Ask HN: I'm disabled and out of money. Now what?

When my grandmother was in her 20's, her hair turned white and she started losing weight. Convinced it was psychosomatic, the doctors at the time gave her 10 rounds of electroshock therapy. Later it was discovered that she had Addison's disease, an autoimmune condition. All she needed was some medication.

So, let's say I'm skeptical when it comes to the "mind body connection".

This is brainstorming for what I might try if I were in your situation:

- try contracting! There are a lot of people who need a basic MVP written and do not have the skills themselves. Not everyone has a tight deadline, either, and if you're paid hourly, if you are too tired to work one day, no problem, they just don't pay you. Just set good expectations ("I can only commit to 20 hrs/wk, but may be able to do more", no need to mention why). Between skills, availability, and rate, there is a lot of room to maneuver: a very skilled US developer who can only work 10 hrs/wk but who charges a low rate might be quite worth it. (But choose clients carefully) I know Toptal has had a lot of these kind of jobs, and I expect the other agencies also have a lot.

- look for companies with lower expectations. From what I've heard (i.e. HN comments :), often small, non-tech companies might find even basic stuff really helpful. Also, big companies have a lot of time spent not-coding.

- you could specialize in understanding code to fix bugs. Fixing problems in million line code-bases involves a lot of reading and experiments, not banging out code. This pairs well with contracting, but this is also an asset to big companies.

- if your pain is physical (e.g. wrists), you might try voice input. My brother knows a blind developer (who uses Linux [!]), he presumably isn't typing 100 WPM, but is reliably employed.

- consider leveraging your technical abilities in other fields that don't involve typing/standing/sitting. As I understand it, technical sales (e.g. selling devices to engineers) requires understanding how the products benefit the customers and visiting customers, not cranking out code. "Applications engineering" is sort of like high-level tech support and consulting, and some engineering companies have a group like this.

- consulting to fellow founders. I'm sure you have something to offer.

- management or PM, and I assume you have experience with at least one of these as a founder. You can also do this as contract work; I've seen contract work for PMs, small team managers, and even CTO. (Presumably the CTO contract position was for a rather small company which was either too small to need a FT CTO, or bridging the gap until they found someone permanent.)

- tutoring HS math/science/programming. From what I've heard, tutoring rates can be quite good, especially if you target the market that can pay.

- if you need money right now, $1500/month at part time (80 hrs/month) is $19/hr, which is fairly achievable. This isn't fun or glamorous, but I know second-hand that doing phone support for AT&T, Verizon, etc. is paying about this; I expect they are always looking for people. My friend, who took the job (half-time) because of some physical limitations, went through a month of frustration, but came to an understanding of what the business goals/limitations are. He also quickly got promoted to trainer, so he enjoyed his role more. Not something you'd want to make a career out of, but it would stabilize the situation, and you'd still have 80 hrs to explore alternatives.

Also, this probably isn't a popular HN approach, but if your pain is physical, you could try divine healing. Find a charismatic church and ask for prayer for healing; if it doesn't work, at least it'll probably be a new experience. If you're near Redding, CA, the Bethel Healing Rooms has hundreds of people that come every Saturday, and I personally know a number of people that have been healed. (Don't read too much on the web, though, there are a lot of opposition to Charismatics that are opposed because of doctrine and take stuff all out of context. All the naysayers are really motivated to make websites going into depth about all the failings, but all the people that have a great experience don't have a burning desire to create websites about it, so search results are really skewed.)

I wonder if one could get oneself a piece of land far enough from cities and raise chickens or a cow or a couple of goats. A garden or similar helps.

In other words, back to good old days!

Is it practical?

Here is an interesting news article I saw recently about chronic pain, in case it is useful. It seemed like it could be a balanced look at the field of managing it, now, for what it may be worth: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/27/health/haider-warraich-chroni...

I became disabled due to chronic fatigue syndrome, and as I progressed until gradually unable to keep a job, I also went through what you are of being denied disability benefits, but a good doctor (specialist) helped me w/ an attorney referral, which along with letters from former coworkers. HR and family as to my condition, some careful record-keeping (hard and draining), and being able to stay with family until things stabilized more, were a big help when I went to the administrative law judge finally about it. My security is church and family, family and church (and given the government's track record, that is where it will stay--maybe states could do better, but I don't think the US fed ever could--long set of experiences there).

So I can sympathize: even though our conditions are different, I think there is some overlap. For my situation at least, graded exercise therapy or the belief it is all in one's head, are very unhelpful ideas (much could be said).

But now things have stabilized, I believe I will get better eventually, and there is hope for me, and there is hope for you. Don't ever give up.

Here is another recent article (related to overcoming depression with a multi-pronged approach, not trying to do everything at once but in thoughtful steps), which I thought was very good (has some religious aspects, which are actually relevant): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2022/07/07...

Again, don't give up. It can really get to where things are OK.