What if I have nothing to prove?

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time tracking my experiences, the past week or so. I haven’t been quite as diligent as I could be, but I’ve been really caught up in learning new skills for work that are as interesting as they are essential.

I’ve also been looking back at my experiences tracking from about a year ago, and I can see that I’ve really come a long way. A year ago, I was painfully conflicted about just about everything in my life. My work situation was in flux to an almost perilous degree, my internal landscape was pretty torn up by emotional storms, my outbursts and meltdowns were intense and fairly frequent, and I was not communicating well at all — with anyone.

I can’t say that I’ve completely righted my life, but the seas I’m sailing are a lot less stormy than they were this time last year. I’ve learned how to not only handle myself better in a storm, but how to tell if a storm is coming, and steer clear of those waters. All in all, I have to say that I’m doing a whole lot better now, than I was before. I’m probably doing better than I have in my entire life.

A big part of that process has involved getting to know the ways in which I’m limited, or the ways in which my brain functions in a non-standard way. There are a select few (but fairly significant) ways that my brain differs from what’s expected. I tend to memorize things from rote, rather than grouping ideas or things into thematic categories. My processing speed is slower than would be expected of someone with my level of intelligence. And I have a dickens of a time with working memory — I tend to lose hold of new ideas and information after only a short bit of interruption, or if I shift my attention to something else and then try to come back to it.

All my life, these things have been a problem. And they’ve given rise to a whole raft of other issues, which I’ve really struggled with for as long as I can remember. Ironically, I haven’t had a really clear understanding about the nature of my problems. I knew — vaguely — that something wasn’t right, but I didn’t understand exactly what was wrong… or why. I always just figured I was some kind of idiot or I wasn’t trying hard enough or I was just being lazy or I was being a bad person. And that belief was reinforced by countless people around me who couldn’t figure out why someone as smart as me could be so dumb at times. So, I thought there was something really wrong with ME, and I told myself I had to work really, really hard to redeem myself.

Thinking that there was a problem with me gave rise to an inner drive and intensity that’s been fueled by guilt and shame and a deep need for some sort of redemption or salvation. I’m not talking about the religious type, rather, a daily striving to make up for the things I thought I was doing wrong… for the ways I thought I was living wrong… for the ways I was being wrong… which led to my screw-ups, misunderstandings, faux pas, clumsiness, forgetfulness, confabulation, etc. I’ve had this monkey on my back for decades, hopping up and down on my head, driving me to fix what I’d messed up, to make right what I’d mucked up, and work really, really hard to prove to the rest of the world — and myself — that I was not a loser, that I was not a slacker, that I was worthy of being an equal member of society.

All my life, I’ve been driven to prove I can do it, because there was a constant voice in the back of my head that told me I couldn’t. We all have this little voice in the back of our head, repeating to use both truths and lies about ourselves, based on what we’ve experienced and been told about ourselves.

This voice told me I would mess everything up — because that’s what I generally did. So, I had to work twice as hard to make up for my messes.

This voice told me I would get turned around and lose my way — because that’s what always seemed to happen. So, I had to bend over backwards to figure things out ahead of time to prove to myself that I wouldn’t get lost.

This voice told me that I would never be able to do the most important things, like have a good job and own a house and be able to pay my bills, and be a productive member of society. So, I had to drive myself to take on the biggest tasks, make the most money, have the best house, and get involved in the most worthy causes, to show that it wasn’t true.

Now, I can’t say I dislike having a good job and a nice house and being involved in worthy causes. I really enjoy having a clear view of where I’m going in life. And I enjoy working hard, so pushing to achieve suits me just fine.  I also need to maintain what I’ve worked so hard to build up.

The thing is, now that I know so much more about what makes me tick, I need to find new reasons for doing these things — and doing them well. Now that I can see how so many of my problems have stemmed from my brain injuries, rather than fundamental character flaws, I’m finding that I’m a lot less driven to do everything in order to prove myself. The intensity of my past is mellowing, and that edginess that pushed-pushed-pushed me is on the wane.

In many ways, the pressure is off. Because I’m not a bad person — I’m an injured person. I’m not lazy or crazy or defiant. I’m in possession of a brain that works more slowly than would be expected… that gets bits and pieces of information instead of the whole shootin’ match… and that has a genuine need to question statements and orders, because I honestly don’t understand everything when it’s presented to me in one whole package.

And that’s a good thing. How long can a person be reasonably expected to function at such a high pressure level? I’m not sure I could have lasted much longer, personally.

But it’s also a problematic thing.  Because I’ve built this life which I really enjoy, I really like, I really value. And I have to keep it going. I have to maintain it all — and it’s a lot — without the guilt-and-shame-and-panic-driven engine in my head and gut chug-chug-chugging away.

I have to find another reason to do things, other than simply proving that I CAN DO IT. I know I can. I’ve proved to myself and everyone around me that I can. And now that I know better why things in the past got messed up, I can warn myself away from recurring dangers and not run into those proverbial ditches along the road of my life. But without the same level of self-recriminatory redemption obsession driving me forward, what’s going to drive me now?

Waking up early again

I got to bed at a decent hour, last night – 10:30 p.m., which is actually early for me. I’ve been trying to do a better job of getting enough sleep, but it’s been problematic. Here and there, I’ve done well — I got more than 6 hours of sleep a few nights in a row. Then I got 7 hours one night, and I even slept a whole 8 hours this past Sunday night. I thought I was on the good foot.

But now my erratic sleeping pattern is back to its old tricks, and here I am again, with all of 5 hours of sleep under my belt.  It’s very frustrating.

Looking back at what I did right before I was able to sleep through the night, I can see what I did right:

First, and probably most importantly, I exercised. I was physically active and moved a lot – sometimes to the point of being totally wiped out at the end of the activities. But then I just rested a bit and got back in the swing of things.

I didn’t drink coffee late in the day. I had a juice or a drink of water or a piece of fruit. I didn’t have coffee after 4:00.

I didn’t get on the computer after 6 at night. I got all my work done in the morning, and I didn’t get all charged up by the glowing screen later in the day. The light emitted from computer screens is very similar to daylight, which tells the brain that it’s daytime, so it needs to wake up. Not good, if you’re trying to wind down for the day.

I ate early — before 7:00 p.m. I had a meal early enough in the evening that I had time to digest it before I went off to bed. I also didn’t eat too much.

