Archives for category: Brain Injury
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Anxiety in the Passenger’s Seat

April 1, 2024 //
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I woke more or less “on time” this morning, a few minutes ahead of my planned time. I got up, quietly went through my morning routine and headed out… well… after I remembered my lunch and stepped back from the front door to grab that. Then, also remembered my “computer glasses”, and went back for those. It’s been that sort of morning, so far.

The morning sunrise is painted across dark gray clouds on the horizon, streaks of bold pink, magenta, and orange contrast sharply with the gray of the clouds. The sky above is hinting at the bright blue of the day to come. I sip my morning coffee and think about my anxiety. I woke with it, although I hadn’t yet recognized my “companion” quite yet. The awareness hit me in the car, as I turned a corner and felt it surge as if from nowhere. My thoughts were quite suddenly filled with scenarios of doom, disaster, and unmanageable hardship. The feelings (both the physical sensations of anxiety, and the emotional experience) weren’t tied to anything real in my environment in the moment. I explored my thoughts gingerly – was I actually this anxious about getting the taxes done? That seemed unlikely; it’s never really stressed me out, ever, and has always been a rather routine bit of tedium that just happens to have a deadline. Could I be anxious about taking a couple days away, for myself? I mean, maybe, sure, but… this kind of anxiety, over that? I take a mental inventory of possible stressors and as I consider each, it’s clear that that isn’t “the thing”… so what is?

As I drove, poking at my anxiety mentally, I let my thoughts carry me back to the very first clear recollection I have of feeling “anxious”… I was, as I recall now, about 8? Maybe 9? (Honestly, I’ve very few memories earlier than 10 or so, so I could be way off here.) I had come downstairs to tell my parents I “didn’t feel well” and described the feeling in the pit of my stomach, the sense of pressure around my chest, the difficulty breathing, the feelings of… panic and dread. I didn’t understand why I was feeling this way. My father rather sternly asked me what I had “done wrong”, and flatly asserted that it sounded like I felt guilty about something. I immediately learned to associate anxiety with guilt, and to question my actions, thoughts, and sense of right and wrong, any time I felt this combination of feelings and sensations. It’s rather a shame my parents didn’t simply teach me about anxiety and how to manage it at that time, but it’s quite possible they did not know, themselves. It’s generally best to use the correct tool for a purpose. Conflating anxiety with guilt created considerable difficulty for me with regard to managing my anxiety later in life; I spent a lot of wasted time trying to figure out what I had “done wrong” that would cause me to feel such panic and uncontrollable dread. It became progressively more commonplace and intense over time, and more so still when my PTSD worsened.

I sighed quietly to myself, as my thoughts played out with the morning commute. One of the most profound changes I made later in life was simply to learn to recognize my anxiety for what it is, and to uncouple it from any requirement or expectation that it must be “because of…” something. It often isn’t “because of” anything at all; it’s a biochemical experience that can be triggered (rather easily) by an unfortunate number of sometimes completely unrelated (and under other circumstances, untroubling) experiences. Sure, it seems helpful generally to have some sense of “why” something feels the way it does, but insisting on certainty with regard to “why” can seriously fuck with how quickly anxiety can be resolved – at least in my own experience, this has proven to be the case. So. I allow room for the uncertainty, and acceptance that the experience of anxiety is, quite often, it’s own thing – and nothing more.

I’ve got a doctor’s appointment later today. We’ll be talking about weight management, my blood sugar, my blood pressure, my anxiety, my fitness… and… we’ll be talking about Ozempic. The recollection that I do have this appointment immediately sets off my anxiety on an entirely other order of magnitude. Fuck – is that it? I’m stressed about the appointment? Okay. Well. It’s just a fucking doctor’s appointment. But… now I get what’s got my anxiety going; my deep inner fear that “nothing is actually going to help” where my weight is concerned, combined with the steady drumbeat of concern about the costs of medical care (and the high price of prescription medications)(definitely real world worries in the US). I most definitely do not want to “get stuck on” an Rx that’s going to cost me $1k a month for the rest of my life! (What if for some reason I lose my good healthcare through employment!) Holy shit, yep, that’s it. That’s “the thing”, at least this morning… so… Okay, sometimes there is “a thing”. lol

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I take a minute to acknowledge that these are legitimate concerns. I make room for the awareness that addressing chronic long-term wellness concerns – particularly those that are holding me back from making more profound gains in good health – really do matter. (I’d like to be around to enjoy my Traveling Partner and my pleasant life for a good long time to come.) I’ve got a good doctor, these days, and she’s not going to make recommendations that could put my health at risk (and fears about that are “old baggage”). I feel my anxiety begin to dissipate as I provide myself a moment of my own time and attention, allowing myself to “feel heard” about the things that make me feel potentially reluctant to “try something new/different”. The panic recedes and begins to fade into the background. The anxiety slowly fades. There’s no “disaster” looming, here, it’s just some nerves about taking a medication I’ve no experience with – which does reliably make me a tad uncomfortable, every time it comes up.

