Calling it a day

It’s been a full day, with its share of unexpected “wrinkles”.

It’s been a good day – beautiful weather, and some increasing clarity on the direction I am taking with my life.

It’s been a long day, even though it “only” started at 6 a.m., and it’s not even 12 hours later.

One of the really good things about it, is how good I am feeling right now – how good I have been feeling all day. The mud is clearing from my perspectives, and I have more resolve than ever.

Also, all my stretching and 90-second breaks are really helping a great day. In fact, they are helping so much that I can actually tell that I am tired.

Way tired.

Bone tired.

Dog tired.

In the past, I would always push through – have some coffee, eat a candy bar, get bent out of shape over something – until I was too wired to feel anything.

Today, I am relaxed enough to know that I need to lie down for a nap for about an hour, before I’m going to be good for anything.

I didn’t get everything done today that I was intending to, but I can spend some time later working on things. The nice part about having a definite timeframe to move on, and a definite idea of where I’m going, is that I suddenly have a ton of energy for figuring things out and finishing up projects that have been in the wings for a long, long time, that I haven’t been able to get done.

So, with this final 2-month push, I’ll kick it and make some tracks. Make some progress. And really shape my future the way I am hoping to.

With plenty of breaks in between. To breathe. To settle. To balance. To regain my composure and head back into the fray.

On-ward.

Ah, the brain fog…

Ooof – I am so fogged over, it’s not even funny. Kind of like the weather this morning.

It’s Monday morning, I’m on the next-to-last day of my week’s vacation, and I am really ready to get back to normal. I have done a ton of traveling across multiple states, driving as long as 8 hours (taking occasional breaks, of course), and trying to spend as much time as possible with the family I didn’t get to see over the past holidays, when I was sick as a dog and felt like I was dying.

The net result of it all has been way too little sleep (I think I got about 4-5 hours last night), and more demands on my system than usual. Pain. Pain and suffering. I’ve been sleeping in beds that are too soft for me, and my body just aches. My head is so foggy, I feel like I’m only half here, and I’m dizzy on top of it.

Yes, I know better than to push myself, but I’ve been doing the best I can under the circumstances. I’ve been napping when I can, and resting whenever possible. Sleeping in the car while someone else drives. Stepping away to just catch my breath and chill.

I joked before leaving on this vacation that the best thing about going, will be coming back, and it’s partly true. My daily schedule is completely whacked. The foods I usually eat are out the window. The sleep-wake schedule is, well, not much of schedule to speak of. And all the while, there’s the energy that comes from being with family again after so long, all of us feeling like we have to make up for lost time, which we do.

One family member almost died a few months back. Another one may be dying soon. Others are going through all sorts of changes — jobs and family and legal matters and finances… The whole modern American experience, to be sure.

Overall, even though I’ve felt like old meat on a cold slab for most of this trip, I’m still having a good time. It’s good to see everyone. I haven’t lost it. I haven’t melted down. I’ve been pretty chill, overall, with one or two minor exceptions. I’ve kept my act together on the outside, even as on the inside I’ve been crumbling to bits. So, that’s something.

I’ll just be so glad to get back to regular, everyday life, and resume my routine. And eat my favorite foods — that are really good for me, too. And sleep in my own danged bed. And work around my own danged house.

Dang, I can’t wait to go home.

But for now, I’m here. With family. Getting ready to hit the road again to see another set of folks before the long trek back tomorrow. It’s been a good trip — a long and arduous one, but good.

Onward.

Brain Injury and Lying – The Rest of the Story

Summary: Brain injury and lying can go hand-in-hand. First, there is confabulation, where the brain-injured individual genuinely thinks they are telling the truth, but they have their details confused. Second, there is the outright lying, which can come from experiencing an intensely emotional “catastrophic response” to situations which seem insurmountable. This is an account of how a good friend of mine changed from a basically honest person to a compulsive liar after experiencing several strokes.

It seems so innocent…

I’d like to write this morning about a friend of mine who had several strokes back in 2007, a couple years after I had my last TBI. In fact, I’d say that working with them after their strokes really make me aware of brain injury issues… so that I could recognize and deal with my long-standing issues, at last.

I have known this individual for more than 20 years, and we’ve worked together on a number of occasions. We have common friends and we have similar senses of humor, so it’s been pretty easy to become – and stay – friends with this person. I am friendly with a lot of people and I make a lot of effort to really be a good person, but this particular friendship is closer than most others I have. This individual knows things about me that I wouldn’t tell most other people. And I know more about them than most others do.

The one exception to this is TBI. When they had their strokes – two of them, a week apart – in 2007, I was one of the few people who didn’t back away from them and run. I have actually known a number of people who had strokes and TBIs, and even before I knew that I myself had traumatic brain injury issues, I was willing and able to hang in there with them. So, this time was no different really. Different strokes for different folks, y’know? But when I was dealing with my TBI stuff, they just couldn’t deal with hearing about it. It was like they thought that it meant I couldn’t be there for them – and since I was one of their main supports after their strokes, the idea that I had neurological issues must have been pretty frightening for them.

Anyway, despite not getting any support from them, I really went out of my way to make time for this friend, to help them get back on their feet and rehabilitate. I have always been a firm believer that the human brain and body and spirit are incredibly plastic — and they can and will recover to a much greater degree than the “experts” believe, if you give them a chance, keep working, and don’t give up.

Working with this friend, we got them on a regular eating and sleeping routine… we got their weight down about 30 pounds… we managed, changed and then regulated their meds… we restored the strength and coordination in their right side… we got their speech and organization together… and – together – we got them back to functioning again.

We had to do it ourselves, and we had to do it alone. Because even though the MRI showed even more damage to their brain than “just” the strokes — they had other evidence of brain injuries that they couldn’t remember having — the doctors never gave them any indication that they needed any neurological or neuropsychological help, and their strokes weren’t “disabling” enough to warrant official rehab.

The impact was pretty noticeable to me, though. Their processing speed had really slowed down. They got confused a lot more than before. They had extreme emotional reactions to things that are sad or frustrating but aren’t exactly the catastrophes they thought they were. They had trouble keeping a conversation going. Their ability to multi-task was pretty much out the window. They basically went from having six gears, to having two, one of which was reverse, and when pressed to do more, they blew up or broke down in tears.  But since I’m not an “official” family member, there was only so much the doctors could offer me. Unfortunately, they and their family weren’t really emotionally or logistically able to deal with all of it. They just wanted things to go back to normal.

