TBI and Nightmares

I had a good day yesterday. Slept well and managed enough energy to go outside before noon. I went chicken egg hunting and put together a nice little grill. It took about two hours giving me a little satisfaction by accomplishing a lengthy task. I got the mail and took a walk. It doesn't sound like it but it was a good early afternoon. Encouraged, I got the wheelbarrow and got a load of the old wood from across the street. Stacked, I headed back to move some cinder blocks. One load of four was enough. Out of steam, I hung with the chickens and watched the birds come and go from the feeder. Done for the day.
It seems a little silly on just how little work it really was. By bedtime my body was sore and I was tired. I read a little and settled in. It sometimes takes an hour to fall asleep regardless of how tired I am.
Let the games begin.
Why do so many of us have nightmares? Experiencing a brain injury, why doesn't it produce dreams of beautiful islands and fun times? It's not nightmares about my injury. After nine, ten or twelve hours of sleep with a nightmare thrown in the new day feels like a bog. Slow, foggy and exhausted start. I woke up very sore and was reminded once again that I know about everything there is about physical therapy and strengthening that would help immensely. That would mean practice, commitment and a schedule. Can you think of anything that's more difficult?
Oh. The nightmares. Ain't got a clue. Hate them. Survivable but effectively disheartening because there is nobody I can give a hard time to for being rude.
See. I am being nice.....

I'm Confused.... Why are people so hard on each other???

Life is tough. If one is born with a silver spoon it's not a guarantee of life satisfaction. There's long lists of goofy well off people doing goofy things. If one is born into a world of nothing it's not a guarantee of life going nowhere. We are where we are and much of where we go is up to ourselves.
I am not happy or satisfied in having survived a brain injury but there also lies no guarantee of how far I will go or how little my health will improve. Like salmon working to spawn we are here to swim upstream the best that we can do. Maybe some people do live like fish in an aquarium, being fed and being watched swimming the tank for life. But we are designed to do what we can with whatever we have.
One of the basic tenets of life is how growth comes through being nurtured.
Buddhism teaches a great deal about compassion and I think that it is a very important insight. To allow a plant to grow to fruition and to do what it was designed to do we plant the seed. We tend, water, feed and trim when necessary. We cultivate with care giving it what it needs. Just like we do with our children, pets and other things of value.
But our care and compassion often stops there. In seeing the value of compassion why do we begin to lose compassion for ourselves and for others? And for us to grow to fruition, what if we don't begin by nurturing ourselves so that it may feed others with the fruit of compassion?
Many of us who have survived TBI are quick to anger. Just as the weather changes, my anger arises too as sometimes violent. And just as how the weather changes from a storm to sunshine, I too weather the storm and wait for a better day. Imagine if I cultivated the anger? (there were times I did)
We're surrounded by angry and non-compassionate people. And it is built through ignorance. Not knowing. Not stupid, unknowing.
I am thankful that my injury has helped remove me from much of the ongoing world. People are argumentative everywhere. Husbands and wives, people at work, all of politics. Beginning with self compassion and also working to separate ourselves from the ongoing rush of stress coming through all the faces that surround us, building self compassion, helps enable us to enter the position of helpfulness. For ourselves and for others.
It's the fruition of the well cared for and nurtured plant that will produce or radiate great fruit and beauty.

Finding Myself or Losing Myself after TBI

After a traumatic brain injury survivors miss who they were while struggling with the complications of who they now appear to be. Cognitive, physical and psychological have shifted. Not being able to accomplish what you often took for granted is discouraging. Aspects of daily living such as doing things easily, feeling strong and going with the flow find us now in a different place.
I now feel like I'm ninety five. I need much sleep and move slowly. Every day is different and every day the same. Slow days filled with the feeling that I'm just waiting for the day when my end of life steps in. Putter around, accomplish little.
Since my day of injury things have improved. Slowly. I have a long way to go. But where am I going?
With all of this added time I am trying to find myself. Or perhaps I'm losing myself.
What is self?
Who am I looking for?
I've never been a fit in. High School graduation I stayed home and dropped by later to pick up my diploma. When eighteen I didn't register for Selective Service. Turning nineteen soon I finally did. They sent me a packet of lined correspondence for my explanation on why I never registered.
"Because I never got around to it," I wrote back.
College Graduation, I played horse shoes and received my diploma in the mail.
I worked towards ordination. Whoops.
I've always studied and read and sought a truthful balance. Following for following sake? I question authority. I don't believe every word and prefer fingers which point the way so that I can see for myself.
I was a Freemason and served as Chaplin. E-gad.
The world and everything in it isn't seen by me as complicated. It is seen by me as purposely delusional. Like a thick wood, only some make it through.
Finding myself now where I am closely hermit-ted in a many faceted way, the wood is thinned.

