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So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

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Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#231

Post by brundolf »

derangedHorse wrote: post #149
tluyben2 wrote: post #72

Same exact symptoms (the bass guitar string he heard is a thing that gave me ptsd like symptoms/crippling anxiety for a long time after) I had from a TIA when I was overworked. He waited getting a scan so they could've missed it later; my office was next to the hospital: nothing showed on the CT one hour after but on the RMI a couple of hours after they found a tiny lesion in one of the regions involved in forming sp…

I wouldn’t go to the hospital either. It’s funny because the more one tries to work and escape debt and financial ruin, the higher the chances are of needing to take an unexpected hospital and getting an unreasonably high medical bill. Some people aren’t in a place to pay insane medical debt, especially in the case where a multitude of tests need to get run and a problem isn’t found. There are a lot of weird things t…

On top of that it sounds like this person was a contractor, which means their health insurance situation was probably even more shaky and/or non-existent

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#232

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

sneak wrote: post #209
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #206

I told my firm. They put me "on the bench" for a couple of weeks. After a couple of weeks, they told me they couldn't pay me anymore. I wasn't bringing in money at that point. Mind you, I brought in millions of dollars leading up to that point. But I wasn't producing... Seriously. Compulsive corporate apologists can byte me.

The employment agreement is one of work hours for money. It's not a revenue share; for that, you need equity or to start your own business. For-profit corporations not being charities for the benefit of their current staff members is fact, not an apology. This is what insurance is for. Per the author's own admission, he didn't qualify because he didn't have a diagnosis when he made a claim.

Analytics seems like a fairly awful substitute for ethics.

and

I do like This is what insurance is for followed by sick guy operated outside of complex series of guidelines that help reduce the resources spent on actual care.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#233

Post by garganzol »

GordonS wrote: post #227
dreamcompiler wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Burning out all of the glucose and dopamine in your brain” isn’t a thing You may be right that it can't happen from overwork--I've never heard of it--but glucose starvation of the brain is very much a thing. That's what hypoglycemia causes. Type 1 diabetic patients get brain fog when they take too much insulin (which causes hypoglycemia). When it's mild, they can tell it's happening and they seek sugar, which fixes…

AFAIK, when it's mild your brain is not actually starved of glucose at all, and hypoglycemic symptoms (e.g. brain fog) are caused by your endocrine system changing hormone levels (such as cortisol) to "signal" your body that it needs glucose to increase blood sugar levels. If it gets severe enough, then the brain can run out of glucose and the person can die - but AFAIK the body prioritises the brain for fuel above a…

Glucose can be present in blood but the brain can be still unable to consume it due to diabetes (insulin absence) or some form of a mitochondrial disease (inability to transfer glucose to ATP via oxidation).

In both cases this is a panic situation from brain's point of view which is compensated by a spontaneous "stop" (seizure as OP seems to call it) and by injecting adrenaline with a corresponding response from endocrinal system (more glucose + more insulin).

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#234

Post by eloff »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #220
eloff wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced something like this in my early twenties. It was very scary. I was fully incapacitated for two weeks where I couldn't do anything or make decisions, even play games, and I couldn't touch code for months. I pushed myself too hard with too little sleep and that was combined with pressure from family. There was a feeling in my mind of something snapping and it was like throwing a switch. One minute I was t…

That physiological (it seems phy to my lay self) snap at the onset is really interesting. Is the understanding that it is a TIA/mini stroke?

I don't think so, but I remember the moment it happened. That day I was feeling more stretched and tired than I've ever been. It was the last day of university before spring break. Then my parents started pressuring me over my recently declared non belief in Christianity, and I felt like something in my "spirit", just broke or snapped in that moment. It was clearly defined instant in time where I was completely changed afterwards. I don't remember if it was like a physical pop, but I knew as soon as I felt it that something in my brain had just dramatically changed for the worse.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#235

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

1_player wrote: post #90
rapsey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What led him to those physical issues is however psychological. People need a work-life balance. No matter how interesting or awesome your job is. He unfortunately is still not looking inward for the actual cause of his problems. He just switched jobs to one less prone to overwork.

