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The Deliriously Serious meets the Fun Side of My Brain
Some of the most difficult problems to overcome after my accident and brain damage have been accepting that I may never be able to do everything I used to be able to do. This has taken me years to even begin to accept. My life now may seem like it is filled with many wasted hours of trying with many trials and errors to relearn and regain some of what I have lost. Years of refusing to believe I might never be able to do many of the things that used to make me feel capable, smart and special. I used to think I could do anything I put my mind to. But my mind now often seems to fail me. I won’t give up hope and I won’t give up trying. Heck, I admit it, even this many years later; I can’t believe this is all I can do, or accept it! It took six years before I could begin to remember something I did an hour before without a cheat note to remind me. Now it’s been thirteen years and I can do that often, as long as there is no overcast sky or confusion going on around me, but holding that same remembrance which often dissipates within a few days is still often a challenge. An example of my typical day concerns: Was I supposed to do something today? Was my sister here yesterday? Did she tell me something I now forgot? Did I tell her what I was supposed to? And what was that? I can’t remember! Where are my notes! You may think that would get me down, and you would be right most of the time. I still can’t seem to learn. But I love to learn, and I can go for hours and hours reading and studying and love digesting the new knowledge. Learning excites me just as much as it always has. But after studying and learning for hours and hours, by the next day I wake up and it’s like the movie ’50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. I don’t always or should I say most often remember who I met a moment ago, I can’t remember their name or their face and I could introduce myself to the same person over and over again. So after I spend a day working on learning or studying something like the steps to create my website, I can’t remember what I read or studied. So everything seems to take me much longer then you could ever imagine. But luckily I am pretty patient with myself and do not give up easily. Not all is bad about this disability that I have been struggling with since the end of 1999 though. There is a fun or should I say funny side. I love movies and I can watch them and then a couple of hours later watch the same movie and it’s almost like I had never seen it and so I can enjoy it again and again almost like the first viewing. I have found that each time I see it I hold a little more of the memory of it. But give me a break from it for say two weeks in between and it once again is almost fresh and new. That’s pretty good for someone who loves watching a good movie. It makes it kind of difficult to do some of the writing I wish I could do that might help me with an income to support myself better like writing a movie review for even my own stories. Which in itself is kind of funny? When I’ve transferred my short stories from my paper to the computer I have to make and outline note of the names of my own characters and times and major events because I cannot remember my own creations. I would not do very well even answering questions about my own books. So there we have it, after seeing a movie, I would have to take notes and write the review immediately after watching it or I have to watch it again just before I write it and still refer to notes taken during the movie especially if I was to state names of people or places. So you see, even if I can still be articulate with my descriptions I need cheat sheets all over the place. And that sort of describes my most difficult issues trying to continue to be a writer after my accident. I can have a wonderful sentence in my mind that is bursting to come out but I only have seconds to capture it on paper or scratch notes to keep it or it is gone and I have to create something else out of any fragments of the memory that might be left to me. I have some great ideas for stories, and even doing other things in my life but if and when I forget them because I didn’t save them to paper I lose out on ever using them or even trying to do them some day and so I always carry a feeling like I’ve forgotten something very important to me and knowing that I probably never will ever know what that was. When I sit in front of my keyboard and type my feelings, thoughts or ideas straight from my head, they seem to flow freely onto the paper because I can type faster than I can write. If I try to transfer my thoughts or ideas from my notes and scribbles from paper to paper or to type into the computer that too is more difficult than typing directly from my head. Not just because I often misplace or lose track of my notes or mess up the order they are in but because if I don’t put enough description for my ideas on my notes, I lose the original idea and have to regrow something probably altogether different from my notes or throw them out all together because I’ve lost the best of it which is when it was pouring out of me the first time. Meanwhile, when I get frustrated or too confused it’s time to hang it up and take a break. I reach for my crochet hook and start crocheting grannie squares (an almost soothing mindless task) so I can feel productive and make a blanket for someone. And I put on a movie and sink myself into it and let it carry me away taking a break from the exhausting task of being the new and more challenging me. Is it all worth it? Darn straight it is. Life’s a challenge. I can take it. More Please. When we were young, we often treated small things like it was a matter of life or death. and as we grow the light of seriousness of many of those things grow dim and are left behind as faint memories but some are not left behind are held onto sometimes too tightly as we drag them along with us as we develop into adulthood. From the very first step into a first grade classroom, our sence of self is tested and even then shadowed by what other people say, do, or think. Mixing our own experiences with more new and diverse people along the way as we all experiences pressures and challenges. Things can be shaped smoothly or roughly as we develop our Social skills and these interactions truly begin to develop the person who we will become. And then Who are we? Is it who we were meant to be? Could be but Not always. Are we just victims of circumstance? Not only in our genetic or predestined nature are we set to the path of who we shall be or what mark we will make in this world. There are many strong influences at work in our development that create change. There is Birth place, or where we live, Our family dynamics, society view of us, or Acceptance or lack of. There is nutrition and many other signatures that dictate, help or hinder and influence weather we will be week or strong, brave or cowardly, intelligent or intellectually limited, rich, successful or poor and humble. But I think foremost it is the way we view ourselves, our journey and possibilities. If we continue to have hope and dream and avoid negative views that are painted by others or circumstance, we may be able to view life through the minds eye of the individual self we are truly meant to be.