Out of everyone, I turned out to be the only one who was A) able to deal with the fact that they’d had several strokes (and evidence of previous TBI), and B) willing to do something about it. I’ve worked with relatives who had strokes and TBIs in the past, and this time was a repeat of those past experiences.

It took several years to get them back on track, but we did it.  And it was really gratifying to see. Plus, in the process of helping them, I realized I had my own set of issues I needed to deal with — which I’ve written about plenty in the past. Again, it’s taken me years to get back on track — more years than my friend, actually — but I’ve done it.

The only thing is, this friend of mine didn’t continue to take care of themself. They didn’t have the support of their family and friends, and I couldn’t be with them 24/7. One of the reasons that I’ve “gone off” on therapists in the past, was that I was being actively undermined by their friends who were therapists, who kept telling them that their issues had to with their terrible father, their hell-on-wheels mother, or other past relationship issues. When I tried to get support from these therapist friends, to deal with the neurological issues, I got either blank stares or active opposition, because they were so sure it was an emotional thing, not a neurological thing.

So, with family pressuring them to just get back to how things were, their friends telling them that they just needed to make peace with their parents, and me not being able to be around as much as I wanted to, because I had a lot of work commitments, they just went back to how things were before.

They stopped eating the right things and they stopped eating at regular hours.They started eating the wrong things, too — lots of sugar and fats and junk food, which has put the weight back on them — and is how they got into their situation to begin with. They let their sleeping schedule go all to hell, and by now they are pretty much nocturnal and they are rarely available during daylight hours.They stopped cleaning up after themself, and they live surrounded by piles of stuff that they can’t seem to figure out how to clear away.

It’s been really weird — it’s like they just got to a point where they decided, “Oh well, I’ve had some strokes, and I’m getting old like my parents did (my friend is  now in their 60s, and their parents both died in their late 60s/early 70s)…. so I really don’t feel like doing all this work anymore. I’m going to take a break, because I’m going to die pretty soon, anyway.“

And it hasn’t had good consequences. A lot of times when I see them these days — which is more rarely than before, because I’m on a “real world” sleep-wake schedule — they look more and more like a “stroke victim” — and less and less like the person I know they are. I try to bring up their progress with them, but they always shut me down. I try to hint that they may want to take better care of themself, but they either start to yell at me, or they change the subject, or they start to cry. It’s that catastrophic response, for sure — a reaction that is just dripping with the emotion of fear and overwhelm.

Fear that there is something terribly wrong with them.

Fear that they are damaged beyond repair.

Fear that others will hate and look down on them because of the strokes.

Fear that they will never be “normal” again.

Fear that they’re going to die a horrible death and go to hell forever.

Fear that it is all TOO MUCH to handle.

So, even though I have seen changes in their behavior and their functionality, I am helpless to change any of it. I can’t even bring it up – not with them, not with their family, not with their friends. People tell me that I have no control over others, and that I should take care of myself first, but it is so painful to watch them do this to themself. Not only do they have physical and logistical issues, but there’s more.

There’s the lying.

I’ve written before about confabulation and how traumatic brain injury can mix things up in your head and make you think you’ve got it right, when you have it completely wrong. I have a had a long history, myself, of accidentally “lying” about things  — it wasn’t my intention to lie, and I didn’t actually think I was lying, but I had my facts all turned around… which looked a lot like lying. I still do it today — I miscalculate, or I get things turned around — but fortunately I have a lot of people around me who genuinely care about me and want to help, and they don’t hold it against me. So, the consequences are less, even if the problem persists.

I have seen confabulation happen with my friend, as well. They were so sure they had things exactly right… but they didn’t. Not even close. Over the past few years, however, I have seen their accounts turn into outright lies — some of them more extreme than others. They know they’re lying, but they either can’t seem to help themself or they just LIE, and then make excuses.

It’s getting really bad. On a number of levels.

First, there’s the routine lying to people about what they do with themself all day — they paint a picture that makes them look quite functional, when the opposite is true. They talk about doing things that they aren’t even close to doing — like running errands or working on important projects and going about their business like they’re “supposed to”. They’re just thinking about doing them, but they tell others that they actually have done them.

And then there’s the deeper sorts of lies — the adulterous affairs, where they aren’t only sneaking around behind their spouse’s back and flirting with people who seem intriguing, but they are actually having sex — a lot of it, and really wild stuff — with these adulterous interests, lying about it, getting hotel rooms, visiting the long-time family vacation spots with the object(s) of their adulterous affairs, and openly talking about their affairs with people who know both them and their spouse. I found out about it by accident, and I got a lot more details than I wanted to. I almost wish I’d never found out, to tell the truth.

And that’s a pretty extreme turn of affairs. Not only are they spending money that they (and their spouse) cannot afford to spend on hotels and meals and entertainment, but they are also doing it in plain view of people who know them and their spouse. But when I have confronted them about it, my friend has lied right to my face about what was going on. They have sworn – up – down – left – right – that there was nothing untoward happening, just a “close friendship”, and when I have pushed them, they claimed it was just for “emotional support”.

Right. Emotional support. Unfortunately, I know differently.

This, dear readers, is very out-of-character for my friend. For as long as I have known them, they have been stable and loving and committed to their spouse. And they’ve at least tried to be honest. Until the strokes. Since the strokes, and especially they stopped taking care of themself, their behavior has become so erratic, so chaotic, so extreme — with the cursing and laughing and crying and lying — that I frankly don’t want to be around them much. I can’t just abandon them, but it’s hard to be around it all. And when I try to bring this up and discuss with them, they just can’t hear anything about how their strokes have affected them. It’s too much. It’s just too much for them to handle. And they pitch headlong into yet another mother-of-all-catastrophic-reactions. Yelling, cursing, crying… and more lying.

Watching someone who used to be level-headed, strong, secure, and self-confident burst into tears or blow up in a rage or come up with some cockamamie fantastical version of “reality”, because you’ve drawn their attention to something that everyone else on the planet can see clearly… something that is really and truly wrecking their life (how long till their spouse finds out about the affair(s)?)… well, that’s a pretty bitter pill. Trying to reach out and help one of your best friends — only to have them freak out on you and become threatening… it’s a hard one.

