We were eagerly awaiting our first visit to the Neurologist after discharge from hospital.
We would get answers to all our unaddressed questions.
We will know exactly what the roadmap to recovery looks like.
"There will be changes", the Neurologist said, referring to likely changes in my personality.
Later on, one of my therapists said "If you think you can get back to being the same person again,
you are mistaken. Accept that and move on"
We weren't sure what that would look like.
Mandavi imagined maybe she could get what she ever wanted: someone who's not so serious all the time,
is fun to be with, light-hearted, easy-going, romantic, and maybe even a good dancer!
Her re-programming skills did not work.
I found it difficult to be with myself in the mirror. I felt I was looking at another person.
I could not relate to that person.
The quality of my experience of life changed. Nothing was the same. What I saw, how I saw, what it evoked.
My relationship to everything I saw was no longer vivid, but fuzzy and hazy.
Nothing looked clear.
I took a blank page. Divided it into two areas.
On the first I wrote 'The old me'. Under that I wrote three sections: what I liked about myself, what I didn't like about myself, what I was indifferent to. In five minutes, all sections were filled.
On the second area, I wrote 'The new me'. It's still blank.
I am struggling with this new me. How to create him?
There is a way of intentionality: create and fulfil on it.
There is a way of discovery: observe the changes and that is the new me.
None of these alone are working for me.
In discovery mode, I fall victim to my post-TBI (traumatic brain injury) symptoms: the impatience, the anxiety, the fuzziness, the unpredictability, the imbalance - surely that cannot be the new me.
In intentionality mode, I create inspiring intentions. Then get limited by my conditions to fulfil on them.
I am now trying the let-go mode. I want to accept the flow of life. Let go and move on.
Get grounded. Remain there.
It needs a space: mental and physical.
It needs a different quality of thought.
It may be a long journey. Some days I get closer, some days I drift further.
The only thing I must not do is stop.
It's my journey, I must create my own path.
We would get answers to all our unaddressed questions.
We will know exactly what the roadmap to recovery looks like.
"There will be changes", the Neurologist said, referring to likely changes in my personality.
Later on, one of my therapists said "If you think you can get back to being the same person again,
you are mistaken. Accept that and move on"
We weren't sure what that would look like.
Mandavi imagined maybe she could get what she ever wanted: someone who's not so serious all the time,
is fun to be with, light-hearted, easy-going, romantic, and maybe even a good dancer!
Her re-programming skills did not work.
I found it difficult to be with myself in the mirror. I felt I was looking at another person.
I could not relate to that person.
The quality of my experience of life changed. Nothing was the same. What I saw, how I saw, what it evoked.
My relationship to everything I saw was no longer vivid, but fuzzy and hazy.
Nothing looked clear.
I took a blank page. Divided it into two areas.
On the first I wrote 'The old me'. Under that I wrote three sections: what I liked about myself, what I didn't like about myself, what I was indifferent to. In five minutes, all sections were filled.
On the second area, I wrote 'The new me'. It's still blank.
I am struggling with this new me. How to create him?
There is a way of intentionality: create and fulfil on it.
There is a way of discovery: observe the changes and that is the new me.
None of these alone are working for me.
In discovery mode, I fall victim to my post-TBI (traumatic brain injury) symptoms: the impatience, the anxiety, the fuzziness, the unpredictability, the imbalance - surely that cannot be the new me.
In intentionality mode, I create inspiring intentions. Then get limited by my conditions to fulfil on them.
I am now trying the let-go mode. I want to accept the flow of life. Let go and move on.
Get grounded. Remain there.
It needs a space: mental and physical.
It needs a different quality of thought.
It may be a long journey. Some days I get closer, some days I drift further.
The only thing I must not do is stop.
It's my journey, I must create my own path.