But Bruce Willis gets clocked and is okay…

He got hit on the head, but he still wins the fight – right?

Years ago, I was watching the show Northern Exposure, and in one scene, a character was saying how he didn’t believe Bruce Willis’ character could have sustained all those head traumas and kept going.

He had a point. I wasn’t yet aware of TBI and its role in my life, but that comment did stick with me.

Fast forward 20-some years, and here I am, with a much better understanding of it all.

And yes, I concur. Bruce Willis plays a lot of characters who get hit on the head and recover promptly — and never show any sign of slacking off. Knowing what I know now, it’s highly unlikely that so many of the characters we watch in movies, t.v. shows, and video games would be able to stand, let along continue to function, after the hits they take to their heads.

Meanwhile, parents have delegated the raising of their children to television, movies, and gaming, leaving them to “learn” about life through a warped lens that has nothing to do with reality. That, after all, is the draw — it has nothing to do with reality.

But do the kids know it?

I’m not saying things are so much worse now, than they were when I was growing up. I grew up watching Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner blow each other up, smash each other under rocks, and do all sorts of violent things to each other — and then keep coming back for more. I grew up watching Muhammad Ali pummel his opponents, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, with nary a thought about how that might affect him and his opponents later on. I watched Speed Racer and all sorts of other cartoons where the characters were getting creamed regularly, but just bounced up and kept going.

Is it worse today? I’m not sure it’s ever been great.

The difference that I see, is that all the entertainment-based activities are producing physically weak and vulnerable kids who may be pushing the envelope in organized sports. They don’t have the same core flexibility and strength that we developed 30-40 years ago, just by being outside and active. Nowadays, you’ve got kids who languish in front of consoles and screens most of the spare minutes of their lives — only to be sent out sporadically to play at levels that are arguably more demanding than any when I was growing up. There’s certainly more padding, more helmets, more focus on speed and strength.But there’s less actual strength underneath that.

Back when I was growing up, you played because it was fun — not because it was your only way to afford college and have a decent life.

But now, kids are woefully unprepared for physical exercise, and whey do dive into it, they’re pushed to limits that would have seemed ridiculously extreme, three decades ago.

Then again, Bruce Willis does that sort of thing all the time.

And he’s fine. Right?

What our denial is costing us

It’s not like we can’t see the signs

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Crash Reel, lately, especially thinking about the parents of Kevin Pearce and how they handled his accident and brain injury and recovery. One of the things that stands out in sharp relief for me is how silent his mother is, as she watches her son suffer and struggle. When he’s sitting with the doctor, telling him about how he thinks he should just go out and start snowboarding again… when he announces at a family dinner that he’s looking forward to getting back on the snow… his mother is silent. Sitting quietly in pain, having aged a great deal over the past year, and not speaking up on camera to set him straight.

I know it’s heresy to be critical of parents — especially those who have children who are struggling with a disability or recovery of some kind. It is a parent’s worst nightmare to see their beloved child injured so horribly, even killed. At the same time, parents are one of the most available lines of defense against action sports TBI, and when they don’t step in to stop dangerous behavior, I really feel for the kids who end up suffering as a result.

The kids literally do not know better. Their brains have not properly developed enough to be able to make good decisions. And parents who just leave all the decisions up to them may actually be inviting danger and disaster into their families.

On the other hand, no parent can own or control their child forever, and accidents do happen, no matter what sport you play. Even if you’re not playing a sport, accidents happen. TBI happens. No amount of good parenting will erase that chance 100%.

There are many other pieces to the TBI puzzle, especially when action sports are considered. There’s the X-Games atmosphere of daredevil stunts, the constant push to exceed your (and others’) limits, the steady pump of adrenaline that makes us feel alive — and makes some of us feel like we’re human again.

That adrenaline pump, the flow of dopamine when you accomplish something fantastic, the numbing of pain that all the fight-flight stress hormones make possible… it’s not just an addiction, which people simply dismiss. For some of us, it’s a non-negotiable part of who we are, and without it we are just shells of who we know ourselves to be.