And it’s complicated. There are a lot of factors in play. And I can understand why a lot of this happens. But the lying doesn’t help matters any. It’s one thing to confabulate, but outright telling a falsehood deliberately is something that doesn’t sit right with me.

It’s just wrong. And to see them do it so compulsively… that’s pretty hard to take. I am almost neurotic about telling the truth — I get myself in trouble all the time, because I’m not willing to lie to people. And when someone who matters this much to me just runs around lying through their teeth, left and right, to everyone — including their spouse — it really works on my nerves.

But when I look at this in terms of catastrophic reaction, it starts to make sense. It’s like there’s all this conflicting stuff rattling ’round in their head that they can’t make sense of, and it puts them on edge. They have a history of trauma, too, with a father AND a mother who were each a real piece of work, so that personal history has biochemically primed them to go into fight-flight over just about anything that looks like a threat. From what I’ve seen, they are geared towards a fight-flight response to life in general… and their blood sugar is out of whack, so that it’s making that fight-flight even worse, and every little uncertainty looks like an enormous THREAT!!!

So, being on edge, and having the perception that there are things that are too big for them to handle, and they’re not going to be able to handle them, and they are in DANGER because they can’t handle them… well, that sets up the perfect “petri dish” for growing lies. Because lying is the one (and only) way they can immediately cope with an imminent threat — which of course everything looks like, especially when a social situation calls for the kind of quick thinking they cannot do anymore.

When I look at this whole business through a neuropsychological “lens”, I can understand the reasons for their behavior. And bottom line, knowing what I know, I actually don’t blame them. Yes, they are an adult, and yes they are responsible for their actions, but this is a neurological condition, not a psychological or emotional one. I’m not letting them off the hook — lying is still wrong, and I am still very uncomfortable with it.

At the same time, I’m seeing the real reasons behind it. I’ve discussed this a few times with my neuropsych, and they propose that their brain might be experiencing further vascular damage, because not only do they have a history of strokes, but their blood sugar is on the diabetic side, as well, which can cause more vascular “insults”. And that’s a whole other ball of wax to deal with.

But still, the lying… I keep coming back to that. It’s really tough to watch, really hard to handle. One of my best friends is self-destructing before my very eyes, and I am helpless to do anything about it. All I can do, is learn from their actions and their mistakes, and do what I can to help them as best I can. To be honest, it motivates me to take even better care of myself and better manage my physical and neurological health, because I don’t want to end up like them. I have noticed myself lying at times, when I felt cornered and felt I couldn’t handle everything that was coming at me. That is something I DON’T want to make a habit of, and seeing my friend go through everything they’re going through, is lighting a fire under me to do better. To be better.

None of us has control over others, which is probably a good thing. But we do have control over ourselves, which is an even better thing.

Here’s to life – onward.

Back again – with lots more work to do

Back at it

It’s been about a week since I was last able to write. I’ve been traveling out of the country, as I did about six weeks ago. This trip was not nearly as successful as the last one. Well, in some respects it was — in that I was able to make some good connections with people pretty high up in the company. But in terms of working with my immediate team… not so much.

The new team I’m supposed to be a part of was pretty cold towards me and the other coworker I traveled with. So, the warm welcome from before was pretty much rescinded, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not to worry, though. I have other ways I can make the most of this situation. If I let other people’s bad behavior put a crimp in my style, then it’s my bad. It just can’t mean that much to me. At least, that’s what my objective mind tells me. My subjective mind that wants to prove that “I can do it” and wants to be on top of everything and have everything go my way, is really struggling with this shift in dynamics. It feels like I’ve failed. It feels like I’ve done something wrong and I need to fix it. All my fault. My doing. My bad. Yada-yada-yada.

Yeah, the “you’ve done something wrong” voice is loud and clear in my head, and I can’t seem to get it out. I’ve tried, but it’s a real bitch.

What I really need is a long hike in the woods. Something to get me out of my head and remind me that I am home again and spring is on the way. I need to get more exercise, period, since I didn’t get a lot while I was overseas, and I ate a lot of local desserts which tasted great but haven’t done my body much good. I need to get the circulation pumping and move some of this on through. Clear my head. Get my house in order.

One thing I did manage to do while I was away was watch some videos of TBI rehab pioneers who seem to have a pretty good idea about how TBI works and can affect your life. I found some videos of George Prigatano and some of his other colleagues at the 1st International Brain Injury Conference. He has some great things to say about the role of psychotherapy in dealing with brain injury. One of his colleagues, Harriet Katz Zeiner, talks about CRATER therapy, which – as I understand it – is a way to structure life after brain injury in ways that require less from an impaired memory, to work with survivors and their family members to support and monitor progress, and also to head catastrophic reactions off at the pass before they hijack the whole recovery process.

It’s interesting — in the past four years, I have had huge improvements in my anxiety level. I wasn’t fully aware of the intensity of my anxiety up until a couple of years ago. For years, I thought that my outbursts and freak-outs and melt-downs were totally justified because things just got so incredibly overwhelming for me, and I couldn’t — just couldn’t — deal with them.

Getting too much information to process all at one time… being put on the spot and not feeling up to the task of sorting through it all and dealing with what was going on… being challenged and taken to task and pressured… it set me off.

When I was with people in a work setting, I would just check out or walk away — on a small scale and also on a large scale. I think a lot of my job changes were reactions to things just getting too overwhelming for me, so I couldn’t deal — even if they were going right — and I “moved on to better opportunities.” On a smaller scale, I can think of countless times that I just bagged something — just quit a task that I was supposed to complete, be it a chore that my parents asked me to do, or a project that I was given at work. Either way, the result was that I just quit. Just bagged it. Fuggedaboudit. What-ever.

In my personal life, if I got too challenged and too put-upon, I would retreat into my “strong silent type” role, or I would blow up and go off on whoever was pressing me. And the people I would go off on, would get so freaked out by the intensity of my response that they became afraid of me, treated me like I was a threat. And that didn’t do much for my self-perception and self-esteem.

