Ah, yes, because who doesn’t wake up thinking, “You know what my diet’s missing? First-milk mystery goo!” But hey, slap a ™ on it and suddenly it’s a superfood.
400+ functional nutrients, you say? That’s great, but I’ll pass on turning my morning smoothie into a science experiment. If I wanted to drink something optimized for “resilient human health,” I’d stick with coffee—it’s bioactive, too, and at least it doesn’t come from a cow’s postpartum buffet. Ooooh Colostrum
I was born dramatic. Mom says I literally came out of the womb like that. What’s that Lady Gaga song? – “Born This Way” – Yep, that’s me. However, since “The Fall” (TF) everything is different. It’s a different kind of dramatic. It’s weird. I don’t like it.
“Before the Fall” (BTF) I was dramatic. It’s just how I am wired. I have always been a AAA (triple A) personality. Tightly wound, a control freak, tough as nails (I prided myself on the tough as nails part), a non crier, a taking names and kicking ass kind of a person. Seriously- in control of everything.
Not so much now. Now I cry a lot. I felt like I was emotional before. But now it’s ridiculous. I worry about stupid things now that I never used to worry about.
I worry about people liking me. I worry about people leaving me. Friendships, relationships, my partner. And maybe BTF those things may have bothered me, but I never paid attention to them because I was just so busy trying to control everything.
The weird thing about head injuries/TBI’s – not only do they mess with you physically they fuck around with your mind. Any control that you’ve had over the physical part is gone. As I’ve said before, you’re really at the mercy of your brain and how it heals. It dictates when you sleep. It dictates how you read, how things taste, how things smell, it affects your balance, and it really affects your emotions.
One day last week I had a really great brain day and I felt like I could probably return to work the next day. I was doing the exercises from my physical therapist and pushing the boundaries to exercise my brain. I was doing the exercises from my occupational therapist. I just felt so good. And then the next day I had a really bad brain day that set me back with a migraine, and a long time in bed and emotionally. I was a mess almost like I was hung over.
Aside from being so incredibly fatigued, I was overly emotional, and I cried. I was worried all day that my deficits were so pronounced that the important people around me we’re going to notice and tire of me. And if I’m being completely transparent, abandonment issues are things I’ve worked on my entire adult life and I have they were their ugly heads since I fell.
I continue to chant the mantra “I want my life back” logically, I know it’s going to take hard work. Emotionally I just don’t feel like I can do the work and I feel like I’m going to be like this for the rest of my life. And what if I am?
Since the fall had to do a lot of exploring, I’m talking about my feelings. Anyone who really knows me, knows I hate talking about my feelings. Big vulnerable is not one of my strengths..
Fast forward to the weekend I took my gaming platform out for a test drive and attempted to play a video game with a friend. I lasted about 90 minutes – then the headache appeared, nausea set in, and I was a goner. My friend of course it was very cool about everything and he knows what’s happening with me regarding my recovery so I think him and went right to bed. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t hang out longer and it was just another one of those deficits that let me know who’s boss. And the next day, which was today again super hung over again from too much brain activity – today was a very quiet day.
I’m fortunate in that I have an amazing accountability partner (I highly recommend if you ever want to improve yourself, experience self growth, dig deep in regards to who you are, work on some thing that is challenging and you need somebody to sit in the mud with – find an accountability partner). And this AP has also become a really close friend who pushes the shit out of me when I need it. Supports me 100%, is probably one of the most inspiring, positive, nonjudgmental individuals on the planet. It’s no secret I appreciate and love him to the moon and back. And I don’t care how weird it makes him feel to hear that- I KNOW just how fucking lucky I am.
Where was I- oh yeah, (sometimes I forget what I’m saying or writing) this guy just doesn’t give up on me when I feel like throwing in the towel. He can reframe and see the positive in everything- and has the patience of Job.
A regular person would think how wonderful and lucky are you to have somebody like this in your life-right?
But nope- I can’t be a regular person who can be happy about this. Since the fall my anxiety has skyrocketed and I worry every day that I need to censor myself-because this no filter brain of mine is off the rails sometimes and I don’t want to be offensive and scare people off especially my AP. He says he’s not quitting on me.
And as everybody says, you have to just trust the process.
I’m so tired of hearing you have to trust the process.
So he sits in the mud with me on a regular basis. He lets me wallow. He’s encouraging. He deserves some sort of a medal or a crown or both.
I am skipping the minutes as I feel like what’s the point? I’m never going to get this time back. In many ways I kind of feel robbed. I’ll never get back the three months -2 weeks, or the 15 weeks-5 days, or the 110 days I’ve lost.
