and encourages the person struggling to reach out to others for help, but fails to actually support the person they're concerned for themselves. If you haven't called the hotline while about to kill yourself then don't assume you know what the hotline can and can't actually do. News flash, they can only call you an ambulance or the police if you ask for that, and they can only talk to you for up to a half hour or so if you ask for that, and they can only read to you a list of your local mental health services, but that's all they can do. If you can't afford or access the mental health services you would need, or if there just isn't what you need in your area then calling the hotline does nothing. When I called they failed me in my time of need because I expected them to actually be able to do something to help. I only didn't kill myself that night because I was so insulted by and angry at the reality of how much of a joke the hotline and other "suicide help services" are that I didn't want my death's dignity to be diminished by being associated with them. Don't just assume that the people you see and know are okay. Don't just assume they have friends. Don't just assume they have family. Don't just assume they aren't already desperately seeking out mental healthcare but coming up emptyhanded. Don't assume there is actual care and help available for them to accept. Don't assume anything.. talk to them instead. Talk to them without pretenses, without regard for awkwardness, without regard for social norms, without regard for being mistaken and making a fool of yourself for 5mins. Talk to them and show them you care and want them to be ok and that you accept them however they are, unconditionally. You'll truly save lives not by spreading awareness of a problem, but by being part of the solution yourself.
Yeah that is a fair critique - I think showing people love and actually caring about them is something we all need to do more - everyone is affected when we turn a cold shoulder. I hope you’re in a good place now :)
I just wanted to say that it’s great that you used the influence that you have trough this youtube chanel to highlight such a difficult subject and that you didn’t shy away from including it. People often struggle for years with mental illness before finally reach out for help, so it’s important that we are all looking out for each other. I’m very glad you chose to feature this story in your video
"Have you ever died in a nightmare, woke up surprised you hadn't earned your fate? Have you ever felt like Atlas, threw your back out on the axis, collapsed and threw the planet away?" That last story hits very close to home, as I have lived my life as a person much like Andi; the only difference is that three years ago I got to live when I could have died. I want to say that living past my suicide attempt showed me so much more of the world than I thought could be. If I may speak my mind, I will say what drove me to behave as she did: I was always characterized by my motivation to achieve; and I latched onto it with a white knuckle grip because it was the only thing I could reliably control in my life. I'd say that it would have been easier if I under-achieved instead of over-achieved, because if I didn't keep just falling short of perfect, I wouldn't have been fighting so hard to be perfect. I live with OCD, ADD, and fairly bad PTSD, which shaped the manner in which I approach life; I have no issues achieving brilliance at any opportunity, but basic functioning and organization again and again dragged me behind deadlines, and left hobbies to rot as I demanded myself to do better. It's a maladaptive mindset that develops from starting with nothing, and feeling like you can have anything only if you fight for it, and you are "good" enough to deserve it; which took years of therapy for me to unlearn, and live past. My father, whom is a good man, had moments of anger as finances got worse and worse over the years, and resented us kids for doing nothing in return for him providing for us. This implanted a brutally pragmatic self-consciousness into me from the start of my teenage years. What led me to spiral is the repeated failure to reach out, or to find any opportunity to be saved; because I didn't need to be saved, I just needed genuine help. But by isolating myself in deadlines and failures, I destroyed my own ability to connect bit by bit until I couldn't see anything more I could do. At the end of it, I desperately didn't want to go, but by failure after reoccurring failure I had been convinced that this was the most I could be. I am so grateful to be alive today. I have severe head trauma from three years ago, and I lost my job from contracting Covid. But I am the happiest I have ever been because I have the capacity now to process and understand these intense experiences, and therapy and medication has been a great help. I know who supports me now, and I support them as well. "Whatever you think of me, if you were in my shoes, You'd walk the same damn miles I do."
Some say that the people who shock people because noone could see it coming, those who felt the need to hide it, are the ones with enough heart to have a damn lot to still live for.
I feel the same way too. Reading about cases like this brings tears like bricks to my face. Took a thesis research that was way more than I could ever chew, and due to unregulated neurodivergence, burnout and several mental disorders, I keep falling short on deadlines - even though I had four years of almost perfect brilliance, it came back to bite me in the ass at the very end of my degree. I haven't graduated and gotten my bachelor's ever since. Those feelings of failure start building up until they become too burdensome to handle. I stopped counting how many attempts, letters and intricate suicidal planning there was because it is physically impossible to remember anymore. But, even though I went and still go through hell and back every single day... I'm still here, aren't I? And so are you. Honestly, although somewhat dark in nature, I still think it's a stunningly beautiful coincidence.
That last story was hard to get through, but it needs to be told and needs to be listened to even though its sad. Speaking from my own struggles with those thoughts, it's hard to even admit something is wrong to myself, let alone to anyone else and particularly people who care because you don't want to worry them. It takes a lot to take down that false screen of "everything is fine" to show people that you're holding it together with mental duct tape. But if you don't change something, sooner or later something gives in and you snap. But that's the problem, actually taking down that false screen. It's compromising, leaves you vulnerable. It took me a long time to trust my friends enough to let them know I wasn't in a good place.
Last one was thought to hear huge respect for talking about stuff like that. I’ve been dealing with some stuff myself and just reading all the comments and hearing you talk about it makes me appreciate your channel even more. It’s just so important to talk about things like that. You never know how much people might be struggling
I understand the last story all too well. Thank you for including it and not hiding your emotions. Years of work into the lab that feel like going nowhere because your project doesn't work for X or y reason. Trying everything and slowly losing the will to work on what was your dream job. It took a long time for me to develop into suicidal ideation and years to finally get help. But after a sabbatical, some therapy and working in a new lab, I discovered I am actually good at my job and I love it in the right environment and with more independence. It does get better but man is it hard to think about that when you're depressed or having panic attacks.
@@That_Chemist Thank you. I hope videos like that help people realize they should do something. Maybe one day if it's not too hard on you you could do a video about stories of people that burned out and got better. It would help some researchers I'm sure.
I am a biology major, so I am kind of familiar with the atmosphere in labs. During my chemistry courses, there was a lot of pressure and some students were mentally battling with the stress and the additional insults (yes, some assistants insult students, I experienced it myself) about their alleged incapacity or low IQ. Humiliation was so common, especially in one specific lab course we took. I heard from chemistry majors, that it is not uncommon for first semesters to have mental breakdowns because of the treatment they experience there. This is very toxic in combination with the stressful and competitive environment. TC, it was really poignant to hear you being close to tears, because it brought up all the memories I have concerning that topic. To everyone reading this: Follow your own path, believe in yourself and see your mistakes as the single steps necessary towards personal growth. Moreover, try to be supportive and understanding of other scientists/students and their struggles.
@@That_Chemist I would have been in the exact same position, really. I think it is utterly important to talk more about mental health problems among scientists/students, because it is, unfortunately, an actual problem. This issue is, in my experience, part of the fact that the universities often don’t care about the workplace atmosphere, they rather employ top-notch researchers than the ones with more empathy, but slightly less qualifications.
@@ministryoftruth557 This has been my experience too. Even when you do ask for help and speak up and make your struggle known, help and compassion aren't always given. Sometimes it even makes it worse because there are people out there who compulsively denigrate anyone the perceive as weak, and unfortunately the stigma of mental health is based in reality so a lot of people have that toxic perception.
If you're one to struggle with sadness, it's important to remember about the rebound from really rare fun events. It's strange, but it's pretty easy to get down really soon after a vacation, for example. Pretty sure it's also a work/life balance thing, but when it happens, it makes it a lot easier to deal with when you realize it's just your emotions catching back up with the daily routine. Routines aren't fun. They're routine. Just remember to sneak in enough smiles and laughs.
I dropped out of postgrad studies a few months ago because it was destroying my mental and physical health. I'm sad I didn't get to finish my project, I truly loved my project but glad I'm significantly less stressed. I can come back to getting a PhD later in life but between my health and the fact I started in march 2020, the odds weren't in my favour.
A personal thing I'll add is that passive suicidal ideation is still suicidal ideation - everyone that's taken their life started out just thinking about it. Please get help, even if you're not actively planning on taking your life. Feeling that way, especially every day even without self-harm, taking action on those feelings or making it known doesn't make you less suicidal or without "real problems". Just because you're not physically being destroyed and run down, it doesn't mean you wont eventually get tired of having those thoughts everyday and want them to stop. Never thought one of your videos would hit this hard and close to home, honestly needed a break near the end, love your vids man stay safe.
I've been suicidal for so long, since I was 11 that even now I still sit with it. I don't want to act on it anymore thankfully, but its always there. Nagging. And I know it can get bad real fast again. So please please, take even passive thoughts of suicide seriously. If you can, get a therapist and keep notes on it. If you start to get worse, talk to someone. Tell your therapist.
RIP Andi, this is the first story I've heard of a chemist killing themslves intentionally. People really need to take better care of their mental health.
During my PhD (late 90s), two chemistry students (that I knew somewhat because I had assisted them in classes) committed suicide. One of them did this at the faculty, in a secluded "weighing room" of the lab where he was doing practical coursework. I assume that he took his chance when he saw the toxic azide and cyanide salts. They were both the quiet, shy, serious, inconspicuous guys that you'll see a lot in sciences - not people who'd call out for help, not people that you'd step up to for a nice conversation. (Not that different from myself back then). I never had the idea that our university was in any way set up to deal with struggling students...
Only came across this channel for the first time today and I'm an electrical engineer not a chemist but I do have a story for you. Fair warning my understanding of the chemistry might be shaky since I was only indirectly involved. I still have the emails from when this was happening archived though. When I was an undergrad I was part of my universities rocketry club and one year almost everyone there had at least a level 2 cert. so we decided it might be fun to try and make a rocket for one of the Tripoli experimental launch events. At standard launches you're limited to using commercial rocket motors from certified vendors but at an experimental launch you can fly with an experimental motor of your own design. We managed to convince the professor in charge of the program this was a good idea somehow. When you're talking about rocket fuel it's kind of hard to know where the line is between reckless and reasonable. In this case a member of the group named Yuri found a paper which seemed to be a good balance between performing well and being something we could actually make. Everyone quickly took to calling this "Yuri's special sauce". It required two things that weren't easily purchasable. One was PSAN (phase stabilized ammonium nitrate). That involved melting ammonium nitrate and adding something to complex with it so that it would be more thermally stable after it recrystallized. The other compound was glycidyl nitrate as part of an energetic plasticizer. This was definitely the more concerning part of the process but we didn't need much of it and the synthesis given in the paper actually worked out very well using epichlorohydrin and sodium nitrate, both of which were very accessible. The PSAN was actually the more annoying of the two because of how stupidly hydroscopic it ended up being. Everything else we were able to purchase directly and when it came time to mix up a very small batch to test we measured everything out and used the chem departments vacuum shaker to mix it for a few hours. As concerning as it is to mix up propellant in essentially a paintshaker there wasn't any kind of issue. It just made a grey-blue paste. (there was some copper phthalocyanine in the mix as a burn rate enhancer) The casting process involved cracking open the container, adding a catalyst, stirring it through, then and pushing it down into molds before it started to set. The main concern everyone had at the time was with how flammable the mix was and how much it might heat up as it cured. We had all stupidly forgotten that this stuff is made with some pretty nasty chemicals. To see if it was getting warm someone touched the wet mix with their finger which is really dumb in any context, said it seemed fine, then touched a few of the other pellets before wiping it off with a paper towel, Yuri did the same a bit later with similar results. About 20 afterward they both started to develop really bad headaches and ended up needing to go to the hospital to be monitored. Everyone was okay in the end but yeah, Yuri's special sauce it seems has a hell of a hangover.
