When bad things happen to good people

The road ahead is not always clear

Oh, this is upsetting. My neuropsych is having potentially serious health issues, and we won’t be meeting next week.

The upsetting thing is not so much that I won’t get to meet with them. It’s that they are having health issues. Their situation is not certain. You like to hope for the best and stay positive, but with the healthcare system as it is, you never know…

I really got thrown for a loop yesterday. When I first talked to them to cancel our appointment, I was fine. I was feeling very positive and supportive, and I think I helped them feel better. I made them laugh a little, which always helps. Then I took a nap later in the day, and when I woke up, I was very, very sad. Because if something happens to them, so they can’t work anymore, I had the distinct impression that I will go back to being alone.

And that made me so sad, I started to cry. I hate when that happens. I suddenly felt so alone, so small and so vulnerable. I felt like I was five years old again, being left behind as the school bus going home pulled away from the curb, leaving me alone and not able to get back home from my first day of kindergarten. In the past six years that we have worked together, my neuropsych has really been the only reliable person in my life who has not judged me for being different, who has understood the challenges I’m up against, and who has really cheered for my advances, instead of just treating them like something I should have been able to do, all along. If I lose their regular presence in my life, it’s going to be a real blow.

I felt kind of crappy, feeling that way, because it was all about me. I’ve been working on that tendency to always think of myself first and not pay any attention to anyone else’s needs. But I’m also feeling upset that this is happening to them, because they are a really good person who has been on the business end of life’s cattle prod many times too often, and I hate that they have to go through this — especially as they are nearing retirement age, and no one should have to spend their later years in terrible physical condition.

I wish there were something I could do, but my neuropsych is a private citizen, and it would be inappropriate for me to try to contact them outside our clinical relationship. I feel very helpless – life is just doing what it’s doing, and I can’t really do anything to stop it. All I can do is adjust. And take care of myself.

I hate feeling selfish like this. It really bothers me, that my first thought is “What will happen to me?” I know that is not a reflection of my “highest self”. I am better than that.

So, I am doing something about it, and I am searching online for volunteer opportunities, to reach out and help others. I don’t want to be “that person”. I want to be better. I know how good it makes me feel to be reassured and assisted with things I don’t know about. I’m very independent, and having additional help from experts gives me some measure of reassurance I need, in the midst of what can be a very confusing and disorienting world. I have skills I can pass along to others who want to learn, and by offering others what I myself seek to have, that can get me out of my funk and keep the focus off me-me-me.

In all honesty, I need to be thinking this scenario through, anyway. My neuropsych is at the end of their career, and they’re not going to be practicing forever. I’m fortunate/unfortunate enough to have worked with them when they are at the high point of their professional practice, having spent decades refining their approach and having already had tons of experience with what works — and what doesn’t.

I’ve had the good sense to avail myself of their help when I’ve needed it. The thing is, I’ve done so much of my work by myself — and then checked in with them after the fact — that it’s not their guidance I rely on; it’s their assessment and feedback about what I’ve done and whether or not the result is what I was hoping for.

It’s been one big, fantastic science experiment, in all the best senses of the word, and I’ve really benefited. And to be honest, so have they. They’ve never directly told me the details about how my work has helped them, but they once mentioned to my spouse that it’s hugely encouraging for them to work with me, as I’m so intent on getting better and really putting in the work. They said that most of their brain injury survivor patients aren’t willing to do the work to really get better. How depressing that must be…

The working relationship has been mutually beneficial for sure. I know they’ve gotten better, themself, because the difference between how they are now and how they were when I first met them, is significant. When I first met them, they were much more tentative, spacy, and absent-minded. They would forget appointments with me, they seemed more hesitant in so many ways, and they didn’t have their act together with billing and business management details.

In the past six years, they’ve really stepped up their game, and I like to think that working with me has helped. In, fact, I’m sure of it. And the time when I went to meeting with them every other week, instead of every week, they seemed to regret not checking in with me each week.

I guess one of the things that’s kept me motivated over the past years, has been knowing that my progress was helping another person. Knowing that getting better myself was helpful to my neuropsych — which then made it possible for them to help others — has been a driving force behind my recovery. It’s not just about me. It’s about all of us.

This blog, too, has been a big part of my recovery, and hearing from folks that I’ve helped them, or they respond to things I write, has been a real boost for me in so many ways. My TBI recovery doesn’t just belong to me. It really belongs to all of us. I happen to benefit from it — and so do many, many others.

So, that keeps me going.

And I wish I could do more. I really do. There are so many brain-injured people suffering and alone and afraid, because of what’s happening inside their heads — and bodies — that they don’t fully understand. That goes for strokes, acquired brain injuries, and traumatic brain injuries, alike. We’re all a little bit different from each other, yet we have so much in common. And we need to focus on that commonality. The professional community stands to gain from divvying up our issues into different categories and disciplines, so they can mobilize their resources to address each aspect. But for those of us suffering from the symptoms and after-effects and ripple-effects of brain injury, this segmentation just makes things worse.

Those of us who have experienced brain injuries need to be connected with the larger world. We need to be involved in a community. And the way brain injury recovery is set up in this nation, is the worst way to handle things for us. It’s limited by insurance and the abilities and knowledge of people who are not adequately trained in brain injury issues, and who frankly run out of steam, because brain injury does such an unpredictable number on its “recipients”. Also, our loved-ones get the brunt of things, because they’re ultimately our last line of assistance, but nobody out there truly understands

Lord, we are exhausting.

So, those of us who can, need to do something about it. I have posted the Give Back training I downloaded to my site here https://brokenbrilliant.wordpress.com/brain-injury-association-resources/give-back-tbi-education-for-survivors-and-families/ I hope people will make use of it. The information has helped me so much, and I do need to go back to it… and I shall. With a fresh look, years after the first time I downloaded it and started to read it.

I have some other ideas about how to help… including more ideas for this blog. I’m getting a bit long-winded here, so I need to wrap it up… and also get on with my day visiting my family. I don’t get to see them that often, so I need to take advantage, and get on with my morning.

I’ll be driving back home later today — and it’s another gorgeous day — so I need to get my act together, get off my damn’ pity-pot, and make the most of what I have. Each and every day.

Onward.