Then I realized that I was doing all this — you’d think I’d get a clue that this was happening with me, right? But it just didn’t register as something that wasn’t 100% justified, and that I might be over-reacting and going off for no reason. I have friends who have anxiety issues and after talking to them, I thought for sure that it was pretty much that this behavior was an anxiety issue with me — that it was psychological, being related to my thinking and how I was choosing to react to situations around me.

And that’s how I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years, now. It’s been helpful to have that kind of mental construct. And when I look back, I can see so many instances where I got anxious and either ran from something or someone that overwhelmed me, or I lashed out and attacked.

The thing is, there was this little piece that seemed to be missing, and I found it during my trip. The missing piece, I think, is what they call the “catastrophic reaction” — an emotional outburst (sometimes accompanied by physical acting out) that is way out of proportion to the situation at hand. Sometimes, it’s an extreme reaction to an imagined problem that doesn’t even exist. Some examples from my own life — cursing a blue streak and throwing and/or breaking things when I drop something, verbally attacking someone who is just making me a little uncomfortable, or flipping out when things don’t go the way I expect them to.

That pretty much describes my behavior for years – being an unpredictable powder-keg who might say or do just about anything, if things don’t go my way.

And it comes with a ton of anxiety.

But why? What’s the big deal? Why am I so on-edge over things? Whence the anxiety? I’ve puzzled over that for quite some time, unable to see why I should be so anxious, and why it has really increased over the past years. I didn’t used to be so anxious, but “all of a sudden”… It didn’t make any sense to me. I know that TBI can seriously mess with you and your sense of self and make you incredibly anxious and self-doubting. But there was a whole concept that was missing… something that brought it all together — and I found it over my business trip:

The Catastrophic Response.

I want to write more about this right now, but I’m pretty jet-lagged, and I need to take a walk. I need to take care of some things around the house, now that I’m home, and I need to give my brain a rest, so I can function well today – and beyond.

Bottom line: This Catastrophic Response (now that I have a name for it) has been wreaking havoc with my head and my life for a while. It keeps me from approaching the things in life that I want to approach – including discussions I need to have with my neuropsych about my freak-outs and behavioral issues. It keeps me on tenderhooks of anxiety and avoidance, and it keeps me from living my life.

Seriously.

And I need to do something about it. Now that I’m aware of it, I need to do the work to address it.

So, I shall — by taking myself outside for a long walk in the woods. That should help a few things…

How Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) May Affect Violent Behavior

Interesting and important video:

Causes of violent behavior after TBI: damage to the parts of the brain that inhibit “wild animal” behavior, fatigue, agitation, un-managed anger, and a host of other issues. Concussion can cause it, along with more extreme kinds of brain injury, both traumatic and acquired (such as stroke).

Medication is a possible intervention, and so are a variety of other approaches, including mindfulness training, behavioral modification, and developing additional coping skills.

Getting the most sleep possible

If only…

A recurrent problem cropped up again last night — or, shall we say, early this morning.

I got to bed a bit later than I wanted to, last night. I was working on a project till fairly late, and then I ate late… and watched a bit more t.v. than I intended or should have. Anyway, when I went to bed, I was bushed. Just wiped. And I had an early call for work this morning, so I was between a rock and a hard place. But I figured if I timed things right, I could get a little over 8 hours of sleep, which would be good. Better than 6, that’s for sure.

The thing is, with the weather changing, I woke up at 4 a.m. really hot. I can’t sleep when I’m hot, and I need to have heavy blankets on me, or I don’t sleep very well. So, as you can imagine, when spring arrives and it starts to get warmer overnight, I can heat up.

Which I did.

So, I made some adjustments, took off some layers, and tried to get back to sleep. I wasn’t terribly optimistic, because usually when I’m awake at 4 or 4:30, then I’m UP, and that’s that. I figured I’d be taking a nap later this afternoon, since I’m working from home today, so it wasn’t that bad. But still… I really didn’t want to get behind on my sleep, because that starts a vicious cycle that is so hard to get out of.

What to do… well, first I had to stop my head from spinning in all different directions. I’ve got a project going on that is really exciting for me, and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about it. I started thinking about it at 4:15 a.m., too, much to my dismay. It was the right thing to think about at the wrong time. I also got into a mental “loop” over job stuff. All these things were nothing that I could anything about at the moment… and thankfully I realized that it made a lot more sense to turn off my head and come back to everything when I was rested and fresh.

But how to get back to sleep?

Well, I stretched a little bit, which always helps. I also did some slow breathing. And I turned my focus to my body, rather than the stuff rattling ’round in my head. I relaxed… really relaxed, which I realized I was not doing, when my head was going a million miles a second. I could feel the tension slip away… and then I slipped back to sleep.

I woke up with my alarm, turned it off… and went right back to sleep. I woke up three minutes before my call was supposed to start, which was a little alarming (though it was good I woke up before the call instead of after)… and then after dialing in, I learned that the call was cancelled anyway, so I could just take my time having breakfast and getting into my day.

All good.

And by my calculations, I got about 8-1/2 hours of sleep. Not continuous, but cumulative. And that’s pretty good for having all but given up hope around 4:20 a.m.

So, when it comes to sleeping, it’s pretty clear that my head can be my worst enemy. When I am wiped out, especially, I can have real problems getting to sleep (going to bed at a decent hour) and staying that way. I am very sensitive to sound, when I am over-tired, too, so if I don’t have earplugs in and there’s a noise, I can wake up over the littlest thing, with my heart pounding and my head racing. Even if it’s just a little noise, it can set me off. And then when my head gets going, I can “loop” for hours, if I let it do its thing.

Unfortunately, getting my head to stop is easier said than done. The best thing to do is just ignore it, quite frankly. Get my attention on my body, somehow — progressive relaxation, breathing, stretching… anything to get out of my head. Once I can do that, my body can rest, and a lot of times I can get back to sleep.

Even if I can’t get back to sleep, at least I can let my body relax, and that counts for a lot.

But the time for thinking about sleep is over. Now it’s time to get on with my day.

Onward!

Taking the edge off

Sometimes you just gotta let it go…

Few things in my life have been more of a roller-coaster than this TBI recovery business. I wrote recently about feeling like I was stalled – stymied – unable to move forward. And it felt pretty rotten. I have been feeling really down on myself, lately, and it hasn’t been helping me at all. The worse I feel, the worse I do, generally… and then I feel even worse. It’s a downward spiral that usually has its roots in fatigue and stress and me believing everything that goes through my brain.