I spent the last week deliberately resting, and man, at some times it was hell. Boring. Dull. Dampened. Blah. Booooorrrrinnnngggg.  I knew I needed to rest. I knew I needed to catch up on my sleep, and it was all good, when I finally got to a place where I actually felt rested. But that persistent sense of being so dull and dim and low-level was extremely difficult to take. And I’m not even an extreme sports athlete.

Imagine how it must feel for someone to go from the thrill and elation of successfully completing a difficult ride down the slopes… to being laid up, forced to rest and recuperate and “take it easy”. Yeah, sheer hell.

It’s the denial of this part of our lives that is the most dangerous, I think. Because we deny that we need that rush, the challenges that test our limits in real life, we don’t get the stimulation we genuinely need, and we live lives that are far less … alive … than they should be. We try to reduce danger at every turn, avoiding uncomfortable situations and everyday challenges, in hopes of having some sense of security. But in the process, we starve our systems of the important challenges and tests that make us more of who we are. We stunt our growth, and we know it harms us. But we are still so convinced that somehow, some way, we can be safe and secure.

In a way, our hunger for safety and security is the worst thing we could possibly indulge. It makes us less than who we could be, and it denies us the necessary genuine risk that fine-tunes our systems and makes us better at being who we are.

But we can’t be deprived forever. As I said, part of us knows the constant risk avoidance is not doing us any favors. So, we seek out artificial challenges that we think we can control ourselves — like extreme sports, velocity sports, collision sports. The worst is when we ask others to vicariously seek out those challenges for us — NFL football players, extreme athletes, and all sorts of danger-seekers we reward with adulation and praise for doing things we could never do ourselves — and which might actually permanently maim or kill them, right before our voyeuristic eyes.

We need action. We need excitement. We need risk. There’s no point in denying it. Our brains and bodies are finely tuned to handle risk and excitement, and if we can’t get it in a healthy way, we will get it in an unhealthy way.

So why not exercise and develop that part of ourselves — safely?

When I say “safely”, I mean without putting our lives and limbs in direct danger — within the context of our everyday lives, taking on challenges that others so frequently flee. Countless “dangerous” situations present themselves to us each day, which we could pursue, and make our lives better in the process. Things like

• Speaking up and telling the truth about what’s going on around us.
• Refusing to play along when a bully shows up and demands that you join in their “game” of ridiculing or bullying others.
• Taking a long, hard look at yourself and admitting what’s really there — and taking steps to address the things you’re not so happy about.
• Following your dreams, once and for all, and damn the torpedoes or what anyone else has to say about it.

Those are just a few examples of the real risks in life, and those are the ones that get lost in the shuffle. I’ve been seeing a lot of trailers for the “Secret Life of Walter Mitty” movie, lately, and just from what I’ve seen, it seems like old Walter is doing just what I’ve described — replacing the challenges and dangers and risks of everyday life with extreme situations that give him that necessary pump of adrenaline and dopamine that makes him fully human. Fortunately or unfortunately, I suspect the movie concludes with him coming out safe and sound, with no TBIs or other disasters ripping his life apart. Yet more denial? {sigh}

The Walter Mitty story seems not so far removed from the story of sheltered kids taking up extreme sports to supply their brains and bodies with the biochemical pump they need to develop properly. Of course — full disclosure — I haven’t seen the movie yet, so it may turn out to be a good one. I do know the original story behind the movie, so I can speak to it a bit. I’ll have to check out the movie for sure — but on DVD later. I’m not going into a movie theater filled with people who are talking and texting and coughing all over me.

Anyway, that’s my little discourse on denial and its role in producing one TBI after another. We are all culpable, when it comes to cases like Kevin Pearce

• those who let him take up extreme sports,
• those who encouraged him,
• those who rewarded him,
• those who profited from him,
• those who continue to urge him back on the slopes to do yet more dangerous stunts,
• and those who sit by quietly not speaking up when the danger is so apparent, so obvious.

