Positive start …

         … but it goes rather downhill after that!



Apart from some of my earliest posts, I think you would agree that this blog is painting a fairly uplifting picture. For the most part, I am indeed coming around to a more positive outlook and upon regular reflection, my life is nowhere near as bad as I have sometimes considered it to be

 

I am however keen for this blog to be an honest account. My journey continues to progress (and I am in a far better position than used to be the case), but things remain far from perfect and there are quite a few issues that still trouble me (and sometimes, quite deeply!). 

 

Please forgive me for darkening things, but I would like to mention a few of these.  I am not doing so out of any sense of self-pity – I just want to paint as full a picture, as possible. 

 

As I’m sure you can imagine:

 

This post isn’t too easy to write

 

Ok, deep breath – and here goes:

 

I would like to take a look at just some of the above characteristics, that will often be exhibited by survivors of a brain injury. Of course, any such person will not necessarily experience all of these things – and indeed limited (to some extent) applicability is common.

 

I am just going to mention a small number of the listed issues that seem applicable to myself. My coverage won’t be comprehensive, and I’m just going to cover briefly, some that remain of current significance. 


Looking at the picture:

 

Right at the outset, we get a glimmer (or rather more!) of positivity in an otherwise quite troubled, post.

 

“I am a brain injury survivor”.

 

I lived to tell the tale – and much, much more.  Matters could have been an awful lot worse.

 

Now let’s give a little thought to some of the other items on the list and I’d like to start (melodramatically, perhaps!), with “I know tears”.

 

A risk of damaging my macho credentials (should I have any – probably not!), I have shed, and continue to shed, rather a lot of these.  Things are improving though. A few years ago, I wept at some point in almost every day. Much less so now, but in the quiet of my own home, some tearful episodes do indeed, reoccur. Sometimes I have an idea of their cause (and this blog should be providing you with plenty of examples) but on other occasions, I find myself weeping out of some nameless grief.

 

Moving on: 

 

“I know loneliness”.

 

As I’ve already told you, I now live alone and no longer have any interaction with my former work colleagues.

 

I understand the need for this arrangement, but don’t find living on my own to be very easy. I miss conversation and background noise. Living elsewhere, often leads to a lack of shared experiences with, and limited understanding of matters concerning, my family.


 Just to give one example (emotive as it might sound - sorry), I don’t like waking up on every Christmas morning, to a silent and empty house.  In fairness, I do go around to the family home quite early and spend most of the day with them. Nevertheless …

 

That all said with regard to loneliness, I can be my own worst enemy. I no longer find social interaction to be very easy and therefore tend in many circumstances, to shun the company of others. This was even the case when I lived with my family! I think it is fair to say that many brain injured people feel “lonely” but that isn’t necessarily by reason of an absence of supportive family and friends. Certainly, in my case, much of my loneliness arises from reluctant, self-imposed solitude.

 

“I know the frustration” of being unable to undertake activities which formerly were a source of pleasure or pride (or both). That said, as you might have gathered, I am striving to seek their adaptation or replacement and to consolidate an acceptance that “different isn’t necessarily worse”.

 

I must stress, that I am using the word “frustration” here, in its conventional sense. In brain injury parlance it is sometimes given a special meaning, that rather goes beyond this. For example, a public exhibition of unwarranted anger – sometimes impulsively directed at a stranger. Although I have no memory of it, I am ashamed to have been told that I have done this, in the past. Mercifully, the key word here is “past”!

 

And last but not least:

 

“I know the loss of self”:



 

Now Phil v2.0!

 

But as you know, I am trying hard to accept this alteration. I want to like and feel proud of the new me. 

 

Not there yet, but I’m working on it …



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