Unable or Upside Down?

I don't want to make a career out of my TBI writing. I am not planning to write a book or go to Washington and plead for greater TBI awareness or medical changes in the law. I am writing for me. Writing I find helpful. If I gather any readers the point is?

I'm not sure.

Maybe encouragement? Maybe a feeling that we're not alone in this perplexing life. Maybe this or maybe that? We never sign up for much. We grow and make plans, choose a career, a spouse. A billion different directions. TBI  is  different for most of us but in many ways it appears that we have all entered the same dimension.

Our own Twilight Zone.

 Many of us seek similar pathways. Join support groups. Seek similar medical and social direction. Maybe we read stuff like my rabble...... Many profess over the fact that we are not what we were. Yeah, that's obvious. When we were what we were we still stressed over some dissatisfaction in not reaching as high as we hoped or worked for. We should work on letting that go. I think that we're really upside down. We are able move forward and we do we should not continue to cut ourselves in two. It's work. Hard work.

I get overwhelmingly tired and discouraged. We need to seek that which helps us move forward but focus on today. The mind (and body) is wasted by energy spent on what was or what we hope or fear about tomorrow. I had a bad day today. I need the sun. Winter drained me like a jug with a crack in it. Today it rained. I sat alone and watched my chickens do their thing. A male and female Cardinal was nice to see eating together at the feeder. Another day like that and I'll need a sedative.

Come on over. We'll start a pit fire and watch the day.

Living the Simple Life - TBI

As we age we do find it effective to keep moving, to remain limber, to keep our muscles strong as we're able. As we age, we never look forward to the days moving slow, being tired and perhaps think about our life's story is coming to a close.

I am surprisingly in that boat now. It's from a brain injury and not from growing old. Looking back two years earlier, I could bemoan how my strength and passing as being years younger or riding my bicycle or my ability to rise at 5 a.m. and seize the day, has run away. Or taken from me.

I find it as having the least amount of progress in bemoaning. It is what it is. I do walk with losing my breath and stamina amazingly early. I do walk zig-zag more than I want to. As a once well controlled diabetic it is no fun in finding that it is one more issue to deal with.

I find it profitable to sit with my chickens and enjoy the day as they do. We watch for hawks and predators. It is what it is. When I am in a store or at a cruise night and a good tune plays, I dance and act silly. I'm having fun. It is what it is. Watching all the birds fly through the day or all the bats flying to eat, I watch. I enjoy.

Bemoaning is not natural. I am fortunate that my caretaker and my small family and my few friends let me be me. Sure, I lost much but I work on life, my life, today. Reality is now. It is what it is. I do work on enjoying the simple life. I am fortunate that way. Do what I can. Rest in falling short of what I once could do. Today will offer what it does as I do what I can. If my brain battery loses power by looking behind me and/or while looking forward as if I'm beg for a better hand being dealt, it's useless.

Let's deal with where we are and make the best of it. I know, it's not an easy task. When a loved one passes does it benefit ongoing grief? There is a natural progression.

Let's find it.

Shut Up Brain Injured Dolt!!!

As I earlier stated, out of politeness we're often asked about how we're doing. Friends and family and such want to hear if we're doing better. It's common. Whether it's the flu or a broken leg people often ask about our well being after injury or sickness.

Our hope and that of theirs is to hear of good times. If a year later and more we express our weakness and difficulty it in reality wears them out. It does.

I'm working on keeping my mouth shut. With brain injury we're too aware of the fact that we have moved. Moved away from who we were. How we felt. How we did things. The world has changed. Or is it that only we have changed?

I might stop writing. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut..

The Voice of TBI

I write about TBI because I find it helpful - for me. When we meet the people we've known before our brain injury they always ask based on habit or social tradition, "How are you doing?. People in general are only being polite. Lives are complicated. Nothing is adamantly easy for everyone we know. It's easy for us to state how complicated things are. We almost can't help it. But even the most polite and caring of people really want to or need to hear about our issues. I don't think that we can help ourselves though. Everything has changed. Our relationships have changed. With radical changes in ourselves we no longer relate in the same way that we did. Emotionally we're different. Our thinking and ability to converse has changed. For many of us, just staying at home and being alone seems to be more of a simple and peaceful track.