The crazy thing is, this keeps happening every single day, and yet we sit by silently and say and do nothing about it.

Makes no sense. I think we all need to get our heads examined.

No one has a clue how hard this is for me

Even I don’t, sometimes.

Seriously. I walk through my days, going about my regular business, living my life, interacting with people, doing what I do, making mistakes, making it right… working (hard) to keep up. And I do manage to keep up. Most of the time.

At least, that’s how it looks on the outside. I’ve learned, over years, to present in a certain way… to project a certain image… to do a passable job of fitting in, by mirroring the mannerisms and “social pacing” of people around me. And it works. I had to figure it out by trial-and-error, but I did eventually figure it out.

In my early childhood, when I was first learning about how to live outside my parents’ house — in school, especially — I had a very hard time fitting into my surroundings. My early grade-school years were rocky and rough, and I went through a lot of bullying and teasing and marginalization. I also had a very, very hard time dealing with academic requirements. I could pretty much get by, but it was — again — trial and error. I remember working so very, very hard to make my teachers happy… without fully understanding why they were asking me to learn certain things and complete certain lessons.

I think part of the problem was that, despite having a hard time keeping up with what was going on around me, I was ahead of the kids around me, subject-wise. I grew up in a family that valued education and spent a lot of time exploring the world of ideas. My parents were — and still are — very well read, and my grandparents were experts in their fields. I was well accustomed to sitting around talking about complex subjects… more comfortable doing that, in fact, than spending time playing with the kids around me.

And it was awkward. Very awkward for everyone. At least, I think it was. I didn’t understand my peers very well, and they didn’t seem to understand me at all. Or maybe my perceptions were skewed because of my TBIs — poor judgment, slowed information processing, and misperception of the actions and/or intentions of others are all hallmarks of TBI. Maybe everyone was fine with me; I just wasn’t fine with them (or myself).

Anyway, I don’t want to harp on all my difficulties. Let’s just say my childhood was somewhat challenging.

All that started to change, however, when I started getting connected with kids who were several years older than me. My family had moved to a new area, and we had started attending a new church. That church did not have a very large concentration of kids exactly my age — they were either several years older than me or several years younger. My parents talked to the youth director and managed to get me “in” with the older kids in the young adult youth group.

I really wasn’t sure about it, when I started. I was painfully shy — no, shy isn’t the word for it. I was completely out of my depth. All the boys and girls — young men and young women, actually — who were part of the youth group seemed so with it, so together, so … grown up. They seemed like they knew what everyone was saying when they talked, and they seemed to know how to act around other people.

I was amazed. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to initiate conversations that weren’t about some academic matter, and I sure as hell didn’t know how to keep a conversation going. I was petrified, the first months I hung out with the other kids. But fortunately, some of the most popular kids in the “gang” at church were second cousins of mine, and they knew me from family reunions. So, I was “in” with the crowd, even when I couldn’t manage to put two words together.

It would be really easy for me to focus on how challenging those years were for me. But I’d rather focus on how much I gained from meeting those challenges head-on, and learning from them. Those several years with the older kids — I spent about 3 years among kids who were several years my senior — taught me volumes about how to make my way in the world. By watching them and seeing how they interacted with others, I was able to model my behavior on something positive — and types of behavior that obviously worked. I watched the kids who were clearly popular and having a great time being alive, and I mirrored their words and actions. I’m sure I looked a bit spastic, at times, tagging along and clumsily imitating everyone at the start, but eventually I learned how to smooth it all out and “deliver a seamless presentation” of the kinds of behavior I saw other people using — that worked well for them in social situations.