…Now, the morning feels pleasant and promising and filled with potential. Yes, I’ve still got the taxes to wrap up, and my Spring allergies are still flaring up (with trees in bloom all around), and I’m just days away from taking a couple days for downtime on the coast (which means getting through the week’s workload in just 3 days)(why does excitement have to feel so similar to anxiety? what a cruel prank) … but… isn’t that all pretty routine basic adulting stuff? “Nothing to see here.” I sip my coffee, feeling more at ease and comfortable with myself, and the day ahead. No, I don’t know where this path leads, and the future is unwritten… but I’m here, now, and I can begin again.

…I take a moment for the sunrise, watching the colors slowly fade as the dawn becomes day. I sip my coffee, and stretch. I breathe. Take a few minutes for meditation. I reflect on the wonderful weekend I shared with my Traveling Partner, and the satisfaction I felt planting 4 new roses in the garden, and seeing seedlings sprouting on my windowsill for the next plants that will go into the veggie bed (bush beans, Bok choy, melons, and sweet peppers) when the weather is just a bit warmer. I reflect on the frustration (and fun) of trying a new video game for the first time, and the challenge of learning the new interface – difficult for me, but really healthy and worthwhile to do so. It was a splendid weekend.

I sip my coffee and yawn. I catch myself fussing with my fingertips, moments aware from tearing at my cuticles – but I stop myself and reach for some hand lotion instead. It’s likely to be an entire day of new beginnings, do-overs, restarts, and opportunities to begin again. I guess it’s time to get going on that. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Roses, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, turning 60

Forgiveness, a Difficult Practice

March 29, 2024 //
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I’m sipping a relatively dreadful cup of coffee this morning, and watching the sky slowly change from the dark of night to the deep blue-gray of the earliest moments of daybreak, and anticipating the new day ahead. It’s a Friday. I’m looking forward to the weekend. I am thinking about “forgiveness”.

I frankly find forgiveness difficult. Hurts hurt, and the damage done can be quite lasting. So often, at least for me, the lack of any indication of regret, contrition, and likely lack of any sort of apology, can make it super difficult just to let go of some transgression (major or minor), forget about “forgiveness“!

For a long time, I thought of forgiveness as something one gives to the person who caused hurt or damage, or delivered some insult. That felt… unbearable. Unjustifiable. It felt like a bullshit band-aid for an injury that would not heal any better for having provided it. Somewhere along the way I read something, or perhaps my Traveling Partner said it, to the effect that forgiveness isn’t for the person who has done us wrong, so much as it is for us, ourselves – a means of truly letting something go, and moving on in our own experience. It was expressed as a way to limit the amount of time someone who has hurt us gets to live in our heart or our mind rent free, continuing to hurt us again. Understanding forgiveness differently, as something I would do for myself, to ease the burden my own pain is for me, certainly makes me more willing to consider it – but I still find it a difficult practice.

The sun rise, this morning, begins with a streak of vibrant pink low on the horizon. The sky above has turned a steely silver-gray, bluer in places where clouds gather. I make a second coffee, and return to my desk to see the sunrise beginning to be reflected in building windows opposite the rising sun, deep blood red and orange. It’s a beautiful sunrise this morning. Another new day.

…Another opportunity to forgive…

Forgiveness is a practice. It does require practicing. We become what we practice.

My Traveling Partner suggested often that I would do well to forgive a particular ex. I found it hard to do so, in part because I did not feel at all understood by my Traveling Partner; he had his own experiences and baggage with that particular human primate, and these made it quite difficult to discuss mine with him. That feeling of “not being heard” by my partner, on a circumstance that we shared (in a somewhat superficial way, since we were each still having our own experience), made it incredibly hard for me to forgive my ex, even after my partner seemed willing to forgive her, himself.

My Traveling Partner is far more grown up and emotionally mature in this particular area than I am myself. He’s a definite fan of forgiveness. I can still hear myself, at 20-something, snarling to a friend “there are some sins even your God does not forgive,” discussing my bitterness and seething rage at horrors I had endured that I could not yet find myself ready to forgive, at all, and could barely discuss. I’ve grown since then, and it’s unlikely that I share much of who I am now with that wounded creature who was once me. I recognize the value in forgiveness, and the purpose it serves, I just still sometimes find it quite a difficult practice, in practice.

