Find something worthy to think for, that takes a lot of thinking.
Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
71–80 of 97 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is insanely bad advice, IMO. Anger is very hard to control, can easily backfire into self-loathing and cause you to strain existing relationships, which can also further fuel internal anger at oneself. If you get mad about what happened to you and start lashing out at others, you risk isolating yourself and deepening your depression.
I'm studying emotional philosophy and I think it's great advice. Executive function disorders stem from an inability to healthily feel and use anger. If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult. Fear and anger are like look and leap. People who can't feel anger can only look and never leap.
> If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult.
Why is this the case?
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m in the exact position as the OP. In fact this feels like a description of myself. I could barely achieve the simplest of tasks, so I quit my job. I just did nothing at home for a bit, now I’m backpacking. It’s been 2 months and so far my mental health hasn’t improved one bit. I still feel like my brain is trapped in mud; anything that requires minimum mental effort takes an insurmountable amount of energy. I’m no…
If today you only had 20% to give, and you gave it. You gave 100%. If today all you could do was: Brush your teeth then go back to bed. You've accomplished. We are not PRODUCTIVITY MACHINES. We are humans, just like birds are birding, squirrels are squirreling, bees are beeing? I'm not saying to stay complacent, but we humans in this current society have set ourselves for failures. OMG! I'm not making 250k a year, i'…
> If today you only had 20% to give, and you gave it. You gave 100%.
> If today all you could do was: Brush your teeth then go back to bed. You've accomplished.
I think this is especially important to remember during the negative self-talk cycles. For awhile I would try and push through telling myself things are in the past, I have moved on and it's time to look forward etc and would fail miserably. Then would hate on myself for failing my expectations on top of losing my ability to connect thoughts like I use too, or even come up with new ideas or see how systems worked anymore. So I started traveling regularly, 8-10 intl trips a year (with a few domestic) and while there were flashes of brilliance, mostly it was as dull and numb as everything else, and only slightly helped with life satisfaction, but not so much for the cognitive issues.
After a few years the slivers of color started coming back into my world, then covid hit. Right around the start I came down with long covid for about 12-18/mo (I assume, my mental processing felt like it no longer existed/got even worse than before and that it would never come back this time).
The negative self-talk cycle started back with a vengeance. At one point I started having panic attacks which I never had before, and at the time, didn't know what was happening. It forced me to accept the small steps forward. Where, if today I can take a shower, put on clean clothes and go to the grocery store and systematically go through the isles picking up each item without getting annoyed by other people "in my way/front of what I need", it was a successful day. With bonus points if I acknowledged other peoples existence or engaged in pleasantries with someone (most likely the cashier). These kinds of actions/goals were not the types of things I ever thought would make me feel like I had a successful day. Learning to see success in way that success was measured by what I could do - really changed things for me.
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#74Become a student of energy. Study Tesla’s work. Create art. Yoga.
Surrender to life. Read The Surrender Experiment.
Stop following your preferences and follow your pain in order to rewire.
Learn how to lead with your heart. It’s infinitely more wise than your mind. The mind thinks, the heart knows.
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was in a similar position to you a couple of years ago. Burned out and quit my job, burned through my savings instead. After two months I felt no improvement and was beating myself up for being a failure, but after ten months I felt oddly re-energised, and ready to resume working. I don't know what changed, I think it was just time taken to recover my mind. I wish you the best, it's a difficult state of mind to be…
Thanks for the comment, really appreciate it! I was kind of expecting a gradual change but it’s good to hear other people have been in the same boat.
After years of burnout and depression, I've just finished 6 months sabbatical and in retrospect, I think mental improvement started at ~4 months in. After 6 months I felt like I went back 5 years.
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#76Throw away your smartphone, go outside two hours a day and exercise for 60 minutes at a time
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm studying emotional philosophy and I think it's great advice. Executive function disorders stem from an inability to healthily feel and use anger. If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult. Fear and anger are like look and leap. People who can't feel anger can only look and never leap.
> If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult. Why is this the case?
Nearly every statement in this entire thread needs to have a 'maybe' inserted somewhere in it.
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm studying emotional philosophy and I think it's great advice. Executive function disorders stem from an inability to healthily feel and use anger. If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult. Fear and anger are like look and leap. People who can't feel anger can only look and never leap.
> If you had a parent who monopolized expressions of anger during your childhood, you're going to have problems with executive function as an adult. Why is this the case?
Anger's the 'do something' emotion. We associate it with the big 'do something' events like flipping over a table, but it also governs everything you do all day long.
Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#797 years ago I started a startup. I must have burned out at least 4 times each of those years. Several of those burnouts were severe enough to result in trauma, and each time the negative cognitive impact increased to the point I hit some kind of permanent life burnout. Just like you describe, I was on a rapid decline: major fatigue, fog, indecisiveness, blanking, low confidence, poor social interaction, etc. I tried…
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Re: Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb
#807 years ago I started a startup. I must have burned out at least 4 times each of those years. Several of those burnouts were severe enough to result in trauma, and each time the negative cognitive impact increased to the point I hit some kind of permanent life burnout. Just like you describe, I was on a rapid decline: major fatigue, fog, indecisiveness, blanking, low confidence, poor social interaction, etc. I tried…
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manipulative. he shows some bad random quotes about how keto carb research was framed in some texts, and then tells that words like that no of great use and science matter. why you show me these words then?