You’d think I’d realize by now that my perceptions are not always consistent with the truth of the matter… I know my brain plays tricks on me. I know it blows things out of proportion. I know it loves to get worked up and all stressed out, because it loves the feeling of that rush, and it doesn’t feel awake without it, sometimes. But when the agitation gets going, the first thing I do is start listening to what my brain is telling me — which is the last thing I should do. I should really listen to what my mind has to say. I guess I need to keep learning that lesson.

Heck, maybe I should make myself a sign that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”

I think I will. Put it where I’ll be sure to see it on a regular basis. ‘Cause falling for what I feel is one of the biggest sources of pain and complication and suffering for me, that I can think of.

Anyway, it occurred to me not long after I’d written the post about feeling stymied, that I am actually doing really well in some truly substantial ways – the main way being, I’m a LOT less “hot” and reactive than I have been in the past — even in the recent past. I’ve recently started doing my conscious breathing again, and I’ve been incorporating it into my everyday life, taking a break to breathe and relax when I sense things are getting really tense. And I have to say, it feels pretty good. AND it takes the edge off my hot-headedness.

As an example, I was washing up dishes the other day, when my grip slipped on the dish I was washing and it clanked loudly on the bottom of the sink. A number of things happened that in the past were sure to set me off: I lost my grip on a heavy dish, running the risk of breaking it… my grip was slippery, which is a strange little stressor for me — if I don’t have a firm grip on something, it sets me on edge… there was that loud and startling “clunk” that really threw me off and sparked a little “alarm wildfire” in my brain. I’ve been having a lot of vertigo, lately, and it’s stressing me out, making me even more susceptible to flare-ups when simple things like this happen.

In the past, I would have freaked out. Lost it. Started banging things around and cursing and then getting really down on myself for getting so bent over such a simple thing. Few things kill my self-respect like blowing up over little things like losing my grip on a dish I’m washing… or dropping something, or not being able to get a hold on something — and these have all been happening to me a lot lately.

But this time, I handled it. It seems like such a small thing, but it’s huge for me. I just stopped and took a long, slow breath. I relaxed my tense shoulders and cracked my back (all I have to do is lean left or right, and the “popcorn” starts to pop in my spine). I just took a little break to gather myself, and when I went back to washing, not only did I feel calm and together, but I felt more calm and together than I had all day.

Magic. At least, that’s how it felt. But it’s actually more science than anything else — and it’s repeatable. I’ve been doing it, on and off, for the past several weeks, and while I’m not 100% successful at never ever blowing up over stupid sh*t, the fact of the matter is, I’m 5000% better than I was, several years ago. Just taking a breath and stopping and relaxing — stopping that chain reaction of WTF?! before it had a chance to get started — got me back to where I wanted to be.

And even though the vertigo is still a problem with me, I have far less anxiety and anger and frustration than I had in the past. I’m breathing consciously more often, in the course of everyday stresses, and I’m taking breaks to compose myself in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. I’m giving myself a chance to feel something other than the perseverating junk that gets lodged in my system, and I’m consciously smiling or laughing at situations that are usually great reasons for me to get worked up and bent out of shape — often over nothing. Just getting out from under the little black clouds that seem to follow me everywhere, even for a few short moments, has been helping a lot. And a simple smile — even if no one is around — has the surprising ability to change my perspective just enough to find something else to focus on — besides the WTF?!

Not freaking out over losing my grip on a dish… not blowing up over every little thing… actually feeling relaxed in the face of stress and drama… what a concept.

I could get used to this. It feels pretty awesome.

 

The Sixth Stage of Grief (after TBI)

Some days you just have to keep swimming

I’ve been dealing with a lot of grief, lately. The work I’ve done for nearly three years has changed dramatically, and with that change, I am losing a key element of my identity which I am realizing has been a big part of who I see myself to be in the world. Not only that, but my (and other coworkers’) impending change of employment, which is becoming self-evidently inevitable with each passing day, is a source of yet more grief, as I contemplate getting on in my life without these people in my life each day. Even the people I don’t much care for and won’t mind never seeing again, have a place in my life, and my life has been shaped by and oriented to them for years, now. So, making a change is hard.

Making any change is hard for me. It always has been. I take it hard. I spiral. I feel like the world is ending and I can’t see any light at all – tunnel or no tunnel. The grief is almost debilitating, and trying to “sit with it” as some of my meditating advisors suggest, just makes it even more profound. What’s more, when I “invite it fully”, as I’ve heard recommended by a very prominent meditation teacher/practitioner, the waves of grief become so amplified, so intense, so profound, that it practically paralyzes me.

And watching myself and my reactions to this kind of experience, and seeing how the “standard issue” coping mechanisms actually cripple me, it occurs to me that the population best served by those sorts of approaches are neurotypical, non-TBI folks whose brains are not wired / re-wired quite the same way mine is. Seriously, this emotional processing gets to be debilitating. And you know what? Despite having gone through this kind of process more times than I can count in the course of my loss-riddled life, despite promises and belief and a bit of dogma around the formula of the Kübler-Ross model (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), I’m starting to believe that with TBI you need a sixth stage — PIAAGOWYL — Put It Aside And Get On With Your Life. Or P for short.

So we end up with DABDAP. That’s my proposal, anyway.

In brief, according to Wikipedia, the five “stages [of grief], popularly known by the acronym DABDA, include:^[2]

1. Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
   Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death. Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation. Denial is a defense mechanism and some people can become locked in this stage.
2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”
   Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Anger can manifest itself in different ways. People can be angry with themselves, or with others, and especially those who are close to them. It is important to remain detached and nonjudgmental when dealing with a person experiencing anger from grief.
3. Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
   The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, “I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time…” People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example “Can we still be friends?..” when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death.
4. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon so what’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?”
   During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed. Depression could be referred to as the dress rehearsal for the ‘aftermath’. It is a kind of acceptance with emotional attachment. It’s natural to feel sadness, regret, fear, and uncertainty when going through this stage. Feeling those emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation.
5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”
   In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with their mortality, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. This stage varies according to the person’s situation. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief.

