Boundaries

[eschatonic]

Like you I've got a mix of things going on, the hypermobility wasn't spotted until about a decade into investigating the problems (and the rheumatologist still denies I'm hypermobile -- yeah, right, everyone with severe back problems can put the sole of their foot on the top of their head), everything before that was focussed on a fall where I'd jarred my back and done bony damage to the lumbar facet joints (and c-spine damage as well, though fortunately that eventually healed when I started using crutches -- the limp without them was apparently aggravating the damage). Everyone initially thought the hip and pelvic problems were simply referred pain from the lumbar spine stuff, but when you realise that my hips are very hypermobile, though fortunately not quite to the point of dislocating, and that even my S-I joint will physically shift at times, then you realise you can't consider the lumbar spine stuff in isolation. Add hypermobility to the diagnosis and then compound it with probable dyspraxia -- my sister's a teacher, went on a course to be told how to spot dyspraxia in her kids and immediately rang me to say I hit every feature she'd been told to watch for -- and suddenly my entire childhood makes sense, not just the adult-onset disability.

ok, I am flinching in sympathy. ow ow ow.  <CA inappropriate question>have you maybe seen a pain specialist?</CA inappropriate question>

I'm under instruction from my physio to not sit at the PC for longer than 15 minutes without a break and to physically change from one type of seat to another when I do that. Given what being disrupted every 15 minutes does to your ability as a programmer it's no surprise my career became problematical. Of course finding something you can do that's intellectual and doesn't need you sitting at a PC or a desk is problematical in other ways 

A friend of mine has back problems and uses one of those giant ball chairs instead of a regular one.  They're not too expensive either.

Or you could take the Chaz option of setting a timer to go off at regular intervals.  Except instead of eating when it goes off, you get up and walk around for two minutes, or stretch or whatever.

[DavidG]

have you maybe seen a pain specialist?

Yeah, it was the physio on the pain management team who spotted the hypermobility.

Or you could take the Chaz option of setting a timer to go off at regular intervals.  Except instead of eating when it goes off, you get up and walk around for two minutes, or stretch or whatever.

The problem is the disruption, and even with two seats, breaks on demand and so on I'm still looking at anything up to several hours a day where I'm effectively unable to work. Management tends to get a wee bit snarky about that, particularly when the only possible answer to 'can you finish it today' is 'I have no idea'.

[tylik]

... even my S-I joint will physically shift at times...

Actually, my SI joint is one of my most randomly mobile joints. Probably in part because of a lot of ligament damage. I think I'm in the process of one of my standard cycles there - broke up a bunch of scar tissue, so the joint goes all over the place, while I practice a) knocking it back into place and b) building up more muscular stability. It's pretty far along, and it works really well most of the time, but the nerve compression when it's out is problematic. (Well, and the irritated muscles, and the instability it puts on both knees, and... but mostly it's working.)

I never could figure out my physio emphasizing I needed to work on core stability and then teaching me stretches -- hello, hypermobile, not being challenged here!

It depends on just what's going on. For years I had chronically tight hamstrings. I've had tight muscles in other places. In the case of my hamstrings it was hypermobility plus mechanical weirdness with my legs - the muscles were tight trying to hold everything together. It's pretty common with me to have a muscle splinting a joint - often I end up mobilizing joints, trying to build up muscular stability there, and trying to get the muscle that was stabilizing it wrong to calm down and stretch out at the same time.

Despite being generally floppy enough as a child to be evaluated for muscular dystrophy, I am generally well able to acquire muscle mass, thank you my ex-linebacker father. And for whatever reason I've been playing with how to isolated muscles as a child, so it turns out that I'm pretty good at retraining motor synergies. Yet another thing that has greatly improved my life. (For years I thought I was squarely on the strength side of the strength-flexibility spectrum. The reality turns out to be more involved. I was able to do front splits for the first time when I was thirty.)

Yeah, I'm upfront when I'm in control of things, but when it's bad I just want to curl up in a hole and hibernate. Unsurprisingly that lead to lots of criticism about my communication skills at work -- hello, hurting, dyspraxic, INTP personality here!

It's kind of terrifying how much a couple of really stupid things (like breaking a bone in my foot and running around on it for the next ten days) did for communications with both medical professionals and coworkers.

I'm under instruction from my physio to not sit at the PC for longer than 15 minutes without a break and to physically change from one type of seat to another when I do that. Given what being disrupted every 15 minutes does to your ability as a programmer it's no surprise my career became problematical. Of course finding something you can do that's intellectual and doesn't need you sitting at a PC or a desk is problematical in other ways 

After medical leave, partial return under restrictions (meaning "not allowed to use keyboard or mouse") and other such things, when it became clear that, after having gotten a bunch better, I was slowly losing ground, I finally quit my job and did martial arts full time for a couple of years. Then I went into research. Most of the time I can spend hours a day at the computer. (It wasn't that long ago that twenty minutes left me in tears, and vomiting.) I don't know if it will last, or how long it will last, but hey. Research gives me some latitude, but things aren't stable enough to add med school. (And there is the time issue.