On the days immediately before the nights when I was able to sleep the longest, I was physically bushed. Done for the day. I wasn’t just mentally tired. I had been really active, and I had eaten and lived well all day long.

Now, on the days when I’ve had the most trouble, I did the opposite of everything above. I didn’t have any real exercise at all. I ran around a bit and did errands and took care of business, but by and large, I spent the whole day working in relative physical inactivity. A I spent the majority of my hours in front of the computer, till late in the day. Last night, I was coding until about 8 p.m., and then I ate late — around 8:30. Also, I had a cup of strong black coffee around 5:00 in the evening, which helped me wake up in time for my therapy session but probably threw off my sleeping cycle.

One of the other things that has differed between the good sleep days and the bad ones, is that on the good sleep days, I have stuck with a structured schedule. I had specific things I did at specific times, and when I was done with those activities, I was either completely done, or I put them aside to do later. I didn’t sit around thinking about them in the hours when I wasn’t working on them, and I didn’t jump up to go work on the computer when I thought of something “smart” (only to find out later that it wasn’t).

If I was working, I was working.

If not, I was “off duty” for the day.

This comes back (yet again) to the importance of structure and discipline. Knowing how to draw lines between activities and keep myself on-point. Having the discipline to say, “Okay, I didn’t get everything done that I intended to, but here’s what still needs to be done, and I’ll take it off my plate for the day and put it in a list to tend to the next time I work on this…”  instead of hanging onto a task, long after I’ve stepped away from it, and trying to consciously “work on it” in my head while I’m doing other things. That’s a very inefficient way to work and live, and it is actually counter-productive, because the parts of my brain that do best at working on a problem when it’s not in front of me are subconscious and can’t be controlled or steered by conscious will.

It also helps to not get so tired throughout the course of my day that I can no longer tell how tired I am… and what I need to do about it.

It’s a tricky thing, this “energy management” business, but it’s got to be done. I neglect it at my own peril.

Well, enough sitting at this computer. It’s time to get some exercise.

When in doubt… do nothing

I made a terrible mistake on Sunday – I ate some frozen custard. I didn’t have a whole cup — I ate maybe a few tablespoons, max. But it was enough to do some damagen.

To most, it might not seem like that big of a deal, but for me, it’s huge. When I eat dairy, including frozen custard, I tend to have a bad reaction — I get stuffy and croupy, my ears fill with fluid, and my balance gets thrown off to the point where I cannot stand up straight without holding onto something, I cannot turn quickly, and I have a hard time walking in straight lines.

I’ve never had really good balance while moving slowly — I balance better when I’m in motion, the faster the better. I tend to bump into things, run into things, knock things off counters, when I’m moving slowly. But when I have dairy, everything gets that much worse. I’d say three to four times worse. And it comes on me fairly suddenly, a day or two after I eat or drink the dairy. I like to think I can “cheat” now and then – I didn’t have that much custard on Sunday. But then my body puts me in my place, and there ya go…

It’s maddening. The associated nausea sometimes keeps my stomach in knots for days. My head spins and swirls, my body doesn’t even feel like it’s mine, and I start to get really cranky and short-fused with everyone around me. I have a hard time responding to people when they talk to me (first, I can’t understand what they’re saying at first, then I have to ask them to repeat themselves and listen closely to what they say, and then think carefully through my response, which may not even turn out to be the right thing to say). I feel awful about it, but what can I do? All I can really do is rest and drink a lot of fluids and steer clear of any junk food or processed sugar (and definitely dairy)… and make a note of it in my daily minder to track my experience.

So, today, I am staying away from the office. I’ll work from home (and probably get more done here, than I would there, where it’s very noisy and bright and filled with distractions). I am not getting in my car and driving through the rain in heavy traffic, only to arrive wet and behind schedule and bitchy as a wet cat. I’ll put on my music, pull out my to-do list, and have at it. And I’ll take a nap in the afternon, to catch up on my sleep. I was up waaaaay too late last night, doing things I love to do (but sadly not doing them very well), so I need to make up for that.

This is progress for me. Last night, I had fully intended to go into the office today. I knew I was feeling a little off, woozy, wobbly, croupy, etc. But I was determined to soldier on and put in an appearance. I had to show up, I told myself. I “had” to show up.

But y’know what? Appearances aren’t everything. And my boss doesn’t care where I am working, so long as I get my job done. Truth to tell, I don’t have to shop up. And I’m more likely to get my work done at home today, than at the office, so I’m doing them a favor by staying put.

This morning — at last — I realized I’ve got nothing to prove by driving myself through traffic, and if I intend to have a truly productive day, I have no business going into the office. I’m off balance, which makes me more prone to accidents, not to mention crankiness.  Plus, I really need to take a nap this afternoon, and I can’t do that at the office.

Well, enough said. I’m taking the pressure of and giving myself a break. And feeling good about it, which is probably the most important part.

A do-over makes the difference

I had a dream about my diagnostic neuropsych last night. It was a really cool dream. We were trying — as usual — to find time on our calendars to schedule our next session, and we kept getting our wires crossed and missing each other when were trying to connect… and running into each other, when one or both of us didn’t have our schedule on hand. It was actually a really nice dream, because they were very kind to me during all of it, and the weather during the dream was sunny and bright and mild (quite unlike what it’s been like in real life for the past six weeks). And even when we were getting our wires crossed, there was still an element of humanity and civility to our interactions that was, well, civilized. It was breath of fresh air, in the midst of my dreamworld confusion. I woke up feeling a bit frustrated, but also very soothed.

I think I’m surprising both my neuropsychologists with my uncanny ability to not only get by in the world, but to also thrive. My diagnostic neuropsych says my ability to adapt and improve is “phenomenal” and they’re openly amazed at my ability to turn around wretched circumstances and come out on top. My therapeutic neuropsych is still handling me with proverbial kid gloves, taking it slow and trying (often in vain) to temper my eagerness to push my limits in life. Slowly but surely, they’re getting a clearer and clearer view of how capable I am of taking care of myself in some respects, while in others I’m wandering around in the dark. This post (however anonymous it may be… they may never read it) is dedicated to both of them.

I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about the impact that TBI has had on my life over the years. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the ways in which it has not had an impact, or in some cases actually led to experiences and successes I might have never pursued, were I not neurologically compromised.