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness. She later expanded this theoretical model to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). Such losses may also include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, major rejection, end of a relationship or divorce, drug addiction, incarceration, the onset of a disease or chronic illness, an infertility diagnosis, as well as many tragedies and disasters.

As stated before, the Kübler-Ross Model can be used for multiple situations where people are experiencing a significant loss. The subsections below explain how the model is applied differently in a few specific situations. These are just some of the many examples that Kübler-Ross wanted her model to be used for.

Now, in watching how I handle loss and grieve over things, the thing that strikes me is the intensity and duration with which I experience everything — to the point of losing all sense of perspective and temperance. I mean, I just lose it. Each “stage” becomes a raging animal in its own right, and it pulls me down into its jaws like that sinkhole that swallowed that guy in Florida. And nobody, but nobody, can get me out, so long as I’m “feeling it fully” as some teachers suggest.

Seriously, feeling something “fully” is a recipe for disaster with me. The emotion takes on a life of its own and snowballs into something vast and overwhelming and utterly debilitating. And you know what? It doesn’t go away. It stays with me as keenly, 20 years later, as it was when it first arrived. I still teeter on the verge of tears when I think about some losses I had when I was a little kid. I still have to fight back waves of despair and depression when I think about some things that I lost — even when everything turned out okay in the long run. Time doesn’t heal those things with TBI. It just doesn’t. And the more I think about it, the wiser it seems to me that my neuropsych doesn’t tolerate me going off on emotional drama tangents, or encourage me to “feel fully” the crap that I’m going through each day.

Because with brain injury, “fully” is in a whole different league than what most people experience. And the consequences of letting myself get too close to the edge of that pit are WAY too serious. Think Owen Thomas of Allentown, PA — the U Penn football player who hung himself after an uncharacteristic emotional breakdown. He had no history of depression, and no history of mental illness. Yet this young man with a CTE-impacted brain, killed himself, seemingly on a whim.

It’s one thing to go through grief when you’re neurologically intact. Then the 5 “DABDA” stages of grief make sense. But when your impulse control and executive functions and emotional modulation abilities have been compromised… good luck. Here’s how my grief experiences go:

1. Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
   Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual, but for me, it can continue intermittently for quite some time. What’s more, what most people would consider “denial” is more a case of my brain not gathering all the salient facts together and making proper sense of it all in quite the right way. I can go for weeks and months without really realizing what’s going on, because I have not assembled all the pieces of information “in one place” in my brain — it’s not so much denial, as it is the way I process information — with full focus on one or two issues, totally excluding everything else until I have made sense of the one or two that are in front of me. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death. In my case, I don’t know that it’s ever really replaced. Wtih me, denial can go on for a long, long time, even after the situation is a distant memory. Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation. Denial is a defense mechanism and some people can become locked in this stage. And with TBI this is more problematic, because as I said above, cognitive processing differences look a lot like denial, when they are just different ways of parsing info and fitting it all together.
2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”
   Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. And when this stage comes with someone who has TBI-related anger issues, it can be hell for everyone and anyone. Combine the anger with impulse control issues, and an already underlying lower threshold for anger management, and you’ve got an extremely volatile situation. Because of anger, the person is very difficult nearly impossible to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. The misplaced feelings can be tied in with a multitude of different life situations, and the feelings themselves can be so amplified that the person can become just a little dangerous. I’ve found myself actually throwing things at my desk at work, over the past few weeks, which is a red flag for me — and H.R. Anger can manifest itself in different ways. People can be angry with themselves, or with others, and especially those who are close to them. Or at nothing or no one in particular. With TBI, you don’t need a reason to be angry. But you sure as hell need strategies for controlling your outbursts and getting your mind out of that state. It is important to remain detached and nonjudgmental when dealing with a person experiencing anger from grief. And it is important to find ways to keep cool and calm down the erupting volcano, when you are dealing with grief and TBI all in one. Seriously, this stage – while it might seem like “just another stage” for neurotypical individuals – can be seriously impactful for someone who’s living with brain injury. It requires a lot more attention and better coping strategies than “letting the process run its course”.
3. Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
   The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death (or whatever else you’re losing / have lost). Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, “I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time…” People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example “Can we still be friends?..” when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death. In my case, the bargaining stage doesn’t work very well, because I have difficulty remembering from day to day what I’ve promised in return for a reprieve. It’s almost comical — one day I can bargain and promise that I’ll do such-and-such, but the next day I’ll completely forget that I made that promise and I’ll be back to anger and sadness and denial and all the other stages. Then I’ll remember, “Oh, yeah – I promised that if I did such-and-such, I will get such-and-such… But I’ve already forgotten, so I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, so why should things work out the way I want them to?” Hence, bargaining is not much of a strategy for me. It only works if you can remember what you promised the day or week before.
4. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon so what’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?” And so on. Heck, you don’t even need a specific thought or point of view to get depressed with TBI. With me, levels of depression are directly related to how much energy I’ve expended on things, how much I’ve worn myself out, and how much more I feel I need to do. When I have a lot on my plate but I don’t have a lot of energy, and I have been living on pure adrenaline for days, *wham* I get depressed. Severely. The thing is, it passes as quickly as it arrives, given the right circumstances. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I have “snapped out of it” when I was feeling so low, so close to the edge. I used to get alarmed, when I would sink so low. Now I am often aware that my depression is a temporary thing, and all I need to do — literally — is get my mind off what’s bothering me, to feel instantly better.
   During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. … Um, maybe for someone who is dying, but not for someone like me who is sinking into a depression over some stupid sh*t that’s gotten the best of ‘em because they ran out of energy and are feeling sorry for themself. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed. But if I stay in it, heaven help me. Depression could be referred to as the dress rehearsal for the ‘aftermath’. It is a kind of acceptance with emotional attachment. It’s natural to feel sadness, regret, fear, and uncertainty when going through this stage. Feeling those emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation. Or it can show that the person has lost all perspective and is sinking into a hole that they really need to get out of, while they still have some measure of self-control and at least a little access to perspective. Leaving me in a depressed state for an extended period of time is just not good. Fortunately, I usually know how to get myself out of it. In some cases, watching America’s Funniest Home Videos will do the trick — at least then I know I’m not the stupidest person in the world.
5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.” “And there is no way I can avoid this, so I might as well suck it up and get on with what I need to do.”
   In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with their mortality, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. This is where I get to the point where I can let go of any attempts to block what’s happening and just get on with dealing with what I need to deal with. This stage varies according to the person’s situation. And it can come and go (when you have TBI issues) as quickly as any of the other stages above. Seriously, I can be in a state of full-blown acceptance and peace one moment, then cycle through all the other stages in an instant. It’s crazy-making. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief. And people who have TBI issues can never permanently reach this stage. At least, in my experience I haven’t. God, there is a whole lot of old sh*t I still struggle with. I know acceptance is in there somewhere, but it has to share space with the other four stages concurrently.
6. Which leads me to the last stage PIAAGOWYL — Put It Aside And Get On With Your Life. Or P for short. This is the thing I do when I am just done with the suffering, done with the anguish, done with it all, and I just don’t have the strength left to continue on. My brain gets fixed on all those stages, at varying times and to varying degrees, and from one day to the next, I can still be impacted by things that happened to me years ago, which I haven’t been able to get out of my system. The old “shadows” of those raw emotions are still very real to me, and I feel them intensely. I have worked like mad to get rid of them, to work my way through them, but I suspect that my impacted working memory and other memory issues may prevent me from retaining the “lessons” I’ve gotten from “processing” all the stuff before. It’s like I never even learned those lessons, when I am in a certain frame of mind. So I cannot spend a ton of time working my way through them. They’re just there. I just have to move on. I just have to live my life and do what I need to do, regardless of how I feel or what my head is telling me about me and my life.

