Withinjury

If you break your hand, you can’t type for a little while. Then for a bit after that, you can’t type as well, even if you gradually get back into it. And then after a time, you’re good to go again – assuming that you took proper care of the injury.

If you don’t take care of the injury, it’s different. If you try to type on the same day you break your hand? You’ll still be terrible at typing, but you’ll also make the injury worse. It might not ever get better. If you don’t acknowledge the injury and treat it with the respect it deserves, it can cripple you.

“Treating it with the respect it deserves” includes not only altering your life for a time around the injury, but it also means making sure others in your life do the same. You don’t have to stop all activities, but you do have to control the flow of activities involving your damaged component. You also have to make sure that others don’t keep trying to force you to type – you have to communicate.

That doesn’t mean you owe anyone an explanation about how you broke your hand. But it does mean that you need to be honest about the current level of typing proficiency as well as an expected estimate about your return to full strength, at least to those with whom you have a relationship based on typing.

All that seems pretty reasonable, right? No major objections? Didn’t say anything wild, there?

Okay, good. You know how your hand is pretty essential to your typing ability? Cool. Now think about all the tasks you have that are affected by your mental and emotional health. Now think about the ways those things can be hurt.

Now do all of that when that happens, and don’t be ashamed of it.