I go back and forth from what I should think about (positive, healthy thoughts) and what I shouldn’t think about. You know what you should do… but knowing is NOT half the battle, it is THE battle. Depression. I hate what I did to myself. Therefore I hate myself. I have no one else to blame. I can’t escape this self loathing.
I have high performance expectations but I’ve been unable to meet them. There is so much confusion in my life. Am I comparing my level of achievement to my LBBI (life before brain injury) peers? Am I trying to attain what is unattainable with this altered brain? I am a constant disappointment to myself. I hate this brain injury.
I had a brief interaction with someone without a brain injury who would see my struggles with self hate as issues related to her own self deprecation. There are striking similarities as far being unhappy with self and not being able to accept and love who you are or where you are in your life but I can’t help but think that this brain injury might keep me in this dark hole of anger and hatred of what I can’t change a little bit longer.
Relationships are STILL suffering. It seems easy to blame a brain injury for miscommunications and you would think that four years later I would know how my reaction or lack of reaction, lack of communication or too much communication, too aggressive or too passive, how not being able to remember and needing to ask or to repeat…I should be able to understand how it affects others.
I don’t want to use the brain injury as an excuse but there really is a part of my brain that was damaged that makes it extremely difficult to read the emotions of others. I come off as aloof, not caring about anything or anyone other than myself. Is that who I’ve become? Am I now this person? Some may say that I was a lot of those things before but those who really know/knew me know that I love and I love deeply. I hope that my family and closer friends (who are family) recognize that I’m still here. I hate that it takes me going public (posting on the blog) to let you know how much you mean to me. I do care and I appreciate your loyalty and patience with me.
I HATE not being able to effectively communicate my thoughts. It has taken months to be able to post on the blog again and it’s not because I didn’t want to. It is because I am unable to keep my thoughts straight and if I tried to post by myself without a “proxy”; someone to help me form my thoughts, keep me on track, reduce the decorations I add when I type what was a simple thought which causes “what did he say?”. It would be like trying to read Martian. Makes sense to me but probably, only to me !?!? (that’s an exclaiming question) but it really wasn’t a question was it !!?!? See what I mean!!?!?!
Here’s a visual…we’re drinking a beer, hanging out on the dock and I fall deep in to the water. Big splash, everyone runs over to see what has happened. I come up for a breath and it seems like maybe I’m going to be ok but the tide comes in and the waves start to crash against the dock. Someone says “Mike can swim, he’s strong and determined, he’ll make it. Keep up the good work Mike!” and the party continues.
I can swim but not like I could before I fell so deep in to the dark water. I keep swimming and swimming and swimming but, boy am I tired. Looking in to the water, it distorts your vision and although I look like the Mike that fell in to the water, I am no longer swimming like Mike or like anyone else. “What’s wrong with him? Why is he swimming like that? That’s not the way you’re supposed to swim Mike! Try harder!” I see you, I hear you but the waves take me under again and again. I am screaming “It is dark but I am here! I am sorry! I am trying to stay strong! Don’t forget about me!”
Have you ever tried to dry a pair of tennis shoes in the clothes dryer? If there is nothing else in the dryer, they loudly “thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Conceivably, the shoes go in, they dry, you take them out but alone it takes forever. They thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. You put them in the dryer, you take them out, they still feel wet, you put them back in. You hear them thump, thump, thump,thump. You take them out, they ‘re still wet. Put them back in…thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. You check again and the frustration builds. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…one more thump and you’re feeling like you’re going to explode. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…welcome to my world.
Thoughts. Can’t stop them. Louder – thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thumb, thump, thump. I can’t stop the noise in my head.
Another analogy. Driving 100 miles an hour, I hit a brick wall. I put it in reverse, get back in the car, drive 100 miles an hour and hit that brick wall again. I back it up, gun it, hit the brick wall again…why? Dude, you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result? Is your brain damaged? Yes. Apparently it is.