For example:

• If I had been better able to interact with others and communicate — and understand what was being said to me — I might  not have pissed off and alienated the editors I worked with… and I’d be a published author by now. I might not have had to learn how to build web pages to put my writing online.
• If I had been better able to handle heavy-duty job responsibilities, I might still be in middle-management (or even upper management), making okay money and having no life. I probably never would have learned to code (and might have resisted learning to use a computer till late in the game), and I may never have thought of going into the high-paying software business, where work-life balance is more precarious, but also more “customizable”.
• If I had been better at risk assessment, I might never have traveled and moved around as much as I have. I probably would have “known better” and played it safe, never seeing the outside of my home state, let alone the USA. I probably never would have considered living abroad, if I’d been able to make it just fine, here at home.

Funny, how that works. A lot of what I’ve done over the years, no “sane” person would do — I’ve taken big risks, personally and professionally, and I’ve probably been luckier than I’ve been smart, over the years. But long story short, it’s all turned out pretty damn’ well, and this morning, I’m sitting in my own study… in my own house… overlooking my own back yard in a gorgeous and very affluent part of the United States. I’ve got (somewhat dependable) cars that are paid for in the garage, I’ve got a kicker job, and I’ve got a spouse who loves me with all their heart sleeping in the master bedroom. I’ve got family who love me (as inscrutable and problematic as I may be at times), and I have friends who love, appreciate and support me. I’m not the richest (or even the most solvent) person on the planet, but I’m getting there. Even without the money thing all hammered out, I’m one of the richest people I know.

It’s Independence Day, so I suppose today would be a great time to talk about how I’ve managed to do so well for myself, even though I’m most definitely neurologically compromised. Despite no less than nine mild traumatic brain injuries (one assault, three falls, three car accidents, two sports concussions, and probably more injuries that I’ve completely forgotten and just took in stride – gotta get back in the game!), I’ve managed to really thrive in the world, taking things as they came and learning a lot as I went. I’ve had more near-disasters than I care to think about, I’ve had a number of brushes with mortal danger, and I’ve had to rebuild my life over again, more than once.

But in spite of all that, I’m happy, healthy, more or less whole, hale, and hearty. And I have been for years. I have issues. Of course I have issues – who doesn’t? I have experienced tremendous difficulty in navigating things that other people take for granted, and there have been plenty of times when I was flying blind. But for all that trouble, I’ve still managed to do well. When life gave me lemons, I made lemonade. And lemon meringue pie. And lemon drops. And I seasoned my cooking with lemon zest. Figuratively speaking, I’ve eaten and drunk a helluva lot of lemon-flavored stuff over the course of my life. Sometimes it was sweetened, more often, it wasn’t. But I took the bad with the good and did my best with it.

I’m not going to say my TBIs were “the best things that ever happened to me,” as I’ve heard others proclaim. That would be a lie, for they have made my life more complex and painfully awkward than I ever wished it would be. But I will say that my injuries have been a lot less logistically debilitating to me than a lot of people (including trained professionals) seem to think they’ve been — or should have been. And I believe the reason I have done increasingly well over the years, is, I never gave up. A whole lot of times that I messed up, I got a do-over… and I took another shot at what I screwed up the first time.

It’s true. A do-over makes the difference. All those times I mucked up what I was trying to do… I can’t even count them. I’ve messed up relationships, good jobs, simple Saturday chores, volunteer activities, money management, health concerns… you name it, I’ve probably made a huge mess of it, at some point or another. But as long as I got a second chance, it wasn’t the catastrophy it might or “should” have been.

Second chances are like my lifeblood. They’re the stuff that keep me going. People who know me say I’m too hard on myself, when I think that I’m going to mess something up when I first try it. But they haven’t walked in my shoes, and they haven’t seen what a terrible mess I’ve made of so many simple things.

Like the time I was jump-starting my car for the first time on my own. I’d seen it done lots of times by plenty of other people. I knew how you put the clamps on the battery terminals and let your car charge off the other running car. I’d even helped other people jump their cars lots and lots of times. But the first time I tried to jump-start my own car, I got the terminals mixed up, and sparks started to fly and the plastic around the handles started to melt, as the wires heated up to a bright glowing red. I grabbed a stick and managed to pull the cable handles off my battery before both batteries blew up, so no animals were harmed in the making of that movie. But things could have turned out worse, and we could have ended up with two busted-down cars, instead of one.

And like the time when I was putting together numbers for work, collecting all these performance stats to show upper management how well we were doing. This was, needless to say, a very important report. Well, I found a set of numbers that fit the criteria we were looking for, and I compiled this great-looking spreadsheet with graphs and everything that showed our performance over such-and-such a time. Everyone was pleased as punch with my work… until they saw that I’d pulled the wrong numbers from the wrong timeframe and the wrong servers. My end-product was fabulous, but it applied to an alternate universe. And my hours of work were for naught.

And like the time when I was making great progress on this website I was building. I did an awesome job at coding it up quickly and timing everything out so it would be ready to launch on schedule. The only problem was, I forgot to test it in this one browser that everybody knew was problematic. It had completely slipped my mind. And by the time I looked at the website in it and realized that stuff needed to change, I was starting to fall behind schedule. For someone in the web development business, this is just basic, fundamental stuff — you test in all browsers before you launch. But I’d forgotten. And I blew my deadline. And pissed off the project manager who had been so happy with my work — and had told everyone what a great job I was doing.

I can assure you, screwing up the first time around is not a foreign experience to me. But each of the times I’ve screwed up, I’ve learned a great deal. And frankly, I’ve learned more from my failures than from my successes. I just needed the chance to try again.

All I’ve really ever asked for, was a second chance. Seriously. I know I’m prone to make a mess of things on my “maiden voyages”. It’s just in my nature. I’m not being hard on myself. It’s objectively true. Ask anyone who has known me long enough to see me go down in flames… and they’ll confirm it. But they’ll also confirm that I have an uncanny ability to rise from the ashes of my own catastrophes, take my medicine, take my lumps, and climb back into the ring for another round. And when I get my head about me again and figure out what I did wrong, the first time through, I can adjust my performance to do the exact opposite… and come out shining far more brightly than many a person who gets it right the first time around.

When I look back on my life, I have to say the worst experiences and relationships and jobs and activities I’ve had, have been made that way by lack of a second chance. Sadly, my father is one of those people who has to have things done 100% correctly, the first time through — or else. And my mother has not always had the most patience with my flawed interpretations of her instructions. They got it honest — all my relatives and neighbors and other people in the area where I grew up were geared towards getting it right the first time, or else. They had no tolerance for messing up terribly, the first time through — especially by someone as ostensibly smart as I was. They just couldn’t see why I was so prone to screw-ups. Certainly, I must not have been paying close enough attention. Or I was lazy. Or I was weak. Or whatever.