I could tell things worked, if people laughed at jokes. I could tell things worked for them, if other people smiled when they approached. I could tell things were “clicking” socially, if everyone was relaxed and enjoying each others’ company. It probably sounds pretty remedial and basic, but that’s how I learned. And I learned pretty quickly, too — so long as I could be a part of the group, but still be able to withdraw, now and then, when I got overwhelmed. Because I was with kids who were some years older than me, I was able to get “special dispensation” because I was younger. I was “just a kid” so I was allowed to mess up, now and then. Not all the time, but they tended to cut me some slack, which was helpful.

The fact that all this took place in a church environment, where there were very strict rules about how you did and did not behave was very helpful also. All the boys were well-behaved, and all the girls kept to very high standards of behavior. Even though a lot of us eventually left the church and went our own ways, far from organized religion, the fact that there were clear guidelines in place for us to follow made it pretty straightforward for me to figure out how I should — and should not — behave around others. The kids who were ahead of me modeled acceptable behavior, and I followed their example. I was part of a “gang” — but the gang was all good Christian kids, so I had the benefit of being in a group of pressuring peers who pressured me in directions that did not lead towards drugs, alcohol, petty crime, and teen sex.  (That pressure took place in the other “gangs” I ran with, several years later, in school and at jobs I held.)

During those early teen years in the church youth group, I learned how to integrate socially through the various activities we had — Sunday School, prayer meetings, weeknight services, organized youth group activities, like trips and outings, Bible quiz team, and countless other get-togethers that were organized by the youth leaders. They really did have a good program, I realize in retrospect, and I benefitted from it a lot. Being able to be around kids who were older than me gave me license to just be who and what I was — a little dorky, a little geeky, gangly and awkward and prone to say dumb things that were out of context — and be accepted, anyway, because I was young. I don’t remember being stigmatized, probably because it was generally expected that I was supposed to be different — but that was because of my age, not because I was a queer little brain-damaged freak who couldn’t fit in with my peer group.

What a relief it was, to be allowed to be different! I had been battling against my social surroundings for years, but that had gotten me nowhere. And I mean, nowhere. Standing out as being different (which was my “default setting”), had resulted in a lot of bullying, ridicule, and general hardship for me. It had also not helped my academic performance or my general ability to get by in the world. But being able to hang out with kids who were not only older than me and showed me how to behave, but being given some leeway with how I behaved, totally took the pressure off.

I was finally able to relax, socially. And I was able to learn. I was able to pattern my demeanor after the most socially successful members of the youth group — the guys and gals who were the most capable, the most popular, the smartest, the most respected-by-adults. I’m sure I looked kind of dense, stumbling and bumbling my way after them. But you know what? No matter how dorky I looked around the older kids, when I was around my own peer group, those behaviors and mannerisms made me look a lot more mature than I felt. I didn’t need to understand exactly why someone would say certain things (like social pleasantries) or do certain things (like strike up a conversation with people you’ve never met before in your life). I only needed to understand how they did it, and that it worked for them… and perfect my impressions of the most socially successful people I knew.

Granted, my “performance” wasn’t always perfect, and there were a lot of false moves over the years that got me in trouble with older kids and teachers and other authority figures, but you know what? By practicing and practicing and practicing some more… observing carefully when others did things that made them look good… by rehearsing the “role” I wanted to play in the world in the privacy of my own bedroom, out in the woods where I could have some alone-time… by constantly checking and re-checking the results of what I’d done, learning my lessons and “taking my lumps” as I went, I was able to build a really compelling and convincing repertoire of social graces that have stood me in good staid.

Okay, so my parents were probably pretty concerned throughout the course of my life, when I’d spend hours just talking to myself. And I’m sure they’ve often wondered about me walking around having animated, in-depth conversations about topics I’m passionate about… with no one in particular. To this day, I still have extended animated converstions with myself when I’m alone or in the car driving. I do it — and have always done it — to work on my vocal pacing, my delivery, my presentation. I have a role to play in the world, and I know well enough (inside my own woolly head) how hard it can be for me to keep my act together. I get lost all too quickly, so I need to keep my composure skills up, and “running the lines” my life does it for me. This “regular life” stuff doesn’t come easily to me, so I have to work at it, work at it, work at it some more. All the time, whenever I get a chance.

