It’s hard.
That’s the nicest way to put it.
A more accurate way is that:
it’s exhausting–you don’t realize how much brain power you used before, but you are very aware of your limitations as you run head first into the wall of crushing fatigue as it slams into you out of nowhere
it’s heartbreaking–I can remember how much easier it was to find the right word. Now I struggle and have to settle for one thing, and hope I come up with something much better during one of the edits.
It’s frustrating–the rage I feel at not being able to accomplish even half of what I could before the injury borders on a grievous insult.
It’s bullshit that I have to sleep 12-14 hours after working a 6 hour customer service shift. It’s outrageous that mowing the lawn now means an hour-2 hour nap afterwards. It’s more than a reason for justifiable homicide that when I ask for help, when I explain why, no one gets it. No one understands the cognitive exhaustion I’m pushing through just to get the most basic of chores done. Even those who know more about it than most, those with first hand knowledge of what it can be like, seem to compare my minor experience against theirs, like it’s some kind of contest.
It approaches psychotic rage that therapy for me and my particular TBI is nothing more than patient education on spoon theory. Hon, before corrective bone surgery on my feet, I lived spoon theory. It’s maddening that I’m back to square one.
It was almost a year ago. Everyone agrees it was a mild concussion. Why aren’t things better?
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