The Panicked Jumble of Brain Injury Level Confusion

Ever since my first severe concussion over two years ago, I’ve been adjusting. I’ve had to adjust to a plethora of different experiences, emotions, limitations, etc. But the one thing that’s been the hardest to adjust to has, without a doubt, been my slower mental processing. In my brain’s best moments sometimes the delay is hardly even noticed. In the worst moments it’s an absolutely chaotic jumble of information going unprocessed as my mind freezes and goes into ultimate panic mode while my face is so completely blank people become uneasy that I’m staring at them for longer than usually accepted in society. The majority of the time my mental reactions fall somewhere in between these two extremes, but that doesn’t make even the slightest panic moment any less frightening.

Two Years and a Day

 

Two years and one day ago was when my life changed forever. To those of you who have suffered from a chronic illness or injury for longer than that, maybe much longer, my two years may seem like the blink of an eye. To those of you who have never suffered from such a long term injury, that may seem like ages. To me, it’s kind of both. On the one hand it seems like a lifetime ago that I was preparing to enjoy my senior year of high school and packing my schedule to the brim with volleyball, AP classes, choir, youth group, church, praise band, girls’ ensemble, Mu Alpha Theta club, French Honor Society, National Honor Society, etc, etc. On the other hand, I can’t remember enough of the last two years to fill that much time logically in my head!! Whichever way you look at it, it’s still 2 years. That’s 730.5 days or 17,532 hours that I have had a continuous headache. With the exception of an hour or two sometime last winter when my doctor tried a nerve block that nearly made the pain vanish, even if only for a couple of hours. After giving me the nerve block and allowing it the time to kick in, he asked my pain level- a question I had been asked more times since the start of all of this than I could even attempt to count. And I thought about it, and then started laughing, just chortling slightly, which over the next few seconds turned to hilarious uncontrollable laughter. My brain still being a bit slow at times, I couldn’t figure out why I was laughing, I simply knew that I was. For some reason my body was reacting with uncontrollable outbursts of laughter so intense by this point that I couldn’t even attempt to answer his question. He laughed a bit along with me, but he didn’t seem surprised. He explained it very simply, only saying, “Some people laugh, some people cry, some are too shocked to respond. It’s completely normal.” He smiled kindly and said he would come back in a minute, once I’d calmed back down. The laughing began to subside once he left the room and at that point is when I finally started realizing what he had been saying. “Some people laugh, some people cry, some are too shocked to respond”. It was only then that my brain fully comprehended. There was no pain. Well, there was so LITTLE pain. I couldn’t believe it! My body had already reacted to what my brain couldn’t yet believe to be real.

Things I’m Thankful For in this Time of Tribulation

In attempt to break up the discouraging blog posts, I decided it would be fun to reminisce on some really funny, stupid things I’ve said or done while under the influence of my concussions/brain injury. However, unfortunately, I don’t remember any of them!! So, I decided, instead, to take a moment to look back on all of the things I’m so immensely grateful for despite my struggles during this time of tribulation. So, here goes!

 

My Faith

My faith has gotten me through many difficult and stressful times in my life before now, but I have never been so dependent on God for encouragement and hopefulness before in my life. Which also brings up that I’m incredibly thankful that God could love me and chase after me, personally, so much that he would work very personally in my life to help build me up in encouragement and remind me that He has my best interests in mind. And, in addition to that, I’m so thankful that this time has had the effect of making me more dependent on God and leads me to have a closer relationship with Him. I cannot look back on how my faith and relationship with The Father has grown over the last nearly two years and believe it to be a coincidence. I firmly believe that this was one specific reason that this struggle has been brought into my life and I can’t help, but sit in awe of The Father’s love for me. I do not deserve a love like His and I will continue to be in awe of that and grateful beyond words for it for the rest of my life here on earth and thereafter, as well.

 

My Family

Yes, my parents and I step on each other’s toes and are like kerosene on the flame of each other’s tempers at times, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they love me despite my moments of having an unappreciative or unruly attitude. I know that my pain and what currently seem to be “setbacks” in my life break their hearts almost as much as it breaks mine, and knowing that I have parents who are so invested in my life that it would affect them so much to see me hurting is definitely a blessing. I see how much they care and it only encourages me more. I know that no matter how small my world seems to get, I’ll always have those two on my side to support me.