To interact with others you need to really break your
  focus, but that causes you to slow down, so maybe you try
  not to do it, and before you know it everyone else has
  gone home and it is dark and you're wandering through 
  an empty parking lot...

Supposing that programming is indeed more isolating than other professions, that programmers are personalities more prone to isolating themselves in the first place and that this leads to a significant amount of mental health problems. What could Zed write that, in similar vein to the remarks about various physical conditions, would prevent people from acquiring those problems? What could you have read and understood and believed enough to have stopped you from taking on a job during which you went 18 months without enough social contact?

(Not trying to bait you, just honestly wondering what you think would help, because I feel I only solve/understand such things by experiencing them)