
What I Learned from a Stroke at 26: Make Time to Untangle - allsystemsgo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/jobs/what-i-learned-from-a-stroke-at-26-make-time-to-untangle.html?smid=fb-share
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verisimilidude
I spent several years in my mid-twenties working like the author, pretty much
non-stop. At the lowest point, I fell into a weird sleep pattern: I'd crash as
soon as I got home around 6:00 in the evening, then wake up around midnight
and be back at work by 1:00 am.

It took an old friend's suicide to jolt me out of it. I saw a lot of my old
buddies at the funeral and started reestablishing those friendships. We played
a lot of video games. Xbox Live probably saved my life. The worst thing about
overwork is that it becomes difficult to imagine yourself doing anything else
when you're in the thick of it, like it doesn't even occur to you that you
should be spending your time elsewhere; I wonder if any of you have
experienced this. Thankfully, even something as inconsequential as Halo was
enough to help me rearrange my priorities.

~~~
throwaway28935
For me it was the opposite. The whole time I was overworking I was aware and
wishing I wasn't and very much imagining myself doing other things. Now I'm
aware and wishing I was back to normal and working.

I spent about 4 years working flat out. If I was awake I was working, trying
to keep the income coming after the recession hit. Then something snapped. The
now ex-wife had to unwind the things I was part way through.

Since then I can't do anything productive. I spend all the time wasting time
with tv, games and online. Or often literally just nothing. If I try and do
something productive like finding work again, or even simple like tidying the
house I seize up with a mental resistance I find hard to describe. The more
effort and willpower, the more the resistance increases. Even if I get started
I've dropped out to go back to doing nothing within 10 minutes. Most days
start with a resolution and to do list, but end with another day wasted. It's
wrecked my career, relationship and social life.

I've been to a few doctors, but I've never gotten anything even a bit helpful.

~~~
pipio21
You do procrastinate. What is happening is that you basically forced yourself
to work when you did not want to for so long, your emotional system learned
that work is pain, basically.

Think of this like a Paulov conditioning a dog to have an electric shock every
time he lights a bulb. At the end the dog avoids the lightbulb at all cost,
even when not lighted.

Forcing yourself to do something painful trained your brain and created a
trauma with work, as simple as that. Your body wants to help you not letting
you work because: 1 work is associated as painful and 2 you can avoid it on
the short term, so you avoid it.

A good psychologist can help you easily solve the issue, but probably there
are not good ones or are expensive for you on your current situation. A bad
one could also damage you btw.

So my advice is for you start learning about psychology yourself and learn how
to recover from a traumatic experience using self help info. It is not
difficult, basically is facing the traumatic experience but with a good
outcome or getting rid of beliefs like "work is painful" that you learned over
time. And of course, making work something pleasurable or at least neutral.

Think of this as a curiosity or funny game you play, not like work to do. You
could start with "Wake up productive" of Eben Pagan, "The now habit" audiobook
and training to remove specific beliefs.

If you are broke you can pirate it. Then pay for it when your life is better.

Forget resolutions and to do list by now. It is making it worse as it is
introducing guilt for what you should do, adding more emotional pain.

Start making your life better, independently of your job. Eat well, exercise,
enjoy beautiful and cheap places, the best things in life cost nothing...if
you are jobless you are lucky and could go to amazing places when people are
working, specially in overworked America! Go outside, no inside, and met
people.

Start being grateful and enjoying your current situation. It looks crazy but
is exactly what you need. Look at it as the opportunity to learn and be a much
better person in the future that what you were.

~~~
GFischer
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is exactly for this kind of problems.

I'm not sure where the original poster is, but here in my country, you can get
free therapy by going to the training/university centre.

You get therapy by postgraduate trainees (but very sharp and with everything
fresh), and supervised by some of the very best, unaffordable professionals :)

Here's a list in the United States (where I guess the poster lives):

[http://www.academyofct.org/lowcost/](http://www.academyofct.org/lowcost/)

pipio21's suggestion of self-directed therapy seems to be validated :) :

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/depressed-
tr...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/depressed-try-therapy-
without-the-therapist/)

~~~
throwaway28935
You guessed well. :)

Thanks for the links, I wouldn't immediately have thought of universities.

I like pipio21's suggestions as they sit very well with current situation.

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gerbilly
I've been thinking about this lately and I've concluded that a big driver of
overwork is the misguided quest for fulfillment.