I worked on a project for USAF in the mid-80s and the project guidelines had obviously been written by someone who had gotten all of the wrong messages about being politically correct and tried to insist that the opposite of 'enabled' was 'disenabled' It's taken a long time to get to accepting my body as it is, and I've become increasingly confrontational towards people who see disability as a license to be negative about someone, in whatever way.

To me there's this delicate balance - I don't want to get caught up in my body not being like some imaginary body in my head. Railing against how it actually is doesn't help. Accepting... I accept that this is how it is now. I do a lot of preventative maintenance. I do a lot of optimization work. Really a lot. I look at it as a work in progress, mostly. And eventually I'll die.

[tylik]

Ex-dancer has a guess: strength reduces flexibility (bodies are either naturally strong, or naturally flexible). When a flexible person reduces  flexibility by gaining strength, they need to stretch it back out again. I have the opposite problem, FWIW--I've always had lots of strength and balance, but I fought for every degree of flexibility (and promptly lost it as soon as I quit dancing, alas).

While there is generally a strength vs. flexibility spectrum, it's a little more involved than that - in wushu, most people get stronger and more flexible. Most find one easier than the other, but it's not a straightforward trade off.

[el_jefe]

^^^ That

I have both, the genetics gods were kind to me. When I'm in training, I'm 6'2" and 205-210lbs, and am fairly strong (real strength, like lifting up and carrying things, not benchpressing blah blah blah). But I retain enough flexability that I am used as the takedown and submission hold dummy. "Ok, at this point with this arm bar you would have complience, and here is where you can actually cause serious damage." Meanwhile I'm dozing off on the mat. 

You do need to spend time working on both, which is where martial arts comes in handy.

[DavidG]

Actually, my SI joint is one of my most randomly mobile joints. Probably in part because of a lot of ligament damage.

When I 'fell' I actually just slipped from a stair where only the tip of my heel had landed on the tread, so I dropped the next six inches and landed on a tiled stair, on my left heel, with my knee locked backward. The impact forces went straight up to my pelvis, skipped my hip somehow and the left SI-joint seems to have been the first thing to give. I then had the domino theory happening all the way up to C6 -- and my first thought was 'Wow, that was lucky, a header on tiled stairs could have killed me'. Technically right, but not as lucky an escape as I'd thought. I've not managed to identify any particular patterns (other than walking around with only one shoe on being a really bad idea), my left SI will just occasionally and randomly slip and it's a pain focus whether it slips or not.

For years I had chronically tight hamstrings. I've had tight muscles in other places. In the case of my hamstrings it was hypermobility plus mechanical weirdness with my legs - the muscles were tight trying to hold everything together. It's pretty common with me to have a muscle splinting a joint

That's pretty much situation normal for me, hips and left knee need all the muscular support they can get, plus the greater the cumulative amount of movement, the more significant the pain levels. Fluid walking isn't really my thing.

I end up mobilizing joints, trying to build up muscular stability there, and trying to get the muscle that was stabilizing it wrong to calm down and stretch out at the same time.

Sounds familiar, unfortunately that sensitivity to movement makes mobilisation a double-edged sword in my case. I can't say I've really figured out, the theory that comes closest to explaining it is that the instability is hypermobility, but the sensitivity to movement is spinal damage and fixing one makes the other worse.

I am generally well able to acquire muscle mass, thank you my ex-linebacker father.

Interesting comment; now I'm thinking about it, I suspect things would be worse without the genetic legacy I get from my turn-his-hand-to-any sport father (took up half-marathons when he finally stopped competitive soccer at 50, still runs regularly at 72). I put no effort into fitness, yet I've always been reasonably fit (just completely uncoordinated). It particularly irritated my ex-gymnast, sports-scientist, PE teacher sister that even though we're largely matched for size and weight and she was clearly fitter, I was always stronger that her.

when it became clear that, after having gotten a bunch better, I was slowly losing ground, I finally quit my job

That's effectively where I am. Putting the distance between me and the office showed that the level of pain I was subjecting myself to wasn't wise. I've demonstrated to myself that trying to work at a PC all day in a traditional work-like environment is still a problem, so I need something that's more flexible in both tasks and working environment (I do most of my typing while flat on my back now), I'm still trying to figure out what that's going to be.

Research gives me some latitude, but things aren't stable enough to add med school.

That's one of the reasons I didn't sign up for a masters this year, I just didn't know what it would do to me.

