[madaxe_again]

Perhaps we should have different words for “I am maybe feeling a bit tired of doing the same thing every day” and “my brain is physically damaged from years of relentless 24/7 stress to the extent that basic functions like sleep elude me”.

[prox]

The military uses color codes, green, yellow, orange, red. Red is PTSD territory, a true brain break. But yellow, orange are bad as well, lots of people are in that zone without knowing until it is too late.

[gugagore]

I do not think it's scientific to claim the "brain is physically damaged from not-very-physiological-thing". We do have evidence for brain development that must occur before it is too late (e.g. critical window for language).

Sustained and elevated stress causes damage to the whole body, not just the brain. If understanding what you experienced as brain damage helps you accept how things happened and how things are, then all the more power to you.

But if there is something in your thought patterns that you want to change, but feel hopeless that your brain is damaged, I recommend trying to find another framing aside from "damage".