Ask HN: How to navigate the world as a brain-damaged 17 year old?
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 <i>at all</i>) and to be sensitive about tabulated data. I'm 51 now, and I've had a fairly successful career spanning a number of fields.<p>Two lessons from my experience.<p>1) the brain is incredibly plastic and over time figures out how to get things done<p>2) intense practice of very simple activities leads to very surprising and dramatic rewards -- video games with a strong hand-eye coordination component vastly improved my dyspraxia (at my age, we're talking Pac Man in arcades!) and then I moved on to tai chi. Deliberate practice of very simple things seems to be powerfully transformative for people struggling with neurological issues in general.<p>I don't know how much it helps, but strong odds there is a future. The year between A Levels and university to give yourself time to heal before you go straight into the next thing is a great idea. I also imagine there's a <i>ton</i> of emotional fall out from your attack and that also takes time to heal.<p>Shit hand of cards. You sound like you're doing a good job of coping. Keep on going it will improve over time.