What they just couldn’t see was that I was trying like crazy to get it right, the first time through. I was — I really was. But I didn’t have enough information about how to do it 100% right. Spoken instruction only went so far. Being shown things only went so far. I had to try my hand at things and find out what not to do, in order to find out what to avoid, the next time around. The times when I got a dry run to practice, I was more likely to succeed. But when I was tossed into the deep end, the first time through, I sank like a rock, as often as not. And there were far too many failures to list — and far too many occasions of people not thinking to give me another chance. If I screwed it up the first time through, what made me think I could get it right, the next time?

Thing of it was, I could get it right, the next time. In fact, the worse mess I made of my endeavor, the first time through, the greater the likelihood of me hitting a home run, the next time around.  My very low tolerance for imperfection would never allow me to make the same mistakes twice. I just couldn’t do it. Unfortunately, too many people are not built that way, and they don’t realize that some of us are. They think that true achievers get one chance and one chance only to make their mark, and if you have to keep trying, it means you’re just a wanna-be poser whose prone to biting off more than they can chew.

Well, maybe I am a bit of a wanna-be, and maybe I do tend to bite off more than I can chew. But you know what? I’m driven. And I don’t give up. And if I keep trying, and if I keep learning from my screw-ups (which are so, so many), and I don’t give in to the criticisms of others (and myself), I can really make a difference in my own life and in the world. I can actually attain at least some of what I set out to achieve. And even if I manage to meet only 75% of my set goals, if I set my goals at 200% of what others expect me to be “reasonably” able to do, then I have a chance of achieving 150% of what others expect of me. So there.

And that to me is what true Independence is all about –  knowing both your limits and your strengths and using them both to complement each other. I know I make a mess of things. I know I have a hard time with some pretty basic stuff, at times. I know I tend to overstep my bounds and over-reach. But I also know I’ve got this taproot of faith in cause-and-effect… this logical conviction that if I just keep going, feeling my way through, keeping an open mind and actively learning and putting what I learn into action… I will eventually get far beyond what anyone ever expected of me. And I will achieve nearly everything I have my heart set on. No matter what my brain may be capable of, I also have heart. And my mind — the sum total of my spirit and my brain-power and my instincts — will always keep striving for what is better, what is best, what is highest, what is … progress.

Yes, when it comes to getting things right, a do-over makes the difference. I may mess up the first time through, but a second chance makes everything better. It lets me redeem myself by getting it right the next time. It gives me the opportunity to salvage my experience by using the lessons I’ve learned to make right what I’ve done wrong. It lets me prove to myself that I’m not a total loser. It lets me prove to others that they can — ultimately — depend on me, if they just cut me a little slack and give me another chance. They simply need to resist the temptation to give up on me… understanding that I’ve got my limitations, and that I may need another shot, in order to get the task they’ve given me absolutely right, but I will not quit until I get some satisfactory results.

I can get it… I will get it. I just need to be given more chances to get it right.

Tracking my progress in a way that makes sense

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how I manage my daily life and affairs, lately. After reading some of the Give Back Orlando GBO) material, I became pretty convinced that tracking my successes and failures each day is an important part of keeping my life together and getting (back) to a place where I want to be. In many respects, my brain is working quite differently than it did even 5 years ago, before my fall. I have a harder time reading and comprehending, I have a harder time remembering things, and I have a harder time sleeping and keeping myself on track. I’m also a lot more tired than I ever recalled being when I was younger.

And no, it’s not just getting older. That’s part of it, but the changes were too abrupt after my last accident, for me to easily write it off to that.

Anyway, I tried to track my daily performance like the GBO book told me I should. And I really did make an attempt to keep myself on schedule for some time. What I found, however, was that my life and my type of work does not lend itself to strict scheduling. And if I try to keep myself on a specific timetable, I am setting myself up for failure.

Basically, this is how it works with me: I am a software engineer, which is pretty creative work. It’s very technical, yes, but the design and coding and testing of the programs I wrote, is not something that can always be done predictably. This is especially true because I design software for the world wide web, and since different people with different browsers use it, there can be different behavior and problems that emerge as a result. I could go on a long rant about browser inconsistencies, but there’s no point to that. The people who know about them already know what I’m going to say, and the people who don’t understand probably don’t care.

Anyway, despite being a technical and machine-driven activity, software engineering is still a very organic process which depends heavily on human components, like the skill of the programmer, their level of experience, how they’re feeling on a given day, how rushed they are… every different human factor that influences other kinds of activities influences software engineering. After all, the stuff is created by humans.

And because of this variability, the work I do is really hard to schedule accurately and keep on a hard-and-fast timetable. Yes, we have deadlines we have to keep to, and yes, there is a master project plan we’re all coding to, but from day to day, it’s impossible to say for certain that I’ll be done with a certain piece of code by 11:30 a.m., and I’ll be moving on to the next by 12:00. It just doesn’t work that way for me. Maybe it does for other people, but not for me.

And when I focus on this specific time-table approach, and I mark down my inability to finish something by a certain time as “incomplete” or a “failure”, I’m setting myself up for more failure. I looked at my lists, when I was sticking with the timetable, and I got really depressed and down on myself. I had hardly any successes marked off. The tasks I was working on turned out to be much bigger and “hairier” than I had anticipated, so not only was I falling behind, but I was punishing myself for it, too.

It just wasn’t working.

Now, a part of me thought, “Well, you should just work at it more and get the hang of this scheduling business,” but when I thought about it, it seemed to me that it made more sense to take a more task-oriented approach. Rather than scheduling set times to be done, I should really focus on the individual things that need to be finished, and worry about the how and what, not the when. Focus on the quality and making sure that I was thorough in my work, rather than holding myself to a set schedule.

I also realized, in doing this, that the usual time allotments I was accustomed to giving myself did not work anymore. I realized that this work I do is taking longer for me to do… and it’s also a much more involved process than it ever was before. I’ve always found myself coming up with solutions to problems when I was far away from my notes and my computer and my work setting. There’s something about the creative process that keeps chugging away in the background, while I’m “doing” other things… and comes up with solutions to problems at the least expected times. Just because a solution occurs to me at 2 a.m. when I wake up suddenly, instead of at 4 p.m. the day before, when I had set my deadline, doesn’t mean the solution is a failure, or that my work is lagging. It’s just a different way of getting things done, and I need to make the most of that.