For me, I do feel like a square peg, round peg that cannot find the hole. I'm lonely but I'm not. I'm anti social but I'm not. It's relative to my cooking (I can) or playing guitar (I can) or read. Nothing really fits anymore. Trying to fit in with others who have had a brain injury is also not a natural fit.

I find a need to talk with someone. One on one in the quiet of quiet of a fire or restaurant or a hike in nature appears to work well. Would love someone who would sit under the stars with me without expectation of any sort allowing life to be as life can be.

The difficulty is difficult. I am not laughing.

Cannot find the hole?

I'm crying.

Alone in TBI

I spend a great deal of time alone. It can be difficult in some ways while in other ways it gives me peace. Support groups are suggested and attending social invitations is considered helpful by my therapist and my brain jury supports. Even prior to my brain injury I haven't been a group or club type of person. I am a true introvert which has nothing to do with being shy. I have worked in group types of employment. Management, leadership, coaching and directing. I am most comfortable being the one behind the steering wheel. I am an observer.

My non-shy introvert can't hear with the left ear. I walk with imbalance.  Conversation reveals my word search and lack of knowing date, time, and the day of the week. I heavily depend on at least ten hours of sleep with naps while consistency is instead erratic. The ability to fall asleep is never a guarantee. While trying to fall asleep I envision falls and the need for avoidance of being hit by something which should be avoided. My well controlled diabetes is now not so. Ridiculous insulin resistance. My physical body has weakened and aged. Walking every day is short and breath taking. Emotionally I am polite and loving while anger lies buried just below the positive. Procedure mapped through name or tag is difficult. Filing or direction and names are free floating. Driving out of range is difficult. It's best to be driven. Cooking, reading, guitar and meditation has lost it's seat. Cooking can be done if done with concentration and direction. Reading needs to click an interest in my brain. The avid reader has expired. The guitar requires too much from me. Meditation is similar to having a right arm cut off. It's foreign and uncomfortable. And btw.....my editing has weakened too.

Why not be alone? Sitting with the chickens requires little and produces happiness.

Testing Testing

Soon my bicycle ability will get tested. Straight? Wobbly? We'll soon see! My old Fuji offers much. I need to ride again.

But Don't Get Me Wrong!

I've lived a life. Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share. I feel that life is never perfect. But that is life.

Surviving a Brain Injury can be a difficult experience. No, I'm wrong. It is difficult. At all levels of survival. Difficult is a kind word. That is why I bring Hemingway to light. He led an interesting life. His writing was a wise gift while like us there was injury and divorce and numerous personal difficulties. And likewise I can understand his suicide. My current struggle calls for me to try and take each new day as an empty glass. When the glass contains the ingredients of yesterday it adds nothing but spoiled ingredients to an empty and new glass. That is my practice.

I occasionally laugh and state that life is for learning. Why? Damned if I know. But I often feel as though suicide will only bring us back to start life all over again. Like being thrown back into the washer again. I hope to go higher up the ladder. Starting at the proverbial bottom again? No thanks.

I am doing my best. Suicide is a life's possibility. I hope we can all stay strong.

Understand, Understood, Just Plain Under

Some days begin very slow which usually means that I watch a couple hours of television. Not my favorite thing to do. I've seen a few socialite movies recently. Groups of people attached to expensive wine, friends and problems while trying to understand their complicated lives. Plastic people doing plastic things. It seems silly and I can never fully understand why these movies receive three stars. Writers, professors, artists and movie producers all seeking fame, recognition and money.

I thought that my brain is damaged!

I seek to live my life free of ongoing comparison. You know, where I am and what I have vs what I was or should be, What I have and what I think I should have. I am what I am. Wasting my time to be something other than what I am is a silly movie. And I don't want to be an actor either. I am and do what I do! As a parent, a husband and in my career I did the best I could do. I apologize to no one.

Am I happy due to my cognitive changes? My physical difficulties? My psychological changes? Our lives wave like the wind in the trees. The world is not always a walk in the park. I do have a great deal to complain about. But I also have things I can be thankful for. I'm fortunate. We all need a tribe, family, friends and caretakers. I do not like clubs. I am not into family for better or worse. That is what describes me. A simple soup for a simple life.

We're all different. Before and after our TBI. There are things that hold us together and things which can keep us separate. I hope that somehow we can all learn to keep our lives simple. We seem to add to our complications. Let's discuss how we can find easy. Find love. Find Tribe. Those who stick together.