I’m sure that there are plenty of people who have benefited from understanding and applying the DABDA model. I have no doubt of that. In my case, however, I have to put the emphasis on Putting It All Aside and Getting On With My Life — realizing that “these things happen”, that losses are inevitable, that when it happens, it’s not much f*ckin’ fun, and it’s going to hurt like a bitch, but ultimately I’ve got to just live my life, no matter what. I have to continue to function, even when I’m thrown for a loop. I have to make the most of my life, even when everything is falling to pieces, which often feels like is the case… even if there is no specific event I’m forced to deal with.

See, that’s the other piece of things. I can get sucked into a hole, even when things are good. If I’m tired, and I’m pushing myself, and I’m irritable or agitated, my mood can swing to the south in a hurry. It doesn’t matter that everything is hunky dory around me. I can feel like sh*t at an instant’s notice. All I need is some fatigue, maybe a sugar crash, maybe a bit of psychological catastrophic overwhelm about something complicated that I am trying to get done which suddenly looks like it’s too much for me. Anything can set me off. Anything. I can be sitting talking with someone about good things going well, then all of a sudden, I’m in the dumps… overcome by a thick black cloud of confusion and depression.

But then, just as quickly, the depression lifts — sometimes for good reason, other times for no apparent reason at all. Rather than puzzle over it and try to figure it all out, I just have to move on.

Speaking of moving on, it’s time to get to work.

More later.

SO good to be home, for good

It surely is. After traveling overseas in December, and then again in February, I have to say it is pretty awesome to be home for the foreseeable future. They may ask me to travel again in a few months, but I need to pace myself and make sure I don’t overdo it. ‘Cause man, I am wiped.

It’s funny — I didn’t have as much trouble with being tired, when I was over there. I was able to regulate my sleep and I felt pretty functional, overall. But coming back, my sleeping has been all screwed up, and I am having a hard time getting back on track. Add to that the drama at work around the re-org, and all the uncertainties and insecurities, and you end up with a lot of reasons NOT to come to work.

But hey, at least I got a promotion out of it — at least, I think that’s what happened. My title changed to something pretty respectable, which is good. It gives me something to work with, when it comes to politics. It also gets me out of the trenches, which is nice, and puts me on par with managers. Actually “Manager” is part of my new title, which is nice. And it gives me something to parlay into something even better, when I start talking to headhunters again.

In any case, it’s all a grand theater production, when you get down to it, so I can’t get to attached to much of anything. Things change daily, and it’s maddening, if you get your heart set on much of anything. Me? I’m just taking it as it comes and treating it like experience. Because in the end, that’s the only thing I really “own” — not my title, not my job, just my experience. And I can do with it whatever I choose.

It’s funny, while I was traveling, I discovered that there was an awful lot I did not notice, even though my colleague did. I didn’t see a lot of things that they called to my attention, while we were going back and forth to the office (our hotel was about a mile from the office, and we walked to work and back each day, which was good exercise). I was so focused on just making my way from Point A to Point B and beyond… so intent on not getting pulled in different directions… not getting run down by the local drivers… not losing my orientation and getting completely overwhelmed to the point where I’d shut down… that I didn’t see a lot of things that my colleague saw and commented on.

At first it bothered me a little bit. I didn’t want to be so affected by the noise and the lights and the cold and the heat. I didn’t want to have to focus so intently on what was in front of me, that I missed the things around me. I didn’t want to have a limited experience because of my hyper-sensitivities. But that’s how it was.

Then I got to thinking that being that focused was not a bad thing — it kept me from wandering in circles. And when you think about it, there’s no sense in experiencing everything all at once. Where’s the sense of discovery then? Where’s the adventure? It would all become too familiar too soon, too easy, too bland, if I took in everything right from the start.

The way I was, missing so much, the first few times, it left a lot for me to discover later, and I did — with a true sense of newness each time. Because it was new to me.

The other thing about being so focused, was that it blocked out a lot of things that could have been upsetting and could have thrown me off, on what was a very important trip… namely, that my father nearly died two days before I flew out, and they did a pretty significant medical procedure on him, and I still managed to “stay in the game” while maintaining good contact with him and my mother and the rest of my family in the hours leading up to my departure. All the focus kept me on track. My father is fine. He’s on the mend. So, I wasn’t being a “bad child” and neglectful, because I wasn’t thrown by his illness. And that’s a good feeling.

The other thing about the focus, though, is that I completely forgot about him being sick, much of the time I was there — and even when I talked with my neuropsych on Monday. You’d think that I’d remember that and discuss the situation, but I completely forgot about it. Jet lag… yeah. And such intent focus on what was in front of me, that I overlooked that important event. Completely forgot it had ever happened.

Whoever said “Happiness is good health and a bad memory,” was right.

