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Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

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Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#101

Post by VirusNewbie »

leashless wrote: post #21

Tough road, kid, tough road. I had pretty serious brain damage when I was a child -- dyspraxia, dysgraphia, a bunch of other poorly-understood stuff -- and even today I'm still patchy. I've learned to have NT people handle the stuff I don't, like calendaring (I can't do time zones at all ) and to be sensitive about tabulated data. I'm 51 now, and I've had a fairly successful career spanning a number of fields. Two le…

The image of you having a movie trope training montage involving pac man and tai chi is amazing.

What careers did you pursue?

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#102

Post by DanBC »

AdviceAlt wrote: post #91
jchw wrote: post #5

Hey, sorry to hear about the bullies, I don't understand why everyone tolerates the tragically broken school systems we have (I'm in the U.S., and my experience with school wasn't great either. Nobody cares here either.) I can't give much in terms of life advice, but maybe you'll find this video from Strange Parts interesting, a YouTuber who almost lost everything due to a head injury and got terrible advice from wel…

Thank you for the link. It's good to know that people can heal with proper treatment. Getting that treatment is difficult in the UK. As a nation we've entirely committed to a national health system. It's broken and everyone knows it, but it's presented a binary option between the NHS and the American system: there is no discussion of the European health systems that appear, at least from the outside, to be significan…

> there is no discussion of the European health systems that appear, at least from the outside, to be significantly better.

Problems with the NHS are not about the model, they're about the funding. The current government has defunded Public Health, has defunded social care, and has defunded the NHS. They've also made it harder for people to immigrate to the UK. These decisions have caused immense pressure on the NHS.

We already have a Euro-style insurance model for dentistry, and everyone agrees it doesn't work.

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#103

Post by leashless »

AdviceAlt wrote: post #81
leashless wrote: post #21

Tough road, kid, tough road. I had pretty serious brain damage when I was a child -- dyspraxia, dysgraphia, a bunch of other poorly-understood stuff -- and even today I'm still patchy. I've learned to have NT people handle the stuff I don't, like calendaring (I can't do time zones at all ) and to be sensitive about tabulated data. I'm 51 now, and I've had a fairly successful career spanning a number of fields. Two le…

Thank you, that's good to hear.

America has a vast brain damage problem from explosions in Iraq and American football.

If you’re looking for ideas about how to recover from concussion damage they have a state of the art interest in the field.

GOOD LUCK!

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#104

Post by leashless »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #101
leashless wrote: post #21

Tough road, kid, tough road. I had pretty serious brain damage when I was a child -- dyspraxia, dysgraphia, a bunch of other poorly-understood stuff -- and even today I'm still patchy. I've learned to have NT people handle the stuff I don't, like calendaring (I can't do time zones at all ) and to be sensitive about tabulated data. I'm 51 now, and I've had a fairly successful career spanning a number of fields. Two le…

The image of you having a movie trope training montage involving pac man and tai chi is amazing. What careers did you pursue?

Well now…

Co-invented the world’s fastest voxel renderer in 1993

Paid for a year in digital currency… in 1999

Pioneered content management systems for really hairy databases in the early 2000s. One of those projects is still going.

Went into energy policy after 9/11. Editorial team for the Pentagon’s study on the future strategic significance of oil.

Cryptographic design work for the US Office of the Secretary of Defence around 2008

World class work on worst case scenario pandemics and sheltering people after nuclear terrorism around then too.

Project managed the Ethereum launch in 2015.

But the really interesting stuff is http://myhopeforthe.world

I’ve kept busy. :)

Not bad for a man who couldn’t write until 17

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#105

Post by vilvadot »

Sorry to hear about your attack.

It reminded me of Cory from Strangeparts, he had a concussion and seems to be handling it quite well, even recovering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs790JOeN3Y. Hope it can help you somehow.

Hope you best of luck with whatever you decide to pursue.

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#106

Post by warrenronsiek »

AdviceAlt wrote: post #88
warrenronsiek wrote: post #52

I strongly suggest getting into weight lifting. There is a growing body of evidence that it helps your brain repair itself. My personal experience is that I'm much smarter after I started lifting than before. As a bonus, people are less inclined to fight you. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/well/move/how-weight-trai... https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2020/06/lifting... https://www.health.harvard.edu/m…

I've also got repetitive strain injury in my wrists and fingers, and I finally started going to the gym recently to try to help with that. I haven't found cognitive improvement, but it's pretty much fixed the RSI in a quite counter-intuitive way. I hadn't heard of the effects on the brain - hopefully it helps me with that as well. I haven't been going long enough for any physical deterrent effect, but hopefully that…

My personal suspicion, not based on anything scientific, is that the strenuousness of the lifting needs to hit some non-trivial level before your brain (and body) starts to adapt.

I don't know what your routine looks like right now, but if you are looking for a place to start, I highly recommend Jeff Nippard's youtube channel. He has really good advice on routines etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMjyvIQbn9M&ab_channel=JeffN... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDlhPmT2SY&ab_channel=JeffN...

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#107

Post by VirusNewbie »

leashless wrote: post #104
VirusNewbie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image of you having a movie trope training montage involving pac man and tai chi is amazing. What careers did you pursue?

Well now… Co-invented the world’s fastest voxel renderer in 1993 Paid for a year in digital currency… in 1999 Pioneered content management systems for really hairy databases in the early 2000s. One of those projects is still going. Went into energy policy after 9/11. Editorial team for the Pentagon’s study on the future strategic significance of oil. Cryptographic design work for the US Office of the Secretary of Def…

Thanks for sharing the story, i’ll check out the site as well. It’s nice to hear about and get to know interesting folks on HN!

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#109

Post by AdviceAlt »

vanillacupcake wrote: post #74

How can I get in touch with you? This same thing happened to my sister and now she is a doctor at Harvard and helps a lot of people in the disabled community. She healed her brain and can share how she did it. She was older than you and had less neuroplacity.

That sounds great. I couldn't find an email in your profile - could you email me?

temporaryalt2930290@gmail.com

I realise it's a bit weird using alts for everything. I keep things to myself IRL and don't want people using me opening up online against me.

Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?

#110

Post by AdviceAlt »

moritonal wrote: post #31

I am in the UK, have memory issues and have mentored multiple people about careers in tech. Am happy to offer a bit of informal mentoring if you'd like to talk through your options. Feel free to reach out to me at tom+adalt@bonner.is

I've sent you an email from temporaryalt2930290@gmail.com . It might end up in spam.
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