Not really fulfillment like we normally call it, I'd say more like acceptance.

Perhaps many of us are seeking love and acceptance from bosses and coworkers,
and overworking ourselves to obtain it.

I believe that building your identity on anything that isn't yours is
stressful. Building your ego on your job performance or on the positive
feedback you get from coworkers isn't healthy.

It's like emotional sharecropping. You are building your ego on someone else's
land.

People need to remember that work is the place where they have "human
resource" departments, where they will make cut and dried decisions on who to
retain and who to lay off the moment they want to adjust a budget.

~~~
infodroid
> many of us are seeking love and acceptance

I would go further than that, because I don't think this gets to the heart of
the matter. The main driver of overwork is the promise of higher status that
certain cultures bestow on those who pursue it [1]. The respect of bosses and
the admiration of coworkers are just the consequences. As are the material
benefits, like the increased salary and all the things it might buy.

Yet advising overworkers to stop looking to others for positive feedback is
not going to work for everyone. A large proportion of people identify as
extroverts, people who need validation from others in order to feel good about
themselves. And it's unrealistic to expect extroverts to be happy with valuing
their self-worth the way introverts do.

[1] Alain de Botton has a great book on this topic entitled Status Anxiety:
[http://alaindebotton.com/status/](http://alaindebotton.com/status/)

------
cesarbs
I'm 28 and have severe hypochondria, so this article was a terrifying read.
Having a stroke is my #1 fear. But reading it makes me feel good about having
shifted my attitude to work after I got married. I don't think I'll ever be
the workaholic that I was in my early 20s, because my priorities have shifted
so much after getting married and I've become especially frightened of the
idea of stressing myself out to the point of suffering something like a
stroke. The last thing I want in my life is to burden my wife with having to
take care of a disabled me.

In fact, I don't think it's only work that can lead to bad health issues
caused by stress. I have my whole routine designed to have a low stress life.
I avoid bringing in anything into my life that might be a major source of
stress. I keep everything as simple as possible.

On the symptoms side of things though, I now have to go to the doctor. Again.
Reading about the buzzing in the right eye and the tingling was terrifying
because I've been feeling something similar for the past few months. So onto
my 4th brain scan in the past few years... Sigh. Hypochondria is a bitch.

~~~
daeken
> On the symptoms side of things though, I now have to go to the doctor.
> Again. Reading about the buzzing in the right eye and the tingling was
> terrifying because I've been feeling something similar for the past few
> months. So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years... Sigh.
> Hypochondria is a bitch.

I really hope you find a way to handle this that doesn't involve very
expensive reassurance from doctors. I experience something very similar when I
read about heart conditions; I go into a spiral of anxiety where I believe my
heart is failing, even though countless doctors have assured me that I'm
perfectly fine there. Isn't the human brain just a ton of fun?

~~~
M_Grey
The trick is to accept that we're animals, and that meta-cognition is only a
part of the game we're playing. We have to figure out ways to deal with the
less expressive and more primitive parts of ourselves that don't respond as
well to that "internal voice". Sometimes you just have to count primes and
take deep breaths, even if it feels silly.

~~~
mercer
I try to remind myself of that whenever I am anxious. Sometimes it helps,
sometimes it doesn't. Meditation has also had some positive effect, as has
CBT.

But man does it feel weird that my brain is aware of its own misbehavior and
yet can't master it.

~~~
M_Grey
It's a humbling experience, especially if (as I'm sure many here are) you're
an analytical sort, used to problems being resolved with focus and attention.

------
tluyben2
Same experience in the early 2000s at 28; worked like a maniac in a fast
growing company (co founded by myself); we had huge clients and made bucket
loads of money (Deloitte fast 50 for years) but we were understaffed as our
hiring did not keep up with the growth: I worked 7 days, 8 to 10 and usually
more after getting home. I came in one monday went to the toilet when suddenly
my arm fell down next to me, I stumbled, remember a crackling sound in my head
and not much more after that until many hours later in the hospital. Unlike
OP, I had to spend 1 week (esp the first 24 hours as they are crucial) for
observation and tests in a special stroke ward. They could not find any cause.
I know there is not much proof for the stress having to do much with stroke or
high bloodpressure but I am sure that was the cause anyway. I remember that
choking feeling of thats stress and pressure. I packed up and moved to Spain
with my wife; started working sane hours from home.

To be clear: number of working hours have not much to do with stress levels: I
sometimes still work long hours but since I never felt anything like that kind
of pressure I had then. And I never will; it was silly and unproductive but as
my first big company and successful startup (which gave me financial freedom
early on), I did not have many history to fall back on and the advice around
me was of a 'do not stress so much' kind of unhelpful level.

It took me years to get over the anxiety of getting another stroke and my
speech is still not what it was before; I cannot pronounce some English words
correctly even though I know how to and used to be able to. But it does not
impair my life or work: people seem to like that Dutch English accent while my
previous English was more perfect.