When I saw that last story in its original comment section I thought it was unremarkable, but hearing you read it out loud is making me reconsider. While I was an undergrad for CS, at least 3 fellow students offed themselves, one of which was in the class I was a TA for. Nothing was done about it, really, and it's still a regular occurrence for the university. It's the main reason why I chose not to go to grad school (aside from money) since I imagine it can't be any better there. I hadn't put much thought into how normal this seems to me until you showed more compassion towards a stranger than I've felt for my own colleagues (or myself...) 😶
I don’t have any specific one, but I ALWAYS cringe when I hear about mishaps in NMR labs where the coolant runs out or something goes wrong and the magnet gets quenched. It’s THOUSANDS of dollars of liquid helium to attempt to re chill the magnet back down and a lot of the time it doesn’t even work and you’ve just COMPLETELY TRASHED a piece of equipment that usually sits between hundreds of thousands to several MILLIONS of dollars
Today was a really rough day for me as a professional in a competitive environment. Thanks for posting this, it really righted my perspective; we will all remember Andi.
Great work telling that last story. Workplace (/lab/learning place) safety includes hazards beyond the physical, and looking after our colleagues and comrades includes all aspects of their well-being. It’s an important story to tell and hits close to home for me too - thanks both to you and Andi’s friend.
I wasn't expecting that last story to be that serious. I thought a fatal accident was involved, but I didn't expect to be nearly tearing up. Still, it's beneficial to share stories like those, to remind everyone about the things we don't always get to talk about.
Man that last story...I know this video came out months ago, but I just want to express to you to that while I don't know you on a personal level, it's good to know there's another light in the world that can express empathy so openly toward other's pain. I appreciate you my dude. Thank you for the content you do.
dude, I could hear your voice cracking at the story at the end. I just wanna say that whatever you’ve witnessed or experienced throughout your career, that we’re here for you. I hope you’re doing ok and I wish you the best dawg ❤
Even though it was a tough subject, you handled it well. The stigma of mental health issues and depression must be reduced, so that more people would be encouraged to seek help. Thank you for sharing this story, That Chemist ❤️
I was the "junior chemist" at a large printed circuit board shop. Right after my proposal to start testing incoming chemicals rather than "trust the vendor" was nixed. Only the Senior chemist was allowed to adjust the Gold plating bath. It was Gold Cyanide with sacrificial Citric acid. (Gold/Sulfite bath is used for jewelry plating.) I pointed out to Dennis that the "Citric acid" looked and smelled different (bisulfite has an SO2 smell). He said to mind my own business. Result was losing $245,000 of Gold. Good news is we weren't fined for the chemical waste discharge (Gold) because it didn't impact the waste treatment facilities like Copper discharge would.
Oh gosh, the last story hits close to home. I'm a biology grad student and we handle many chemicals that can kill (or be use by someone with bad intention). We had an intern last summer and he was kicked out of my lab because he threatened to kill himself many times to a collegue. The said collegue immediatly took action and called the student office (who now have a crisis team, but not then). To this day, I think that she saved thier live and saved us for finding a body one morning. The mood was not that good after that incident for a few days but I think it helped to make our lab more secure and to put an emphasis on mental health in the post grad community.
I can seriously feel that dread as you were reading the last story. As a teacher (in communication, not sciences) I understand why and how students would feel the pressure and the crunch to address our assignments and tasks to them, but for most of us it can break our hearts too to see them struggling - many going depressed and delirious, especially during the pandemic - in making sure that their works are the best. Partly that has to blame with how we package these assignments and how we value these to them, but in most cases it's because of the educational and research system only caring for results and data rather than the process and the learning experience. I won't like to start rambling about neoliberal education and that kind of stuff as I believe that it's not really fitting here, but I hope and do pray that we don't ever hear students killing themselves because of not becoming "the best" or even not being able to study due to economic hardships (a sad reality to many here, in a developing country). I personally remind students to not aim for perfection in their works, but rather to aim for sincerity and honesty. After all, an assignment is a document picturing what and how you'd learned something so far. Going back to the relevant topic on hand, I pray that Andi is in a better place now, that their friend (the commenter) has found peace and a lifelong lesson in this experience, and hopefully that their school would learn something from this sad event. To end I'd like to repurpose this statement often told to would-be journalists: "there is no news story worth one's life", and here I say that "there is no experiment or investigation worh one's life" - and so lab safety and mental health are just as important (even more important, to be honest) as credible, rational results.
I'm a new subscribers so I've been binge watching all your videos, and the Chempilations in particular. I was really touched by the last story and it was very unsettling to hear you go from almost crying to very upbeat when your next video loaded in right after. I had to go back to this video to read some of the other comments before I could move on. Thank you for showing this side of working in a high pressure environment and how important mentor health and mentorship is. I recently became a mentor in my non-chemist high-pressure career and it reminded me on how important it is to keep an eye out on your mentees and fellow colleagues.
hello. watching your videos has been helping me kinda reconnect with my past and understand some really horrible things related to mental health in universities background: i was a biochemistry major in 2009-2012 before dropping out for mental health reasons. in 2018-2019 i had gotten the chance to return to the same school and hopefully finished my bachelor's degree in chemistry. the class was organic chemistry III lab. the course was structrured as a 135 minute lab with a 60 minute lecture section beforehand, from 8am-12pm. the professor showed up in the lab section 5 times in the entire semester, and only one time did he actually actively contribute to assisting anyone. he did *nothng* besides a brief lecture where he'd go over a couple interesting facts about the reaction and possibly one or two special things we'd need to remember for the reaction, but otherwise we had to do all our own research into how to actually run these reactions. all that we were given was a link to a teaching journal article with maybe a bit of supporting information. there were no real guidelines on what information would be important, and the professor, again, refused to actually provide in-laboratory support. in addition, the TAs were from the start completely standoffish. they'd set up the bottles of reagents and solvents for us to use, but that was it. they refused to do anything else in the lab. it was extremely uncomfortable having three ASSISTANTS in the lab, watching us at all times. i saw SO many safety violations, including the frequent leaving off the cap of the organics dump bucket, which i tried to call out. we were working with pure sodium nitrite one day, which is lethally toxic with inhalation, and the covers were just left off and exposed to general air. my fume hood broke and they literally told me to work around everybody else's experiments in their fume hoods, which were actually completely full, and had broken power outlets among many many other issues. on top of all this, we were supposed to somehow trust the TAs to give us advice on our lab reports, which were actually supposed to be structured like full fledged research articles. the first (and only one) i managed to turn in came back with a big fat "50" on it with the notes that i was "missing some sections" and there was literally no other feedback. at least two of us had mental breakdowns in that course. me, and i was struggling with so much else, and another student, the only student who was able to get consistent yields, the only one whose spec data would come out good. the class was set up to be so high stakes, with no support from outside, that the best student of the class had an absolute meltdown because he accidentally told the section group chat the wrong chemical, of which there were two very different structured but similarly effect chemicals (analogs? homologs? idk, it's been too long, i'm losing it), which delayed starting lab by five minutes. there was no extra scheduled time whatsoever besides setup, reaction, and cleaning. nothing. everything had to be done perfectly, and with zero support from the professor. this was a third year undergraduate course. i had my own mental health issues at the time and ended up just taking an F for the section. at the beginning of the semester, i went in to a meeting with him to talk with him about what potential extra work i could take on to bring my skills back up to date and he gave me like, nothing but the title of a single reference manual. and at the last meeting i had with him, attempting to advocate for myself, he leans back in his chair looks me in the eye and says without a hint of empathy "guess you'll just have to try again next semester!" this course made me feel like i hated chemistry and was somehow unable to do chemistry. i have made an A in every chemistry and lab section ive ever taken besides this one. in every other course, i have had in lab support from every professor, and the TAs would constantly make rounds. this was an undergraduate course. there was no reason to set the course up like this. there was no reason to run this lab on this tight of margins with this little support. i am currently in the process of looking up his and his students research over the past several years to see if we were inadvertently making reagents for his labs research. thank you @that chemist for reconnecting to me to my love and passion for chemistry.
Fair play for posting that last story. It sounds like it was truly painful for you to get through. It was a good thing to have done, if one person sees themselves in it and can take your message and make a different decision it was worth doing. Thanks for making such a mature and affecting video. You are always responsible and give a safety first message but this is beyond that I hope you're doing ok
it’s good that 5 and a half years ago i wasn’t going to college for chem, and wasn’t taking chem classes, so i didn’t have that to tempt me when i was suicidal
I would say that we don't talk enough about the impact that grad school has on mental health, but that's not even true. We talk about it constantly. We complain about it constantly. It's a well-known issue, and yet no institution is willing to take the steps necessary to meaningfully improve quality of life for grad students. In fact, they're generally the first group to get screwed over when the institution needs to cut corners. If I'd known when I was starting my doctoral program that I was signing up for seven years of poverty, pressure, and an absolute lack of any tangible reward along the way, I would've quit then and there. Grad students are the lifeblood of science, but they're generally treated as interchangeable and disposable. There's something deeply dissonant and dehumanizing about knowing you're doing one of the hardest and most specialized jobs on Earth while being treated and paid worse than a fast food worker and being told you should be grateful for the opportunity.
Lost a friend a few years back. He was one of the most joyful and happy people I thought I knew, and one day I got the call that he was gone. He would be graduating high school with me this Saturday if just reached for help, or if I reached to him. If you have a friend feeling down, call them. A little bit is the difference between life and death, in both chemistry and mental health. We miss you Bear.
I watched that last story when the video came out, and it struck a chord because it was something I know firsthand. I've mourned it, and I'm so glad you talked about it because it's something I wish people understood more often. I watched it today because i found out first thing this morning I'm going to be homeless in two weeks, and I have no idea if I'll be able to finish my degree anymore. I needed the reminder not to do it. I can't get a job without my degree anymore, I'm heavily disabled, and in extreme debt that'll go away quickly if i graduate and get a good job. But now I don't even have a bed to sleep in. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through this semester, if I even get back into classes. sorry for venting, this just happened and i dont know where to go anymore. point is shit gets really bad but i haven't given up yet and you don't have to give up either. there are more options. even if you have to live in a homeless shelter for a while, there are options. i think.
Friends might be able to help you out - you never know until you ask. I have one friend who has helped many people out when they get kicked out and need a place to crash. He doesn’t brag about it - he just wants to help people. Another important solution many people don’t talk about is food banks - if you only have enough money to buy food or pay rent, 1000% use a food bank - this is exactly what a food bank exists for! Other helpful solutions would include talking to your supervisor, talking to the relevant department at your institution, and approaching a non-for profit like a church or something. You will get through this - don’t give up hope, and explore all of your options! The world *would* be a darker place without you in it. -TC
@@That_Chemist Thanks, friend. One of my biggest issues is that I'm transgender, and I live in Florida, USA, where I lost my last housing assignment because they "didn't want to live with a tr@nny"... and I really can't rely on any family... I'm legally and almost practically having to detransition just so I have a better chance at being treated like a student in need and not a freak of nature. I am in touch with the university food bank, and I chewed out enough officials to where they're trying to find me open apartments or local Craigslist style ads, but the nearest homeless shelter where I could go and 1)keep my medical support animal 2)not be at risk of a hate crime is in the city 80 minutes away. and I'm a full time student that spends the rest of the time instructing chem labs/tutoring. I've lost my stability so many times in my adult life, and the time before this I swore was the last I could handle but I foresaw no possible way that I couldn't get on my feet and graduate after 6+ years of undergrad with medical issues. I've got nothing left. I have a handful of local friends who can help me move in and out, but it's not like there's anywhere for me to go, we're all dirt poor 20 somethings who can barely afford an apartment that has a couch to crash on. I know I have a lot to share with this world. But, man, I've given my all more times than i can count, almost dying of brain disease was the least unpleasant part of the last half a decade, and i wish i could go back to that level of absolutely minimal comprehension. This keeps happening and I swore back in March if I lost my home one more time, that was it. Well... I lost my home one more time, and it wasn't my fucking fault, it was just because the school decided to flood all the available housing with far too many underclassmen and kicked out anyone who was living here because the underclassmen sign a contract that pays more. But I was informed that my housing I signed up for with the school was NOT permanent, i should have apparently known it was a brief exception (despite me signing up for it with them knowing i had nowhere else to go after this, no home, no family to take me in, and this all being clarified several times with several officials), and thus, they didn't even consider me for housing and they refuse to change the ruling. So I have 2 weeks to pack up everything i just finished fully unpacking and decorating, find a new place to live, and be evacuated from the school. You see my temptation to be "hanging around" in my room on eviction day instead. I don't plan to. I and my cat Bud are going to finish school, and hopefully find somewhere to live soon, otherwise i'll be living in my car and taking my cat on walks to class with me and when the professor complains I'll let them know I have nothing left in my life but this cat. I'll try to leave the cat with others for a few hours a few times a week during lab, unless i can find someone renting last minute. You can't just *get* an apartment where I live, you have to be rich enough to have a cosigner and make several thousand dollars a month for enough income to be multiple times rent (and get approved) I'm sorry about all this, it's been a very very hard day and I don't have much left to me. I keep watching this video on loop to keep my spirits up. It's good that my friends know me and my studies too well for me to "accidentally" repeat what Andi did. I'm just so tired. There isn't much left of me. All I wanted was a home, and food on the table, and to spend time doing science and pushing the world forward. It can only be taken out from under you so many times before you wonder why you should get back up.