My Traveling Partner made mention of this particularly toxic ex recently. I don’t recall why, or what the context actually was, but I found myself curious and took at look at her web page. She doesn’t write much anymore, and I guess that’s no surprise; she once cautioned me discouragingly that maintaining a daily writing practice was “very hard to keep up” (which still amuses me, as a woman who has written more or less every day of my entire adult life, either pen & ink, or online, mostly without any particular effort required, and had done so since long before ever making her acquaintance). Her most recent entry was largely positive, expressing gratitude for being in a better place than she was some years ago. I found it interesting that I had no particular emotional reaction beyond “well that’s good see”, before moving on to things that were of far greater interest in the here and now.

She did a lot of harm. She did the harm she did by intent, and said as much at the time. I walked away from all that, but I carried some baggage for a long while and I stayed angry until… I don’t know when, actually. Some time ago, she – and the damage she had done – stopped being something that mattered to me at all. I no longer had the time or inclination to let her “live rent free in my head”, and I let all that go. In the process, I forgave her. I forgave the damage, the toxic bullshit and game-playing, the ugliness, the meanness, the lies, the violence, the narcissistic entitlement… all of it. Like a troll in a fairytale, she had no power over me, in life. I had turned the page on that story. Not gonna lie – I definitely don’t ever want to deal with her again (and hopefully I’ve learned enough to avoid similar people in the future), but forgiveness isn’t about forgetting, or excusing, or condoning, or permitting new hurts. Forgiveness is understanding with some measure of compassion that we’re each human, and each capable of some really shitty behavior – and letting it go, accepting the truth of what was, and moving on to something new and better. I wouldn’t want any part of having her in my experience now, but I also don’t grudge her finding her own peace or joy. Forgiveness lets me let her go, completely.

The sun is up. The sky is a soft blue. My coffee is warm and comforting. My heart is light. Forgiveness is still a difficult practice for me, but over time I’ve come to embrace it. I’ve forgiven those who have wronged me along the way. It’s been worthwhile to do so, although it doesn’t heal the damage done all by itself. There are still verbs involved in healing a wounded heart. It still takes time. It still takes work. It still takes a commitment to myself – and that’s where the forgiveness lies; I don’t benefit from continuing to use energy on hate and resentment and seething rage that could be more effectively used for healing myself, so at some point, it’s utterly necessary to “let shit go” and forgive those who have hurt me. They’re human, too, each having their own experience, wading through their own chaos and damage, and struggling with their own challenges. The damage they’ve done to me is a whole lot more about them than it ever was about me. Accepting that is an important step towards forgiveness.

…Forgiveness is an important step toward healing…

I finish my coffee and my thoughts. The sun is up, and it’s a new day unfolding ahead me. I smile, thinking about my Traveling Partner and the love we share. I feel relaxed and contented, and generally well; it’s a good beginning to the day. It’s already time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, women

One Lifetime

March 28, 2024 //
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I very nearly started this out as a reflection on having “only” one lifetime, but… I don’t actually know that with certainty, any more than anyone else does. Maybe there’s more? Maybe not. Won’t know until I’m “on the other side”, I suppose. What I do know is that I’m here, now, living this life, right here. Each individual day made up of so many individual moments – some of those truly “unique” (or at least, unique in my own experience), although many of them are quite similar to each other, as days and moments go, built on habits and routines and rituals and celebrations and things noticed along the way. I sip my coffee and think about this one lifetime, and what sorts of things I’d like to experience and fill my time with.

Daybreak and dawn have come and gone. The sun is up, somewhere beyond the dense gray of an overcast day. My coffee is… fine. It’s fine. Not great. Not bad. Just… coffee. Mostly gone, which seems fitting for the hour of the morning in which I find myself. Pleasant enough morning, if not especially interesting or adventure-filled – I’m fine with having an ordinary morning. Quiet. Productive. Undisturbed. Busy without being frantic. Calm. I’m neither joyful this morning nor somber, neither aggravated nor merry. I’m just here, being. It’s enough, isn’t it, most mornings?