~~~
lostlogin
Could you clarify - did you have a stroke? Your post says you were observed
and no cause was found. Do you mean that no cause for the stroke was found? Or
no cause for the symptoms?

~~~
tluyben2
No cause for the stroke. The symptoms were clearly from a stroke (a black spot
on the mri if i remember correctly). A 'youngstroke' for which they had a
special team in the hospital.

------
hourislate
I gave way too much to more than one job when I was young. As I transitioned
into my 30's I began to think very differently about work. It wasn't my #1
priority anymore. By the time I coasted into my 40's I was just looking for
somewhere I could become a number and disappear. A good paying Corporate job
or contracting.I like environments where a huge bureaucracy exists to slow
things down. Ride it out to retirement. It's working out well for me. Don't
have a lot of piss and vinegar left. Like to enjoy my family, my cars, travel,
quiet times. I can piddle a whole day away just messing around in the garage
and it feels so rewarding. I think it is the Spanish who have a
saying....."It's nice to relax after a day of doing nothing".

~~~
ams6110
This is what a lot of 25 year olds who say "I can't imagine ever not working,
not learning new stuff" don't understand. Of course they can't imagine it. I
couldn't either when I was 25. But when you're 50, you can really feel like
there are better things to do than work your ass off for someone else's
benefit or entertainment.

~~~
hobo_mark
There's a wide spectrum between GP's "doing the least I can get away with" and
your "slaving for the man".

This week I have to be on holiday, so I'll be working on a project I love and
"learning new stuff", for nobody else's benefit or entertainment other than my
own.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think it varies by character. My stepfather only really stopped working when
he suffered a pretty serious stroke. Prior to that, even when he wasn't
employed, he was still working in his home lab, inventing stuff. (He's an
electrical engineer, not a super villain or a crank - he wasn't inventing
death rays or anti-gravity, but he holds a couple of patents on inventions
that have made other people a few million dollars or so. Plus, during one of
his "retirements", he worked on the gas chromatograph on the Phoenix lander.)

On the other hand, I'm more likely to fall into Employee Number Whatsit
situation - we have a seven month old kid, and there are definitely days when
I wish I could just coast along with my red stapler until she turns 18 and
moves out of the house, to say nothing of really putting in time to work on
projects and hobbies at home.

------
infodroid
It's sad that the author effectively blames himself for overworking and the
resulting stroke. It might be the more socially-acceptable explanation, but
there is more to it than that. He wouldn't be clocking 70 hours a week and
bearing "self-imposed tortures", while ignoring the symptoms of exhaustion,
unless his peers and the wider society rewarded it, as part of a self-
destructive feedback loop. And we are all complicit in it, since we keep
praising people who successfully "hustled ... up the chain of command",
"managed to survive layoffs", and are now "leading development and marketing
for a team" after only a few months. Overworking is nothing to celebrate and
it shouldn't be a role model for anyone. We shouldn't reward this behavior
when we encounter it.

------
f_allwein
Good cautionary tale. There was also the case of a 21-year-old Bank of America
Merrill Lynch intern who was found dead in a shower at his London flat after
working for 72 hours in a row:
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/22/moritz-
erha...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/22/moritz-erhardt-
merrill-lynch-intern-dead-inquest)

Don't let this be you.

------
randomacct44
What the?

"When I was discharged from the hospital late the next day, the cabdriver
asked me, “Where do I take you?” I couldn’t remember the name of my street. I
handed him the discharge paperwork with my address on it, arrived home and
slept for a long while."

How does someone who just had a stroke get discharged from hospital the next
day, to a taxi?

~~~
callmeal
Welcome to America.

~~~
mhurron
So many people need to have something like this personally slap them in the
face before they realize how bad the healthcare system is in the US. Maybe
some can learn from this instead.