God, that last one. A childhood best friend of mine died by suicide in 2020. I requested some extra time to catch up from my chem prof and divulged a small bit of the reason why. He was extremely sympathetic and said he unfortunately had first hand experiences like mine, and he knew I must’ve been struggling. These issues are all too common, and the chem/biochem world has proven to be no exception. I look around at my peers, and even at myself, and realize how hard these fields of study are on us mentally. We place our entire worth in our schooling and research. It hurts so much to see.
Man to that last story Take this from someone who's been struggling with severe depression amongst other things since early childhood Things always get better. You just need to keep walking. And if you feel you are walking against a wall, then go and get help. Get a therapist. Talk to somebody. You don't want to pass on that hurt to everyone around you. And we all need help sometimes, everyone does. It's human. Two pairs of eyes see more than just one. There's never a dead end and there is never a reason to stop marching forward. Life has so much nice stuff to offer, you just need to discover it. And most importantly, love yourself. Don't be a toxic asshole to yourself. Be your friend not your own enemy.
I appreciate you including the last story, We do need to spread awareness about mental health issues and let people know that it's okay to talk about them and it's okay to get help and that it's not something that you just "tough it out" or anything
ANdi probably didn't want all her fellow students (who were under as much pressure as she was) to know she couldn't deal with it - she was probably ashamed of herself for not being able to cope.
One of my colleagues had a professor who would regularly wash his hands in benzene, because it was "a good solvent" and he "didn't have any open wounds". I get reprimanded for using IPA. 😆Edit: That last story brought back painful memories of a good friend who killed herself for much less. Still over-powered by the requirements of her course, but as stalwart as the woman described in the last story. I'm feeling so much mixed and overpowering emotions that I can only extend my sympathies and compassion. I hope that future lecture providers take note, because this is all too common. It's not normal for students to feel suicidal as a result of their assignments. I've done relatively poorly and have still secured a good, well-paid job. Please pay attention to your friend's behaviour, before you lose them and please support them where you can.
sometimes, do make decisions you can't reverse (easily), but every time you take an important decision, don't rush it and justify it in writing, because sometimes you'll have tough times and you'll need assurance that you made that decision because at the time you thought it was the best thing to do. Also that doesn't mean sticking with something you made a big decision on even if that makes you constantly unhappy. Depression and burnout can take multiple years to get better, if after 6 months it takes to 2 weeks between depressive episodes instead of one, it's already huge progress. Also same thing with losing or gaining weight, take a healthy pace. Take care of yourselves.
Biochemical Engineer doing cell culture research here; graduated from my undergrad a little over a year ago, and been at my current job for almost as long. I am fortunate that I don’t have any serious horror stories to tell or to share, though I suppose this one might come close. I handle most of the orders for my lab and have since my first week; it sounds uneventful because it usually is. Once when we received a shipment of sterile-wrapped filter bottles for culture media. I have to open and check each package to make sure that everything is undamaged and is what we ordered. Normally, I don’t need gloves for this. When I cut open and inspected this box of filter bottles, everything was coated in a layer of unknown orange powder, including the inner surfaces of the box; imagine my horror when I realized that my right palm was covered in it. I washed my hands for several minutes to make sure that whatever it was was cleared from my skin and wouldn’t cause and lasting harm. We received a free replacement for the box, but we still don’t know what that powder was. I am fine, and it’s been several months since it happened, but I still worry sometimes.
I am not a Chemist, dropped out in the first half of my Bachelor studies. In the second semester, during the first lab sessions (or internships, as we call em here), I've ended up with a depression. I never seeked help and somehow suffered through, having to cry for no reason all day and feeling severe pain, until finally having to drop out in the 4th semester. It's somehow ashaming to me to confess that it was the "Ion Lotto" which actually broke me mentally. When I tried to tell it my mom, her only reaction was that I don't have a depression, that I'm just in a very bad mood and that I should just get my shit together. That's one of the reasons I didn't seek help, I didn't want my parents to notice. Now, I have graduated in the field of historical sciences and got a nice job right away. Chemistry is just a hobby for me now (not in the practical meaning, as home chemistry is pretty much impossible in my country, but purely theoretical). However, I will still be visiting a therapist soon. As it turns out, I might have undiagnosed ADHD. It might have played a role in all the struggles of the last 7 years and it's goes beyond me, how nobody ever noticed anything for more than 26 years of my life.
Same thing as the last story happened recently in my university. I'm not there anymore but with colleagues in my current lab having graduated from there too the news travelled fast. Even though I didn't know him, it just hits hard when it happens in a place you know. Especially since we all had graduated very recently. That day was weird.
It's sad to think that at the last story, depressed people often seem "happy" this is a mask, it's known as the death knell, it's when they've made up their mind that it's over, suicide needs to be taken more serious and I'm glad you included the last story, major props to you
The last one really makes me sad,. Perhaps it was the stigma that goes along with asking for help when your mind is giving you trouble I know a lot of people don't say anything because of the fear of getting on government lists and having their civil rights and constitutional rights violated
Sadly simple mistakes can be costly. I had my own share of that when I dropped a Gallium 68 generator (it produces Gallium 68 from decaying Germanium 68 which is then used for PET scans. Hospitals that cannot afford a massive and expensive cyclotron can buy these instead if I understand the product correctly). This box is of course basically one big block of lead to shield for outgoing radiation and when transfering it into storage one slipped out of my hands, tilted in flight so one of the rounded edges caught my foot at the top and it slides down my foot like a slide on the playground. My foot wasn't hurt and the way down wasn't all that high, but you cannot open it up and just look if it is broken, neither is it a good idea to test it in operation 100 times, because the risk of it malfunctioning at the customer's end is simply too great. 100k down the drain.
Idk it it's happened yet, but i think they changed the suicide prevention hotline number to 988 I feel that last story though. STEM majors are brutal and some semesters of my ME degree I can't remember because I think my mind repressed them due to how traumatic they were.
That is very unsetteling to hear and hard to comprehend. We just recently had a similar accident on our University aswell involving cyanide-poisoning. :(
Quite moving at the end and very sad indeed. Life can be hard man, for most people. Hope you’re doing ok, hope your audience is doing ok! If you ever doubt you’re not ok, please reach out! Thanks for sharing
Thanks for treating that last story with the seriousness it deserved. I struggle with mental health, I actually dropped out of university (social sciences) because the stressful environment was making me feel suicidal. I'm still not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to a school setting. Actually, your videos have sparked an interest in science that I haven't felt in a while.
Science is cool if we use it to do cool things - as long as there is a real problem to work on, there is usually something cool we can do with science :)
I remembered one story regarding both highly toxic chemicals and explosions. I was doing a lot of home chem at the time and during that (I honestly did not remember what was that for) I decided to make some hydrazine salts in crystal form (for those who doesn't know hydrazine is a really potent reduction compound sometimes used in rocket fuel). I made a solution of HClO4 and added hydrazine. It was going well enough at the time so I decided to just wait until water evaporates. At some point though I noticed that it wasn't making good progress so... I decided to heat it up. Over an open-flame burner. It was going fine in the beginning (I only had like 15 ml of the solution) and at some point it started boiling. In the next 15 seconds though it also started foaming a lot and I decided to poke the foam with a glass rod. As soon as I touched the grey bubbles the whole thing violently exploded. It wasn't a "splashes all around"-type explosion either, it was more like a little sun burning 30 cm away from me. The explosion left no liquid parts of the solution present (I have a reason to think it the temperature of it was over 400°C) and filled the whole room with a thick hydrazine fog. I somehow vented it away in the next hour but initially it was so bad that I couldn't see the other wall across the room. Thankfully I don't think I got a hydrazine poisoning so I must say I got pretty lucky then haha
Once doing home chem, I was making hydrogen by reacting NaOH and Al foil. I did it in a plastic bottle since its wouldn’t have shrapnel if it blew up. When I was done, I dumped the liquid content down the sink, closed the bottle and went to eat before disposing of it because I was very hungry. Well, you can guess what happened. 10 minutes later I hear a massive explosion and screaming. It apparently exploded next to my brother and spewed staining and caustic materials every, and the hydrogen filled the room. He ran out, I ran in, opened the windows, and started cleaning. Good I didn’t use glass or harder plastic. Since then I have always cleaned, neutralised, or made sure that its safe to every mixture or reaction vessel. No major incidents since then, except a mild almost cresol poisoning but that wasn’t serious.
I once went to a cave, I think it was in Colorado Springs, and it was the only time I've ever heard someone specifically say not to lick the rocks. Specifically, it was some sort of salt compound that would give you violent diarrhea if you got it in your system.
I work in an environmental sampling lab, where I am part of the team that sorts and labels samples for testing. Various tests have different tolerable holding times due to preservation or sensitivity reasons. One of the most common is Biochemical Oxygen Demand, BOD, which is a hold of 2 days. The other day I learned we offer Long Term BODs, which take place over 4 months, 120 days to be precise. I had to label and deliver my first LTBOD to the lab, and the tech who signed off acknowledging the delivery was like "hey, BODs? Cool, I can take those." When I told him it was a long term test I saw the life drain from his eyes. It was both hilarious and depressing. I feel so sorry for him.
Having lost very close family to depression, and having depression in a large part because of it, it is almost surprising to me when the topic evokes so much emotion I personally don't have the ability to feel like that anymore, even after my mental health has improved and I'm now much less apathetic.
A while ago I found out from one of my dad's classmates what he got up to in his spare time when they were apprentices at the Newport News Shipyard in the late 1950s. He and the classmate and a few other fellow apprentices (including one who was in the chem lab) formed an informal rocketry club -- and got up to the sort of shenanigans that one might expect from young engineering apprentices with access to a shipyard of equipment and scrap materials and 1950s-era oversight. Their finest moment was when they had the idea to build a rocket nozzle out of magnesium. And where does one test a rocket with a nozzle made of magnesium? They found a secluded spot of the beach to launch it from, which was carefully selected to be right in front of the admiral's house, and launched it late in the evening. It was absolutely gloriously light-up-the-night bright, and the admiral was hopping mad, but they didn't get caught. I gather that eventually they had an incident where they had an eight-foot rocket that didn't light off from the fuse, and one of their more-reckless members decided to try to get it to light with a match (or something about equivalent), with his dog tagging along. Apparently this worked, rather suddenly with a loud noise and cloud of smoke, and somehow the fellow didn't get significantly hurt, but the dog had simply disappeared -- about ten minutes later they saw him in the distance trotting back from far down the beach. And they decided that maybe this might be a little more dangerous than they really wanted to continue with. Somehow, I never heard any of these stories from my dad directly when I was a kid....