Indeed, while I do appreciate the GBO material, and it does make sense for everyday activities, like completing chores in a timely manner or taking care of regular business, in my line of work, building in that kind of rigidity just works against me. And because my line of work is fluid and tends to shift a lot, with priorities being reset by my boss and other coworkers on a regular basis, the rest of my life tends to be fluid, too.

So, while I don’t always feed the pet and head out the door to work by 8:00 every day, that doesn’t mean I’ve failed. If I manage to do it by 8:30, and I still get to work in time to get everything done… or if I take a little longer in the a.m. to miss the heavy traffic, and spend some time thinking about my coding conundrums… and then arrive at the office with a solution fully formed in the back of my head before I ever touch the keyboard, well, that doesn’t make my scheduling anomalies a “failure” either.

But still, I have been building in more accountability and management for my daily life. I have since modified the to-do list, where I put down a bunch of things that I must do each and every day, so I have things to check off as successes, in the midst of everything else. I also don’t hold myself to a set schedule, but I group my tasks together under common categories (work-related and personal). And I consult the list frequently throughout the course of each day.It’s a tremendous help for me.

I used to feel really rebellious about it, but that was when I felt like I was being set up by my own process. Now that I have created a management system that works for me, it gives me a sense of structure and accomplishment and greater control over my life that I really crave, in order to be productive. I like being productive. I love checking off items I’ve gotten done. And it gives me something to tend to and celebrate. Woo hoo!

I am also carrying my time/activities management into every day of the week, including weekends. Giving myself “time off” is counterproductive, because I end up missing important things I need to get done — like mowing the yard and returning library books and taking the trash to the dump and cleaning my study… all which I often intend to over the weekend, but completely forget because I haven’t written them down and I didn’t check my weekend notes to keep myself on track.

As a result, I miss the narrow window of nice-weather to mow, and then my uncut lawn languishes through the days and days of rain… getting longer and longer and longer and looking pretty ratty. My garage starts to get an odor of trash, and I end up having to haul 3x as much to the dump, which is hard on my back. I rack up library fines. And I lose important papers in my study.

Lessons learned. Over and over, till I get them. Weekends may be “off” times for others, but for me, it’s list-tending time.  Fortunately, it’s not a bad thing for me, and I’ve constructed it in such a way that I have plenty of freedom to move within my own structure. Bottom line is, I get things done that must be done. I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself to do them by a certain time, because it just isn’t always possible. But when I give myself some leeway, I find myself able to do it all — and more.

I’m quite happy with this system I have. And I’m also using it as an opportunity to learn some new technical skills. I have some gaps in my skillset that I need to fill, in order to be really, truly employable all across the board. I’m quite employable now, but having these new skills will be good insurance against shifts in the job market. So, I’m building out a time/activities management system for myself that uses these new technologies. That way, I have a time/activity tracker I can access just about anywhere there is a computer with an internet connection, I can update my progress in real-time AND I can collect all the data about my performance on a daily and weekly and monthly basis, and watch for trends. I can gather this data and generate reports so I can see, months down the line, how I’ve been improving — or where I need to improve.

And I’m expanding my technical skillset at the same time.

It’s all good.

The importance of focus

I’m seeing my therapeutic neuropsych (TN) this afternoon, and I’m presently preparing for the visit. I’ve reached the conclusion that I’ve not been very focused or economical with our sessions. They’re a stickler for the clock, unlike my former therapist (FT), and they allocate less time to our meetings that my sessions with my FT. It’s been an adjustment. And I must admit I’m feeling a bit short-changed, having only 40 minutes with them each week.

Then again, when I think about it, it’s a good thing that we don’t spend a full hour each time going over all my stuff. I don’t have that kind of stamina, frankly. And I think they can tell.

Also, having shorter sessions is forcing me to focus in and make the most of what time I do have with them. It ensures that I don’t get worn out and depleted during our sessions, which can be counterproductive and a real discourager. I slip too quickly into the negative, when I’m getting turned around. 40 minutes is just the right duration for me to stay sharp and involved and present enough to figure out my next steps.

It’s also short enough, that I feel a sense of urgency when I’m meet with them. I’m the kind of person who likes to ease into things and take my time getting the feel of a situation… and then let things marinate and slowly sink in, before I do something with the info. This is not the sort of activity that fits with my new therapy. Before, that’s how it was. But no more. This is a different animal, and I feel that difference keenly.

I’ve got to make the most of my time, and I’ve got to make the most of their experience and professional training, which is extensive. Unlike my FT, this TN has advanced degrees with a neuropsychological focus, so they are oriented in an expanded way that is proving tremendously helpful to me. No more of this sitting around plumbing the depths of my soul. They spend a fair amount of time steering me away from doing that. At first, I was bothered by it, then I realized that since I’d started seeing them, I had not been having the same level of anxiety and dread and malaise that had dogged me all through my time with my FT. Certainly, I’ve been painfully on-edge about certain things, but that was because of external circumstances — deadlines and logistical issues with learning — rather than feeling like I couldn’t sense my own soul, which is how I often felt before, when I was trying like crazy to get in touch with what my emotional issues were.

So, I’m adjusting the way in which I’m dealing with this therapist and our sessions. I’ve decided to treat them like a professional consultant, rather than as a counselor or a “therapist” per se — at this point, I need their neuroscientific expertise more than their emotional support. And approaching them as a consultant gives me a different orientation than with my FT. This arrangement is far more like a professional peer situation — I’m the owner of this brain of mine, and it’s not working the way I’d like it to, and I’m at a loss for how to fix it, so I’ve called in a highly qualified consultant to help me sort things out. It’s similar (in my mind) to running a business, and having certain processes breaking down and key staff members not behaving properly… so I’ve brought in a management consultant to identify and address the issues and help craft strategies to address the problems, so my business can get back on its feet.

Yes, that’s how I can think about this cognitive-behavioral conundrum that is my life — as a management issue. A business management issue, in fact. Because my mind is all about business. The software engineering and culture creation business. Not to make it sound cold and distant, but it’s a metaphor that works for me. I’m all about metaphors. They help me get my head around things that otherwise confound and confuse me.