Fortunately, I enjoy it, and when I’m having intense, protracted discussions with myself, pretending to talk to another person — breaking now and then to let “them” get a word in — I’m usually going on about something that captures and holds my interest. So it’s not work as much as it is effortful play. And it pays off.

In countless ways. Can I just tell you, the best validation of my efforts has been all these people telling me, over the course of the past year or so, that they never would have guessed I had a head injury, let alone half a dozen. It never would have occurred to them that I was anything less than perfectly normal. On the outside, then, my presentation is intact. And all my hard work has paid off. The countless hours I’ve spent analyzing my interactions with the world, checking and double-checking the results of my relating to others… the untold time I’ve spent carefully tweaking my demeanor during the course of converstaions… the tricks I’ve picked up about how to interact effectively with others… it’s all paid off. Big time.

Now there are some days, of course, when I feel a lot more like a fraud than I feel functional. I feel like I’m just walking through my days playing a role that has nothing to do with me. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way — especially as they age and start to examine their lives. But with me, it’s especially pronounced, because there are many, many times I say and do things without even thinking about them which don’t sound anything like me, or what interests me, or what I care about. There are times when I’ll get to the end of a conversation or a complex interaction with someone and realize that I have no idea what just happened — I wasn’t even personally involved in the interaction. I didn’t even say what I meant or thought or felt. I just mirrored that other person, without even knowing what I was mirroring. They thought for sure that I agreed with them wholeheartedly and was validating their point of view by repeating it back to them, but I was really just saying and doing the bare minimum to get in and out of the conversation without getting too turned around.

Indeed, this is the great pitfall of this approach, socially successful as it may be: that I can get swept up in a chain of events that I don’t agree with, don’t care about, don’t even want to participate in… because the action is moving a lot faster than my little brain is, and I’ve unconsciously mirrored everyone so well, that they enlisted my help and swept me into their grand designs without my ever consciously assenting to it. And they think that because I’m able to mirror them so well, I’ve consciously chosen the path they’re taking because I’m as totally into it as they are… But I haven’t deliberately chosen.  And I’m not totally into it. I’m totally into nothing more than just participating and navigating the situation successfully enough to not be found out as a head-injured dimwit.

It can be a problem. Especially when I try to slow down the action long enough to say, “Hey – I need a while to think this through before I get involved.” Slowing things down is terribly difficult for me, in the first place, because I tend to be highly impulsive and get swept up into the energy of things. I also hate feeling as slow as I am, and I hate feeling so friggin’ retarded — as in the literal meaning “to be delayed”, which is exactly what I am at times. I have developed an elaborate and effective cover/compensatory strategy for my limitations, and I like how I feel when I’m “under cover”. I like feeling whole and hale and hearty and fast and smooth and with it. I like feeling complete and well-integrated. But when I “buy my cover” and forget that it’s just that — well, things can break down pretty quickly.

I suppose it’s all a balancing act.  There’s no way I’m going to just dispense with my compensatory behaviors — why should I? Everyone needs a little cover, now and then, and plenty of people say “yes-yes-yes” while they’re trying to buy time to think things through on their own, in the privacy of their own heads. But I don’t want to fool myself into thinking that everything is perfectly alright, since I can present well, articulate, keep my act together in very controlled circumstances. I don’t want to fall into the habit of thinking that because I can function very well in a highly structured environment where I’m literally just mimicking people around me and able to perform well as a result, than I can duplicate that same level of effectiveness out on my own.

I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work. I once thought that my on-the-job skills at my highly routinized, heavily project-managed 9-to-5 position at an established corporation would translate into the same level of effectiveness and success when I started my own company. But I was wrong, and that experiment ended very, very badly. I’m still picking up the pieces.