Thank you for sharing the last story. It’s great to see people supporting mental health awareness, even if it’s through a heart wrenching story. Please keep up the hard work, you make chemistry interesting to someone who knows virtually nothing about it
Another expensive story: My NMR Professor told us he once had a PhD student, and only two people where allowed to change the probes in the NMR machines. The PhD student wasn't one of them, but she did it multiple times secretly. One day, she called the Professor that her keys where stuck in the NMR machine. She was concerned about not getting in her apartment that day, but the Professor was way more concerned about the immense cost of the repair man to get the machine demagnetized (more than 10000€). The NMR worked again after a lot of money was spend on it's repair, but never as good as before, so they had to replace it a few years later, making the total costs multiple millions.
Well there's not much that you can do about it. All sewers have methane in them. I guess they could install some kind of trap to let the waste from the chemistry lab settle for a certain time before it flows into the rest of the network, but I don't know if it's standard procedure.
2:50 This reminds me of one story from my first year in university, though this involved physics students rather than chemistry students. In one lab we had to make a small electronic circuit for some purpose I don't remember anymore. One other student, who I think hadn't done any electronics stuff before, was slightly embarrassed and told that she had spent some time thinking the soldering iron wasn't working properly because there was no solder coming out of it. I guess it's not an unreasonable assumption if you don't know anything of soldering beforehand.
When you didn’t have a warning about a previous story where the guy blew himself up and someone walking their dog, but you did for this one, I knew it was going to be bad. And my intuition was correct, that was a pretty bad one.
I am not a Chemistry guy, i am working on my PhD in Computer Engineering. But that final story resonates so hard, there are so many instances where I found myself struggling and just wanted to quit it all. But an understanding advisor helped me a LOT. He wouldn't ask for specifics but if you say you are struggling (mentally, financially, health-wise) he will do all he can to help you. While I agree that I got lucky with my PI and that most PIs are not so open and may even be cold and callous towards their students, I encourage all my peers in the grad journey to reach out when it is needed. Stay safe, happy, and healthy, friends.
My supervisor was telling me about when someone had mistakenly thrown away his product from a 10+ step synthesis he was doing in an industry job and chucked the contents into an organic waste winchester. He literally columned the whole thing. wild.
Hacking the algorythm by commenting on this one. I'm going through suicidal thoughts periodically. I can manage them. The problem I have is, because I can manage them, nobody takes them seriously, when they do appear. The upside of this is, I can, sometimes, recognize a person about to go under.
God that last story was hard to hear man, it's always rough and I've lost count of the friends lost to suicide. It's rough and I try and be there for anyone I talk to and try to help them talk to more people than just me. Some times we just lose and you can't let that get you.
Last anecdote hits really really hard for me, as a suicide survivor myself i know that if at the time i had access to some seriously dangerous shit i would have managed to terminate myself. It also hits deep because my motivations were similar, yet i was only 11, a gifted child with a fuckton of pressure their shoulders and the others that decided to harass me even further because of my looks If you need help, seek it
Last story hit hard. I had a colleague who killed himself in his apartment. The reaction from the university and his PI was essentially to sweep it under the rug. Absolutely callous. Thank you for talking about this.
Did they cause the suicide?
Bruh... this was bloody hard to listen to but it's important to think on...
Big respect from me for getting through that last story. We all need to normalize mental illness and make it ok to reach out for help. It sounded like you were really struggling, so I just wanted to mention that you matter, too! You also deserve a friendly ear if you're struggling or have struggled in the past. Thank you for all the work you put into your content and the enjoyment you bring to us.
May we never lose another friend in pain.
I was struggling because it is a tragedy *every* time we lose anybody at all - the world is a darker place without the light that each person brings into it.
@@That_Chemist That is a very beautiful attitude!
@@That_Chemist Amen.
@@That_Chemist currently gearing up life to put a sales job on hold so i can go back, finish my degree, and study physics. was hospitalized for mental health back in early high school. being a walking reminder to myself every day that new chapters exist, its so important to never give up on what you're capable of. thank you for sharing that message, I could tell how hard that story was to get through for you. it means a lot.
@@wiild9088 Switching careers like that takes a lot of guts. You should be proud of yourself for refusing to settle and really going for it. I'll be cheering for you!
I considered taking my own life with the cyanide in my lab during some of the worst crunch of my career in my lab and a horrible breakup about 5 years ago. I didn't go through with it and I have also never spoken out about this or told anyone about this before. I also didn't give up on my plans because things got better. I just decided it would be a lame way to go. My PI at the time was brutally militant and would frequently tell me "your best isn't good enough". Truth be told, I honestly don't think he would have cared either way apart from the headache and paperwork. I have a new PI now once my old one retired and I have never had those thoughts since. I have never held his words as something to hold against the University as a whole, just him in particular. I can understand as a PI the frustration of a new hire not getting results, making mistakes and wasting your funding, no one enjoys that. But I was genuinely trying my best. I still work at my university and love it. Things have gotten much better over the last 5 years, and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else or stop doing chemistry. But I caution advisors against being so results driven, and so shackled to milestones. Funding can be found given enough time, a human life cannot.
Also, I actually took it upon myself after all this to collect our cyanide and other poisonous reagents in a locked cabinet so others could not have easy access to these things.
Thank you for not doing that - we need you :)
While this isn't the sanest advice. My motivator if I get near the edge is the fear of having to redo the life ive lived until I dont leave early.
My gosh, I've never heard you so close to tears before. Honestly, yeah, over-tenacity does exist and it's especially brutal on mental health sometimes. I hope that whoever was Andi's friend can help others through their degrees.
Used to possess a fair share of over tenacity. Still alive, but it took its toll on mind and body and now kind of under tenacity
@@tsm688don’t worry. I’m glad you’ve learned to give yourself a break.
@@CascadePSA frrr
A minute of silence for Andi. I'm sure she deserved better.
I usually watch these chempolation videos to get a fun laugh. The final part of the video suprised me. This was the first time I have ever shed tears from a youtube video. I have so much respect for you. This is one of the biggest modern day issues, yet few people actually speak about it.
I couldn't read it without getting emotional, no matter how many times I read it
The only reason my little brother and I both survived suicidal phases in our lives was because we were so young we didn’t have the agency or know-how to even properly research a method. My little brother tried to freeze to death at around 10 or 11 years old. My whole family, myself included (12 or 13, tbf) treated it like an outlandish temper tantrum in spite of clear evidence he was going through a lot more than that. Our family was dysfunctional, we were new to the area and had no relatives nearby, people at school picked on us, and we hated each other. There wasn’t anyone else there for us if we needed it. Every time a teacher, parent, or some other stranger inserted themselves into our day or our lives, it was a step towards a much healthier future.
Don’t be timid if you think someone needs someone to be there for them. Even if all you do is pat them on the back regularly, a small connection can go a really long way towards keeping people safe and aware that they’re not alone, forgotten, or hated.
Also? Be nice to weirdos. They might not make sense, they might be a little annoying, but unless their behavior needs to be corrected on the basis of safety or boundaries or something similar, it’s just not right to make a mountain out of molehills and punish someone for being different. I’ve been friends with so many weirdos over the years that were offbeat in really minor ways and also so desperate for companionship that all I did was listen when they talked in order to make friends. Just be respectful, y’know? Goes a long way
As a formerly suicidal weirdo who still struggles with isolation, thank you. Also, I'm glad you survived your struggle with suicide too.
Thank you for this comment. I’ve spent a lot of my life dissociated so it’s not always easy to understand my own reasoning in the past. This comment made me remember that I wanted to die when I went outside in the cold as a child. Thank you very much for your comment as I had forgotten about it. And I’m glad that we are both still here despite everything.
That last passage was tough to get through. I admire your courage to not only talk about the humorous stories, but also the tragic ones as well. The National Suicide Prevention Hotlines number was updated a few days ago to make it easier to reach help when you need it. The new number is 988.
There's one caveat with that hotline, by the way. They are in favor of calling cops and involuntary hospitalization, which can be dangerous to some people. If you don't want to take that risk, there are many other helplines that you can find. Just keep that in mind if you decide to call 988.
@@nerd_nato564 That's actually false information. It is the same service. They just changed the number. If you are an immediate threat to yourself or others, law enforcement will be called. This was the same with the old number as well.
@@MattJohnVO Yeah, and that's not great. Cops are very good at escalating mental health situations and really shouldn't be called. If they called mental health professionals, it would be better.
@@nerd_nato564 Unfortunately that's the current system the United States has in place. I heard that some cities across the US are starting to implement "Crisis Psychologists" That attend the call with the LEO. Not all communities can afford to do so, however.
@@MattJohnVO Yeah, and those are great. I'm not saying no one should use 988, but people should be aware of the risk of getting cops called on them.
As an organic chemist PhD student working on total synthesis of oligosaccharides, the last story is very relevant to me, and I guess to all total synthesis chemists out there. And sometimes I do feel the pressure of getting out results on the synthesis every time my professor while other PhD students seems to be able to publish more results than I am.
For whoever you are out there, whether you are a PhD student working on total synthesis project or other areas, or whether you are just a curious person coming to this channel, do remember that you are living a life, not working as a robot. Sometimes you hit a brick wall, and that is okay. Do know when to rest from your work, and seek help when you or your friends around you feel that you need it. I wish you all (and myself) the best! :)
man, that last comment was crushing. I know the dread of going to your lab, worried about failing or having not enough time. The competitiveness and time pressure can ruin the fun that working in a lab should be.
Not really related to the last story but close enough when it comes to mental health issues (+ I'm not even a chemist): At my Uni there was a girl in the Political Science Department who suffered from schizophrenia. She had it under control most of the time, but she had her moments. At some point people there were fed up with her "antics" and basically dropped her like a hot potato. Being isolated like that, she struggled to complete her coursework, missed more and more seminars, failed assignments, and was basically kicked out by the end of that year. All of which of course exacerbated her symptoms and things got ugly as you might imagine (that was the first time I heard what went on there). No one has heard of her since, I hope she's better now.
But yeah, support for people with mental health issues... really not a thing at most institutions I had to deal with. I guess she was seeing a psychiatrist and had medication. but that alone doesn't do much when your social environment suddenly goes into ignore or even hostile mode around you.
Total ostracization is a far more serious punishment that people realize. I don't know the situation, but there are so many constructive ways to build boundaries that preserve your own mental health without "punishing" the other person. Yes, it takes some bending and flexing on your part, too, maybe changing some schedules around or making compromises that both can live with. And so much of the time, just talking to them like they're a friend. Ask them how they're doing. Show interest. Watch a funny youtube video with them. Break the tension, do something fun and humanizing together, connect. It feels really backward when you have a ball of irritation built up around someone to actually go toward them and work to get to know them more, but seeing the person underneath the maladaptive behavior or the "weirdness" or the stress or whatever, it's honestly really soothing for you in its own way. They stop feeling like an enemy combatant and seeing that human core gives a sense of grounding to the whole situation, suddenly things don't feel like a battle, just work to find out how to get along and get everyone's needs met.
I do have a similar story to the last one to share with a different ending, more upbeat ending. My inorganic chemistry prof told us a story about his studies in the 70s, when one of his female colleagues, suffering from relationship problems, attempted to commit suicide by ingesting some form (I don't remember and I'm not a chemist) of cyanide as well, however, she ingested it from a bottle which was super old (we're talking "from before WW1" old), so the cyanide was already decomposed. She survived, but the products had an extreme laxative effect. As far as he knows, she's happily married now.
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I know couple of people who also failed, though not with poisons and one who went to the doctors straight from the roof. Antitiredness effects of antidepresants are wild, gives just the energy to end it, does not fix borked brain chem...
@@mechadrake Less antitiredness, more pro-motivation. You go from too demotivated to do anything and wanting to kill yourself, to still wanting to kill yourself but having the motivation to do it. It's especially common in younger people, and it's tragic. That's why antidepressants on their own aren't always a good solution, and therapy is necessary to bridge that gap.