I have a pad of paper near my bed and i write notes when a thought comes to mind. Here’s one for you:
[ It's not that Einstein was wrong because how can a "God" be wrong?" he says with a smile. Einstein was speaking in reference to sight "nothing moves faster than light" however, I counter and say that time moves outside of light and that time stays perfectly relative to your individual circumstance. Time is your personal vehicle and it is dependent on your moment. Like an accident, time moves s l o w l y because it is your individual circumstance. BUT from the outside, it happens in the blink of an eye and that's why time varies dependent on the (as we say in the brain injury world) the experiencing person.]
If I am perseverating, a day may last a week and I perseverate often. Thump, thump, thump, thump…that same thought hitting the walls of my brain over and over again but it quiets long enough for me to think ” what am i doing? God stop this insanity, please!!! Then thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…here I go again. Banging the phone or email with the “cold call recruiter” alter ego that for another might be Harvey McLean (some will understand) that says “keep going boy, they can only say “no” for so long” thump, thump, thump. Thoughts. I can’t sleep without thump, thump, thump, thump. This day “thump, thump, thump, thump” has lasted a week for me but for you, it was a normal day. Time is relative to the experiencing person.
I think what had and is transpiring is coming to grips with what has happened. “why can’t you get this?”, “why can’t you move on?”, “push harder!” ” how can anything take this long?” i usually don’t hear this from others, this is my own dialogue. From a lack of understanding of how to deal, cope, or support a person with an injured brain; some awkwardly distance themselves, some placate to keep the peace, a few condescend or reprimand but i ask that you please just keep it real. We are social beings and I make attempts at being social… still. I know I can be harsh, it may not always make sense when I text or email you but I, Mike Rosner am still in here somewhere. I don’t want to be the “new” me, I want/ need to find out who I can be, merging the two. If I have offended you, it was not my true intention. Sometimes I only can only hear the “thump, thump, thump” banging the walls of my brain.
I don’t really know where to begin. It’s been such a long time and the road in between has been a bumpy one. The last time I posted was before the 3 year celebration and I will share with you why it’s been difficult to post. It appears that the difficulty has been my ability to keep my thoughts together and even want to reach out to update. Depressed much?
At the time of the third celebration, I guess I wasn’t in much of a positive mood. Is it like mood swings? I guess but it’s depression in it’s truest form. What am I depressed about? Let’s see…nothing in particular, its collective. It is so heavy. Coming to terms with having a brain injury – to go about my every day life and still have this really bad brain injury feels like “hell on earth” every day. But no, it doesn’t. Sometimes I have really good days. I think of myself as an awesome person and with that its’ really difficult when the behaviors that brain injury brings to my daily life daily exhibit themselves to be something I cannot identify with, it is so frustrating. Frustrating is not powerful enough. I can’t identify with this person that can’t remember what you told him, or what he said, or that person that can be socially inappropriate or in an instant spin emotionally out of control at the people closest to him. I can’t identify? I can’t even understand it. Maybe you can understand it because you’re on the outside looking in and “oh, that Mike’s brain injury”. well, I don’t get that opportunity. It is freaking happening to me . Right?
But the thing is, so what? life goes on with or without you. Your life is going on and so is mine. My friends go beyond trying to understand and trying to support. Gratitude, praise…beyond what I can even articulate. I’m not handling this fine. I’m screwing up relationships but people forgive and maybe/probably I’m too hard on myself but when I look back on some of these recent experiences, I would think “ I can’t stand him!” I would not have the patience to tolerate me. And some don’t. No hard feelings about the people who don’t have the patience or the time to deal with the brain injury me and I don’t expect them to. I tune out, as well. I’m not happy facing this thing that changed my life. I don’t think I have a pessimistic view but I feel like I need to be a realist and the fact that I am almost 30 and feel cursed with this blessing. Blessing of life, cursed with ambition. Blessing – I am ambitious. I am constantly searching for the latest and greatest. I love technology and I want to work in the field that gets my adrenaline going. Cursed – I am ambitious about what interests me, not about recovery and rehabilitation. Who wants to wake up every day to find that this day just like yesterday is rehab! No one or at least I wouldn’t. I don’t.