To me there's this delicate balance - I don't want to get caught up in my body not being like some imaginary body in my head.

I think my imaginary body pretty much matches my physical one, certainly I was using crutches in the dream I had
this morning (though it varies). I've had 21 years to get used to things being different.

Railing against how it actually is doesn't help.

My family tell me I'm stubborn and that it's impossible to make me do anything I don't want to -- they're probably right. Over the past five years I've been fighting against a sustained effort to treat me worse than others for no reason other than my disability (not to mention intermittent abuse on the street and one physical assault), I'm probably no more able to back down from that than you would be able to walk away from the middle of a bout with someone you know isn't as good as you. Add to that that the whole thing has radicalized me politically and you get to where I am today.

[tylik]

When I 'fell' I actually just slipped from a stair where only the tip of my heel had landed on the tread, so I dropped the next six inches and landed on a tiled stair, on my left heel, with my knee locked backward. The impact forces went straight up to my pelvis, skipped my hip somehow and the left SI-joint seems to have been the first thing to give. I then had the domino theory happening all the way up to C6 -- and my first thought was 'Wow, that was lucky, a header on tiled stairs could have killed me'. Technically right, but not as lucky an escape as I'd thought. I've not managed to identify any particular patterns (other than walking around with only one shoe on being a really bad idea), my left SI will just occasionally and randomly slip and it's a pain focus whether it slips or not.

A lot of asymmetries can put it out for me. What helps is to get it back in sooner rather than later, and to spend time in low stances and (in moderation) some of the crossed legged seated poses. (Svastikasana is my current favorite for zuochan, when my hips are up for it. I can't hold even half-lotus for 35 minutes yet. Well, not productively, anyway. Ow.)

That's pretty much situation normal for me, hips and left knee need all the muscular support they can get, plus the greater the cumulative amount of movement, the more significant the pain levels. Fluid walking isn't really my thing.

For me movement is generally a good thing. It's hard for me to remember than when I get sick, for this value of feeling lousy this answer isn't go out and train for a few hours.

Sounds familiar, unfortunately that sensitivity to movement makes mobilisation a double-edged sword in my case. I can't say I've really figured out, the theory that comes closest to explaining it is that the instability is hypermobility, but the sensitivity to movement is spinal damage and fixing one makes the other worse.

Do you know what kind of spinal damage? I know when I have nerve root irritation, movement can make things worse. (At the moment, most of the nerve root irritation is pretty transient and often fixable. Though I lost an awful lot of 2008 to c5/6 issues. The steroidal injection into the epidural space did in fact do wonders for me. Facet joint injections, OTOH, were awful.)

That's effectively where I am. Putting the distance between me and the office showed that the level of pain I was subjecting myself to wasn't wise. I've demonstrated to myself that trying to work at a PC all day in a traditional work-like environment is still a problem, so I need something that's more flexible in both tasks and working environment (I do most of my typing while flat on my back now), I'm still trying to figure out what that's going to be.

Research has generally been good for me, but boy howdy is it not a generic solution. (It's all wonderful and supportive for my PI to sit down and tell me - last year when the spine was having fits - that if I can only work two days a week he's fine with that, because he has confidence that my productivity and work quality will be high enough to compensate... and then I go home and think over the implications of that statement, and feel distinctly shaky.) But people are generally more willing to come up with situations that work in academia, from what I've seen.

That's one of the reasons I didn't sign up for a masters this year, I just didn't know what it would do to me.

It's why I spent a couple of years taking classes and volunteering before I applied to grad school. (Well, that and I had the financial latitude to do so - Microsoft might have played a large role in munging my spine, but at least I was there when stock options meant something - and I wanted to make sure this was really what I wanted to do.) Though it also made the applications part a lot easier.

I think my imaginary body pretty much matches my physical one, certainly I was using crutches in the dream I had
this morning (though it varies). I've had 21 years to get used to things being different.

The unpredictability sometimes gets me - I set up my lab time so I have different projects going on, and I can kind of adjust what I'm working on at the moment around my focus and physical state. But I still need to meet with people, and teach (as long as I know the material and don't have to do problem solving I can teach reasonably when I'm past the point where I shouldn't drive - it's weird, really) and hit deadlines... Things have been going really well recently, but I life is uncertain.

Most of my body mismatch stuff - which is mostly historical anyway - doesn't have to do with the injuries. (Realizing that yeah, I'm really good at ignoring pain, but past a certain point it impedes my ability to think just took me forever, though.) I guess I still have the bit where I'm kind of surprised by how active I've become. I still have a bit of the ingrained sense that I'm bookish and unathletic. I still don't know what to say when people tell me I'm naturally flexible. Because in one way, that's true. But in other ways... I didn't used to be like this, and now I train hours a day. I always knew I was going to be tall. I didn't expect that I'd either gain muscle this easily or be this emphatically female. (Which is an interesting combination in terms of cultural standards of femininity, but ugh. I think I hit a lot of people's subconscious "This one will bear you strong sons!" thing. Losing the hair helps.) But after spending a lot of time in the "you need to accept that you will never live an active life again" space, function just counts for so much. In a lot of ways I'm happier with my body now, despite all its problems, than I've been at any other time in my life.