This TBI (That’s what they are calling it) has completely disrupted my life-and pretty much stopped 07/11/2023.
However, things are getting better. Initially when I first hit my head the impact was on the right front/side of my head. Forehead/temple area. Aside from many many sutures experienced the following-
Aphasia:
Speaking in short or incomplete sentences (this happens a lot)
Speak in sentences that don’t make sense (Bingo!)
Substitute one word for another or one sound for another (yep)
Speak unrecognizable words (all the time)
Have difficulty finding words (lots) I can describe the word, but I can’t say it. M
Not understand other people’s conversation (I have to ask people to repeat themselves into slow down)
Not understand what they read (I have to re-things to her three times to get it)
Write sentences that don’t make sense (thankfully this hasn’t happened a lot)
I don’t have much of a filter. My EQ has always been pretty high. I’ve been able to read signals, cues, facial expressions, and take the emotional temperature of a room. Not so much these days- which is so frustrating. I’ve never been afraid of colorful metaphors (cursing) but I feel like swearing comes easy because it’s just easy to do and it doesn’t take much thought. I’m also not holding back and telling people what I really think even if it’s not popular or nice or kind. I work on my filter every day.
I cry a lot. About everything. I used to pride myself as being tough. Now, pretty much everything makes me cry. And it’s over stupid things- super frustrating.
A lot of the times I trip over my words, I don’t always understand what people are saying to me, I worry excessively about everything. I’ve always been a sensitive person but now I’m ultra sensitive and I don’t really like it. It makes me really uncomfortable.
My memory sucks – oh good god. I feel so old sometimes. My balance is off, and I think that have to do with being extraordinarily paranoid about falling again. I relive the fall over and over in my head. I’m seeing a therapist and it’s helping I think but I still worry about falling again it was just so traumatic.
When I first fell and hit my head, the diagnosis was a concussion. I was OK with that I mean athletes get concussions every day. And then the weird stuff started happening like food started tasting funny and I couldn’t find my words and I was smelling weird things and my balance was off and I couldn’t sleep (still can’t) and and and…
Then, I got the ability to be taken care of by a really great team, and they introduced the words :TBI: and while I wasn’t really happy about having that sort of diagnosis, it made sense.
My days are categorized either as good brain days or bad brain days. The good brain days feel almost normal although I can still tell I have a deficit the bad brain days or just a plain shit show. for instance, on bad brain days, it is pretty much nonstop, crying, excessive fatigue, and when my brain decides it’s had enough my body just needs to sleep. And when I mean sleep, I mean I need to lay down and shut my eyes and it’s either a power nap of a short while or it’s a true nap like a newborn of two or three hours. I have no control over any of this and as I have shared with other people, there’s no way to muscle through this or take control of this or anything I mean this is kind of like being in prison and you’re somebody’s bitch and a bitch right now is my brain.
My team tells me I will be normal and get back almost 100% of what I had before. I don’t know if I believe that. I’ve never been great at waiting. I’m probably one of the most impatient people on the planet. I figure a lot of it has to do with instant gratification and that’s another post for another time.
I am improving. I told myself that every day, even if the improvements are microscopic, and only recognizable by me. If I don’t tell myself that I can get to a pretty dark place and well, I’m not a depressed person by nature I’ve had more dark and gloomy days and I have had bright days. This is something I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
I’m fortunate to have a really great circle of support. I have a close friend in particular who is also my accountability partner, and he (God bless him) listens to my whining quite a bit and gets right down in the mud and sits with me regardless of how dirty we get. I’m extraordinarily grateful and thankful to him and for him, it really reinforces my belief that people are put in your life for a reason, season or lifetime and I hope he’s around for a lifetime I think he is. (there I go over thinking shit again- just live in the moment, trust the process, that’s what they tell me)
Most people that I encounter these days tell me that I’m different. That bothers me greatly because it makes me wonder how I am different because I don’t recognize it. It also makes me wonder if I’m not acceptable as I am right now and will it be like this forever?
Below is a picture of a brain and the area of my brain that was hurt. I’m not a neurologist just a lay person, but I circled where I hit my head and the things that I am experiencing that are challenges right now in association with healing
Oh and it’s been 158,437 minutes (I mean, if we’re counting)
It’s also taken me 5 hours and 43 minutes to write this fucking thing.
Let me preface this by saying this is a bad brain day. (It’s a longish story but I fell and hit my head and have sustained a head injury.) Aside from picking random tiny pieces of gravel out of my forehead that just bubble up to the surface when they feel like it – I’m finding that it’s taking me three times as long to do anything so I’m sure this post is going take me three days.