Yesterday was an odd one. All day I felt rather as if some small portion of my brain never really woke up when I rose for the day. That feeling lingered well into the evening, and when I finally went to bed, I crashed out hard, immediately, no reading or lingering wakefully waiting for sleep. I woke this morning to the lights on full brightness; my artificial sunrise didn’t actually wake me up until I just happened to open my eyes as I turned over, and realized the room was fully light. I sat up confused and groggy, but that feeling passed quickly, and soon I was on my way to the office. Traffic seemed quite a bit heavier than usual, but it was just a byproduct of my somewhat different timing, which amounted to a “late start” compared to most recent mornings. The commute, like my morning coffee, was… fine. “Nothing to see here.” Just a drive to the office in the pre-dawn gloom.

Today? A new day, a new opportunity, a new series of moments to live in this one life. What will I do with them? Nothing much – for me – just work, at least for the next few hours. It would feel like tedious drudgery, but I like the job and the team I work with, and the day will pass quickly and likely have some entertaining moments to reflect on later. I’m eager to be home; the moments I spend with my Traveling Partner are some of the best I have in this life, at least over the past several years (and, I hope, the many yet to come). I miss him when we’re apart, in spite of my yearning for solitude now and then. Even when I am most eager to embrace some solitary moment or experience, he’s part of my thoughts, in my heart, and a notable feature of my emotional landscape. “The love of my life” is not an exaggeration; I can’t imagine feeling more strongly, deeply, affectionately about any one other human being. Sitting here with my nearly finished coffee, thinking about how much I think about my Traveling Partner, and what a big part of my experience he has become, my heart fills with love and a smile develops on my face that doesn’t make any sense. “Too much smiling!!” I think to myself, almost laughing. Fuck that man fills my heart with joy, just by existing. It’s nice. 😀

I sit thinking about things I enjoy doing, or experiencing, and ways to spend more time on those things, and less on things I dislike, or don’t get anything out of. Choices. There are so many choices. Too often I find myself choosing to undertake things that seem to “need” to be done, without really examining how true that actually is. Other times, I dodge doing the needful, in favor of doing something that is neither necessary, nor what I might actually want to be doing… just a thing being done that gets me out from under doing something “worse”, but having the unintended consequence of putting something far more pleasant, desirable, or necessary even further out of reach. Humans are weird.

I laugh and yawn, and rub my eyes. I could do better. Choose my actions with greater wisdom and discernment. Be more present and aware, more willful and studious about my decisions. I could undertake a few more verbs, and a little less sitting around, perhaps. I sigh and glance at the clock – it’s already time to begin again. The clock never stops ticking…

…and there’s just this one life…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Words Matter

March 26, 2024 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about words.

Specifically, I’m thinking about the sloppy way headlines or thumbnail titles are often written, misusing words like “and” or “but” – they aren’t really interchangeable, generally. Same with words like “how” and “why” – these are not synonyms and have very different meanings in a statement or in a question. Headlines that profess to tell “why” something is happening, or matters to the viewer (or reader), for articles which actually only describe that it is happening and maybe how it is happening are distinctly (and irritatingly) misleading. Don’t get me started on headlines that use words to attempt to force the reader (or viewer) into making a shared assumption about something without ever actually proving that it is so. Damn I hate that shit. An example might be “Learn why doctors won’t prescribe this drug!”, for an article that never gives an answer to the question “Why won’t doctor’s prescribe this drug?” and also doesn’t actually support the (often completely bullshit) assumption that this is even the reality of the situation in the first place. It’s super common. “Clickbait” headlines are often rife with misleading nonsense assumptions and unanswered implied questions. Read with care. Think your own thoughts. Have your own (well-informed, supported by reality) opinions. Don’t take the bait.

…I have no idea why this is on my mind this morning, but it has been since I got in the car and headed into the city…

I sigh quietly to myself and sip my coffee. There’s nothing I can do about bad writing habits besides complain about them pedantically (in spite of my own bad writing habits), and since that achieves nothing aside from mild amusement (maybe), I guess I’ll just let it go. There are other ways to spend my time, and other things to think about. lol “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” 😉

Yesterday evening was a “short one”, in the sense that the commute home was unexpectedly long (thanks, Union Pacific!) due to a train parked across multiple intersections in the downtown area, blocking traffic at rush hour. I was pretty well stuck where I was until the train moved, and then I was in the thick of rush hour traffic (which I usually miss by timing my departure such that I’m not in the middle of the worst of rush hour traffic). I grabbed cheap cheeseburgers on the way home, instead of cooking a meal (as had been my plan). I was tired – so tired – when I got home that the evening is mostly a blur.