LMC What causes a sudden drop or rise in our feelings when nothing apparent is going on?
Often I have gone from a feeling of calm and comfort to a feeling of doom or gloom or sadness. Many people suffer different mood changes for not always easily explainable reasons. Some are simply metabolically explained like that of an insulin drop or raise for a diabetic. Some are explained by people suffering PTSD or other emotional or mental challenges. But I was wondering if in fact there is another cause to be one day included into our understanding. What if we carry the feelings of our ancestors? what if our ancestors are still with us somewhere inside the network of an unknown reality that connects us to a much greater awareness? What if we know more then we think we know if we could just learn how to tapa into this extended network of knowing? There are some cultures or religions that touch on this or similar beliefs. We have already realized life is much more then we know about it. It's a mighty slow journey of recovery from Brainlash. One milestone at a time over many years.2/16/2014 Linda Marie CurtinSo much improvements, or maybe a lot of adjustments but still fighting with memory glitches. I couldn't transfer three words from one web page to another. My memory Just can't carry new material from one spot to another without seeing it. Crap, I thought I was getting better then that! But I can now finally remember something I want to remember when I get in bed at night and carry it over till the morning without having to check my memory notes. Woohoo!!! Great improvement and it's only been 14 years of recovery."}' data-reactid=".e">Like · · Share · 28 minutes ago ·
Jane Leduc January 6, 2014
I know I am so fortunate in so many ways and I’m even a bit spoiled. So why am I still so discontent? I am discontent because I am afraid of being just a lazy give up person. Sometimes I think I have just a dead end drive in my heart, like I am on a carrousel and just going around and around and around all the time reaching for a gold ring that obviously is beyond my reach and I just don’t want to accept that it is impossible. Maybe I feel advancements for me now are impossible at this age. I seem to keep myself a chained housebound woman and although there are many things I love about it, I do not do many of the chores that I could do around the house or that I should do around the house. Am I just lazy? Too tired? Physically unable? I seem to be waiting for better things to do yet I do not get away from the house to do any of them. Is it no money for gas? Yes sort of. Is it because I’m stuck in a rut? I suppose that’s possible. Is it because of my health or because I’m feeling old? Yes I think that’s part of it. But that is kind of silly. Many women my age still have busy and full lives. I’m not as old as I am letting myself be. Is it my weight and self-esteem? I’m sure that’s part of it.. Some days I feel defeated before I even get started. My brain gets so tired as I push myself to try and think of ways of getting myself on tasks that might make a difference, better my life, give me a more sustainable income or just get me out of the house and into a more active life. I am more of a dreamer then a doer. I do spend a lot of time dreaming or planning or waiting for things to happen. If someone else needed me to do something for them, I am more apt to find a way to get up get out and make it happen. But for myself, I guess I often feel defeated before I begin, tired or deflated looking to any excuse not to get started yet. I often can’t get myself into a forward marching response to my own needs or desires. My life is slipping past me and I feel I can’t think my way out of a paper bag? Yes, I think that’s it in a nutshell. I still can’t find the key to pulling myself up out of depression from my disabilities which I still have trouble accepting. Still morning the loss of who I used to be and the things I used to be able to do. It is so exhausting trying to make a plan to move ahead and more exhausting trying to remember what I figured out an hour ago. I can only take so many notes before they begin to look like mixed up spaghetti and I have to gather the pile of notes up and toss it and begin again. Because of short term memory loss I have trouble staying to a plan about my day let alone tomorrow or the next day or next week or next month or next year. How can you move forward other than a crawl when having trouble with short term memory? Oh I have improved and I can actually sometimes recall things which used to be impossibility to remember. But more often I forget things and they never come back to me. So I can develop a plan from an idea, get excited about it. See the possibilities and even start doing what’s necessary to get started to get it going. Then I sleep and wake and it’s all gone again. Unless someone or something reminds me or helps me to get back on track and even then it seems to only come back to me in parts and it usually has lost the excitement which is then covered like a haze of an incomplete memory. Each day that I am reminded by someone else’s memory or yesterday’s notes of what I was planning or dreaming, if I get back on the task each day I can creep a little bit closer to completing the task, the dream, or the chore. And also with each day added to the task reminding myself of what I was doing it does get easier and easier to remember, but it is exhausting to repeat and repeat and repeat the starting up again process every day to do so. But it is Inching a little closer to the chance of completing with each return to the task. How would anyone feel if you suddenly found that you could not do the things you used to do? Things that used to take you two hours to plan and complete easily, now were taking you two weeks with much difficulty or you were no longer able to do them at all? I used to think I could do just about anything and that gave me lots of excited ambition, now I am like a scavenger trying to search through the broken rubbish of my life for anything left of the skills I once had worth salvaging that might help me be more financially successful and independent. |
AuthorOnce a writer always a writer no mater how much time passes or how many things change. The bug bites deep. Archives
June 2015
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