Ramblings on Librarianship, Technology, and Academia

TinkerSec has a powerful thread here on working so hard he gave himself seizures, eventually getting a diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder, that rings so familiar (for all that what happened to him was neurological and what happened to me was... well, also almost certainly neurological, but presents as structural).

It all reads like my experiences, 20 years ago. The doctor who told him that his physiologically-caused overuse injury was depression and anxiety. The fact that he kept working through it whenever he could, until I kept going [until] I couldn't "push through" anymore... couldn't will myself to physically keep working. And then, this:

And to be clear, as folks are asking...

I'm not "better" per se.

I'm not back to where I was before this started.

I am at a place where I can work again, meaningfully. But I'm not certain I'll be back to where I was...

As Marines say, I'm "serviceable."

— Tinker (TinkerSec) April 30, 2021

Even the HackerNews tools who came out of the woodwork to tell him he was making it up feel familiar.

Yo, folks, I know somebody out there has told you that it's impossible to give yourself a serious injury unless you're a lumberjack. Meanwhile the list of things that has given just people I've met permanent overuse injuries includes: programming; working a cash register; scooping ice cream; being the parent of an infant or a toddler; and obviously warehouse work. Bodies are janky. Respect what they tell you.