@@mechadrake hear hear about the "be happy!" meds......I'm somebody who can literally _feel_ when the meds start trying to kick in to try and force me to be happy, and all it does is cause me to be more depressed and upset since I start thinking "what's wrong with me? why do I have this forced happiness occurring?"
It also sure as hell don't help the borked brain, especially when mixed with meds to help with my ADHD. Uppers and Downers mixing and mingling in the skull of a depressed (not diagnosed, but the thoughts never shut up, they just hide in the very far corners of my psyche until something happens to bring them back to the forefront.) idiot.
Thank you for including the last story and your words. I feel it is important, as I have struggled with my mental health myself. This kind of outreach matters, it shows that there are ways to get help.
I really hope it does help some people get help and that the rest of us can show more compassion to those going through difficult times
@@That_Chemist I know that similar stuff has helped me in the past. That obviously doesn't mean it works for everyone, but it definitely can help.
The soil eating story reminds me of the time I visited a perfume synthesis lab. The gas chromatography 'detector' they used was just a guy wearing a mask coupled to the GC column, identifying the substances by smell. This is apparently a serious technique, called Gas Chromatography-Olfactometry. The lab techs endearingly called it "GC-Sniff".
how often do they need to replace the detector?
The human nose might be one of the crappiest in the mammal world, but it's still better than a mass spec (sub-ppb detection thresholds) for a whole bunch of compounds. I work at a giant ethanol (including drinking-grade) plant, and I can't tell you how many times a beverage-grade product has come out smelling like ass despite being totally clean on both the GC-FID and the GC-MS. I've rarely been able to identify the culprit molecule(s) whenever this happens, despite making a variety of SIM methods on the MS to look for ppb amounts of stinky compounds. I wish we could set it up to do olfactometry!
@@grebulocities8225 Have you looked into headspace SPME?
@@grebulocities8225 I'm currently working with sulfides so I placed an H2S sensor next to my glovebox antechamber. It's nice to have, but at the same time I know that my nose can detect H2S roughly 200x better than the sensor (~5ppb vs 1ppm detection limit)
@@gamingmarcus I've thought about that, but I'm not sure I can justify the expense to get a good headspace sampler. Since we're dealing with ethanol containing no non-volatiles, we'e just been doing direct injection so far. Perhaps the SPME fiber might be able to concentrate less polar odor compounds preferentially though? It's probably worth looking into.
poor Andi. I've been suicidal for the longest while (not anymore, thankfully), it really wasn't/isn't easy to ask for help in that position.
when there's a will, there's a way. if you have no friends, there's family. if there's no family, there's forums and spaces online, along with suicide hotlines and therapists, counselors and psychiatrists. self-help books, even podcasts. there's ways to ease the pain, even if the pain feels impossible to rid.
death is inevitable, which is why it can wait. reach out if you need to, please.
I'm glad to hear that you are in a better place :)
@@That_Chemist Mmhh... I wouldn't use "better place" for that situation it seems kinda ambiguous.
@@joundii3100 you heard him folks I'm dead as fuuuuck
@@kiro9291 So sad I was too late to help. If only I could've changed that outcome.
@@kiro9291 rest in peace kiro, you were the greatest youtube commenter of all time
here lies Kiro
???? - 2022
RIP
I have a friend doing a PhD in algae biology. The guy pulls all-nighters regularly for some experiments. His supervisor is seems the researcher cliché of being obsessed by science and not being very socially aware. She pushes him for results when he really needs some time for himself. He seems to cope with alcohol, which is really bad. With friends, we're trying to help him get some air but he's kinda stubborn and he fears that if he doesn't produce satisfying results, he won't go in a lab in Japan, which is his dream country. I hope it won't go to the same length as Andi.
I have been very lucky personnally to never feel such pressure, either from my supervisor or my research project.
For the second time already, my comment just can't get through youtube's censors. I want to give up, but I also want to stick it up to the man. Kind of torn right now.
Anyway, bear in mind that Japan is not the obvious choice if your friend seeks a healthy work-life balance.
@@PCSExponent We see your comment now. That sure is true about Japan. No wonder they're starting to have the population growth go from BOOMING to "wait, there's such thing as children?" compared to say, a couple decades ago.
How is he doing?
Thank you for sharing that last story, and thank you as well for doing it justice with your heartfelt emotional contributions. I am no longer suicidal, but for more than ten years every day the hardest thing I had to do was decide not to swallow my own vial of cyanide. I hope you don't mind my sharing this, but as a suicide survivor I feel something too often unsaid needs to be said:
Sometimes there really just isn't efficacious institutional or systematic or professional help available for what the person who is struggling is going through, and the only thing holding someone like that back from taking their life is the kindness you and others show them in your daily interactions with them. It's the "little things" like tone of voice and if someone smiles when they see you for the first time that day and how they respond to your small talk and all the other "normal seeming" little things of that keep some of us going.
Yes, it's important to spread suicide and mental health awareness, but for those of you who aren't the ones struggling with mental health or specifically with suicide, it is important that you don't make the mistake of thinking that the only thing that the person has to do is make the effort to reach out for help an accept help and then they'll actually be given the help they need. That's not how this world actually works, at least in the USA.
All too often someone preaches the suicide hotline (for example) and encourages the person struggling to reach out to others for help, but fails to actually support the person they're concerned for themselves. If you haven't called the hotline while about to kill yourself then don't assume you know what the hotline can and can't actually do. News flash, they can only call you an ambulance or the police if you ask for that, and they can only talk to you for up to a half hour or so if you ask for that, and they can only read to you a list of your local mental health services, but that's all they can do. If you can't afford or access the mental health services you would need, or if there just isn't what you need in your area then calling the hotline does nothing. When I called they failed me in my time of need because I expected them to actually be able to do something to help. I only didn't kill myself that night because I was so insulted by and angry at the reality of how much of a joke the hotline and other "suicide help services" are that I didn't want my death's dignity to be diminished by being associated with them.
Don't just assume that the people you see and know are okay. Don't just assume they have friends. Don't just assume they have family. Don't just assume they aren't already desperately seeking out mental healthcare but coming up emptyhanded. Don't assume there is actual care and help available for them to accept. Don't assume anything.. talk to them instead. Talk to them without pretenses, without regard for awkwardness, without regard for social norms, without regard for being mistaken and making a fool of yourself for 5mins. Talk to them and show them you care and want them to be ok and that you accept them however they are, unconditionally.
You'll truly save lives not by spreading awareness of a problem, but by being part of the solution yourself.
Yeah that is a fair critique - I think showing people love and actually caring about them is something we all need to do more - everyone is affected when we turn a cold shoulder. I hope you’re in a good place now :)
I just wanted to say that it’s great that you used the influence that you have trough this youtube chanel to highlight such a difficult subject and that you didn’t shy away from including it. People often struggle for years with mental illness before finally reach out for help, so it’s important that we are all looking out for each other. I’m very glad you chose to feature this story in your video
Thank you
"Have you ever died in a nightmare, woke up surprised you hadn't earned your fate? Have you ever felt like Atlas, threw your back out on the axis, collapsed and threw the planet away?"
That last story hits very close to home, as I have lived my life as a person much like Andi; the only difference is that three years ago I got to live when I could have died.
I want to say that living past my suicide attempt showed me so much more of the world than I thought could be. If I may speak my mind, I will say what drove me to behave as she did:
I was always characterized by my motivation to achieve; and I latched onto it with a white knuckle grip because it was the only thing I could reliably control in my life. I'd say that it would have been easier if I under-achieved instead of over-achieved, because if I didn't keep just falling short of perfect, I wouldn't have been fighting so hard to be perfect. I live with OCD, ADD, and fairly bad PTSD, which shaped the manner in which I approach life; I have no issues achieving brilliance at any opportunity, but basic functioning and organization again and again dragged me behind deadlines, and left hobbies to rot as I demanded myself to do better.
It's a maladaptive mindset that develops from starting with nothing, and feeling like you can have anything only if you fight for it, and you are "good" enough to deserve it; which took years of therapy for me to unlearn, and live past. My father, whom is a good man, had moments of anger as finances got worse and worse over the years, and resented us kids for doing nothing in return for him providing for us. This implanted a brutally pragmatic self-consciousness into me from the start of my teenage years.
What led me to spiral is the repeated failure to reach out, or to find any opportunity to be saved; because I didn't need to be saved, I just needed genuine help. But by isolating myself in deadlines and failures, I destroyed my own ability to connect bit by bit until I couldn't see anything more I could do.
At the end of it, I desperately didn't want to go, but by failure after reoccurring failure I had been convinced that this was the most I could be.
I am so grateful to be alive today. I have severe head trauma from three years ago, and I lost my job from contracting Covid. But I am the happiest I have ever been because I have the capacity now to process and understand these intense experiences, and therapy and medication has been a great help. I know who supports me now, and I support them as well.
"Whatever you think of me, if you were in my shoes,
You'd walk the same damn miles I do."
I’m glad to hear you are in a better place now :)
Some say that the people who shock people because noone could see it coming, those who felt the need to hide it, are the ones with enough heart to have a damn lot to still live for.
That was beautifully said, thank you. I have much in common with your story and I too am glad you survived. Cheers!
I feel the same way too. Reading about cases like this brings tears like bricks to my face. Took a thesis research that was way more than I could ever chew, and due to unregulated neurodivergence, burnout and several mental disorders, I keep falling short on deadlines - even though I had four years of almost perfect brilliance, it came back to bite me in the ass at the very end of my degree. I haven't graduated and gotten my bachelor's ever since. Those feelings of failure start building up until they become too burdensome to handle. I stopped counting how many attempts, letters and intricate suicidal planning there was because it is physically impossible to remember anymore. But, even though I went and still go through hell and back every single day... I'm still here, aren't I? And so are you. Honestly, although somewhat dark in nature, I still think it's a stunningly beautiful coincidence.
That last story was hard to get through, but it needs to be told and needs to be listened to even though its sad.
Speaking from my own struggles with those thoughts, it's hard to even admit something is wrong to myself, let alone to anyone else and particularly people who care because you don't want to worry them. It takes a lot to take down that false screen of "everything is fine" to show people that you're holding it together with mental duct tape. But if you don't change something, sooner or later something gives in and you snap.
But that's the problem, actually taking down that false screen. It's compromising, leaves you vulnerable. It took me a long time to trust my friends enough to let them know I wasn't in a good place.
Last one was thought to hear huge respect for talking about stuff like that. I’ve been dealing with some stuff myself and just reading all the comments and hearing you talk about it makes me appreciate your channel even more. It’s just so important to talk about things like that. You never know how much people might be struggling
I hope you are in a better place now
@@That_Chemist thankfully I am
Man, i know depression and suicidal thoughts. There is help out there. Really there is. That story really sucks. I feel ya, man.
I understand the last story all too well. Thank you for including it and not hiding your emotions.
Years of work into the lab that feel like going nowhere because your project doesn't work for X or y reason. Trying everything and slowly losing the will to work on what was your dream job. It took a long time for me to develop into suicidal ideation and years to finally get help. But after a sabbatical, some therapy and working in a new lab, I discovered I am actually good at my job and I love it in the right environment and with more independence. It does get better but man is it hard to think about that when you're depressed or having panic attacks.
I’m really glad to hear you are in a better place now!
@@That_Chemist Thank you. I hope videos like that help people realize they should do something.
Maybe one day if it's not too hard on you you could do a video about stories of people that burned out and got better. It would help some researchers I'm sure.
I am a biology major, so I am kind of familiar with the atmosphere in labs. During my chemistry courses, there was a lot of pressure and some students were mentally battling with the stress and the additional insults (yes, some assistants insult students, I experienced it myself) about their alleged incapacity or low IQ. Humiliation was so common, especially in one specific lab course we took.
I heard from chemistry majors, that it is not uncommon for first semesters to have mental breakdowns because of the treatment they experience there. This is very toxic in combination with the stressful and competitive environment.