In the spirit of this new type of therapy, I’ve started doing more preparation for my sessions, making mental (and handwritten and typed) notes about what I need to talk about… taking “props” to show them, which illustrate a certain issue I’m having. I also have my notes from my diagnostic neuropsych’s testing, which I’m going over with them. Taking things one at a time, systematically working my way through and getting my head around the information that’s there. Getting organized and having a point of focus is very important for me. If I don’t have a clear view of why I’m there, sitting on that couch across the room from them, I can easily spend the whole time rattling on about this, that and the other thing… none of which have anything to do with the cognitive-behavioral Burmese tiger traps that I’ve been falling into and climbing out of for the past week.

The other advantage to this newfound focus is that it gives me something to follow up on for the rest of the week till I see them again. Organizing my therapy sessions around issues and coming up with action items to follow up afterwards gets me more involved in the whole process and lets me feel less like I’m being acted upon. I feel less like a victim, and more like someone who’s essentially running a busy shop that is full of unruly employees who need structure and discipline in order to be productive.

It’s a management issue, this collection of cognitive-behavioral conundrums of mine, and I need to take a structured and focused approach, to deal with them effectively. That means tracking my activities and progress on a daily basis. Not just when I want to, but when I need to – which is all the time, and especially when I don’t think I need to. That means getting clear on what my problems are, and what issues aren’t specific to me, but common to the human condition. It means figuring out what really needs fixing, and what I can reasonably accept about myself (and other people). It means understanding where I can improve, where I should improve, and where I can afford to let things slide.

I’m sure it sounds rudimentary to most regular, neurologically intact folks, but to me, it’s not so straightforward. I’ve been operating with a “morphed” brain for as long as I can remember, and my perceptions and understandings of life and my experiences have evolved differently from most folks I know. But now I have help, and the person who’s helping me understands that brain injuries do have an impact. Now I have a chance to figure this out — and do it really well.

I’ve been marching down this recovery road all by myself for as long as I can remember — and more intentionally so, in the past year and a half. Now, I have someone (two highly qualified professionals, in fact) to work with me on this and help me sort things out. I’ve got an amazing and very distinguished diagnostic neuropsych on my side, and I’ve got a thoughtful and insightful and highly trained therapeutic neuropsych meeting with me regularly to sift through the loam of my life and screen out the rocks and weeds. I’ve got a good job with people who are warming up to me and are seeing more and more each day how well I can perform.

I’m (finally) very well “staffed” with support, and it is good. Very good, indeed.

Sleep mask + earplugs = magic

I actually slept for seven hours last night.

Amazing.  I haven’t slept that long without being completely and totally exhausted/depleted/at the end of my rope in quite some time.

I’ve been sleeping in the guest bedroom for the past few nights, so I can sleep through the night without being woken by my partner sitting up late reading, snoring, coughing, or otherwise being human. The only problem is, the guest bedroom has a great view of the back yard, and the back yard is surrounded by trees, and those trees are filled with lively birds that love to awake and sing-sing-sing at 4 a.m. I typically wake up around 4:30, when I sleep back there. I may be able to sleep uninterrupted all night, but the morning is a problem.

So, sleeping in the guest room isn’t necessarily the most sleep-conducive thing to do, unless I go to bed at 8 the night before, which is out of the question. My body just won’t do it. Nor will my mind.

But last night, I had to do something to take the edge off my exhaustion. I haven’t been sleeping very well at all for weeks, now. I have been getting 5-6 hours a night, which is just murder on me, because it coincides with some intense deadlines at work. Not only does the exhaustion take a toll on my cognitive functioning, but it also erodes my mood. Whereas I’m usually pretty “up” and can-do, and my outlook on life is quite open and ready for just about anything (within reason), when I’m over-tired, my mood just spirals down, and I end up in very, very bad places, where no amount of reason or motivation will drag me out.

I noticed it especially last night

I was really feeling good all day, until late in the evening, when I was going to bed. All of a sudden, I was melancholy and blue, feeling sorry for myself and feeling lonely and afraid and overwhelmed. I just couldn’t handle much of anything, and I started to get mired in that sad-sack poor-me swamp from which no good things come. I was starting to get intensely depressed and feel like there was no hope for me at all.

I started to think about my family and how we just don’t connect. I started to think about my new therapist and get down about how the relationship I have with them is an artificial one and no matter how I may feel we’re connecting, they are essentially a professional consultant, and — for my own sake — I need to keep the relationship somewhat arms-length. I started to think about my old therapist, and wonder how they’re doing.

I was spiraling down into that place I’ve often “gone” in therapy… that place where my old therapist loved to “camp out” and plumb the depths of my past, to see what terrible hurt had been done to me. And just as it used to make me really uncomfortable to delve into all that — not because I’m afraid to explore the places where I’ve been hurt (I’m only too happy to do that at times), but because they were making flawed assumptions and reaching inaccurate conclusions about what caused that depression, what was pulling me down, what I needed to deal with.

I can think of many, many instances where I spent a whole hour hashing and rehashing crap that was dragging me down, only to get all turned around and more frustrated… then I had a good night’s sleep, and everything was miraculously all better.

Seriously. I’m not just making this up to make the psychotherapists of  the world feel inadequate. The main problem wasn’t that someone was mean to me when I was ten. It was that I hadn’t been sleeping.

Fortunately, I recognized that I was going there, last night, as all the thoughts and fears and regrets tumbled around in my head like puppies in a basket.

Thankfully I had the presence of mind to notice it AND do something about it

“This is ridiculous,” I said to myself, as I sat in the bed with my journal, ready to write some maudlin entry about the day. I had had such a great day — clipping along, getting things done, making good progress… only to crash at the end. I could tell very clearly that I needed to sleep, and I knew that I needed to do something about being woken at 4 a.m. by exuberant birds.

So, I pulled out a sleep mask and earplugs I picked up a couple of months ago. I had tried to use the earplugs before, but they felt strange in my ears, and I hadn’t tried again. Last night, I was beyond caring how they felt in my ears, and I fit them in as far as they could go. I also found an extra fan and turned it on low — to circulate the air in the room and to drown out background noise. Then I pulled on the sleep mask, laid back, and counted my breaths that were echoing loud in my ears.

One of the problems with wearing earplugs with me, is that it makes the tinnitus louder. I have constant ringing in my ears, which gets almost deafening when I stop up my ears. It’s the craziest thing, and it drives me nuts. But last night, I was in no mood to care. I just laid back, focused on my breath, and dropped off to sleep.

