Eskielover, thanks for your story. I have also survived several ODs, related to this issue (among other things).

'There is no way I could hold down a career....can't stay focused long enough for a real job.'

This is my big worry. Also I am afraid of trying because it is so difficult being obliged to do something (i.e. being responsible for some outcome) and being unable, despite ones best efforts, to bring it about.

'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'm at a similar point. I'm only 31, so I could go into a different field, IF my cognitive ability returned. I don't even mind if its a totally non-prestigious field, so long as I could become financially independent. The problem is that I know, in one sense, that the capacity is there, I am curious, creative, determined, etc. But none of it helps unless I regain the kind of sustained attention I was once capable of.

'yet in some areas, I have been able to put my thoughts together much better than in the past.'

Because of what I lost I had to develop my personality in other areas, and become interested in things I dismissed before. So like you, I have had some gains from it all - but I still mourn what is gone!