My family tell me I'm stubborn and that it's impossible to make me do anything I don't want to -- they're probably right. Over the past five years I've been fighting against a sustained effort to treat me worse than others for no reason other than my disability (not to mention intermittent abuse on the street and one physical assault), I'm probably no more able to back down from that than you would be able to walk away from the middle of a bout with someone you know isn't as good as you. Add to that that the whole thing has radicalized me politically and you get to where I am today.

*laughs*

I think I get your point, but that's completely not how I relate to martial arts. (Um, in fact I am writing what I expect is far more than you want to know on the subject. This is, I guess, kind of central to my life.)

I love sparring, and I spar daily. With my room mate / lab mate / dear friend (etc. etc.) I see it as a collaborative process - he is helping me defeat myself, and I am attempting to render him the same assistance. Meanwhile, we're teaching and learning from each other all the time. That's my favorite kind of interaction.

I generally won't spar with people who are competitive about it. I hate that dynamic, and it's no fun for me. I will not spar with people at all who don't have a certain level of skill - if they don't have the control, then we can't spar safely, and safety is really important. But a lot of that is attitude. Increasingly I'm teaching sparring, and as long as the person is willing to relax and slow down to the point that they can stay on top of things, I can work with most people. It's the ones who are so set on getting a blow in they keep speeding up that are really hard to deal with. Walk away in the middle of a bout with someone I know I'm better than? It's happened before. The only reason it happens infrequently is that I try to avoid bouts for which that is a likely outcome. (K and I - and M and I, and... well, okay, another half the alphabet of people who are my brother, sisters, seniors, students, etc - sometimes got really fast and even hard. But that's all about trust and control. And protective goggles, and no spinning elbow shots, and...)

Because when it comes down to it, I hate fighting. Sure, I have good reflexes, and there is a certain razor glee to the adrenaline (I get very focused and precise, and also don't feel any pain until later... which is a useful thing to know about oneself, but not the kind of experience I court) but I'm basically a pacifist. Violence has got to be about the worst solution to problems, generically, that I know of. Occasionally it's the only solution at hand, and there are outcomes I favor less than I favor violent intercession (though this is infrequent in my life, a fact for which I am thankful.) I happen to be of the mindset that keeping oneself ignorant of the means of violence is a pretty lame way of practicing non-violence. It's kind of like deciding that if you never learn to talk then you'll never say something bad. In order to make a mature ethical choice, you really need to have the tools to make it a choice. For me the heart of nonviolence is finding better solutions.

As a side comment, the order I am a member of teaches that violence is a gift that can be refused and returned to its sender. Not exactly the most profound teaching of the order, but it has a certain poetry for all of that.

If I'm in a situation where fighting seems to be the best solution, I will finish it as quickly as I possibly can. Because I hate it. I hope I have the skill to minimize the damage I inflict - not to mention the damage I take! - but I'm no genki* young thing, I want it to be over decisively as soon as I can arrange it. I know perfectly well that I will break. And no matter how good I am**, fights are not safe, they're certainly not safe for me. It bothers me a lot to know that if I end up in a violent confrontation where I am substantially threatened, there is a very good chance I'll kill someone. Dear gods but I don't want to go there***.

* Yeah, so my sparring partner trained in Japanese arts.
** Trying to be realistic... I am a student of traditional martial arts. Living and generative traditional martial arts, yes, but let's face it, I'm *way* better with a sword (or against a sword) than a gun. I'm certainly not a cop, and really, I like the putting bodies back together again aspect of things the very best.
*** There is a fair bit of violence near where I live. The university is right between an affluent neighborhood and a pretty impoverished one. There are a lot of muggings, some short term abductions and over the summer we had a bunch of sexual assaults. (Oh, and a serial murderer arrested nearby as well.)

[el_jefe]

That's effectively where I am. Putting the distance between me and the office showed that the level of pain I was subjecting myself to wasn't wise. I've demonstrated to myself that trying to work at a PC all day in a traditional work-like environment is still a problem, so I need something that's more flexible in both tasks and working environment (I do most of my typing while flat on my back now), I'm still trying to figure out what that's going to be.

I vote for professional lottery winner.

I will not spar with people at all who don't have a certain level of skill - if they don't have the control, then we can't spar safely, and safety is really important.

Which is why I don't spar anymore. I don't train at the level I used to, so the control isn't there. Plus my reflexes are not set to stun, sadly. I miss it though.

