Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market
I&#x27;m one of these missing men. I&#x27;m currently 35, and have been working as a software engineer since I was 19. Two years ago, I started experiencing excruciating, unrelenting low back pain that eventually required me to leave my job and go on long term disability.<p>I loved my job. I worked at MongoDB in Palo Alto for 3 years, contributing to the core database (C++) and designed a performance testing platform (among other things). It was a true pleasure to have worked with some extraordinarily brilliant people throughout my career. I biked ~5 miles to work from the house I shared with my partner in Atherton. Life was perfect.<p>I now live with my parents in Florida, and have symptoms that have progressed to what could be MS (I&#x27;m undergoing a complete work up at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL).<p>Life sucks. I&#x27;m depressed, but who wouldn&#x27;t be? I also take prescription pain medicine, which helps me get out of bed and shed some of the 105lbs I&#x27;ve gained since this started. Being 6&#x27;2&quot; and 285lbs is depressing in it&#x27;s own right.<p>That said, I want to stress two things:<p>1. Opioids are daemonized by the media, but there is no better option (aside from suicide). The implied correlation with pain medication in this article seems to reinforce the stigma I&#x27;ve been facing; that somehow I&#x27;m lazy, weak or an addict. But all I can offer is my word.<p>Like most people who enjoy software engineering, I gained immense gratification from solving difficult problems, learning new things, and completing a piece of software I&#x27;m proud of. Opioids don&#x27;t replace that feeling (for me anyway). Nothing does. But the lesions on my brain make writing software effectively impossible.<p>2. Debilitating conditions predicate losing a job and starting pain medication. Maybe some people are just lazy and hate their jobs, but please don&#x27;t punish me (and others like me) for it. Even if they&#x27;re in the majority, please don&#x27;t punish me. I suffer enough.