Twenty-five years living with brain injury feels as surreal as when the doctor first diagnosed me. Unbelievable then. Unbelievable now. For different reasons. Yet both because the mind refuses to process such a catastrophic injury. And a completely unpredictable, radical zag off into the fog.
“A health care professional once told of a client glad of their brain injury. “Well, goody for them,” I reacted. Why must rehab or mental health professionals require me to adopt the belief that I’m better off when it’s not true for me? Why does the mental health profession insist on us accepting and celebrating a catastrophic injury as a positive that lets us discover ourselves anew?” From my Psychology Today post on Why Did Brain Injury Happen to Me?
I don’t know where I am in the fog. But I experienced another improvement in my brain function. Suddenly, last week, I read easily two books that I’d struggled to read last time I’d picked them up. Perhaps that uptick is why my mind has veered off the why? course and onto a rest stop.
A rest stop to take stock.
My doctor asked me what the person who lived before my TBI (traumatic brain injury) would say about my books, my posts, my social media. I’ve lived only with fragments of her these last 25 years, some of these fragments have pieced together, some are lost forever, and my memory of myself have misted over a lot. I try not to think about my losses anymore, focusing on what I must do each day instead, not thinking too far into the future.
The future is unknown.
But perhaps sitting at this rest stop, turning my head to look back along the path I’ve walked, stumbled, crawled, collapsed, picked myself back up, run, jerked, strolled, and walked along — can help me continue to walk into the fog.
Books
After finishing Lifeliner: The Judy Taylor Story, which I’d begun research on in 1991 and came with a built-in audience from before my brain injury, I spent a couple of years continuing to heal until I could write fiction again. A church friend told me about National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo gave me the external Go button push that my brain injury had stolen from me.
I wrote She: my first fiction novel. An urban fantasy.
I wrote a manuscript every November until 2021. A couple during Camp NaNoWriMos. And while ScriptFrenzy was active, I wrote plays.
I’ve written under three names, my own and two pseudonyms. One for dark fiction; one for Young Adult (YA). And my own name for all the books you know about. The pseudonyms belong to my family, relatives or combinations of one of my names and ancestral name.
In 2024, my sense of identity morphed again, and I saw myself named with my full name. I now want to publish my books under that. Anne, my middle name, completes who I am.
Weirdly, as I drafted the second novel of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy, an unplanned and unexpected character suddenly appeared and entered the story of The Soul’s Reckoning. That character is Shireen Anne. Me, as I was before my brain injury. But not fully who I was and who I am now.
I don’t know why Shireen Anne entered my trilogy, but she’s essential.
I guess that’s a metaphor for the fact that though she died in 2000, 25 years ago today, she remains in me in some form.
So what would she say to how I’ve written about 17 manuscripts during NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo. Published 15 as an Indie Author and with the assistance of a small press. And have started writing a trilogy. Her dream was to write books. But her dream was not just writing them but selling them. Becoming a best seller. She had ambition!
Lifeliner is the closest I’ve come to that dream.
Dreams and Accomplishments
I don’t know what my dream is. I don’t feel connected to hers. Maybe that’s because I write to breathe yet have no clue what my purpose is, no sense of a dream, no trust in believing in the future. I do feel drawn to exploring the mind. And, though my dream is not to advocate for treating brain injury, I feel called to do so.
Having a Psychology Today blog is an unreal accomplishment. I’m able to write monthly posts thanks to my case manager who came into my life after a 9-month waiting period and my neurodoc disappearing into a “personal medical emergency” whatever that is.
I have this website. I’d like to write regularly for it. But fatigue at the end of 2023 ended that hope. As it did regularly posting photos or images to Flickr.
I created an information website on brain injury, diagnosing it, and treating it. I was unable to finish it because of a second concussion, which my neurostimulation and neuromodulation home devices helped me recover from and return to my state before that second brain injury. When I got back on track, I had other priorities than the brain injury website. I’d like to redesign it and fill in the content.
A chasm exists between my energetic, accomplishing pre-TBI self and me.
A bigger chasm, wider than the Pacific, deeper than the terrifying Mariana Trench, exists between what I’d like to do and what I can physically and cognitively can do.
My brain injury site, regular posting, photography, and pseudonymous books will have to wait until that unknown day when the chasm shrinks. At least, I’m no longer a puddle thinking about this chasm between my desires and my abilities, facing the losses of my energy, humour, vitality, processing speed, strength, stamina, detailed focus, and on and on.
I’ve achieved some long-held goals. Solar panels. Heat pumps for carbon-free heating and cooling of my home. External insulation giving me a warmer home. New windows I can gaze through upon the stars.
I’m back to walking, weights, and rowing under my GP’s guidance and have learned (and relearned) an awful lot about the brain and its control of the body. I may have lost my social life, but I’ve gained a robust virtual social life. I meet people around the world virtually instead of saving up for years and hopping on a plane. I don’t miss travelling because air travel is so unpleasant compared to what it used to be like and because I travelled every year for 37 years; saw all of Canada except two provinces and two territories, much of western Europe, the UK, and several USA states; and lived in England, India, and Canada. I’ve travelled on planes, trains, buses, ships, boats, RVs, VW buses, and cars. I’ve seen more of the world in person than many, many people. I feel content with travelling virtually now.
In that sense, I’ve returned to a version of the accepting, mellow part of pre-TBI me.
Last year, I arranged for an Amazon promo of my latest novel The Soul’s Awakening to start last week. And a couple of weeks ago, I decided to reset my marketing efforts for my book beyond that one timid step.
Resetting
I leapt into the unknown and hired a marketing expert to market The Soul’s Awakening. I’m blocking my ears against my budget freaking out. Somehow, over the last 25 years, every time I strain my budget and break it, God snaps it back together. I seriously don’t know how I’ve managed to pay for my expensive brain injury treatments. Even with discounts and grants, the costs have not been within my means, yet as of today, I’m not in debt. When my ex and my mother — when Christians of all denominations — say God provides, they ain’t kidding.
Today ends the three months of hell: birthday, Christmas, car crash anniversary that catastrophically injured my whole brain. I used to take 2 to 6 weeks off at this time. But with hiring a marketing expert and my mind writing novels 2 and 3 of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy, I can’t do that right now. I’m not fussed about it, though, like I would’ve been in previous years.
My mood continues to flow up and down, subject to capricious psychic pain from brain injury grief and PTSD. I channel my early years: when pain receded, I forgot all about having pain and remembered only when it screamed back into my consciousness. When the psychic pain slides back into its box these days, I forget its existence and enjoy reading a novel or listening to an audiobook.
I stand up at the rest stop. I set my face back towards the fog of the future. And I walk on.
This post is written straight out of my subconscious and not edited.