Sadly the story lacked the "why?" Why are you working so hard to give yourself seizures and ignore them? When is it a good time to just tell your boss fuck off I'm out? I don't know the guy, but I would understand if it was the case if he was trying to provide for his starving family in a third world country. One thing is reaching burnout, one thing is literally reaching the point of permanent physical damage and jus…

> Sadly the story lacked the "why?"

This is his 2nd post. It seems pretty why-ish.

In an effort to pay off debts & get ahold of my financial situation, I took every gig & side gig that I could.

I didn't have much choice. I had a family to take care of & a house I could no longer afford as my previous partner had left.

I worked every day, night, & weekend.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#236

Post by caddemon »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #65

> It was a physical issue. > My physical brain ran out of physical fuel. A bit limiting of a view on the events in my opinion. Our mental state directly influences our health. Attributing these kind of symptoms solely to physical factors misses the point, that the mental space is as real as the physical one and ignoring it has real effects. In an effort to be more like machines I think programmers forget that we do n…

I think the bigger issue with that statement is it reinforces the idea that mental issues are somehow meaningfully different than physical ones, and it's vindicating to identify a physical issue when a mental one was expected. IMO mental issues are pretty much just physical issues that we don't have even the slightest understanding of yet.

Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are one of the more fascinating examples of this, because there is a direct parallel to epileptic seizures. Aside from the fact it's not uncommon for people with epilepsy to be initially misdiagnosed as PNES (and vice versa), it's interesting what a stigma there is against PNES. The seizure-like behavior those patients display is completely beyond their control, yet it's often treated in a dismissive fashion such as "it's all in your head".

PNES is often overlooked in medical research, so most of the literature focuses on psychological explanations like childhood trauma. Trauma can certainly be a risk factor, but that is also how disorders like Schizophrenia were talked about way back in the day, and now we are at least starting to have some more physical explanations. I'm usually the last person to harp on women's issues, but I'll note PNES diagnosis is overwhelmingly female. Feels like we still have a long way to go from the days of "female hysteria".

If anyone wants to read a good memoir about dealing with epilepsy check out "A Mind Unraveled" by Kurt Eichenwald. At one point a neurologist tries to override his original diagnosis of epilepsy as actually being psychological in nature, but there are a number of other infuriating moments in that book.

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#237

Post by dr_kiszonka »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #183
vegardx wrote: post #124

This reads out exactly how a manic or hypomanic person would experience things and rationalize past events and feelings. The idea that it has to be something complex and in a sense grandiose compared to "just being burned out" is often a very telling sign. Perhaps it's Twitter forcing the format a little, but I could see myself thinking like this during a hypomanic episode. I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder (type 2…

This sounds exactly like a psychotic break to me. I had a massive one and it started with a pop in my mind followed by half a year of similar symptoms. In the end, I was diagnosed Bipolar type—1. Some people often ask, the story is here: https://kayode.co/blog/4106/living-with-psychosis/

Do you still experience yourself as a wolf with paws and wind in your fur?

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#238

Post by ta988 »

gverrilla wrote: post #229

I have a lot happen to me but at this point I know these people from medical industry just don't have proper answers and will parrott you what they have been thought or heard because they need to make paychecks otherwise they are screwed like everyone. Also they cannot identify this major social symptom, showing how little they really understand complex systems. Medical students are chosen through a very competitive…

Like in many high-skills high-competition jobs, people are selected on how much they can endure, not just how good they are. I've seen many excellent people just quit because the pressure with useless tasks was wearing them down. I often heard them tell me "I don't want to become a zombie like all of them" or things such as "Look at them, they are all trying to reproduce what they have been through because they have been convinced thats how you select good people"

Re: So I finally sorted out what happened to my brain

#240

Post by ta988 »

fho wrote: post #93
tluyben2 wrote: post #72

Same exact symptoms (the bass guitar string he heard is a thing that gave me ptsd like symptoms/crippling anxiety for a long time after) I had from a TIA when I was overworked. He waited getting a scan so they could've missed it later; my office was next to the hospital: nothing showed on the CT one hour after but on the RMI a couple of hours after they found a tiny lesion in one of the regions involved in forming sp…

Is that "bass guitar string" thing common? I had it twice, both times in a hot and cramped train and shrugged it up to "heat stroke".

I've had that as well. Especially in stressful or tiredness situations. Exercising and better food made them go away. That may be a spurious correlation with my n=1 but I guess exercise and better food will help long term anyway.
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