I want to wake up and go to the office and mingle with co-workers and talk about the latest gadget (Motorola XOOM), the newest technology on the horizon (Honeycomb). I don’t want rehab for the rest of my life. But then the truth sets in and I STILL have a SEVERE brain injury. There are portions of my brain that still have to heal. The primal areas have been healing over the last three years and the executive function areas (the frontal lobes), still need a lot of therapy. It takes a life time to develop the frontal lobes and I started my life over three years ago. Becoming a young man again at the same time as rehabbing the most vital organ in our bodies; having the life experience of a nearly 30 year old has led me to deep philosophical thinking. I AM Mike Rosner. I AM a 28 year old brain injury survivor. I AM socially awkward.
I AM also thinking about spirituality. I AM. I think for sure that I have been in the midst of an epic fire walk through this rehab, sounds much worse than it actually is, but my philosophical self is attempting to figure things out. My latest figure is…
Not claiming to be an expert but in the bible Jesus speaks about “I AM”. I think that delving in to that further brings about this thought; we are all, each individually I AM. There is power behind those two words. God gave Jesus the “I AM” that made things happen and if Jesus was a man that walked this earth, maybe we all have the I AM to change the course of our thinking. I say my life is Hell now but it isn’t really Hell. Even if it was though, with the power I AM gives us, shouldn’t I be capable of changing that thought?
If I believe that I AM, if I live my life present, powerful and with intention, I AM in control. ”We” AM in control of how we interpret life. The mind is capable of so much and I’m not saying you can fly or shoot lasers out of your arms but it’s about focus and intention. Steering the course, being in control of the course of your life.
Just because I may have figured one thing out doesn’t mean anything is easier because I am still trapped in this fire-walk. Perseverative thoughts, perseveration, perseveration, perseveration is my HELL…I am on fire and I want to see where I’m going. After about 15 minutes of getting my thoughts back together I want to say that this is not egocentric. There are parts of the Bible that say “through me” so everything isn’t the “I AM” there’s an underlying something that I will keep working on, but basically what I want to say is this;
I think we are supposed to understand that there is greatness within us and that we are capable of great things. I AM capable of great things, YOU are capable of great things and I don’t mean what kind of car you drive, what label you wear or how much money you make but maybe I do, if that’s your definition of being capable. What I mean is there is a crack in all of us and all it takes is a little light to seep through to help us understand. It’s I AM, YOU AM, WE AM and on the days that I can grab on to this self revelation, it makes me feel LESS powerLESS about the course of my life.
I AM Mike Rosner.
** thanks to Mom for listening, typing and keeping me in between the ditches.
? right, is that a real activity? Either way I feel like I am surfing my way back to earth from my lowly home away from home on Jupiter/Pluto, possibly like I myself am a sort of mystical surfing comic book hero (obviously would in case not be requiring Oxygen).
As I continue to make choices and decisions on my own, external of real therapy and therefore escalating myself through the TOP of this puny Ranchos Los Amigos Scale of Cognitive Function which, bytheway has been revised now multiple times, I do believe since the ’70′s!! This was the scale used to help define a person’s recovery from coma over the long term. Example Level 1 – Deep coma where Level 10 is Essentially Normal. A person can be stuck at any level on this scale but when the patient reaches level 8 they are practically “in control” of their own life. Where they feel I am on the “attic ladder from Levels 7 to 8″, they being my star team of therapists, Ms. Debi Gale and Dr. Mercedes Alfaro
I guess the real thing for me now is to assist others with continuing to help raise awareness about brain injury and I do feel a bit partial towards the effect of the severe brain injuries. Most notably I can think of the guy from the Olympics…Kevin Pearce?
I know zero details of Kevin’s accident and recovery thereafter, as of now.
I hope to start an organization that may help escalate awareness of brain injury and most notably Severe Brain Injury.
I can only hope to have been responsible for you and your delayed decision making process in which you may be wrestling with the idea of whether or not to drive drunk event though I just want to be certain that I make NO claim to be without SIN?
I am full of wrongs, I always, usually say the wrong things, speak before thinking, could I steal that comment back? just prior to hitting your sound channeling organs. (also, why I continue speaking like I’m from another century?)
Though, I can say that I am chock full of humor!and whether you, you being Amanda Kibben , think that I’m funny or NOT.