And wonder of wonders, I actually slept till nearly 6 a.m. A record for me lately.

And I’m feeling great. Really ready to take on the tasks ahead of me today and make some good progress. That’s a good thing. Because today is D-Day for this project. Deadline Day. And I have to be sharp. Dullness is not an option.

Tomorrow I’m going to try the sleep mask and earplugs again. Little by little, I’ll work my way back to being able to sleep. And take care of all these little niggling sleep-related problems as I go. It just amazes me, how much a good night’s sleep does for my mental health and overall performance. It’s like night and day.

Sleep matters

When I’m overtired, I become moody, can’t focus, have problems with thinking tasks, become over-reactive, and I have a tendency to melt down. It gets ugly pretty quickly, and then I have to work double-time to make up for what I’ve said and done and try to repair the havoc I’ve created around me.

But when I’m rested, I’m happy, hearty and whole, and no matter what life throws at me, I can handle it. I’m a productive, positive partner and team member, and people love to be around me. No obstacle is too much for me, when I’m rested. And no event I’ve experienced is too big to overcome.

Which makes me wonder how much unwarranted exploration I’ve indulged in, during past therapy sessions, when I was trying like crazy to understand why I was so depressed and down… why I was struggling so. I overturned all kinds of rocks and plumbed the depths of my aching soul… and was unable to come to terms with just about anything I found there.

But magically, when I slept and had enough rest, suddenly it all became clear. And I could not only deal with what I found, I was also able to use it and change it and shift it and have it be an asset, not a liability in my life.

And I wonder how many other folks have similar issues to mine — psychotherapy clients struggling with lots of stuff not just because of the nature of the events, but because they haven’t slept well in weeks, if not months and years… and psychotherapists themselves being thwarted in their work because the person across from them is physically incapable of a positive, healthy outlook on life.

If I were a psychotherapist…

One of the first things I’d do in dealing with my clients, is find out how they’re doing physically. I’d find out of they’ve been sleeping, how they’ve been eating, if they’ve had much exercise. I’d find out what their physical health is like, find out when they’re at their best and when they’re at their worst, and try to schedule time with them when they were at (or near) their cognitive peak — or at the very least, avoid seeing them when they were at a low point.

I wouldn’t waste anyone’s precious time, processing their “stuff” when they were over-tired or hadn’t been eating or exercising regularly. And I wouldn’t agree to see someone who wasn’t taking care of themself. I suppose I would start out with a new client who wasn’t in the best of condition, but if they persisted in neglecting their bodies and not getting enough sleep, I would drop them like a hot potato. Sure, they would be a natural source of unending revenue, but if I only took clients who were likely to need my help till the end of their born days, I’d be a pretty crappy therapist.

Most of all, I’d focus on the sleep thing. Especially if someone had sustained a TBI. Sleep deprivation makes you crazy, overly suggestible, unpredictable, and easily manipulated. Spy/intelligence agencies have known that for years, and they’ve used it to their advantage. But getting enough rest each night is one of the primarly building blocks of good health. If you don’t care about your health — mental or physical — then how much you sleep shouldn’t matter. But for me, it matters a whole lot.

And I look forward to getting more of it.

The beauty of structure

Today turned out to be a pretty good day… after spending all day Sunday doing things other than what I needed to be doing. I hadn’t checked my notes on Sunday a.m. about pending stuff that needs to get done, and Monday a.m. was the first I remembered a lot of it.

Ugh.

Oh well.

That’s what I get, when I don’t check my notes. The things I needed to do would have taken maybe an hour or two, but now I have to find time in my work week to do them, which will probably take substantially longer, since I get worn out pretty quickly by the 9-to-5.

Today, I had a pretty structured day, and I got a lot done. The beauty part was, I figured out how to cut some of my losses and rearrange my schedule so I could get the most out of it.

I got caught up in personal stuff this a.m., when I was supposed to be getting ready for work, and by the time I got on the road, I knew I was cutting it close to get to my 10:00 a.m. meeting. Traffic was flowing, though, so I figured it would work out.

Then I hit heavy traffic, and everything slowed to a crawl… so, I called my boss, told them I wasn’t going to make the meeting, and I gave them my status over the phone. I knew I had a lot to get done… and I had this other pressing errand I needed to do today — no exceptions! So, I took a little detour and ran the errand before I went into the office, so I would have the end of the day to get my work done.

I usually start to wake up around 3:30 in the afternoon, anyway, so it makes sense that I should be spending that time on the last-minute fixes for this deadline, instead of packing up and heading out to take care of that errand.

Long story short, I got my boring-but-essential chores and my important tasks done, all in good order. And I had a nice big block of time at the end of the day to really focus my full attention on the most important things on my list.

And I’m feeling really good tonight — like I’m in the flow… in a groove. Now, for a nice dinner and some reading, and getting to bed at a civilized hour.

Woo hoo.

It’s the little things, y’know?

Constructing a common-sense strategy for tbi recovery

I’ve spent much of the past year or so taking a long, hard look at the issues I face each day, thanks to my history of TBI. I’ve been hit in the head and knocked out, I’ve fallen a number of times, I’ve been in car accidents, and I’ve generally had a rough-and-tumble life that has left me woozy, out-of-it, forgetful, uncoordinated, temperamental, and terribly disorganized and unmotivated — in fits and starts — for most of my 40-some years. Over the course of my life, I’ve developed a number of coping mechanisms that have helpd me get by in life, cover my tracks, appear far more functional than I am, and generally keep up the appearance of being entirely functional and “with-it”… far in excess of where I’ve really been at.

But when I fell down the stairs in 2004, a lot of those coping mechanisms stopped functioning. And I came to realize, over the course of the past 4-1/2 years, that they may have seemed to work, but they really didn’t. Not for real. I was doing a darned good impression of getting along, but much of it was an act, designed to shield and shelter myself and others from the underlying issues that I’ve had for many a decade.

And I realized — for the first time, perhaps — that I am in no position to go running around doing an impression of myself. I want to BE myself, even if that self is broken in places. So, I commenced with my testing and my self-assessments and my introspection and a whole raft of activities that were designed to explore the dark underside of my experience.