I went to bed more or less at my usual time, but failed to lay out clothes for the morning, forgot that there was a planned internet maintenance outage last night that would affect my alarm, sort of “overslept” in the sense that I woke up precisely on time instead of early (I think a noise woke me?)… forgot to put my wearable on… left the house still half-asleep and if not actually groggy, for sure fucking stupid as hell. Confused. Strangely, I got to the office feeling awake, alert, and well-rested. I feel content, calm, and relaxed. It seems a good morning. My planned workload for today is something I enjoy, and which will occupy my time most of the time quite pleasantly. A good Tuesday.

Daybreak evolved into morning some time ago, though I’m not sure “where the time went” – no watch on my arm, but how can that even have anything to do with my “sense of time and timing”? It seems irrelevant. What a weird morning.

“Words matter.” I mean, yeah, generally… but maybe not these words, eh? Just some random nonsense, spilling out of a mind that woke strangely into a new day… and I’m being kind to say so. LOL Not my best work and yet here you are! Thank you for that. I appreciate you. I guess the point is simply to move on, be in the moment, present, here for it, and doing my best. If things go sideways, I can begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

So…Human

March 21, 2024 //
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I’m taking an afternoon break. I pretty much had to; my brain started shutting down. I found myself staring intently into the distance without seeing anything, just sort of attracted to the light. My mind was still – too still – and my thoughts were vacant abstractions and vague ruminations. “Cognitive fatigue”. I recognize it when I feel it. I got up, stretched, moved around some. Drank some water. Made a cup of tea, which sits here, half-consumed though I don’t recall actually drinking any of it. I feel… disconnected. Disengaged. Something like, but not quite, sleepy…

…Fucking hell, I’ve got shit to do… don’t I? I sigh outloud. (I sound frustrated and impatient with myself.) I have been trying to “shake it off” for some minutes, now. I suppose I could “give in to it” and lay down on the couch in the lounge space of the office, where I’m working today, only… I already know I would not sleep, even a little. I’m not actually “sleepy”. My mind is tired, yes. My body? Not so much. Hell, I went to bed early last night, slept more or less through the night, woke mostly pretty well-rested (although rather groggy)… what the hell is this shit?? “I don’t have time for this!” I protest internally, knowing it won’t do any real good… that’s not how one overcomes fatigue. lol

…I try taking a short walk and getting some fresh air…

This has been a peculiarly intense work week. Not bad, and for sure I’ve gotten a lot done, and most of that well-ahead of required timing or deadlines. Nice problem to have, I guess. There are no holidays with long weekends in March. None in April on our work calendar, either… Memorial Day in May feels a long time away, and I find myself wondering if it is time to go camping, or head to the coast for a couple days of quiet time reading, writing, and walking the beach…? I know my Traveling Partner is super bored at home, as he continues his recovery; he’s finally starting to feel more himself as his injury heals, and this will soon mean he doesn’t need as much help from me on day-to-day basics supporting him. Am I just… tired? It’s a lot to handle, and he’s incredibly kind and gracious and careful not to overburden me (I’ve got limitations of my own) – but it’s not likely to be a surprise if I’m just hitting a “stall point” from fatigue building up over time. I find myself thinking “when was my last getaway…?” and realizing it has only been a handful of days, really; I went down the coast to visit my dear friend before she died…

…Suddenly the tears start to fall…

Okay, so I’ve failed to account for the emotional fatigue of also managing grief in the mix of all of everything else, I guess? I kind of feel like I’m mostly sort of “over it”… more or less… mostly… but… that isn’t really how grief or grieving works, is it? The tears are just steady falling at this point, and I just fucking let them. My dear friend – one of my dearest, and for such a very long time – deserves every honest tear I shed in her memory. So human. What else can I possibly offer her now?

…Definitely just straight up crying now…

…This almost feels hormonal…

…Fuck I’m just so g’damned tired “lately”… (how much “lately”? I don’t even know, maybe just today…)

…But what do I need from me…? Well, shit. I actually just don’t know, and can’t seem to kick my brain back into gear, and now I’m dealing with tears, too. So I do what I can – what I have to get done to finish the day. One task at a time, with care and consideration, after taking a healthy break, walking around the block, breathing some fresh air, drinking some clean cold water and a nice cup of tea… “Soon enough it’ll all be over,” I think to myself, then when I’m struck by how grim and final that actually sounds, I break up laughing out loud, tears still falling. I probably look like a hysterical madwoman, right about now, and I don’t even care – it’s just a very human moment. I’m tired. At least I’m fucking laughing, though… That’ll have to be enough, until I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, grief, health, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, loneliness, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being
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