The Extreme Dangers of Overworking

“Burnout” can be just as physical as it is mental

BFoundAPen
3 min readMay 3, 2021
Adobe Stock

A successful hacker worked himself so hard that he burned up all the glucose in his brain.

With debt up to his eyeballs, he eagerly accepted every gig that was tossed his way. He worked every day, night, and weekend.

In February of 2020, he felt a peculiar “pop” in his brain. He described it like a guitar string being snapped. A severe migraine surfaced and his vocabulary disappeared.

Every time he tried to work, it would happen again. The more creative he got with his hacking, the more his brain seemed to “cramp.” His primary doctor was dumbfounded. His psychiatrist figured he was simply stressed and mixed a cocktail of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.

They kept searching high and low for answers. A neurologist found nothing. He kept trying to work. In November of 2020, he sat down to do a pen test. In the middle of the report, his mind went blank. It was if someone unplugged the desktop, ripping the power cord right from the wall. He tried to type but he couldn’t.

He finally came clean to the firm he worked with. Despite helping the company make millions, he was told they couldn’t pay him anymore if he…

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BFoundAPen

"My pen isn't afraid to speak the truth" - Marsha Ambrosius