~~~
kajjffkk
Well isnt the alternative is to stay in the hospital longer and increase the
costs? Granted I have no idea what the conversation or recommendations from
the medical staff were.

~~~
esaym
Don't know the status with the author, but my general experience is that the
better the insurance you have, the longer they will keep you. If you are self
pay and they can't milk you for money, then they'll get you out of there
pretty quick.

------
WhitneyLand
Related info:

Compared to people with the lowest psychological scores, those with highest
scores were:

86 percent more likely to have a stroke or TIA for high depressive symptoms.

59 percent more likely to have a stroke or TIA for the highest chronic stress
scores.

More than twice as likely to have a stroke or TIA for the highest hostility
scores.

[http://newsroom.heart.org/news/high-stress-hostility-
depress...](http://newsroom.heart.org/news/high-stress-hostility-depression-
linked-with-increased-stroke-risk)

~~~
austinjp
Yep, although:

"One thing we didn’t assess is coping strategies...it’s possible that positive
coping strategies could ameliorate some of these associations or effects... We
did not inquire about coping. I would say that’s one of the tasks for future
studies."

------
jdimov10
Don't make time to untangle. Stay untangled. Live your life. Enjoy it. Have
fun. If you have any time left after that, then may be do some of that
inconsequential stuff like earning money or achievements. These are nice, if
you enjoy doing them, but are not important. Unlike what you've been
brainwashed to believe, your life does not depend on those things. Your well-
being does not depend on those things. The well-being of your family and
children does not depend on those things. It's the other way around.

~~~
fiatjaf
Have you actually passed two days without any money in your pocket?

~~~
jdimov10
Yes, I have passed many more than two days without any money in my pocket. As
any human being, I've had my highs and lows. I've decided that I like the
highs better and money is quite handy in that regard. What I'm saying is - it
tends to come to you easier once you stop freaking out about it. As do all
things. Struggle is always counterproductive and it is never worth sacrificing
your health for money.

~~~
fiatjaf
Right, thank you very much for your answer. You are probably right.

------
sotojuan
Many people in this thread lamenting overworking in their youth. Maybe I've
been lucky but at 22 I'm very happy with my decent 9-5 type employments. I've
never felt the ambition necessary to sacrifice my free time for work—I'm
satisfied with what I have.

~~~
kajjffkk
Many people seem to work solely to earn income. I feel like this is a common
work arrangement.

Others work to make income and intellectually and emotionally satisfy
themselves. Perhaps you're in this camp? If so, I'm with you on that one.

Granted at some point of income, a certain amount of income without personal
fulfillment is preferable to me due to the delayed gratification
possibilities.

------
Animats
_" Being so young, I had not even considered that having a stroke was a
possibility. But I have since learned that they are on the rise among younger
people."_

Uh oh. Does anybody keep stats for YC companies?

~~~
Animats
A stroke related to overwork may be eligible for workmens' compensation.[1]
Call a lawyer. Lots of lawyers take such cases on contingency; the victim
doesn't pay anything unless they win.

[1] [http://www.rehmlaw.com/Workers-Compensation/Workers-
Compensa...](http://www.rehmlaw.com/Workers-Compensation/Workers-Compensation-
FAQ.shtml#3)

~~~
reitoei
Works on contingency? No, money down!

------
coldtea
> _My doctor did not directly link my stroke to overwork, but said it could
> have been aggravated by stress, overexertion and exhaustion._

Could he put it any more directly?

------
agumonkey
I had an accident that led to cardiovascular / brain issues that reminded me
of this, although less critical at first, but lingering. Since I do not need
to be hospitalized, I could reflect on it, and it was like knowing how it felt
to be handicaped, suffering debilitating diseases or even what old age could
feel. It sheds a strong light on the life of others and yours, how fragile
health can be. That said it's also sad how impossible it is to know this
beforehand (if you're between child and old, many doctors will just handwave
over some symptoms).

------
BigJeffeRonaldo
It's not complicated to understand. If you work hard, you need rest. Your
body, if you don't derange her with stimulant drinks and cocaine, she will
tell you, "I need to rest!" So just listen! It's not that hard. Just listen to
your grandma instead of being a techno nerd who drinks red bull until he is
deranged with permanently lowered IQ from sleep deprivation and a weird
disease. If you work hard, you need a rest.

------
princetontiger
This article is crazy.