TC, it was really poignant to hear you being close to tears, because it brought up all the memories I have concerning that topic.
To everyone reading this:
Follow your own path, believe in yourself and see your mistakes as the single steps necessary towards personal growth. Moreover, try to be supportive and understanding of other scientists/students and their struggles.
I couldn't read that story without being in tears - even after reading it five or six times it would still happen every time
@@That_Chemist I would have been in the exact same position, really. I think it is utterly important to talk more about mental health problems among scientists/students, because it is, unfortunately, an actual problem. This issue is, in my experience, part of the fact that the universities often don’t care about the workplace atmosphere, they rather employ top-notch researchers than the ones with more empathy, but slightly less qualifications.
@@ministryoftruth557 This has been my experience too. Even when you do ask for help and speak up and make your struggle known, help and compassion aren't always given. Sometimes it even makes it worse because there are people out there who compulsively denigrate anyone the perceive as weak, and unfortunately the stigma of mental health is based in reality so a lot of people have that toxic perception.
Was that specific course analytical chemistry?
If you're one to struggle with sadness, it's important to remember about the rebound from really rare fun events. It's strange, but it's pretty easy to get down really soon after a vacation, for example.
Pretty sure it's also a work/life balance thing, but when it happens, it makes it a lot easier to deal with when you realize it's just your emotions catching back up with the daily routine. Routines aren't fun. They're routine.
Just remember to sneak in enough smiles and laughs.
and it helps if you can sneak in smiles into other ppl's life as well
I dropped out of postgrad studies a few months ago because it was destroying my mental and physical health. I'm sad I didn't get to finish my project, I truly loved my project but glad I'm significantly less stressed. I can come back to getting a PhD later in life but between my health and the fact I started in march 2020, the odds weren't in my favour.
A personal thing I'll add is that passive suicidal ideation is still suicidal ideation - everyone that's taken their life started out just thinking about it. Please get help, even if you're not actively planning on taking your life.
Feeling that way, especially every day even without self-harm, taking action on those feelings or making it known doesn't make you less suicidal or without "real problems". Just because you're not physically being destroyed and run down, it doesn't mean you wont eventually get tired of having those thoughts everyday and want them to stop.
Never thought one of your videos would hit this hard and close to home, honestly needed a break near the end, love your vids man stay safe.
I've been suicidal for so long, since I was 11 that even now I still sit with it. I don't want to act on it anymore thankfully, but its always there. Nagging. And I know it can get bad real fast again.
So please please, take even passive thoughts of suicide seriously. If you can, get a therapist and keep notes on it. If you start to get worse, talk to someone. Tell your therapist.
Damn
Thank you. Especially for including the last story.
I appreciate the feedback - I felt strongly compelled to include the story, even though the subject matter is challenging to face
@@That_Chemist It made me cry and reflect for a while.
It is easy to judge, mutch harder to listen.
RIP Andi, this is the first story I've heard of a chemist killing themslves intentionally. People really need to take better care of their mental health.
During my PhD (late 90s), two chemistry students (that I knew somewhat because I had assisted them in classes) committed suicide. One of them did this at the faculty, in a secluded "weighing room" of the lab where he was doing practical coursework. I assume that he took his chance when he saw the toxic azide and cyanide salts.
They were both the quiet, shy, serious, inconspicuous guys that you'll see a lot in sciences - not people who'd call out for help, not people that you'd step up to for a nice conversation. (Not that different from myself back then).
I never had the idea that our university was in any way set up to deal with struggling students...
Only came across this channel for the first time today and I'm an electrical engineer not a chemist but I do have a story for you. Fair warning my understanding of the chemistry might be shaky since I was only indirectly involved. I still have the emails from when this was happening archived though.
When I was an undergrad I was part of my universities rocketry club and one year almost everyone there had at least a level 2 cert. so we decided it might be fun to try and make a rocket for one of the Tripoli experimental launch events. At standard launches you're limited to using commercial rocket motors from certified vendors but at an experimental launch you can fly with an experimental motor of your own design. We managed to convince the professor in charge of the program this was a good idea somehow.
When you're talking about rocket fuel it's kind of hard to know where the line is between reckless and reasonable. In this case a member of the group named Yuri found a paper which seemed to be a good balance between performing well and being something we could actually make. Everyone quickly took to calling this "Yuri's special sauce". It required two things that weren't easily purchasable. One was PSAN (phase stabilized ammonium nitrate). That involved melting ammonium nitrate and adding something to complex with it so that it would be more thermally stable after it recrystallized. The other compound was glycidyl nitrate as part of an energetic plasticizer. This was definitely the more concerning part of the process but we didn't need much of it and the synthesis given in the paper actually worked out very well using epichlorohydrin and sodium nitrate, both of which were very accessible. The PSAN was actually the more annoying of the two because of how stupidly hydroscopic it ended up being.
Everything else we were able to purchase directly and when it came time to mix up a very small batch to test we measured everything out and used the chem departments vacuum shaker to mix it for a few hours. As concerning as it is to mix up propellant in essentially a paintshaker there wasn't any kind of issue. It just made a grey-blue paste. (there was some copper phthalocyanine in the mix as a burn rate enhancer) The casting process involved cracking open the container, adding a catalyst, stirring it through, then and pushing it down into molds before it started to set. The main concern everyone had at the time was with how flammable the mix was and how much it might heat up as it cured. We had all stupidly forgotten that this stuff is made with some pretty nasty chemicals. To see if it was getting warm someone touched the wet mix with their finger which is really dumb in any context, said it seemed fine, then touched a few of the other pellets before wiping it off with a paper towel, Yuri did the same a bit later with similar results. About 20 afterward they both started to develop really bad headaches and ended up needing to go to the hospital to be monitored. Everyone was okay in the end but yeah, Yuri's special sauce it seems has a hell of a hangover.
When I saw that last story in its original comment section I thought it was unremarkable, but hearing you read it out loud is making me reconsider.
While I was an undergrad for CS, at least 3 fellow students offed themselves, one of which was in the class I was a TA for. Nothing was done about it, really, and it's still a regular occurrence for the university. It's the main reason why I chose not to go to grad school (aside from money) since I imagine it can't be any better there. I hadn't put much thought into how normal this seems to me until you showed more compassion towards a stranger than I've felt for my own colleagues (or myself...) 😶
It’s easy to not care, but we should care.
I don’t have any specific one, but I ALWAYS cringe when I hear about mishaps in NMR labs where the coolant runs out or something goes wrong and the magnet gets quenched. It’s THOUSANDS of dollars of liquid helium to attempt to re chill the magnet back down and a lot of the time it doesn’t even work and you’ve just COMPLETELY TRASHED a piece of equipment that usually sits between hundreds of thousands to several MILLIONS of dollars
Today was a really rough day for me as a professional in a competitive environment. Thanks for posting this, it really righted my perspective; we will all remember Andi.
I'm glad to hear it :)
Thank you so much for openly showing your emotions at the last story
Great work telling that last story. Workplace (/lab/learning place) safety includes hazards beyond the physical, and looking after our colleagues and comrades includes all aspects of their well-being. It’s an important story to tell and hits close to home for me too - thanks both to you and Andi’s friend.
I wasn't expecting that last story to be that serious. I thought a fatal accident was involved, but I didn't expect to be nearly tearing up. Still, it's beneficial to share stories like those, to remind everyone about the things we don't always get to talk about.
Man that last story...I know this video came out months ago, but I just want to express to you to that while I don't know you on a personal level, it's good to know there's another light in the world that can express empathy so openly toward other's pain. I appreciate you my dude.
Thank you for the content you do.
We all need to fight the good fight
dude, I could hear your voice cracking at the story at the end. I just wanna say that whatever you’ve witnessed or experienced throughout your career, that we’re here for you. I hope you’re doing ok and I wish you the best dawg ❤
Even though it was a tough subject, you handled it well. The stigma of mental health issues and depression must be reduced, so that more people would be encouraged to seek help. Thank you for sharing this story, That Chemist ❤️
I was the "junior chemist" at a large printed circuit board shop. Right after my proposal to start testing incoming chemicals rather than "trust the vendor" was nixed. Only the Senior chemist was allowed to adjust the Gold plating bath. It was Gold Cyanide with sacrificial Citric acid. (Gold/Sulfite bath is used for jewelry plating.) I pointed out to Dennis that the "Citric acid" looked and smelled different (bisulfite has an SO2 smell). He said to mind my own business. Result was losing $245,000 of Gold. Good news is we weren't fined for the chemical waste discharge (Gold) because it didn't impact the waste treatment facilities like Copper discharge would.
Yikes!
Oh gosh, the last story hits close to home. I'm a biology grad student and we handle many chemicals that can kill (or be use by someone with bad intention). We had an intern last summer and he was kicked out of my lab because he threatened to kill himself many times to a collegue. The said collegue immediatly took action and called the student office (who now have a crisis team, but not then). To this day, I think that she saved thier live and saved us for finding a body one morning. The mood was not that good after that incident for a few days but I think it helped to make our lab more secure and to put an emphasis on mental health in the post grad community.
I can seriously feel that dread as you were reading the last story. As a teacher (in communication, not sciences) I understand why and how students would feel the pressure and the crunch to address our assignments and tasks to them, but for most of us it can break our hearts too to see them struggling - many going depressed and delirious, especially during the pandemic - in making sure that their works are the best.
Partly that has to blame with how we package these assignments and how we value these to them, but in most cases it's because of the educational and research system only caring for results and data rather than the process and the learning experience. I won't like to start rambling about neoliberal education and that kind of stuff as I believe that it's not really fitting here, but I hope and do pray that we don't ever hear students killing themselves because of not becoming "the best" or even not being able to study due to economic hardships (a sad reality to many here, in a developing country).
I personally remind students to not aim for perfection in their works, but rather to aim for sincerity and honesty. After all, an assignment is a document picturing what and how you'd learned something so far.
Going back to the relevant topic on hand, I pray that Andi is in a better place now, that their friend (the commenter) has found peace and a lifelong lesson in this experience, and hopefully that their school would learn something from this sad event. To end I'd like to repurpose this statement often told to would-be journalists: "there is no news story worth one's life", and here I say that "there is no experiment or investigation worh one's life" - and so lab safety and mental health are just as important (even more important, to be honest) as credible, rational results.
I'm a new subscribers so I've been binge watching all your videos, and the Chempilations in particular. I was really touched by the last story and it was very unsettling to hear you go from almost crying to very upbeat when your next video loaded in right after. I had to go back to this video to read some of the other comments before I could move on. Thank you for showing this side of working in a high pressure environment and how important mentor health and mentorship is.