It seems like everything is happening all at once, and I am not managing any of it very well.
Agingand Menopause
Nobody and I mean nobody could have even remotely prepared me for not only middle age, but 50 and above. They don’t teach this in school. Not in any school. Sure they’re books out on the inter webs that talk about aging, empty nesters, and the other dirty word “menopause” – but there’s no class in high school or even college that touched on any of this.
And… would be really have listened, are paid attention? Probably not.
I began to notice around the age of 40 that some parts took longer to wake up than others in the morning. And my once very healthy libido took a hike. My partner not understanding about any of this thought it was something he did – and I found myself saying the dreaded words “ It’s me not you”. So off to the doctor I went terrified that there was something terribly wrong with me – something sinister. Only to be told that it was just perimenopause and to fasten my seatbelt because the next 10 or so years was going to be a roller coaster ride of physical and emotional symptoms.
She wasn’t kidding.
Between the mood swings, hot flashes, and tears (so so many tears), I was a hot mess. Then the brain fog set in, fatigue appeared, more tears, irregular periods, weight gain, and my joints began to hurt, so did my skin.
It was all just so weird.
Through this time I was working full-time, raising a family, running a busy household- doing it pretty much single-handedly because I had a partner who traveled for work 65% of the time outside of the country.
Fast forward to (coughcough-sixty-coughcough) Everyone’s grown, out of the house. We are empty nesters. My libido is meh- (had left the building like Elvis long time ago). And if I’m being completely honest, if I had a choice between sleep and sex, sleep would win every time.
Not that I don’t love him- but dang this girl needs her sleep.
In the meantime, we are working through, with, and around our respective health issues that come with aging.
My partner and I have been together almost 30 years and married 25 years this month. We cannot tell you where the time has gone. We both feel like we were just bringing our child home from the hospital as a newborn, we blinked, and we were walking our child to kindergarten- we turned around and we were in enduring middle school- took a breath and we were attending high school graduation- we are at the finish line with college, at least a bachelors degree and he’s a grown-up.
An entire generation has come and gone.
We now have matching canes. We take medication. We get a runny nose after meals. We forget shit, and yell at the news. Oh- we don’t hear nearly enough from our son. Not nearly enough.
I feel like we should be awarded a medal or something.
Relationships “et al”
When I say “et al” I mean all the others in my life not just the dude I share a home with.
Can I just say that relationships are hard? I get that we choose “our hard”. But Jesus- here’s another one of those topics they just don’t talk about or teach in school.
Typically you don’t learn about this stuff until you’ve had your heart broken a time or 11. Maybe a divorce under your belt. Or a break up with a platonic friend. Or an estrangement from a child or another family member before you think maybe it’s a good idea to park your ass in a therapist chair for a while to figure it all out.
AND EVEN THEN– sometimes you don’t figure it out and you have to go back and do it all over again.
Fuck. Right?
They are just a challenge. Or maybe it’s just me. But I am struggling with the majority of my relationships right now. It’s no fun and incredibly frustrating.
Injury
It’s taking me so about three hours to get all of this down on artificial turf (online) which has been brought to you by the letters H & I (head injury).
Earlier this summer, I took a fall and hit my head on concrete. Aside from more sutures than you can shake a stick at, I injured my back, cracked teeth, jacked the right shoulder, arm, and hand- last but not least – I was diagnosed with a moderate concussion.
I don’t recall having a concussion as a kid- I may have had one maybe at the age of nine? The neighbor kid and I were out riding bikes, and we crashed. So I’ve been pretty lucky up until now.
But let me tell you – concussions are a motherfucker. There is no way around them. You cannot tough your way through them. You cannot bulldoze your way through them You’re at the mercy of your brain healing on its own timetable.
Thankfully, I have a pretty spectacular concussion therapist that I am working with- but this is probably one of the hardest things I’ve endured, and I’ve endured my share of health crap.
I cry a lot these days. Especially when I can see and understand cognitively that I have a series of deficits that I’m working with.
Writing is something I try to do on a daily basis. To me writing is like breathing. I need to use that part of my brain daily. Since my accident that part isn’t working so well and it’s been devastating.
I thought this may help me. But I’m not sure. All I know is I do not write with is, or finesse, and I’ve completely lost my sense of humor. Sigh.
One of the things that I have rapidly learned about myself regarding this concussion is that when my brain has had enough, it lets me know without adoubt that it’s done.
And I’m just about done.
I own the fact that I’m one of the most impatient people on the planet and I don’t like to wait.
However- the rest of the stuff I want to talk about it’s just gonna have to wait.
I refuse to die this way 