Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?
Your situation and mine seem very similar, it sounds like.  I went to a technical high school, then studied computer science in university.  My concussion came when I was 33 and my post-concussion syndrome just entered its 11th year.  I wasn&#x27;t able to do much of anything for several months, certainly not programming, but also not reading, nor even watching TV for more than ~15 minutes at a time.  A neuropsychological exam was extremely interesting, I thought, picking out the specific areas that were most affected.  My &quot;verbal fluency&quot; dropped precipitously, for instance.  While talking, my brain will sometimes just stop mid-sentence for several seconds, or I can&#x27;t find the right words.  It&#x27;s like a stutter, but where someone stuttering knows the word they want to say, I can&#x27;t get to that point.<p>Over that first year, though, things did slowly improve.  I started working again, as a software developer, but only a couple hours a day.  &quot;Find a supportive employer&quot; isn&#x27;t helpful advice, I know, and I was extremely lucky I was working at such a place.  The important piece, though, is that I was able to start finding routines and patterns with how much mental energy I&#x27;d have at different points in the day and week.  Around the one year mark, I&#x27;d improved enough and found a routine that let me get back to working full time, but on an altered schedule.  I work a few hours in the morning, take several hours off, then finish my day later on.<p>Experimenting to figure out how much I could do at a stretch, and what sort of breaks I needed in between working periods, let me understand my injury a lot more and adapt my life around it.  I&#x27;d feel best Monday mornings, after a weekend, but if I didn&#x27;t watch my work time like a hawk, I&#x27;d be useless come Thursday or Friday.  There&#x27;s the mental health &quot;spoons&quot; metaphor, where you get a certain number of spoons per day, then everything you do costs some number of them.  When you&#x27;re out of spoons, you&#x27;re out, and there&#x27;ll be stuff you just can&#x27;t do.  It&#x27;s the same for me, but I think of it as a weekly thing.  I get my 40 units of brain-on time each week or so.  Working counts against that heavily, but even something like listening to music in the car runs down the clock.<p>So, all that said, first, you&#x27;ve got my deepest sympathies.  I hope your condition improves soon!<p>As some more practical advice, practice advocating for yourself, and when you&#x27;re unable to, try to find someone who can on your behalf.  Don&#x27;t be cagey about it either, but tell your friends why -- &quot;Sorry, I can&#x27;t, my headache is awful right now and I just need to be alone and quiet.&quot;  Don&#x27;t be afraid to cancel plans either.  It&#x27;s frustrating to have to do so, but if the result of attending is having to spend the next 24 hours in a dark room, it&#x27;s probably not worth it.  You might put some people off, but your friends will understand.<p>Next, find hobbies that don&#x27;t tax your brain, or at least, don&#x27;t tax your brain in the same way.  Programming as a hobby is pretty much off the table for me, for instance.  Doing crossword puzzles, though, seems like it exercises different parts of my mind.  I designed and build a 3d printer, and continue to tinker with it.  I&#x27;ve delved deeper into more aspects of photography.  There are plenty of options, but the important thing is to find some things that won&#x27;t drain you, leaving you able to do the work&#x2F;school stuff you have to do, but also not making you sit idly by while you recollect your energy.<p>Finally, regarding work and school, I&#x27;d suggest avoiding freelance work.  It&#x27;s more stressful, since it&#x27;ll be on you to continually find work.  It&#x27;s also easy to end up as the single person who can fix someone else&#x27;s urgent problem, which is exactly what you don&#x27;t want, especially early on during recovery.  If you go to university, look for job resources there.  There might be on-campus jobs to apply for, which would probably be part-time gigs, or something similar for external companies.  Either way, try to develop relationships and prove your value to the staff and faculty, then parlay that into a longer-term role.<p>Once again, best of luck to you.  I hope this has been helpful in some way -- if so (or if not), feel free to PM me if I can help, or you just want to vent about the neurotypicals.