I recently became a mentor in my non-chemist high-pressure career and it reminded me on how important it is to keep an eye out on your mentees and fellow colleagues.
glad to hear it :)
1:50 You know it's been a common occurrence when even the janitor instantly knew what exactly happened
I really respect how open-hearted you are, those topics are brutal and your reminder to show grace to others is really beautiful and necessary
hello. watching your videos has been helping me kinda reconnect with my past and understand some really horrible things related to mental health in universities
background: i was a biochemistry major in 2009-2012 before dropping out for mental health reasons. in 2018-2019 i had gotten the chance to return to the same school and hopefully finished my bachelor's degree in chemistry.
the class was organic chemistry III lab. the course was structrured as a 135 minute lab with a 60 minute lecture section beforehand, from 8am-12pm.
the professor showed up in the lab section 5 times in the entire semester, and only one time did he actually actively contribute to assisting anyone. he did *nothng* besides a brief lecture where he'd go over a couple interesting facts about the reaction and possibly one or two special things we'd need to remember for the reaction, but otherwise we had to do all our own research into how to actually run these reactions. all that we were given was a link to a teaching journal article with maybe a bit of supporting information. there were no real guidelines on what information would be important, and the professor, again, refused to actually provide in-laboratory support.
in addition, the TAs were from the start completely standoffish. they'd set up the bottles of reagents and solvents for us to use, but that was it. they refused to do anything else in the lab. it was extremely uncomfortable having three ASSISTANTS in the lab, watching us at all times.
i saw SO many safety violations, including the frequent leaving off the cap of the organics dump bucket, which i tried to call out. we were working with pure sodium nitrite one day, which is lethally toxic with inhalation, and the covers were just left off and exposed to general air. my fume hood broke and they literally told me to work around everybody else's experiments in their fume hoods, which were actually completely full, and had broken power outlets among many many other issues. on top of all this, we were supposed to somehow trust the TAs to give us advice on our lab reports, which were actually supposed to be structured like full fledged research articles. the first (and only one) i managed to turn in came back with a big fat "50" on it with the notes that i was "missing some sections" and there was literally no other feedback.
at least two of us had mental breakdowns in that course. me, and i was struggling with so much else, and another student, the only student who was able to get consistent yields, the only one whose spec data would come out good. the class was set up to be so high stakes, with no support from outside, that the best student of the class had an absolute meltdown because he accidentally told the section group chat the wrong chemical, of which there were two very different structured but similarly effect chemicals (analogs? homologs? idk, it's been too long, i'm losing it), which delayed starting lab by five minutes.
there was no extra scheduled time whatsoever besides setup, reaction, and cleaning. nothing. everything had to be done perfectly, and with zero support from the professor. this was a third year undergraduate course.
i had my own mental health issues at the time and ended up just taking an F for the section. at the beginning of the semester, i went in to a meeting with him to talk with him about what potential extra work i could take on to bring my skills back up to date and he gave me like, nothing but the title of a single reference manual. and at the last meeting i had with him, attempting to advocate for myself, he leans back in his chair looks me in the eye and says without a hint of empathy "guess you'll just have to try again next semester!"
this course made me feel like i hated chemistry and was somehow unable to do chemistry. i have made an A in every chemistry and lab section ive ever taken besides this one. in every other course, i have had in lab support from every professor, and the TAs would constantly make rounds.
this was an undergraduate course. there was no reason to set the course up like this. there was no reason to run this lab on this tight of margins with this little support. i am currently in the process of looking up his and his students research over the past several years to see if we were inadvertently making reagents for his labs research.
thank you @that chemist for reconnecting to me to my love and passion for chemistry.
Fair play for posting that last story. It sounds like it was truly painful for you to get through. It was a good thing to have done, if one person sees themselves in it and can take your message and make a different decision it was worth doing.
Thanks for making such a mature and affecting video. You are always responsible and give a safety first message but this is beyond that
I hope you're doing ok
Im good :)
@@That_Chemist that's good to hear, thanks again for the message and the memes 😁
Thanks for sharing that last story. Graduate school can be very brutal, sometimes more toxic than any chemical.
it’s good that 5 and a half years ago i wasn’t going to college for chem, and wasn’t taking chem classes, so i didn’t have that to tempt me when i was suicidal
I'm glad to hear you are still with us :)
@@That_Chemist thanks me too
I would say that we don't talk enough about the impact that grad school has on mental health, but that's not even true. We talk about it constantly. We complain about it constantly. It's a well-known issue, and yet no institution is willing to take the steps necessary to meaningfully improve quality of life for grad students. In fact, they're generally the first group to get screwed over when the institution needs to cut corners. If I'd known when I was starting my doctoral program that I was signing up for seven years of poverty, pressure, and an absolute lack of any tangible reward along the way, I would've quit then and there. Grad students are the lifeblood of science, but they're generally treated as interchangeable and disposable. There's something deeply dissonant and dehumanizing about knowing you're doing one of the hardest and most specialized jobs on Earth while being treated and paid worse than a fast food worker and being told you should be grateful for the opportunity.
This needs to be heard wide and far!
Lost a friend a few years back. He was one of the most joyful and happy people I thought I knew, and one day I got the call that he was gone. He would be graduating high school with me this Saturday if just reached for help, or if I reached to him. If you have a friend feeling down, call them. A little bit is the difference between life and death, in both chemistry and mental health.
We miss you Bear.
as someone with Chronic depression I Greatly appreciate seeing these types of things being discussed it is BEYOND what the word Important describes.
I watched that last story when the video came out, and it struck a chord because it was something I know firsthand. I've mourned it, and I'm so glad you talked about it because it's something I wish people understood more often.
I watched it today because i found out first thing this morning I'm going to be homeless in two weeks, and I have no idea if I'll be able to finish my degree anymore. I needed the reminder not to do it. I can't get a job without my degree anymore, I'm heavily disabled, and in extreme debt that'll go away quickly if i graduate and get a good job. But now I don't even have a bed to sleep in. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through this semester, if I even get back into classes.
sorry for venting, this just happened and i dont know where to go anymore. point is shit gets really bad but i haven't given up yet and you don't have to give up either. there are more options. even if you have to live in a homeless shelter for a while, there are options. i think.
Friends might be able to help you out - you never know until you ask. I have one friend who has helped many people out when they get kicked out and need a place to crash. He doesn’t brag about it - he just wants to help people.
Another important solution many people don’t talk about is food banks - if you only have enough money to buy food or pay rent, 1000% use a food bank - this is exactly what a food bank exists for! Other helpful solutions would include talking to your supervisor, talking to the relevant department at your institution, and approaching a non-for profit like a church or something.
You will get through this - don’t give up hope, and explore all of your options! The world *would* be a darker place without you in it.
-TC
@@That_Chemist Thanks, friend. One of my biggest issues is that I'm transgender, and I live in Florida, USA, where I lost my last housing assignment because they "didn't want to live with a tr@nny"... and I really can't rely on any family... I'm legally and almost practically having to detransition just so I have a better chance at being treated like a student in need and not a freak of nature. I am in touch with the university food bank, and I chewed out enough officials to where they're trying to find me open apartments or local Craigslist style ads, but the nearest homeless shelter where I could go and 1)keep my medical support animal 2)not be at risk of a hate crime is in the city 80 minutes away. and I'm a full time student that spends the rest of the time instructing chem labs/tutoring. I've lost my stability so many times in my adult life, and the time before this I swore was the last I could handle but I foresaw no possible way that I couldn't get on my feet and graduate after 6+ years of undergrad with medical issues. I've got nothing left. I have a handful of local friends who can help me move in and out, but it's not like there's anywhere for me to go, we're all dirt poor 20 somethings who can barely afford an apartment that has a couch to crash on.
I know I have a lot to share with this world. But, man, I've given my all more times than i can count, almost dying of brain disease was the least unpleasant part of the last half a decade, and i wish i could go back to that level of absolutely minimal comprehension. This keeps happening and I swore back in March if I lost my home one more time, that was it. Well... I lost my home one more time, and it wasn't my fucking fault, it was just because the school decided to flood all the available housing with far too many underclassmen and kicked out anyone who was living here because the underclassmen sign a contract that pays more. But I was informed that my housing I signed up for with the school was NOT permanent, i should have apparently known it was a brief exception (despite me signing up for it with them knowing i had nowhere else to go after this, no home, no family to take me in, and this all being clarified several times with several officials), and thus, they didn't even consider me for housing and they refuse to change the ruling. So I have 2 weeks to pack up everything i just finished fully unpacking and decorating, find a new place to live, and be evacuated from the school.
You see my temptation to be "hanging around" in my room on eviction day instead.
I don't plan to. I and my cat Bud are going to finish school, and hopefully find somewhere to live soon, otherwise i'll be living in my car and taking my cat on walks to class with me and when the professor complains I'll let them know I have nothing left in my life but this cat. I'll try to leave the cat with others for a few hours a few times a week during lab, unless i can find someone renting last minute. You can't just *get* an apartment where I live, you have to be rich enough to have a cosigner and make several thousand dollars a month for enough income to be multiple times rent (and get approved)
I'm sorry about all this, it's been a very very hard day and I don't have much left to me. I keep watching this video on loop to keep my spirits up. It's good that my friends know me and my studies too well for me to "accidentally" repeat what Andi did. I'm just so tired. There isn't much left of me. All I wanted was a home, and food on the table, and to spend time doing science and pushing the world forward. It can only be taken out from under you so many times before you wonder why you should get back up.
@@lexinwonderland5741 how did things turn out? i’m thinking of you and i hope you’re doing well.
@@lexinwonderland5741I hope you’re in a little bit more stable situation now. And if not, know someone is thinking of you kindly. (Me)
God, that last one. A childhood best friend of mine died by suicide in 2020. I requested some extra time to catch up from my chem prof and divulged a small bit of the reason why. He was extremely sympathetic and said he unfortunately had first hand experiences like mine, and he knew I must’ve been struggling. These issues are all too common, and the chem/biochem world has proven to be no exception.
I look around at my peers, and even at myself, and realize how hard these fields of study are on us mentally. We place our entire worth in our schooling and research. It hurts so much to see.
Thanks so much for sharing that last story, it means so much that we acknowledge more than just the risks of the chemicals we work with.
Man to that last story
Take this from someone who's been struggling with severe depression amongst other things since early childhood
Things always get better.
You just need to keep walking.
And if you feel you are walking against a wall, then go and get help.
Get a therapist. Talk to somebody.
You don't want to pass on that hurt to everyone around you.
And we all need help sometimes, everyone does. It's human. Two pairs of eyes see more than just one.
There's never a dead end and there is never a reason to stop marching forward.
Life has so much nice stuff to offer, you just need to discover it.
And most importantly, love yourself. Don't be a toxic asshole to yourself. Be your friend not your own enemy.
I appreciate you including the last story, We do need to spread awareness about mental health issues and let people know that it's okay to talk about them and it's okay to get help and that it's not something that you just "tough it out" or anything
ANdi probably didn't want all her fellow students (who were under as much pressure as she was) to know she couldn't deal with it - she was probably ashamed of herself for not being able to cope.
One of my colleagues had a professor who would regularly wash his hands in benzene, because it was "a good solvent" and he "didn't have any open wounds". I get reprimanded for using IPA. 😆Edit: That last story brought back painful memories of a good friend who killed herself for much less. Still over-powered by the requirements of her course, but as stalwart as the woman described in the last story. I'm feeling so much mixed and overpowering emotions that I can only extend my sympathies and compassion. I hope that future lecture providers take note, because this is all too common. It's not normal for students to feel suicidal as a result of their assignments. I've done relatively poorly and have still secured a good, well-paid job. Please pay attention to your friend's behaviour, before you lose them and please support them where you can.
The last one was really heartbreaking. I usually watch these for a laugh, but this one really saddened me! I hope she has found peace, at least!
sometimes, do make decisions you can't reverse (easily), but every time you take an important decision, don't rush it and justify it in writing, because sometimes you'll have tough times and you'll need assurance that you made that decision because at the time you thought it was the best thing to do.
Also that doesn't mean sticking with something you made a big decision on even if that makes you constantly unhappy.
Depression and burnout can take multiple years to get better, if after 6 months it takes to 2 weeks between depressive episodes instead of one, it's already huge progress. Also same thing with losing or gaining weight, take a healthy pace.
Take care of yourselves.
Biochemical Engineer doing cell culture research here; graduated from my undergrad a little over a year ago, and been at my current job for almost as long. I am fortunate that I don’t have any serious horror stories to tell or to share, though I suppose this one might come close. I handle most of the orders for my lab and have since my first week; it sounds uneventful because it usually is. Once when we received a shipment of sterile-wrapped filter bottles for culture media. I have to open and check each package to make sure that everything is undamaged and is what we ordered. Normally, I don’t need gloves for this. When I cut open and inspected this box of filter bottles, everything was coated in a layer of unknown orange powder, including the inner surfaces of the box; imagine my horror when I realized that my right palm was covered in it. I washed my hands for several minutes to make sure that whatever it was was cleared from my skin and wouldn’t cause and lasting harm. We received a free replacement for the box, but we still don’t know what that powder was. I am fine, and it’s been several months since it happened, but I still worry sometimes.