And now I am exhausted. It’s time to go to bed. I am so done, it’s not even funny.

So, off I go.

Till later…

Ah, Groundhog Day…

I have a feeling I’ve been here before…

I’m not talking about the recent event when the behavior of a groundhog (or groundhogs, depending on your regional preference) determines our future. I’m talking about the movie,”Groundhog Day”  where Bill Murray’s character goes through the same day over and over and over again.

This is my life in a nutshell. I cycle through the same experiences / crap / joys / sorrows on a regular basis, each time without much active recollection of how it was before and what my experience was then. It applies to the good things, as well as the bad things, and my neuropsych is repeatedly surprised that I’m wrangling with the same issues that I was wrangling with, several weeks, months, or even years ago. Sometimes I have “new” experiences that are repeats of what I experienced only the day before, and I have to go through the whole learning process all over again.

One example I can think of was back in December, when I had that business trip overseas. Each day, I got up with this terrible, terrible dread — almost crippling anxiety over what was going to happen that day. It was awful, and I literally did not want to leave my room. I just wanted to stay behind closed doors, where I had no interaction with anyone, where I couldn’t possibly screw things up, and where I could move at my own pace and not adapt to anything new or different around me.

And each day, I literally forced myself to get dressed and go out into the world. Each day, I rediscovered that I was able to communicate, that I was capable of understanding what others were saying, even if I didn’t get every single word, and that the world outside was something to be explored and discovered, not dreaded and avoided.

Then the next day when I got up again, it was back to battling the crippling dread, the fear, the anxiety… the monumental effort of getting myself OUT the door… and the happy discovery that I could indeed handle myself well in the world beyond the hotel room. And at the end of each day, I was able to kick back and really enjoy myself in that space, just reveling — all over again — in the “discovery” that I was really going to be okay.

Now I have another business trip coming up that will take me overseas. This time I am going to a country where I do not speak the language. I have been studying a bit, which has been kind of funny — I found some audio files to learn from, but when I started to listen to them, it turned out to be all “Stop or I’ll shoot!” and “Put down your weapon!” and “How many armed men are there?” — apparently a law enforcement or military training course. At least I know how to say “Don’t shoot!” if I get into any trouble while I’m on my trip. You never know… there are some pretty rough neighborhoods where I’m going.

Anyway, the point I’m making is that for some reason, I seem to have just a terrible, terrible memory for things that have happened to me before. This is true of good things… and bad things. I seem to get myself into situations, over and over again, doing the same thing and expecting different results, and then I suffer and chafe when things don’t turn out like I think they’re going to.

Like trying to get out of the house to get to work… Time and time again, I get up thinking that I can just take a little time to check my email and/or do some little things around the house, and then I’ll be able to get to work on time. And time and time again, I get sidetracked on one thing or another… and I end up rushing and being later than I wanted to be. I make up the difference at the back end, of course, staying late — even later than I would have to, actually, because I start to warm up around 6 p.m., and it’s hard for me to take a break when I’m finally making good progress. Even so, even if I do make up the difference in the hours, the simple fact is that I do this over and over again, thinking that this time it will be different.

Insane? Well, according to some, it is. Whatever you call it, it gets frustrating, and I feel like a complete idiot.

I guess part of the equation of this apparent failure to learn, is the fact that I have to stay very present in the current moment, or I can really lose my bearings. I think this 100% here-and-now mindset has developed over years of having to navigate so many issues — light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, exhaustion, vertigo, nausea, pain of all kinds, headache, distractability, and more — but still needing to be functional. I think I just developed the habit of focusing so completely on the present so that I could function in that moment, that everything else — before and after — just disappears. Or it never has a chance to get set in my mind.

I think also the stress of daily living over the years has impaired my ability to learn. Just having to deal with all the sh*t of my issues and symptoms and the screw-ups and the adjustments and the confusions and distractions… it can get pretty stressful, and I’m sure it’s had some impact on my ability to learn.

Then again, in other areas I learn extremely well — like this language thing. I’m actually picking up a lot of good stuff, and I think I’ll be able to at least ask people for help and understand basic numbers and directions, and be able to thank people for their help, without too much struggle. Languages seem to come pretty naturally to me, and it surprises me how much sense they make to me after a relatively short period of time.

So, it’s not like I’m completely disabled with my learning. But experiential learning? There, again and again, I end up going through the same things, as though it were the first time ever.

Well, I can’t worry about it. If I approach it like it’s a grand adventure of constant discovery, and I treat each situation like a fun opportunity to have a “new” experience, it’s fine. It keeps me fresh, actually. It keeps me interested in my life. It’s never boring — that’s for sure. The worst thing I can do, is treat myself this means there’s something wrong with me, that it means I’m somehow damaged. If I don’t judge myself and I just accept that about myself — and come up with ways to work with/around my very limited memory… and I don’t get it in my head that this means I have early-onset dementia and I’m losing my mind…. I can work with this.

Hell, I’ve been working with it for as long as I can remember. I just “get lost” sometimes and I have to find my way out of the shadows and dead-ends… which I can do pretty well. I’ve had plenty of practice, you see.

Anyway, life goes on. I have a number of very interesting projects I am working on, and that’s keeping me interested and engaged in my life. I’m learning new things pretty well, and I feel good. I also got a lot of sleep yesterday afternoon, after I was done with my work. I worked from home, so I was able to just crawl into bed when I was done for the day. That was nice. I got about 7 hours of sleep last night, so that’s good, too. And I have all day today and all day tomorrow to kick back and take care of myself. Because I’m flying out in another week, and I need to be healthy and whole to make this trip.

So it goes. Part of me would like to have a better recollection of the things that I have experienced in the past, so that I don’t keep making the same mistakes, and I don’t keep pushing myself and wearing myself out. And I’m thinking about ways I could do that — maybe keep a log of what works for me in different situations, so I can draw on what has worked for me in the past… I had that kind of a log going, about 3 years ago, and it was working well for me. I think maybe I need to resurrect it, so I can continue to draw on my experiences and get my sh*t together better than I currently am. It’s an idea….

Anyway, the day is waiting, and I’ve got to get a move on. It’s always interesting and never boring… and I need to remind myself of how things have been in the past, as I work through my present and into my future.

I’ve been here before, I’m sure… now I need to figure out how to make the best of it.