The (my) humor is a present. Think of it as my little present to you, for you to remember me by because I may be “gone to November” but it’s already October. See what I’m saying?
Circles I run in my speaking, I am hopeful though that perhaps (Nate, perjaps?) my system will be exhausted of all this nonsense by the time I begin my speaking circuit. (time TBD)
I was always the one with no fear, I still feel like that. No one can sustain attention for three years, I have close friends that have gone far and above what was ever expected of what anyone would have expected. The longer you stretch things out the less and less people are still in line. ”On a long enough time line the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” Tyler Durden Fight Club
So review the difference between the first couple of paragraphs and this one. The first paragraphs were thoughts that were typed by me. The paragraph beginning with “I was always” are my thoughts typed by someone else. I say to myself “Gosh, I’m such a fool!” I’m an idiot!” because I get so weird but I don’t know, I have a brain injury. I can’t explain why I speak like I’m from another planet sometimes, I want to think the it’s 100% humor but then it doesn’t make sense and only funny to me. One function at a time please. Talk to me in person, I am told I am less robotic. Talk to me on the phone, or no, how about when I leave you a voice mail? well, there’s two or three functions required and now I am talking carrrazzzy. It’s ridiculous for me to expect that my friends would be in the thick of it still. I don’t blame them, they have work to do.
Back on track – year three. I am not celebrating life. I am in a funk. I feel like it’s all depression. I screw up every relationship. I don’t even know how I do because I can’t remember. It’s like drudging through a swamp fire every day, it’s almost gross. The one constant in my life is therapy and it feels like the healing process would be closer to complete BUT that’s the thing about brain injury. It’s going to be three years and you would think that it would be on the closer side to complete but it’s not. It’s still a lifetime of recovery. I have the life experience of a 28 year old but the functioning brain of a what???
For me, at this moment the single most devastating injury I sustained is the one that controls initiation because the thing that controls what we use to connect to other people is not functioning like it used to. I would be hanging out with Karl, Molly, Justin, Matt, Shannon, Adam, Dan and Jim but I’m not, I’m drudging through this swamp fire and I can’t even pick up the phone to say ”hey, what’s up?”
When I do get a chance to hang out then it’s over stimulation city and it seems to be just a vicious cycle. Like take no prisoners vicious. The thing about brain injury is that the brain processes information slower and too much, too fast = over stimulation = can’t think. Retreating to my phone (games, Internet) controlling the speed of information is a strategy but not a healthy strategy. I am aware and I have attempted to make a conscious effort to stop retreating. Attempting.
Hot air…you get up every day knowing what you’re supposed to do right? Monday morning you wake up, you know you need to take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed and either head to work or start making phone calls. Without thinking, you still know it’s Monday and you’ve got this and this and this to do and it needs to get done in this order. I wake up and have no idea what day it is even after I checked my watch 3 or 4 times, have no idea what I’m supposed to do with my day even after I look at my planner that is well laid out with appointments. I look, walk away and then get my phone or walk to my computer and what I am doing at the moment is the only thing I need to do. “Mike, you have speech today.” goes in one ear and out the other until “Mike, you need to get in the shower”, ”Mike, you need to get dressed”,”Mike, we need to leave in 5 minutes” “MIKE! Get off the computer!!” When you look at the time line of how often things are moving forward for me and how often things are moving backward, is it so difficult to figure out that maybe my life is a little different than yours? You have no idea. How do you think it feels to need help initiating what you should be able to initiate, plan and carry out on your own? I’ll tell you, it feels like drudging through swam fire!
My speech therapist asked “do you remember what being happy feels like?” My answer is NO. I love life but I hate life. I despise life. I was cursed with this blessing and the gift of a second chance at life. Do you know how much easier it would be to just be asleep forever? I used to wake up and not know what day it was because I had an awesome time, now I wake up and don’t know what day it is because I just don’t know.
I know that life is beautiful but to think that the most mundane things task my brain to exhaustion, is ridiculous. Again, ”On a long enough time line the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” and that includes me which is even more wild.
