My sleeping has normalized, at last. After 3 days of vacation, I finally got to bed by 10:30, and I slept till 7:00. That’s progress.
I’ve been getting good exercise, getting out in the mornings to walk the beach or roam around town, and I’ve been able to nap… and relax.
Nice.
It’s really important for me to keep on a schedule. If I’m not, I can get tired. When I get tired, I get cranky. I’ve had to catch myself a number of times, yesterday, to keep from getting “snappy” with my spouse. I hate when I get short-tempered… especially when my spouse needs my help. I seem to get more short-tempered more quickly when they really need my help. That’s the worst time of all. I want to be patient and helpful, but my patience runs out when they are most in need.
That’s something I’m working on. It’s come up drastically in the past, and it weighs on me with the guilt. It was worse when I was first dealing with my TBI stuff and wasn’t getting any help, yet. My spouse had fallen and hurt their back, and I was so angry and confused and turned around, that I just walked up to them, yelled at them, and walked away in a rage. I couldn’t figure out how to handle the situation, and I left them lying by the road in pain.
I’m not proud of that. But I know now it was the TBI that made me do that. I would never do that myself by choice. And I think of that situation often, when they are truly in need of help with something, and I am feeling short with them. I don’t want to be like that ever again. The injury they sustained that day has worsened over time, and now they are nearly disabled by it at times.
I sometimes blame myself for that — especially because I didn’t help them in the following days and weeks and months… as their injury worsened and their back ache spread down their legs to their knees and the whole way to their ankles, but I couldn’t figure out what to do about it — and neither could they.
At least I got some help, when I did. If I had never gotten help, things would be even worse now, I’m sure. But it’s hard to face my own role in making this situation what it is. Fortunately, my spouse is getting physical therapy, but it’s been years since they could walk and move without pain.
Of course, they’re responsible, too, for much that happens in their life. They make unhealthy choices and resist common sense, so it’s not all on me. Still and all, I do feel a responsibility for this situation. And it’s incumbent upon me to manage myself properly, so I don’t pose a risk to them anymore.
I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.
This vacation is about us being here together. Being a couple again. Being partners again. This is the first vacation we’ve had all to ourselves in a long time — for the past several years, they’ve always wanted friends to join us. But this year, no one can come, so it’s just us. And that’s fine with me. It’s easier for me to take – and it’s more of a vacation for me.
Drink water, eat regularly, get exercise, rest… and reset.
It’s important.
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 
Having multiple medical and surgical treatments for my tbi and other debilitating idiopathic symptoms which followed, I have wanted to maintain a simple approach to life. Healthy eating, sleep and exercise habits to offset the remaining symptoms of my tbi and medications, do this. By refusing to get caught-up and believe in other’s comments of, “You look fine” or “You sound fine to me!” as measures of general social acceptance, in letting others know of the rehabilitative therapies, which I help myself with as a positive response. I let others know, both I and others with tbi make rehabilitative gains with these therapies, most. When letting others know, it is my hope if others that have not ever experienced tbi, will also have hope if they or a familial other they may know, should experience tbi in the near future. They will begin to understand, a successful rehabilitative pathway exists. It is through knowing, my tbi is causative to other bodily and neurological changes of age and genetic predispositions to other diseases, that keeps me aware and on such a rehabilitative path. While possible and potential medical harms may be affected by the tbis of my past, I am better able to maintain a more healthy and therapeutic approach at life today. I now find I am more humble in my approach to life, because of this simple approach to my healthy path of life.
LikeLike
Brain chemistry lifehacks: Steve Ilardi at TED x KC: https://youtu.be/8bnniNxqB4w
LikeLiked by 1 person
And that is the key, really – keeping things very simple and also constructive… Not getting caught up in what others think about you and your situation, and just staying steady. We cannot control what others think and say about us, but we can control how we “take it in” and what we do with that. We can choose to be victimized by it, or we can choose to use that as a step to something bigger and better. Thank you for your words.
LikeLike
Very cool. Thanks.
LikeLike