Simplicity

Many of us follow our racing thoughts and dance with our dancing emotions. It's a rough way to live. Not that many people don't already live this way but after a TBI it kicks into high gear. My previous years have heightened my awareness of the unreality of being stuck in our thoughts and emotions focusing on yesterday and tomorrow. From years of meditation, and yes, TBI has helped squash that practice as well. But all things begin small and my practice of simplicity will begin with two items.

Two items to practice.

1) Practice. 

Start there. Think on what practice is saying. Patience. Non judgement. One day, one moment at a time. Never make goals out of it. Just do it. 

Just   Do   It!

Practice what? 

Start Here.

If anyone joins me..... Yes, me too, we can practice more which is known to be beneficial for us trying to strengthen and find balance. Starting here we can help calm the frenzy.

With practice....

OMG!

During my career experience, my study and observation, it has always frustrated me dearly when opinion and decisions are made by those who have never looked beyond the end of their nose. It so often seems that this is how most of society functions. Maybe the world. Pavlov's dogs and sheep run things and important positions and are the prime example of why things can never run smooth. 

I met with doctors, attorney and am soon expected to meet with a judge regarding my SSDI possibility. It is frustrating to see how little is actually understood in places and positions where it should be better known by them than by the one who has a brain injury. 

I can understand when friends and family don't have a firm perspective on Executive Dysfunction or Brain Fatigue and the cognitive, psychological and physical burdens that are a part of daily life. I have witnessed decisions, opinions and moves made accordingly which led to catastrophic ends. 

If you agree, share this. People need to do their homework before they launch headlong into screwing everything they think about and touch. Life is complicated and we do need fewer fools. Have mercy on us!

What to Do.....

Life does continue with me feeling more like a ninety year old who spends hours just looking out the window. As though everything has come to an end.
My recent disability review reveals what a mess I really am. I increased my medication which doesn't help until it fully kicks in. Let's hope. As I earlier stated my therapist recommended that I try a "just do it" exercise. It is helpful yet not easy. How well I slept dictates the new day. Grabbing my morning coffee the day feels finished. To grab the "Do it" and check on the chickens, pick up, do dishes, make bed and take a shower makes me feel that I accomplished something. Occasionally it provides added energy allowing me to do more. Run short errands, take a walk and feel hopeful.
My 2 Yr anniversary is this coming Tuesday. I don't want to continue on like this. I plan on a new Just do it plan to gain strength and balance.
Warm ups
Stretching
Planking

Wish me luck!

Depression - a Gift from Having a TBI

Depression runs through my Family Tree resembling a lone apple tree with fruit that even the birds avoid. My early years were filled with extreme anxiety before I even learned its name. Long reaching to seeing up close the recognition depression in my adult years showed me why lives were lived as they did.

Depression has toyed with me yet rose its head or sunk its roots colored by vibrant anxiety. In hindsight, it worked as a gift if I look how it stopped me from going where family and relatives ventured. But it was horrible none the less. In reading:

 

it helped offer a new way of realization. In later years with the addition of learning meditation my apple ripened.

In experiencing a traumatic brain injury things do change. The apple began to turn rotten on the tree. Things I did and/or used and/or experienced to shine the apple have gone.

That is why help is needed. Medication, therapy and supports have helped me from falling off the tree to only rot on the ground. Stick with me! It is work.

Let Us Not Fool Ourselves

Surviving a Traumatic Brain Injury is not a complex puzzle which we seek to understand and solve as if there are answers and solutions that will complete the puzzle. It's closer akin to a puzzle that was thrown about the neighborhood where some pieces were lost and where perhaps some were burnt in the nonsensical implosion.

No wonder why we experience depression and anxiety. Clarity, memory, walking upright and strong. We are in a difficult place. It's sweet when a survivor is able to write positive stories of change and success and at times make a living out of it. For many of us, we feel like we're partially clothed and hungry and are unsure on how we will find our way home. We sometimes find flowers of optimism which at times we share in an effort to feel good in sharing. In trying to find hope when finding others who suffer as we do.

It's a lonely occupation. An occupation that pays little and offers little hope of retirement. No wonder why we find ourselves crying and stumble forward in a wonder of where we may be going. It's not easy.  

Initiation - Just Do It!!

Executive Functioning and Completing a Task -

Planning - making plans for an activity
Initiation - taking the first step
Actually Doing -
Evaluation - carrying out the plans, monitor and self regulate
Changing/Improving - adjusting task as needed for improvement and success

After my Brain Injury, everyday tasks diminished until I sat like an old man or as though catatonia was moving in. Rising for work, before work plans were fully erased. Concentration, focus and following through on taken for granted tasks exist no more.

Going to bed and being able to sleep without the aid of medication. Sleeping nine hours and up to twelve hours. And naps are needed. Rising and doing more than a cup of coffee takes hours. With practice and determination I shower, wash a few dishes and sometimes make my bed.

Yippie!

I have been working with my therapist on a way to wake up / change things a bit. I am not fond of having medication being my Sherpa. It is true. Many known as being famous climbers would never have made it without the aide and assistance provided by the Sherpa. Medication, as well as a Sherpa, is required and can only do so much. For starters I am coming to recognize that I am not a mountain climber. I must start slow. Do something! Full responsibility falls not on the Sherpa. So the therapist suggested that I attempt a "Just do it" approach where I can.

And it works! Not easy. Small things, like regardless of how I feel, get up. Feed chickens. Do dishes. Make bed. Shower. Try adding a few other things. Seriously, it's not that easy. Catatonia calls.

I am one week away from my two year head injury anniversary. As a marked point I have a "Do It" plan. With imbalance, weakness and an ability to only now walk a block, I need to strengthen myself. I know how and what to do.

Tai Chi and Qigong simple warm ups.
Simple Feldenkrais movements.
Core strengthening Planking.

It's a start.

Just do it!

Executive Dysfunction

I have skill enough to do or practice several things, as we all do. Pretty good cook. Simple mechanics. Exercise, meditate and work. Avid reader, goof off guitar. I am happy with things that I've been able to do or accomplish. I guess that when your career and your life in general comes to the end, you can sit and do nothing. The learning has ceased. The body has grown old. The things in life are paid for.

But I am now sixty two and not ninety two.

I just turned sixty when I fell while my head had to cushion the fall. I'm now about two weeks away from my head injury date and time has passed faster than I could keep up with. My memory remembers six months, not two years. It's a heightened sense of time passing quickly without it ever being noticed. Everything I've earned is now gone with my job ending, my home sold and much more. SSDI is a long process. Financially I wonder how we'll make it.

Making the decision to eat, exercise, read or feel less than ninety plus is difficult. Sincerely, it makes desire, strength and decision making a heavy task. I manage to get out of bed and eventually to shower and what I can add for housework. I try to walk every day. All normalcy has come to an end.
Physically, the injury effected my once well controlled glucose. I have worked on highly strict control and have brought it under control. My blood pressure was also once again high but it has come down with effective work and assistance. Imbalance continues to come and go.

Falling asleep runs sporadic. My today has finished , tomorrow to come. Time for sleep is now is controlled by something other than me. It's a wheel. Experiences of one day do not predict the experiences of the next.  I am driving again but in well know areas. The guy who drove cross country now goes no where. So I sit home feeling lonely with no place to go. If a gathering is arranged and an invite is sent my way, I am apt to sit home and feel lonely.

I have been trying a "just do it" form of therapy. Instead of not doing I am trying to do. I have come to realize that if I want a garden to grow I must plant and cultivate and tend to it. My thoughts and feelings and ambition focus way beyond the garden. So, I am working to drop a list of what I should do to using focus on the garden. Me.