Next week – October 21, 2010 - I was not prepared for how I would be feeling at year three but I do understand that the greater the awareness, the greater the recovery. I guess it goes without saying that I am much more aware of my injuries than I was last year but I didn’t imagine the swamp so vast, the fire so hot and that this would be or feel never ending.
Is hope still alive? The human body will heal itself and time will keep moving forward. But am I in it to win it? Do I have the energy to work through this depression? Yes, of course I do. I just don’t know how it’s going to happen.
OBTW – the Space Cowboy metaphor…I’m on Pluto. Either way, I can’t breathe.
The body heals pretty fast but no matter how much healing that has gone into making me the Mike I am now, I STILL have a SEVERE TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY and healing is still a VERY SLOW process. Through this blog I am able to express my frustrations, and inform and educate about the devastating after effects of an injury to the brain. My life changing experience that is chronicled on these pages may serve as a window to one of the effects of one bad decision to drive after drinking.
I can’t say that if I had an opportunity to get my old life back, that I would want to take it all back. I don’t know. The gain that has come out of this has been so magnificent and miraculous that it would be difficult to measure the pros and cons of never having had this experience. Yet, the day to day drudgery of this verses that makes it difficult to quantify because one could never imagine, we don’t really think about the possibility of such an event. Every person’s life is different, every brain injury is different and did I EVER think that my life would be turned upside down when I was having the time of my life? No, no one does but one of my hopes now is that when you are at “I think I’m ok to drive”, think of me and DON’T. It is my hope that when you interact with someone who has suffered an injury to their brain, that you open your mind to understand the difficulty of trying to get through life with a horrible head cold that doesn’t go away. Think about having the flu and being really sick and how you’re tired, sluggish and it’s difficult to do just about anything… everything seems to take longer to process because you just can’t think clearly. Well, that’s a fraction of what it is like to walk around with only parts of your brain working.
I am faced with the reality of everything being changed and different and it seems obvious to me and like I shouldn’t have to explain but obviously I do. So, I talk a big game and come on, you have to know it’s a coping mechanism. I have to feel that I can do anything I put my mind to and I can. The problem is, my mind is working on a part time basis and to do anything I put my mind to, it has to be up to full time speed. The reality is too difficult to face all the time and honestly, I don’t want to face that I can’t do what I could do. But I still CAN do anything if given the opportunity…I don’t know…how do you put limits on yourself? I guess I just don’t know how to do that. I don’t think I want to learn how to that…yet.
I can’t think this way on a daily basis but there are days when I can see and understand more clearly. So, today looks clear: I imagine it like our solar system like planets orbiting the sun, the closer ones orbit faster, the ones further away take much longer to orbit and that’s where I am. My closest friends doing it BIG now it’s like they are on Mercury – fast days speeding forward…everyone else seems to me, to be on Earth having regular days but I am like Jupiter…not even Earth, I’m further back than earth. The people on Earth are going about their day, and their days are probably awesome. I realize there are people on Earth that have it a lot worse than me in some ways but they might still be progressing in life at a normal pace, maybe some aren’t. I was used to moving at sonic speed (back on Mercury in this case) and my people are still moving at that pace. Here I am on Jupiter and Jupiter revolves around the sun (life) much slooooower than Mercury and because Mercury is closer to the sun, and I am looking out at it, I can see that Mercury is moving on and moving faster and there’s nothing I can do being stuck on Jupiter except acknowledge that they NEED to move on and it’s GOOD that they’re moving on because they can continue to grow our dream. I can see that even the people on Earth are moving on and moving forward. So how did I get here and why does it feel like Jupiter?
I feel like I got banished to Jupiter because of the reckless life I was living and it’s not as much fun here on this crusty old planet. I still want to be on Mercury and move at Mercury’s pace but I am forced by the laws of nature to abide by the limits of an injured brain. And that is my life now. I don’t like it but I have to make the best of it. The ugly truth is, I will never be a Mecurian again but hopefully I will become an Earthling again. From some perspectives it may seem that Jupiter isn’t moving at all or isn’t moving near as fast but in actuality it is moving just as fast and covering more ground and making gigantic strides. The ground Jupiter covers is larger (the brain injury) so it’s making much larger gains. But when your brain moves at the speed of Jupiter; Mercury and Earth seem to only move further away…the progress on Jupiter is barely noticeable in comparison. It’s dark and cold here on Jupiter but there is life. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for my life and continued progress but I fight to breathe with the much thicker air on Jupiter, after all, I am a Mercurian.