I am not a Chemist, dropped out in the first half of my Bachelor studies. In the second semester, during the first lab sessions (or internships, as we call em here), I've ended up with a depression. I never seeked help and somehow suffered through, having to cry for no reason all day and feeling severe pain, until finally having to drop out in the 4th semester.
It's somehow ashaming to me to confess that it was the "Ion Lotto" which actually broke me mentally.
When I tried to tell it my mom, her only reaction was that I don't have a depression, that I'm just in a very bad mood and that I should just get my shit together. That's one of the reasons I didn't seek help, I didn't want my parents to notice.
Now, I have graduated in the field of historical sciences and got a nice job right away. Chemistry is just a hobby for me now (not in the practical meaning, as home chemistry is pretty much impossible in my country, but purely theoretical).
However, I will still be visiting a therapist soon. As it turns out, I might have undiagnosed ADHD. It might have played a role in all the struggles of the last 7 years and it's goes beyond me, how nobody ever noticed anything for more than 26 years of my life.
Same thing as the last story happened recently in my university. I'm not there anymore but with colleagues in my current lab having graduated from there too the news travelled fast. Even though I didn't know him, it just hits hard when it happens in a place you know. Especially since we all had graduated very recently. That day was weird.
It's sad to think that at the last story, depressed people often seem "happy" this is a mask, it's known as the death knell, it's when they've made up their mind that it's over, suicide needs to be taken more serious and I'm glad you included the last story, major props to you
I came for this video faster than I did for my ex.
I feel special
The last one really makes me sad,. Perhaps it was the stigma that goes along with asking for help when your mind is giving you trouble I know a lot of people don't say anything because of the fear of getting on government lists and having their civil rights and constitutional rights violated
That last one got me. Thank you for being so open and empathetic. Wishing you well ❤️
Thanks for highlighting that last story in such a kind, responsible, and mature way.
Thanks for listening
I use to beable to handle these stories in my early 20s. Idk what happened but stories like this gut me so bad now that im almost 30.
Sadly simple mistakes can be costly. I had my own share of that when I dropped a Gallium 68 generator (it produces Gallium 68 from decaying Germanium 68 which is then used for PET scans. Hospitals that cannot afford a massive and expensive cyclotron can buy these instead if I understand the product correctly). This box is of course basically one big block of lead to shield for outgoing radiation and when transfering it into storage one slipped out of my hands, tilted in flight so one of the rounded edges caught my foot at the top and it slides down my foot like a slide on the playground. My foot wasn't hurt and the way down wasn't all that high, but you cannot open it up and just look if it is broken, neither is it a good idea to test it in operation 100 times, because the risk of it malfunctioning at the customer's end is simply too great. 100k down the drain.
their mistake was sending one person to lift a gigantic block of lead worth $100,000
Yeah what they said
Idk it it's happened yet, but i think they changed the suicide prevention hotline number to 988
I feel that last story though. STEM majors are brutal and some semesters of my ME degree I can't remember because I think my mind repressed them due to how traumatic they were.
It did happen already but the old number still works iirc.
Oh, sounds like the last story hit close to home for you. Props for reading it, and I hope all is well now.
Safety concerns aside eating the dirt would be the most dynamic chemical testing kit. Your tongue is made to detect chemicals.
That is very unsetteling to hear and hard to comprehend. We just recently had a similar accident on our University aswell involving cyanide-poisoning. :(
Quite moving at the end and very sad indeed. Life can be hard man, for most people. Hope you’re doing ok, hope your audience is doing ok!
If you ever doubt you’re not ok, please reach out!
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for treating that last story with the seriousness it deserved. I struggle with mental health, I actually dropped out of university (social sciences) because the stressful environment was making me feel suicidal. I'm still not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to a school setting. Actually, your videos have sparked an interest in science that I haven't felt in a while.
Science is cool if we use it to do cool things - as long as there is a real problem to work on, there is usually something cool we can do with science :)
I remembered one story regarding both highly toxic chemicals and explosions.
I was doing a lot of home chem at the time and during that (I honestly did not remember what was that for) I decided to make some hydrazine salts in crystal form (for those who doesn't know hydrazine is a really potent reduction compound sometimes used in rocket fuel). I made a solution of HClO4 and added hydrazine. It was going well enough at the time so I decided to just wait until water evaporates. At some point though I noticed that it wasn't making good progress so...
I decided to heat it up. Over an open-flame burner. It was going fine in the beginning (I only had like 15 ml of the solution) and at some point it started boiling. In the next 15 seconds though it also started foaming a lot and I decided to poke the foam with a glass rod. As soon as I touched the grey bubbles the whole thing violently exploded. It wasn't a "splashes all around"-type explosion either, it was more like a little sun burning 30 cm away from me. The explosion left no liquid parts of the solution present (I have a reason to think it the temperature of it was over 400°C) and filled the whole room with a thick hydrazine fog. I somehow vented it away in the next hour but initially it was so bad that I couldn't see the other wall across the room. Thankfully I don't think I got a hydrazine poisoning so I must say I got pretty lucky then haha
That's a lot of luck!!! Dam ..
YIKES
Once doing home chem, I was making hydrogen by reacting NaOH and Al foil. I did it in a plastic bottle since its wouldn’t have shrapnel if it blew up. When I was done, I dumped the liquid content down the sink, closed the bottle and went to eat before disposing of it because I was very hungry. Well, you can guess what happened. 10 minutes later I hear a massive explosion and screaming. It apparently exploded next to my brother and spewed staining and caustic materials every, and the hydrogen filled the room. He ran out, I ran in, opened the windows, and started cleaning. Good I didn’t use glass or harder plastic. Since then I have always cleaned, neutralised, or made sure that its safe to every mixture or reaction vessel. No major incidents since then, except a mild almost cresol poisoning but that wasn’t serious.
I once went to a cave, I think it was in Colorado Springs, and it was the only time I've ever heard someone specifically say not to lick the rocks. Specifically, it was some sort of salt compound that would give you violent diarrhea if you got it in your system.
I work in an environmental sampling lab, where I am part of the team that sorts and labels samples for testing. Various tests have different tolerable holding times due to preservation or sensitivity reasons. One of the most common is Biochemical Oxygen Demand, BOD, which is a hold of 2 days. The other day I learned we offer Long Term BODs, which take place over 4 months, 120 days to be precise. I had to label and deliver my first LTBOD to the lab, and the tech who signed off acknowledging the delivery was like "hey, BODs? Cool, I can take those."
When I told him it was a long term test I saw the life drain from his eyes. It was both hilarious and depressing. I feel so sorry for him.
Was he just depressed because he has to set up a 4-month long experiment essentially?
@@That_Chemist I guess so, probably also takes up equipment
Having lost very close family to depression, and having depression in a large part because of it, it is almost surprising to me when the topic evokes so much emotion
I personally don't have the ability to feel like that anymore, even after my mental health has improved and I'm now much less apathetic.
A while ago I found out from one of my dad's classmates what he got up to in his spare time when they were apprentices at the Newport News Shipyard in the late 1950s. He and the classmate and a few other fellow apprentices (including one who was in the chem lab) formed an informal rocketry club -- and got up to the sort of shenanigans that one might expect from young engineering apprentices with access to a shipyard of equipment and scrap materials and 1950s-era oversight.
Their finest moment was when they had the idea to build a rocket nozzle out of magnesium. And where does one test a rocket with a nozzle made of magnesium? They found a secluded spot of the beach to launch it from, which was carefully selected to be right in front of the admiral's house, and launched it late in the evening. It was absolutely gloriously light-up-the-night bright, and the admiral was hopping mad, but they didn't get caught.
I gather that eventually they had an incident where they had an eight-foot rocket that didn't light off from the fuse, and one of their more-reckless members decided to try to get it to light with a match (or something about equivalent), with his dog tagging along. Apparently this worked, rather suddenly with a loud noise and cloud of smoke, and somehow the fellow didn't get significantly hurt, but the dog had simply disappeared -- about ten minutes later they saw him in the distance trotting back from far down the beach. And they decided that maybe this might be a little more dangerous than they really wanted to continue with.
Somehow, I never heard any of these stories from my dad directly when I was a kid....
Thank you for sharing the last story. It’s great to see people supporting mental health awareness, even if it’s through a heart wrenching story.
Please keep up the hard work, you make chemistry interesting to someone who knows virtually nothing about it
Dang, that last story was tragic. I thought it was gonna end in a tragic accident, but something much more unfortunate happened instead. RIP Andi
Another expensive story: My NMR Professor told us he once had a PhD student, and only two people where allowed to change the probes in the NMR machines. The PhD student wasn't one of them, but she did it multiple times secretly. One day, she called the Professor that her keys where stuck in the NMR machine. She was concerned about not getting in her apartment that day, but the Professor was way more concerned about the immense cost of the repair man to get the machine demagnetized (more than 10000€). The NMR worked again after a lot of money was spend on it's repair, but never as good as before, so they had to replace it a few years later, making the total costs multiple millions.
Thank you for including that last story. It's important.
Thank you for powering through that last story as well as putting it in a video. Super important reminder.
that one Game Theory video about Ronnie shook me to my core when I saw it, so I treat such matters with great importance
Having flammable methane-air mixtures in the pipes downstream from a chem lab just feels like a bad idea.
Well there's not much that you can do about it. All sewers have methane in them.
I guess they could install some kind of trap to let the waste from the chemistry lab settle for a certain time before it flows into the rest of the network, but I don't know if it's standard procedure.
2:50 This reminds me of one story from my first year in university, though this involved physics students rather than chemistry students. In one lab we had to make a small electronic circuit for some purpose I don't remember anymore. One other student, who I think hadn't done any electronics stuff before, was slightly embarrassed and told that she had spent some time thinking the soldering iron wasn't working properly because there was no solder coming out of it. I guess it's not an unreasonable assumption if you don't know anything of soldering beforehand.
F
Recently the suicide hotline number was updated to 988, and is kind of the equivalent to 911 but for mental health. Thanks for sharing the last post
When you didn’t have a warning about a previous story where the guy blew himself up and someone walking their dog, but you did for this one, I knew it was going to be bad. And my intuition was correct, that was a pretty bad one.
Im gonna try to be more sensitive for stuff like that in the future
I am not a Chemistry guy, i am working on my PhD in Computer Engineering. But that final story resonates so hard, there are so many instances where I found myself struggling and just wanted to quit it all. But an understanding advisor helped me a LOT. He wouldn't ask for specifics but if you say you are struggling (mentally, financially, health-wise) he will do all he can to help you. While I agree that I got lucky with my PI and that most PIs are not so open and may even be cold and callous towards their students, I encourage all my peers in the grad journey to reach out when it is needed. Stay safe, happy, and healthy, friends.
My supervisor was telling me about when someone had mistakenly thrown away his product from a 10+ step synthesis he was doing in an industry job and chucked the contents into an organic waste winchester. He literally columned the whole thing. wild.
wow!
I doubt he got his material back
@@PlexusTen he’s not called the column thing for nothing
big respect for you including that last story
Obsidian? Why would the geologists call dragonglass obsidian?
100%
Ouch, that last one...
Hacking the algorythm by commenting on this one.
I'm going through suicidal thoughts periodically. I can manage them. The problem I have is, because I can manage them, nobody takes them seriously, when they do appear. The upside of this is, I can, sometimes, recognize a person about to go under.
God that last story was hard to hear man, it's always rough and I've lost count of the friends lost to suicide. It's rough and I try and be there for anyone I talk to and try to help them talk to more people than just me. Some times we just lose and you can't let that get you.
Last anecdote hits really really hard for me, as a suicide survivor myself i know that if at the time i had access to some seriously dangerous shit i would have managed to terminate myself.
It also hits deep because my motivations were similar, yet i was only 11, a gifted child with a fuckton of pressure their shoulders and the others that decided to harass me even further because of my looks
If you need help, seek it
I hope you’re in a good place now :)
@@That_Chemistrecently got into your channel, you're a good good man, bless you