You are not your mistakes, and there is a natural human margin of error. Mistakes make us human and it's what every single one of us has in common.
You seem to be a super bright guy who experienced a momentary lapse in judgement fuelled by emotion. We all do this, it's just not always public.
Also- I don't know how old you were at the time this story occurred but according to neuroscience, the frontal lobe doesn't develop until we are 25-27 years old (males develop later than females) and this is exactly the type of mistake the frontal lobe prevents us from making.
I hope you've recovered from this incident and have learned to not take these mistakes too personally...
I've been pretty open in that situations probably get exacerbated for me because I have a mental illness - anxiety, depression and adult ADD (I refuse to call it ADHD, I'm not hyperactive!). I manage these better now, but it still leaks into my life. I'm extremely lucky I have a supportive wife and two small children who keep my mind off things and let me focus on what's important :-)
>Adults with ADHD are often perceived by others as chaotic and disorganized, with a tendency to need high stimulation to be less distracted and function effectively. Additionally, many adults suffer from associated or "co-morbid" psychiatric conditions such as depression or anxiety.[13]
>Symptoms of ADHD can vary widely between individuals and throughout the lifetime of an individual. As the neurobiology of ADHD is becoming increasingly understood, it is becoming evident that difficulties exhibited by individuals with ADHD are due to problems with the parts of the brain responsible for executive functions (see below: Pathophysiology). These result in problems with sustaining attention, planning, organizing, prioritizing, and impulsive thinking/decision making.
Hope I'm being useful -- a close family member was in the same boat. I was able to help, because it was me who randomly saw someone talking about this on an HN comment and I dived further into the world of ADHD and found out that it may not be 'classical' depression, but depression caused by something else. Since then, there's been complete emotional stability, rational decision making and depression is controlled completely.
Lastly, Chris... what you did I think was not a bad judgement call at all. In my mind you were making something right, and fixing a wrong because that was the only tool available to you. Debating something just takes forever and some things need to be fixed there and then. What happened to you, is simply disgusting. I am sorry for that, and I hope you can look back on it as a good memory and not a bad memory (which is tough).
I ran a massive community as the real admin, but the same sort of thing happened to me as well. Been years since I left but it's still sore to think about.
You seem to be a super bright guy who experienced a momentary lapse in judgement fuelled by emotion. We all do this, it's just not always public.
Also- I don't know how old you were at the time this story occurred but according to neuroscience, the frontal lobe doesn't develop until we are 25-27 years old (males develop later than females) and this is exactly the type of mistake the frontal lobe prevents us from making.
I hope you've recovered from this incident and have learned to not take these mistakes too personally...
Even calculators make mistakes.