Lost to TBI: My Lifelong Love of Reading Fiction

One of the things I have progressively lost over the past several years since my tbi at Thanksgiving, 2004, is something I never, ever thought I’d part with: my love of reading fiction.

I grew up reading and loving to read. My parents were — and still are — avid readers. Especially fiction. My mom leads the way with fiction, but my dad is usually not far behind. He’s more partial to personal accounts of adventure and exploration, but he still goes for fiction at times — preferably with a moral to it. Mom doesn’t care whether there’s a moral or not. So long as it’s a book, she’s happy.

So was I. I always shared my parents’ love of books, especially fiction. I grew up with my nose buried in a book, and I actually learned more about life and language and what it means to be human from books than from real people and events. I adored fantasy fiction. Stories about ordinary people in extra-ordinary conditions. Short stories, long stories… novellas and novels and epics (I used to love James Michener, especially). I would tear through books, when I was kid, like a starving kid with a sack full of Halloween candy. Many of my favorite books I’ve read over and over and over again, not caring if I recognized the plot and knew how it ended. I just loved to read!

Until the past few years, that is. Since my fall down the stairs in 2004, this has changed dramatically.

Now reading just about anything that’s over 10 pages is a chore. It’s difficult for me to do. What was once effortless when I was younger, has become very time-consuming and resource-intensive. I really have to work at following the sentences and words and remembering, from one chapter to the next, what’s happening.

It’s disheartening and frustrating, and it embarrasses me. It didn’t used to be like this. But now it is.

I try to carve out time for reading, but I always seem to get pulled off to something else. I get distracted and I cannot finish what I start. Or, I try to read while my partner is watching t.v.,  but I cannot focus, and I get very upset with myself.

I check out lots of books from the library (on impulse) with every intention of reading them, but I only get part-way into them, before I either get distracted or I get overwhelmed with the information, and I have to step away

I tend to forget I have a certain book on hand, then I’ll remember that I have it and get excited and start to read it… but I won’t finish it, because I get overwhelmed with the details, I lose track of what’s going on, and the disorientation ruins whatever soothing effect the book might have for me.

My friends and family, knowing the old me, give me books for the holidays and my birthday, but I can’t get through them. I feel awful because they really want to give me presents I’ll enjoy, and they want to share their experiences with the books with me, but I can’t manage to finish them, or even read enough to hold a decent conversation with them. I might enjoy having the books they give me, but I often cannot seem to bring myself to read – it’s too frustrating and disheartening. My home and my study are full of books I’ve only partly read.

Nowadays, it’s very seldom that I’ll actually finish a book I start, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. Every once in a while, I’ll manage to complete a non-fiction book about something that affects me personally. Fiction is pretty much out of the question for me. I become highly agitated by the characters’ experiences and choices, and it’s uncomfortable for me to be subjected to their drama. I become impatient with them and cannot sustain an interest in anything that happens to them. Non-fiction gets my juices flowing, but I often get turned around and can’t keep the facts straight, and I end up confused and frustrated and down on myself. Even topics I used to love and authors I used to read voraciously, hold my attention for only so long.

Because my attention tends to wander (if I lose interest or I lose my “info buzz”), I try to stick with higher level research, since it holds my attention and really stimulates me. I do a lot of research on the internet – medical, especially. With the world wide web, I can bookmark (or save) the pages I’m reading and come back to them later. I can print them, too, for future reference, which is important to me. Although, after I print them out, I often forget that I have them, and I’ll end up printing out multiple copies of the same article that really excited me when I first found it. My hard drive is my saving grace. Having copies on my computer reminds me where I’ve been and what I’ve been reading, and when my bookmarks get to be too much to sort through, I can look at my carefully organized hard drive folders and see what I’ve already got in there. Then I can make a note that I don’t need to save another copy.

I still love to read… some things, anyway. I stick more with magazine articles and research papers and web pages. And even with them, I often need to go back and re-read them. It’s not that I don’t understand them. I do! I just get the facts and figures turned around, and I need to refresh my memory and make sure I understand what’s in them.

This is a huge loss for me. Or, rather, it would be if it still meant something to me. Nowadays, I’m happy just to get through the day without a major catastrophe. Reading — which used to be a necessity I could not survive without — has become a luxury for my leisure time… whenever I have it.