If I'm in a situation where fighting seems to be the best solution, I will finish it as quickly as I possibly can. Because I hate it. I hope I have the skill to minimize the damage I inflict - not to mention the damage I take! - but I'm no genki* young thing, I want it to be over decisively as soon as I can arrange it. I know perfectly well that I will break. And no matter how good I am**, fights are not safe, they're certainly not safe for me. It bothers me a lot to know that if I end up in a violent confrontation where I am substantially threatened, there is a very good chance I'll kill someone. Dear gods but I don't want to go there***.

 

No fight should last longer than 30 seconds. 

But yeah, it's a lot easier to avoid situations that may result in violence than to engage in them.

[DavidG]

A lot of asymmetries can put it out for me. What helps is to get it back in sooner rather than later, and to spend time in low stances and (in moderation) some of the crossed legged seated poses. (Svastikasana is my current favorite for zuochan, when my hips are up for it. I can't hold even half-lotus for 35 minutes yet. Well, not productively, anyway. Ow.)

Some asymmetry works, if I'm sitting in a chair then I prefer left foot tucked under right knee -- seems to be common to several hypermobile people I know, probably because it engages a different set of core muscles. I spend an awful lot of time cross-legged, mostly svastikasana, some half-lotus, full lotus puts too much sideways stress on my ankles to hold for more than a few seconds.

Do you know what kind of spinal damage? I know when I have nerve root irritation, movement can make things worse.

I had a bone scan done using a radio-active tracer a few years after the fall, that showed activity in the left-side lumbar facet joints (the ones that got rammed together), so the theory is inflammatory processes there leading to nerve root irritation, but over the last few years there's been a fairly balanced spread of pain across both legs, so I'm not convinced that entirely holds true anymore, but add in chronic pain syndrome and neuroplasticity and you can potentially decouple the pain from the physical trauma.

Research has generally been good for me, but boy howdy is it not a generic solution.

Agreed, but it's a possibility for me while most things aren't. And fortunately the obvious place to do one of the ideas I'm pushing around in my head is pretty close, and actually has an outlying campus only about 10 minutes drive away.

(It's all wonderful and supportive for my PI to sit down and tell me - last year when the spine was having fits - that if I can only work two days a week he's fine with that, because he has confidence that my productivity and work quality will be high enough to compensate... and then I go home and think over the implications of that statement, and feel distinctly shaky.)

Yeah, it's scary stuff. I had to talk to a careers adviser today (benefits stuff) and she effectively threw up her hands in horror when I told her the limitations I'm working with and decided I wasn't at all the right person for the programme she runs.

But people are generally more willing to come up with situations that work in academia, from what I've seen.

I've spoken to a succession of careers advisers and they've all said that academia are the only people who'll be flexible enough to work with me. I'm not quite sure whether that's a feather in the cap of academia, or a condemnation of everyone else.

The unpredictability sometimes gets me - I set up my lab time so I have different projects going on, and I can kind of adjust what I'm working on at the moment around my focus and physical state.

That's why working a project for Quality under my own aegis with several different tasks involved worked better for me than just running a config management/QC programme, which worked better than coding within a team. If I can pick the activity to suit whether I'm best desk-based, wandering around or phoning people then I can achieve a lot more than if someone insists I sit at a keyboard for 40 hours a week.

I think I hit a lot of people's subconscious "This one will bear you strong sons!" thing.

ROFL! (and it's not often that's literally true!). We can't help it, we're male, shallowness comes with the testosterone.

In a lot of ways I'm happier with my body now, despite all its problems, than I've been at any other time in my life.

I think disability/health problems can go two ways, you can look at your body and decide 'This is me, let's get on with it'. Or rail that this isn't you and waste your life fighting against that.

I think I get your point, but that's completely not how I relate to martial arts.

Apologies for projecting my own stubbornness/male competitiveness onto you. But learning how differently people can approach the same thing is always good.

when it comes down to it, I hate fighting. Sure, I have good reflexes, and there is a certain razor glee to the adrenaline (I get very focused and precise, and also don't feel any pain until later... which is a useful thing to know about oneself, but not the kind of experience I court) but I'm basically a pacifist. Violence has got to be about the worst solution to problems, generically, that I know of. Occasionally it's the only solution at hand

I chose to spend 20 years in the defence industry, even when the dot-com boom made it the poorest paid sector of IT, I guess that says a lot about my attitude to violence: it's a tool, it's always good to have a wide choice of tools, being skilled with tools is positive, but tools need to be used wisely.

