Shireen Jeejeebhoy

Ever since my CCAC therapist left, the one provided by community care under medicare, at about the same time my parents left the city, I haven’t succeeded at Camp NaNoWriMo. It was difficult as it was. I worked hard to ramp up to doing both Camps in April and July, in addition to NaNoWriMo in November, and could only ramp up because of health care and parental support. In fact, my therapist believed so much in my ability to write three books a year, that her belief in me rose me up over fatigue, my brain-injury related reading and organizational problems, and other issues that made writing every day quite exhausting. When you believe in a person and act out that belief, you empower them. No one else has come close to what she did for me because she initiated action based on her belief.

When therapist and parents left, my brain-injury issues plus PTSD suddenly exploding blocked me from starting or, if I managed to start, finishing Camp NaNoWriMo.

That may sound like a cop out, but cognitive work, being productive, initiating, deciding things, being organized, are complex brain functions. We don’t think about them as adults because the brain learns and makes automatic these functions as we grow up over 21 years or so. Going back to year one after concussion is a bit disheartening and needs all-in support and treatments to get back to adult automaticity. Trauma, bad memories, flash up a big stop sign to it all, as well.

I’m rambling.

I think I’m going to try Camp NaNoWriMo again. Ever since I fired him then had a talk with and rehired him, my neurodoc has become actively supportive, helping me with my reading practice. He’s also the only one to occasionally prod me to write an article for Psychology Today. This past November, for the first time, he took my NaNoWriMo writing month seriously. Previously he thought it was just some trivial thing that if I didn’t succeed in writing during it, I could write another time, and I was just being rigid minded if I got upset about being unable to write during NaNoWriMo because of exhaustion and/or PTSD. He’s now understood it’s a critical filling in of cognitions my brain injury took from me. The only substitute for NaNoWriMo are humans who sit with me several times a week, like during the ten weeks medicare granted me help to write Concussion Is Brain Injury: Treating the Neurons and Me.

My neurodoc said he could help me with sticking to Camp. I have no great expectations. I’m setting the bar low and a goal for something I really need to do: update the pages tied to the Learnings chapters of my concussion book. I’ve learnt a few new things since I published it, especially in reading, as regular readers would know!

I’ve left signing up almost to the last minute. I haven’t yet identified all the web pages I need to update or figured out a schedule. This kind of prep is what my CCAC therapist would get me to do. Don’t just think about it – write it down in my calendar, outline it on my iPad, set up files on my computer. And sign up!