I once thought that because I saw other people conducting workshops and I understood the form and structure of them, that I could duplicate their efforts and do just as well. What happened was, I got 10 minutes into the workshop and lost control of the “flow” and ended up riding a wild bucking bronco of a workshop where everyone talked out of turn and wouldn’t stay on-topic — very similar to what happens inside my head when I’m tired and overwhelmed.

I once thought that because I had worked in financial services for many years, and I had a burning interest in financial planning, that I could and should become a financial planner. But I ended up enrolling in a program for a bunch of money and then was unable to even finish two of the six courses. I was also unable to get more than a C grade in the two tests I took. And I had no idea why! As so many times in my past, I actually forgot about the program for a while and wandered off to do other things… and it didn’t fully sink in that I was supposed to be working on it until I got a notice that I had all of six… then three months left to complete the 18-month course. It slipped my mind, for the most part… and I couldn’t finish the program. What could — and should — have been a simple matter for me turned out to be a whole lot more complicated than I thought it would be. And I was a whole lot less up to the task, than I had assumed.

I once thought that because I had worked with many different kinds of lawyers for many years, that I could read and analyze and understand important legal documents for my family, but I ended up really turned around and confused, and if it weren’t for the fact that I had a good lawyer waiting in the wings, I could have really screwed things up.

The wild thing was — I had gotten myself into all these messes at the urging of others around me. Others who were so very, very sure that I could handle myself perfectly well, that I was perfectly capable, that I was perfectly equipped to deal with all of this… who had no idea at the time (as I) that there were some serious neurological impairments holding me back. There weren’t a lot, but there were enough.

And as a result, I have danced on the edge of disaster repeatedly throughout the course of my adulthood — and I’m still running into instances where I overestimate my capabilities. They’re less and less pronounced, and I’m getting more acclimated to “quality controlling” my assumptions, but the risk still exists that I might overreach and not realize I need to take special care to compensate for my limits.

I suspect that these may be good examples of anosognosic hazard — having lacking self-awareness get in the way of living your life. I know that they’re good examples of how buying my own cover can get me into trouble.

The thing is, I don’t feel like being disabled, I don’t feel like being head-injured, I don’t feel like making special exceptions for myself. But when I don’t at least consider that my broken brain may be complicating my life needlessly… getting me into trouble, yet again… well, the feeling of being in hot water is far worse than the feeling of tending to my relatively few special needs.

I really, really hate having to consider how difficult some things are for me. I detest having to bumble and fumble and stumble my way through situations until I figure out how to handle them. I cannot stand having trouble with sequential steps and not being able to remember stuff that “should” come easily to me. Most of all, I hate the idea of revealing to others how hard I have to work to do the most basic of things, like getting up and going through my routine each morning, and actually getting to work on time. It’s embarrassing, it’s disconcerting, it’s a total downer. But that’s how it is.

And even if I don’t show it to everyone else, it’s important that I not lose sight of it inside my own head.

‘Cause you can’t fix something, if you don’t know it’s broken.

How severe was my injury when I was 8?

My parents are coming to visit me next weekend,and I’ve been thinking a lot about my earlier injuries and how they affected my childhood. How they affected my development, how they affected my interactions with people, how they affected my future. When I was seven, I fell down a flight of stairs and was very dazed and confused and wasn’t able to talk. And when I was eight, I was hit in the head with a rock and knocked out for a while. (I tell that story here.)

In the ensuing years of my childhood and youth, I had more injuries — concussions and falls. It was not uncommon for me, while playing, to fall hard and/or hit my head and get up a little dazed and confused… but keep playing. Just keep playing.

Now, concussions alone could account for a lot of the problems I had when I was a kid — problems understanding what people were saying to me, problems with distractability, problems with temper outbursts, problems with getting really turned around and confused… lots and lots of mood and behavioral problems that my parents handled with faith and prayer and lots of structure, rather than pharmaceuticals.

