If we go back about three years/nine concussions ago, we would find a very different version of concussed me. EVERYTHING was frustrating and disheartening. Occupational Therapy made me want to cry: how can a string with some beads on it make me feel so broken?! Speech Therapy was soul-crushing: no, I really don’t remember the string of words you just read to me. The list of frustrations, “setbacks”, and deficits seemed utterly insurmountable most days…and it was just the beginning.
A couple concussions later found me in an even darker place. At one point, I was seeing four PT’s, one OT, one SP, one Neuro-Optometrist, and four MD specialists. When I would check in at the rehab desk, they no longer asked my name – they’d ask which therapist I was there to see (or, on bad days, tell me which therapist I was there to see). Life outside rehab wasn’t any easier. I couldn’t drive, so I would often take the bus everywhere. I couldn’t walk a straight line so I was often mistaken as being drunk; this led to some pretty unsettling interactions with strange men at bus stops (bonus: since it was early spring, it would get dark quite early, which really adds a special something to interactions with skeevy individuals). It was ~3 months before I was cleared to return back to work, so I was bored out of my mind. I tried to find things to occupy my time; for example, I tried to learn to knit. Despite learning the absolute easiest, three-step knitting technique, I would get stuck every few minutes, and have to ask my endlessly-patient friend where I was at in the process, and how to continue. I was in my early-thirties, failing at tasks demented senior citizens could do; I was despondent.
Since my brain was what had been injured, all of this fall-out must be my brain’s fault, right? At some point, it had all become clear to me: my brain was public enemy number one, and all hope was officially lost. What I failed to realize at the time was that my biggest challenge wasn’t my brain – it was my attitude. I had no idea how to move forward, what hopes or plans for the future seemed feasible; I had no idea how to go back to simply living life.
*Stay tuned for part two.*
The Girl with the Glass Brain 