I’ve cataloged my issues in a fair amount of detail. I’ve reoriented myself from avoiding looking at my troubles to looking them square-on and facing up to them for real. I’ve become much more self-questioning (in a positive sense), learning to question the stories that my brain is telling me about how it’s doing… and how I’m doing overall.

I feel as though I have a good amount of data collected. I’ve stored it in various places — in numerous notebooks, in spreadsheets, in databases. I’ve logged it on computers and on servers. I’ve written it down and collected it. And I’ve developed what I think is a pretty good practice for examining myself and seeking the objective truth about where I’m really at in my day – and my life.

Now it’s time to do something with it. Get past the simple observation and recording of information, and start to work with it. Work with my therapeutic neuropsych to craft some common-sense living solutions. Work with the various bunches of data I have about the problems I run into and the solutions I’ve found that help me overcome them. Take the data and turn it into information.

I am in the process of working with my diagnostic neuropsych on getting a summary report together about the findings from my testing. We’re going over not only my deficits and difficulties, but also my strengths and assets. It’s taking a while, because I keep having to stop them and ask for clarification. But I have enough information at this point to start logging the data into a database and then use it to map my strengths to my difficulties, and figure out ways I can creatively and intelligently address my impairments (be they great or small) by using my strengths.

And I’m doing this, using the new skillset(s) I’m acquiring at work — and which I will need to have in place, in order to be viably employable in the future. I’m using everything I have to address the things I don’t have… to understand my limitations, frame them in a way that makes sense to me, and lets me not only overcome them, but use them to my ultimate advantage in the world.

Information, after all, is only as useful as you make it. And now that I’m actually getting an official version of what the story is with me and my brain, and I have someone I can bounce ideas off — with both neuropsychs — I can design common-sense approaches to dealing with my difficulties that get me back on my feet — for real.

Shoring up my reserves

It’s been a really rough 24 hours. I finally got to a breaking point, and melted down in a huge screaming/crying jag last night. I just ended up pushed over the edge by my fatigue and exhaustion and being overloaded by a lot of extra issues, including homeowner concerns — maintenance, upkeep — and health problems.

My newest concern is not having adequate dental coverage. It’s a huge added stress in my family that I know I need to rectify. Dental bills can run into the many thousands, as Judge Sonia Sotomayor can attest (she’s got $15,000 in back dental bills according to her personal financial records), and it doesn’t feel good, even in terms of hundreds of dollars. I’m not over my head in hock over dental bills, at this time, but I could get there quickly, and I need to arrange for coverage, so I don’t get to that place.

But the prospect of doing that drives me nuts. I get so turned around and confused by all the information, and then I never know if I’ve made the right decision, and I’m afraid I’ll end up paying all this money and making decisions that can’t be reversed very easily. I know I need to keep my head on straight about this and not panic. I just need to figure out how to do it, map out my plan, and do it. But I haven’t been able to manage that. I’ve just been kind of marginal, lately, and I haven’t been able to get a lot of the things done that I need to.

So much of this TBI business really is about having adequate resources to deal with what life throws my way. Whether it’s learning new things at work, handling odd jobs around the house (which I’ve been lagging at, too),  or arranging for medical/dental coveratge, how rested I am, how involved I am, how strong I’m feeling all have a huge role to play. And my resources have been slowly but surely eroding away, over the past while. I haven’t been sleeping well for months, now, and that makes it difficult to handle much of anything. My temper’s short, I don’t get the things done that I need to, I tend to push off all but the most exciting and interesting activities (which means I push off about 85% of what I’m supposed to be doing), and I have trouble learning and processing information.

For a while, there, I was pretty intent on keeping my sleep deficit to a minimum. But then I got sick of having to live such a limited life, always going to bed at a responsible hour, sleeping a full 8 hours (or at least 7), and being very deliberate about everything I did.

How boring!!! I didn’t want to have to tip-toe through life, always anticipating everything I did and said and thought, and adusting my behavior to be nice and acceptable. Plenty of other people wing it, and they’re fine. And I’m sure a lot of people out there have sustained TBIs and don’t even know it. Does that stop them? Not always. Sometimes… maybe lots of times… But it seemed to me — and it still does — that life is a messy prospect, at best, and in the end I’ve always been more of a creative bohemian type, even if I am a software engineer, so I’d much rather enjoy my life and be flexible and keep up my activity level and have a good time and do things that interest and uplift me, instead of playing it safe all the time and being so careful about every danged thing.

It was such a relief, to just stay up past my 10:00 bed time and watch a good movie till the end, without needing to watch the clock. It felt so good to just get up first thing in the morning – around 5:00 or so – and futz around with this personal resources management program I’ve been designing. It felt so great to not be tied to a schedule, to not force myself to be on some hour-by-hour time-clock, day in and day out. Maybe that works for some people, but it doesn’t work for me. It works for maybe a few days, but then it starts to break down, and my self-management techniques turn out to be more of a burden than a help.

Of course, I’ve found out the hard way (again…) that I can’t keep driving and driving and driving myself. Even if it’s all fun(!) I need to pace myself and give myself time to recharge. Last night, I headed off to bed at 10:30, and I got to sleep around 11:00. And I slept till about 6:00 this morning. Seven hours is the longest I’ve been able to sleep in weeks — I usually clock in around 5 or 6. I don’t know if it’s that pineal cyst that’s throwing me off, or it’s my stress level, or it’s my pacing during the day.

I know I’ve been spending too much time, late in the evening, on the computer. My diagnostic neuropsych tells me that computer screens emit light that is very similar to daylight, so our bodies think it’s day, and they need to wake up. That could explain why sitting down to my laptop in the evening always makes me feel better. And it could explain why I have a hard time winding down later in the evening when I log off. I know I need to change that. It’s not like I don’t have anything else I could be doing. Relaxing is a lost cause with me — I’m also in a lot of pain, these days, so unless I keep my mind busy, I am in a lot of discomfort. But I can find other things to do that relax me, don’t get me all charged up. Things like washing dishes or folding clothes from the dryer. Things that need to get done, boring or not.

It could also be that I’m so tired, I can’t rest — which is what happens with me. I have to do something extra-ordinary to drag myself (kicking and screaming) into slumber. Left to my own devices, I’ll just keep going…

I think this weekend is going to be a Benadryl weekend. I don’t have any outside commitments that are overly demanding on my cognitive abilities, so I’m going to just take the drugs and sleep as long as humanly possible.

With any luck, by Monday, I’ll have gotten at least a little bit back on track.