Twenty-one used to be the age of majority — still is in some states. Today, I’ve attained the age of majority in brain injury. Wheeee!
I could feel that pain rising up yesterday. It didn’t portend well for today. So I planned to read first thing. Reading does me good. Physiologically. Neurophysiologically. Psychologically. Brainwaves and heart waves calm into a happy place. My only concern was how long would my cognitive energy hold out?
It held! Because I’d chosen a Nero Wolfe mystery: Black Mountain. I hadn’t read much when Archie mentioned “Sue Dondero.” Oohhh. I know that name. I’d recognized it yesterday when I’d read first few pages. Today, I followed my Lindamood-Bell lessons and reviewed my imagery until I recognized the mental image belonging to Sue. Then I remembered the book she appeared in: Mystery by the Book. I checked. I was correct.
Then I set about pulling out more and more imagery to see if I could remember the story, the plot, the whodunnit. I did! I wasn’t too confident in the latter, but I was right. Gobsmacked.
I went back to reading Black Mountain when Fritz said Nero’s adopted daughter was waiting for him. Adopted daughter? Uh, he has a daughter? No memory. Googled. Checked my book shelves. I have the mass market paperback Over My Dead Body, and zero memory of it, for I’d read it after my brain injury but before 2011. Long before I regained my reading comprehension through an intensive summer in 2018 with Lindamood-Bell. Do I reread it?
Yup!
I settled down to read it. And another wonderful moment. I didn’t have to cover off the facing page with a blank piece of white paper. The last reading strategy from neurorehab in 2001 I’d had to retain to keep visual distraction down: tossed. W00t!!! (I borrowed Black Mountain ebook from the library. No distractions.)
With that start of two major improvements in my brain injury, I went on to other good things that kept all the bad memories and flashbacks from tumbling in. One of those good things ironically was creating the PTSD graphic above as I listened to a friend’s Salt Water Music radio program. I created the graphic for the brain injury site I’m developing, specifically for the page on PTSD. I’m closing in on finishing the education section. Only one more page to go then on to the next section!
Having real improvements, working on something that makes me feel good and will do something good out of all the crap I’ve been through, changes the tenor of a usually bad day. One or two past crash-erversaries have been like any other day, most very bad, so I’ve learnt to take it as it comes. It could all come crashing down on me later or tomorrow or not at all. And that’s not OK but OK.
