I was a firmware design engineer for 15 years after graduating with my BS degree in 1978. After my career ended up getting messed up with the down turn of aerospace in 1994, I ended up going into a major depression after the first year of horrible anxiety attacks. Many OD's after not being able to focus on anything & realizing that there was no way I would end up being able to get my career to go anywhere. I ended up on disability....which ended up being permanent disability.

In 2004/5, I went through another trauma that caused PTSD issues just at the time I thought I was recovering enough to try going into another field......It's now 2011, 17 years later. There is no way I could hold down a career....can't stay focused long enough for a real job. I can read & enjoy studying but it has to be at my slow pace now, nothing that could ever allow me to hold down anything like what I was doing as an engineer.

I don't think that for me it's really a permanent brain damage.....technology went so far beyond where I was in these years...there is no way for me to really catch up without having stayed caught up & realize that some is just so far beyond me & the effort that it would take....isn't even within my energy level anymore.

I just went through major depression with anxiety....not sure what causes the long term effect....but I understand the inability to be able to focus at the same level....yet in some areas, I have been able to put my thoughts together much better than in the past....just not in any technical area that could put me in an equal earning situation that I was before.

Wish I had some answers for you.....you are not alone in your question