If I'm in a situation where fighting seems to be the best solution, I will finish it as quickly as I possibly can. Because I hate it. I hope I have the skill to minimize the damage I inflict - not to mention the damage I take! - but I'm no genki* young thing, I want it to be over decisively as soon as I can arrange it. I know perfectly well that I will break. And no matter how good I am**, fights are not safe, they're certainly not safe for me. It bothers me a lot to know that if I end up in a violent confrontation where I am substantially threatened, there is a very good chance I'll kill someone. Dear gods but I don't want to go there***.

My entire family has tempers, people think I'm the calm one. I'm actually the one with the explosive, berserker rage, I've just had to teach myself to rigorously control it. I know that if put in a situation where I have to defend myself that violence is there to tap. I've only needed to do that once for real (and need might not strictly have been true, there may have been ways to avoid it, but none guaranteed): on my way home a few years ago I saw two teens walking towards me and just knew instinctively that something was going to go down when they got to me. So I stopped at the crossing I was going to take anyway and offered them my back. One of them took the bait and grabbed my rucksack (I think he thought it would be funny to pull someone on crutches over backwards), what he wasn't expecting was for me to use that momentum and add my own to it, nor just how much reach an elbow crutch really has. I think I got his wallet rather than his ribs, but neither he nor his friend showed any inclination to try anything further. That confirmed me in my existing thinking that I can't risk any extended fight, that I have to take the first opportunity to end the fight and not pull the punch. It's not something I need to seek out, thank you, but I don't think it really bothers me; if the choice comes down to me or him I'll choose me every time.

[DavidG]

I vote for professional lottery winner.

Yeah, that's my lingering hope

[tylik]

Some asymmetry works, if I'm sitting in a chair then I prefer left foot tucked under right knee -- seems to be common to several hypermobile people I know, probably because it engages a different set of core muscles. I spend an awful lot of time cross-legged, mostly svastikasana, some half-lotus, full lotus puts too much sideways stress on my ankles to hold for more than a few seconds.

Always the same side? That's somewhat likely to increase SI joint dysfunction. (The cross legged stances I'm all for, but habitual asymmetries are real problems, and common ones.

I had a bone scan done using a radio-active tracer a few years after the fall, that showed activity in the left-side lumbar facet joints (the ones that got rammed together), so the theory is inflammatory processes there leading to nerve root irritation, but over the last few years there's been a fairly balanced spread of pain across both legs, so I'm not convinced that entirely holds true anymore, but add in chronic pain syndrome and neuroplasticity and you can potentially decouple the pain from the physical trauma.

Well, and if you have a lot of SI joint instability I'd expect referred pain down one or both legs. (You might look into pyriformis syndrome, if you haven't, too.) Sciatic nerve is drawn from the lower lumbar and upper sacral levels.

Agreed, but it's a possibility for me while most things aren't. And fortunately the obvious place to do one of the ideas I'm pushing around in my head is pretty close, and actually has an outlying campus only about 10 minutes drive away.

And depending on what you want to do, and your skillset, there are a lot of staff positions that are often more flexible and better paid than going the student route. (That I was unpaid as a volunteer was largely my decision. It made some sense in my circumstances.)

I've spoken to a succession of careers advisers and they've all said that academia are the only people who'll be flexible enough to work with me. I'm not quite sure whether that's a feather in the cap of academia, or a condemnation of everyone else.

Microsoft was actually amazingly willing to work with me, though how I've seen them treat their employees more recently did not reach that standard. I might even have been willing to stay one, but while they were willing to create an instructional position for me, which would have gotten me off the computer enough that it likely would have worked, my team over in Windows weren't willing to let me go. (I'm all "Folks, you're losing me one way or the other! Why are you making this difficult?!" I dunno. Maybe if I hadn't been so sick of the whole thing we could have worked something out. But I wanted out pretty badly by then.)

ROFL! (and it's not often that's literally true!). We can't help it, we're male, shallowness comes with the testosterone.

Well, some can. I suspect a lot of it is cultural - moving to Cleveland put me in contact with much more calcified gender roles, and much more aggressive mating behavior... and here I am, post-divorce, and now a member of a Chan Buddhist order. (Okay, not actually a celibate order, but I'm really off the market for the moment.) And all the sudden I am dealing with men who think that appropriate flirting behavior involves trying to convince me that they are better than I at things that are in my area of expertise... and not theirs. (This is possibly not helped by the fact that my reaction to people who know more than I on a subject that interests me is a cheerful, friendly "Oh, hey, can I slit you open and decant your knowledge?") Not to mention professional colleagues who think that an appropriate response to a fairly upbeat "I don't want to talk to you right now," is to try to touch me. Ugh.

Apologies for projecting my own stubbornness/male competitiveness onto you. But learning how differently people can approach the same thing is always good.

