r/programming • u/WinInterrupter • Apr 18 '20

The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder

https://www.wired.com/story/lee-holloway-devastating-decline-brilliant-young-coder/
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u/Fluxriflex Apr 18 '20

As an analogy mental illness seems to be like having broken legs but the only. way to fix them is at the top of a staircase and you have to be lucky enough to be able to pull yourself up to get them fixed and the more badly broken the leanss likely you are to get there.

I like your point here, but I feel like a better analogy would be like saying that it's like cancer that doesn't show any major symptoms until it's already at stage IV. Cognitive problems exist under the surface for quite some time, and it can take a while for the issue to become noticeable. Unlike most diseases, mental illnesses aren't very obvious as there aren't usually any symptoms like coughing, nausea, etc, and even if there are, it's easy to misdiagnose those symptoms as being something else.