In retrospect, I think it really helped, when I was young.  The structure gave me a framework to live within, the faith gave me something bigger to hang onto, and prayer offered me a way to ask for help from a Higher Power when I couldn’t find the words or the means to ask for it from human beings. It was a pretty exacting way to live, though. My family was very religious, and my parents were very strict (at that time) about what was permitted and what was not… what was sinful and “worldly” and what they considered pleasing to the Lord.

But while that faith and prayer gave me a much-needed support system when I was young, when I entered my teen years, it backfired. As I grew older, I still had a hard time, cognitively and behaviorally speaking. The problem was, I wasn’t just having troubles at home, I was having troubles out in the world. Teen years are marked by increasing social activities outside the home, and I just didn’t do a very good job of handling myself. I was alternately shy… and openly rebellious. I was alternately a high achiever and a slacking ne’er do well. I did a lot of good and helpful things in my youth, including saving an elderly lady who was trapped when the open door of her car (it was not in park) rolled and pinned her leg to a very large object (I can’t remember what it was, but she was pinned, and the metal of the door cut into her leg — I can still recall the sight of the inside of her fleshy thigh cut open — I guess my brain selectively records images). But I also sold drugs and bought liquor underage and distributed it to friends. I wasn’t a big-time criminal, but my later youth was marked by a lot of the warning-sign activities of criminals in the making.

Jekyll and Hyde… or head injury? Given the number of injuries I’ve had over the years, and the fact that a lot of my rebellious and “alternative” behavior was directly connected with an internal storm of confusion and agitation and rage that never disappeared, only subsided a little, I think the latter applies.

Okay, so all that being said, I have been wondering a lot, lately, just how severely I was injured when I was 8. I was knocked out with a rock thrown by some kids who didn’t like my looks and had been taunting and teasing me and my sibling from a distance. We didn’t respond, and they started to throw rocks. My sibling wanted to leave, but I said “NO, we’re staying right here.” I still feel awful about it; they could have been injured, instead of me. But I was hard-headed and stubborn, and I didn’t want anyone to chase me away from doing what I was doing.

Anyway, after a number of rocks landed closer and closer to us, one clocked me on the head. I recall feeling a dull-sharp impact and thinking, “What was that…?” and then I went down.

The next thing I remember, I was looking up and my sibling was hovering over me, crying, with tears streaming down their face. I was woozy and wobbly and at first I wanted to stay and keep playing, but they were so upset, I realized I couldn’t keep us there. I was also not feeling so great, and they led me home to my parents, who had me lie down on the couch while they called a friend who was a nurse, to find out what to do. I didn’t want to do what they told me to — I didn’t want to lie down, I didn’t want to hold still, I wanted to either get up and move around or go to sleep. I remember trying to sleep, but they kept me awake. I seem to recall being really tired, but also kind of punchy and agitated and restless. Eventually, as I recall, after checking my eyes with a flashlight a number of times, they let me get up and move around. And my life went on.

When I think back on that time, it seems to me that it was a pretty serious deal – but I’m not sure how aware of it my parents were.  Or anyone was, for that matter. And when I think back, I honestly can’t say how long I was knocked out for. I might have been out for a few seconds, a few minutes, even an hour or more. It’s impossible to say. My sibling can’t recall the event clearly, so I can only guess at how long it was.

And up till recently, I’ve been thinking I was out cold for a relatively short time. But it could have been longer. I can’t recall the kids who attacked us being in the field when I came to — I can’t recall how the light of the day was, and I’m not sure if my parents were concerned about my sibling and me being out longer than we should have been.

But to be accurate, there is a chance that I was knocked out for longer than a few minutes. It could have been much longer. And from what I understand, the length of unconciousness is an indicator of the severity of an injury, which can also be an indicator of long-term problems. Given the level of difficulty I had when I was a kid — particularly during and after 3rd grade… from that point on, life was one big obstacle course for me — I have to wonder if maybe I wasn’t injured worse than I thought I have been thinking I was.