I'm plenty capable of being both stubborn and competitive. The competitive bit is just something that I try to keep away from martial arts. Both because my practice is very important to me personally, and because have someone very set on beating me, whether in the pain causing or dominating sense, just isn't a lot of fun for me, even if I can take them fairly easily*. (Stubborn... well, there is <i>persistant</i>, which some people feel I can be even to a fault - though at least one PI isn't really in a position to complain, I think, since she like the results. And I can be really dumb about refusing to be intimidating into doing something by someone who has power over me.)

I chose to spend 20 years in the defence industry, even when the dot-com boom made it the poorest paid sector of IT, I guess that says a lot about my attitude to violence: it's a tool, it's always good to have a wide choice of tools, being skilled with tools is positive, but tools need to be used wisely.

At it's best I see violence as being like surgery - sometimes a very important option, but an inherently complicated one.

And usually violence has far from surgical precision. (And when I say surgical precision, I don't mean it in the colloquial sense as much as the degree of precision involved in actual surgeries, which is often much less.)

My entire family has tempers, people think I'm the calm one. I'm actually the one with the explosive, berserker rage, I've just had to teach myself to rigorously control it. I know that if put in a situation where I have to defend myself that violence is there to tap. I've only needed to do that once for real (and need might not strictly have been true, there may have been ways to avoid it, but none guaranteed): on my way home a few years ago I saw two teens walking towards me and just knew instinctively that something was going to go down when they got to me. So I stopped at the crossing I was going to take anyway and offered them my back. One of them took the bait and grabbed my rucksack (I think he thought it would be funny to pull someone on crutches over backwards), what he wasn't expecting was for me to use that momentum and add my own to it, nor just how much reach an elbow crutch really has. I think I got his wallet rather than his ribs, but neither he nor his friend showed any inclination to try anything further. That confirmed me in my existing thinking that I can't risk any extended fight, that I have to take the first opportunity to end the fight and not pull the punch. It's not something I need to seek out, thank you, but I don't think it really bothers me; if the choice comes down to me or him I'll choose me every time.

I started a couple of times trying to explain what exactly bothers me about this - and to some extent those things are true. I am worried about the limits of my own skill, and that I might resort to more lethal methods where to a more skilled person other options would be sufficient. It bothers me greatly that in my current setting much of the violence is committed along racial lines. I'm probably not more likely to be injured in a fight than most people - less, really. But people are generically pretty fragile, and I'm quite familiar with my own mortality, thanks.

There is so much already that is stupid. There is so much waste. I don't want to add to it for myself, or for the world generally, or even for the dumbfuck who might be trying to kill me.

* See all: why I'm not into BDSM.

[tylik]

You do need to spend time working on both, which is where martial arts comes in handy.

If martial arts didn't end up having so much to do with rehabilitative medicine for me (well, and health generally) I'm not sure I'd have ended up half so involved.

[DavidG]

Always the same side? That's somewhat likely to increase SI joint dysfunction.

Not uniquely, but probably predominantly. But now I'm not in the office on a daily basis I'm not sitting like that -- all the chairs at home allow me to sit cross-legged.

I suspect a lot of it is cultural - moving to Cleveland put me in contact with much more calcified gender roles, and much more aggressive mating behavior...

There's definitely a regional variation in the cult of machismo. I'm by no means a traditional man's man, but I recognise it still has its claws in me at some levels.

my reaction to people who know more than I on a subject that interests me is a cheerful, friendly "Oh, hey, can I slit you open and decant your knowledge?"

I'd class my reaction as more 'Ooh, shiny!' but collecting knowledge is always good.

Not to mention professional colleagues who think that an appropriate response to a fairly upbeat "I don't want to talk to you right now," is to try to touch me. Ugh.

Ick!

I can be really dumb about refusing to be intimidating into doing something by someone who has power over me.

I'm not sure that 'dumb' is the right word, you have to be true to yourself, even when the consequences are potentially negative. Some of us value our personal integrity more than most.

I started a couple of times trying to explain what exactly bothers me about this

Let's see if I can explain it slightly differently, though feel free to remain bothered. If I find myself having to defend myself it's most likely to be because of an assault targetting me because I'm disabled (as I pointed out in a hate crimes blog recently I'm a forty-something white guy, that's supposed to be the safest group in society, but disability changes that). The problems I face in defending myself is that I'm potentially more vulnerable than other people and I've got a much lower chance of disengaging successfully. In any sort of sustained assault my chances of remaining standing are low. The consequences of that are that I really need a quick win, or to take the aggressor down to the ground so that we can continue on the same level. That's not necessarily good, but like any application of violence it may sometimes be necessary.

[tylik]

Not uniquely, but probably predominantly. But now I'm not in the office on a daily basis I'm not sitting like that -- all the chairs at home allow me to sit cross-legged.

