"I know people who have RSI and don't want to let on that they have it to the people in their department," she says.

In her own experience with RSI, she says it took her a while to tell people about it.

"I even hid it from my advisor," she says. "I felt like I was weird for getting it."

Joshua T. Goodman '92, a graduate student in computer science and co-director of RSI Action Group at Harvard, says he had RSI for almost three years.

He says that having RSI "is just very embarrassing."

Goodman says he was embarrassed to the point that he hid his injury and suffered pain rather than revealed it to others.

He says that when he rode a crowded bus and there were no seats left, he would hold on to handstraps--a very painful task. Goodman was too embarrassed to ask anyone to give up a seat.

"I chose to hold on and hurt myself," he says.

Goodman says he has since overcome his embarrassment and will ask for help when he needs it.

Crying Wolf?

But asking for help is a troubling task for people with RSI, he says. Goodman says that, for the most part, he can do anything he wants to do. But doing those things can cause pain that will eventually make his recovery time longer.

Goodman says that he chooses to ask for help in a selective manner. To an observer, then, RSI may appear to be a selective problem, he says. They may think injured people decide when they are hurt and when they need help. This situation, Goodman says, unfortunately breeds a distrust for people with RSI.

Even some doctors, according to Goodman, distrust people who claim to have RSI. This makes the experience of having the injury even more grueling.

"It is difficult to confront the medical community that doesn't trust us," he says.

A Long History