I need to do some more research on this… It could be a good thing to learn. And I think it might help me talk to my parents about my childhood. Because despite learning a lot and putting a lot of things together over the past year and a half, I haven’t yet discussed my TBIs with them. I haven’t discussed them with anyone in my family. But next weekend, I think that’s going to change.

Figuring out how to talk to my parents about my childhood TBIs is actually one of the big action items on my plate, these days (in addition to working like a mad person to keep my job and keep up with my work… organizing my study in a way that helps me, not hinders me… clearing out old files and projects that were artifacts of TBI-induced agitation, rather than being something that would ever bear fruit… and tending to my marriage and home life). My folks have been saying for years that they can’t figure out what they did wrong to make me so unhappy when I was little. They can’t  figure out why I took so many wrong turns.  They can’t understand why I was so angry and rammy and difficult — what did they do wrong?

I have to tell them, it wasn’t them that caused the bulk of my many issues. It was TBIs. Getting hit on the head. Hard. And at an early enough age that it sheared and skewed the connections in my developing brain so it couldn’t develop “normally,” no matter what they tried. I have to tell them it wasn’t all their fault, and that all things considered, they actually helped more than they hurt.

For all their flaws, for all the things they might have done differently, my parents did create a home where I was able to develop habits of self-inspection and introspective reflection. They created a very structured and well-organized environment in which I could safely do things like paint and draw and write stories and express myself and learn things and be my own unique (and sometimes very weird) self. Certainly, it might have been helpful, if they had taken my shortcomings into consideration more and not overwhelmed me constantly with so much friggin’ input (my mother has always been a manic force of nature, God love her). But the fact that I’m still here, still standing, still able to keep motoring on, despite pain and agitation and confusion and generally feeling like I live my life in the dark and have to just bumble/stumble through a lot of things the first time, before I figure out how the heck to do stuff… Well, I have my parents to thank for that.

Even if my TBI at age 8 was more than mild — even if it was moderate — they raised me in a way that made it possible to keep going, keep moving, keep making my life the best that it could be.

And for that I am eternally grateful.

Now, I have to figure out a way to tell them, when they come to visit. I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t.

Behavior After Brain Injury in Children

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my life was when I was a kid… what kinds of problems I had, and what kinds of problems others had with me.

Over at the Lash & Associates website, I found this … it makes a lot of sense in my own history.

Social immaturity is one of the common consequences of brain injury. Some children and adolescents seem “stuck” at an earlier developmental stage. This can make it difficult for peers and friends to relate and may even lead to ridicule or social isolation for the child with a brain injury. Altered social skills can be very difficult for adolescents with brain injuries when peer pressures for dating, appearance and “fitting in” increase.

Stuck would be the operative word. Ridicule and isolation, too. Not to saw away at my violin, but sheesh!

And this…

The traditional approach to managing behavior is based on the model of antecedent, behavior and consequence. The antecedent is what happens before the behavior, the behavior is the action, and the consequence is what happens as a result of the behavior. For example, if a child is asked to turn off the television (antecedent), refuses and throws a tantrum (behavior), the child may be sent to bed or given a time-out (consequence). This approach emphasizes the consequence of the behavior. Most children learn to change their behavior to avoid negative consequences or punishment.

This consequential management often does not work for children with brain injuries. The child may not remember the rules. Changes in insight and self-awareness may make it difficult for this child to learn from the consequences of behaviors. Think of the old saying, “The horse is already out of the barn.” Punishing children AFTER the behavior has occurred may not help them learn how to self monitor or recognize when they are overwhelmed or confused.

I’ll bet my parents could have used knowing about this, when I was little. And here they — and everyone else around them — probably thought they were just bad parents.

Again, no violins here, but man, oh, man, did that ever apply to me!