My roommate likes to perch on chairs like a gargoyle. I am envious - I've blown out each ankle multiple times, and currently have too much scar tissue in the joints to allow that much movement. Which is also the main thing that limits some of the cross legged poses for me - my knees and hips prefer them, but the left ankle in particular isn't quite there. (It's coming along - which means the scar tissue is break up, and it occasionally pops out of place, but it pops in just as readily.)

There's definitely a regional variation in the cult of machismo. I'm by no means a traditional man's man, but I recognise it still has its claws in me at some levels.

The flip side is also pretty poisonous - lots of training to see yourself as an object rather than an agent, and to value yourself for what you are rather than what you do. (The latter I realize can be interpreted many ways. I thinking here about the tendency to focus on things like character in a weird abstract sense - wide eyed! but good! - rather than skills. Much about my mother's worldview makes sense if you rewrite things to have her as the heroine of... well, really bad romantic fic, really.)

Eh. Cultural aspects of gender are weird.

I'd class my reaction as more 'Ooh, shiny!' but collecting knowledge is always good.

Aforementioned professional colleague has a doctorate in statistics. I was interested in the stats. I think he interpreted this as being interested in him. And then wanted me to listen with interest to various opinions of his, seeking out my company and essentially ignoring anything I said that expressed disagreement. The penultimate bit was after I cut my hair, when he saw me on the street and felt compelled to tell me that I now looked like a badass lesbian biker chick that he wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. I blandly told him that there is a strong prohibition in my family against riding motorcycles, but I guess that was too subtle. Really, I think of myself as being outspoken and bitchy, but sometimes I get the impression that for a sizable subset out here, nothing less than physical violence will even be noticed. The individual in question doesn't strike me as generally socially clueless.

Foo.

I'm not sure that 'dumb' is the right word, you have to be true to yourself, even when the consequences are potentially negative. Some of us value our personal integrity more than most.

Well, I think "smart" would be optimizing the situation in terms of the outcomes that matter to me. There is a time for a tactical retreat, or for if not agreeing at least neutrally not disagreeing with someone until you've removed yourself from the problematic situation. I have a pretty good idea why I have some of my weird defensive mechanisms ("It's scary! Run towards it!") but that doesn't make them rational.

Let's see if I can explain it slightly differently, though feel free to remain bothered. If I find myself having to defend myself it's most likely to be because of an assault targetting me because I'm disabled (as I pointed out in a hate crimes blog recently I'm a forty-something white guy, that's supposed to be the safest group in society, but disability changes that). The problems I face in defending myself is that I'm potentially more vulnerable than other people and I've got a much lower chance of disengaging successfully. In any sort of sustained assault my chances of remaining standing are low. The consequences of that are that I really need a quick win, or to take the aggressor down to the ground so that we can continue on the same level. That's not necessarily good, but like any application of violence it may sometimes be necessary.

Let me be clear that I'm not particularly bothered by your strategy or your lack of being bothered. Most violent situations involving me are likely to strike me as less than optimal, and I'm bothered by most of the potential outcomes, even the "good" ones.

[DavidG]

My roommate likes to perch on chairs like a gargoyle. I am envious - I've blown out each ankle multiple times, and currently have too much scar tissue in the joints to allow that much movement.

I've met someone like that before. I've got the movement to do it, but not the stability, my right ankle will pop-out about every other time just rotating my foot, it pops straight back in again, but stable it is not. Ironically after the fall responsible for that was the one time I was absolutely fanatical about the rehab exercises

The flip side is also pretty poisonous - lots of training to see yourself as an object rather than an agent, and to value yourself for what you are rather than what you do. (The latter I realize can be interpreted many ways. I thinking here about the tendency to focus on things like character in a weird abstract sense - wide eyed! but good! - rather than skills. Much about my mother's worldview makes sense if you rewrite things to have her as the heroine of... well, really bad romantic fic, really.)

I've been watching a discussion elsewhere about just how bad the 'Twilight' series is in that respect - every girl wants to be a doormat for a creepy stalker seems to be a valid reading for those who aren't caught up in the cult.

Really, I think of myself as being outspoken and bitchy, but sometimes I get the impression that for a sizable subset out here, nothing less than physical violence will even be noticed.

Why else do you think we have the cultural metaphor about needing to deliver messages with a lump of 2-by-4?!

Let me be clear that I'm not particularly bothered by your strategy or your lack of being bothered. Most violent situations involving me are likely to strike me as less than optimal, and I'm bothered by most of the potential outcomes, even the "good" ones.

Right, I've got your meaning now, which is perfectly valid. I surprise and confuse some people by being an absolute bleeding heart liberal in some respects, but believing violence is perfectly appropriate in others. If you want to pick the optimal result, you have to pick the best you can get in the immediate circumstances, and sometimes, IMO, the immediate circumstances make violence a local optimum.