Still pushing the limits from here on Jupiter and keeping hope alive.
“Hi, my name is Mike Rosner and I have a brain injury.” I think that when I say that I have a brain injury the confusion begins because it’s so utterly invisible but at the same time, is all encompassing and effects everything about me and to me screams out loud; YOU HAVE A BRAIN INJURY! but everything about me still functions kind of the same. I still walk, talk, laugh, think like I’m the same Mike Rosner but obviously, I’m not. To me my injury is obvious because what once was easy is no longer but I don’t know what other people think when they first hear or see me. I can be loud and obnoxious, dis-inhibited (no filter), very literal, argumentative at times, boastful, over confident, I like to think that I kept my sense of humor but I think that my sense of humor and the above listed throws people off. “Whoa, who is this guy?” I don’t think anyone wonders “does this guy have a brain injury?”
Acquaintances walk on egg shells, they get scared because I am brash and possibly misinterpret my over confidence, abruptness, inappropriate – ness, for me being some kind of douche. I’m not a douche, you’re a douche, I have a brain injury. But who asks that question “do you think this guy has a brain injury?” I’m still a person and it’s hard to be dismissed over something that is so complicated and almost impossible to explain. I don’t even get it, how can I explain it?
I am so proud of my friends currently. I know it’s a lot of work to deal with me and my problems but it’s really nice. People don’t have to drop off the face of the earth but you know brain injury or no, if you stop going out, people are going to forget about you. If your face isn’t out there, well you know what they say “out of sight out of mind” and it’s true for most people. But the whole point of this brotherhood is that we don’t have to see each other to know that we are boys. It’s a place in your heart and Jeff Herzig said it so well when he said “most people don’t have the opportunity to see who has your back, but you do”. These lasting friendships that just don’t make sense, that is my humble.
We each have a place in each others hearts and even though I’m not out there hanging at the bars with you guys anymore, I still feel as close to you as I did the day I left. The day I left…I feel so proud of where this life has taken us. I might be on the sidelines recovering from a severe brain injury but you guys are doing it at DITO. You guys are really making it and it’s killing me that I’m not there beside you to help you, to be a part of the dream we once shared.
“and from the sidelines”
There is a National Traumatic Brain Injury conference each year in Williamsburg, VA this year it was June 2-4. Brian McCarthy is the Director of Adapt and Westwood Clubhouses which are programs of Brain Injury Services, INC. Brian and my case manager Chris Swenson also headed up a young men’s activity group from BIS that we named “Wise Guys”. We do activities like shooting pool, bowling, going out to dinner, we’ve talked about canoeing, paint ball and some other activities because after a brain injury some survivors have to relearn social skills and how to make new friends after brain injury.
Brian was a speaker at the Conference on the importance of social and recreational activities after brain injury. He asked me if I would be willing to do a video interview that he could include in his presentation. (Heck yeah, I’ll do it!) He came to the house, showed me the slide show presentation he had prepared for the conference and then to the screened porch we went. Brian asked a series of questions and video taped my answers. That was awesome! I was so honored to be able to be one of THE voices for brain injury awareness and at such an important conference for brain injury. When the copy of the video is available, I hope to be able to link the video to the blog so keep tuned in. Brian said the feedback was “awesome” and so that is getting me amped up for the next step…
BIS has a wait listed service they call “The Speakers Bureau” that assists brain injury survivors to cultivate their story, help them learn public speaking techniques and become comfortable with sharing the intimate details of their injury and BIS facilitates the speaking engagements. So, on the heels of the best man speech and the aforementioned TBI conference video I feel poised to take the next step in my life’s journey. So, it’s the wait list game again but I am really looking forward to it! What’s next? I have a story to tell.
To Neil’s Mom: thank you for paying us a visit and also for your kind words about inspiration. It’s comments like these that will me to KEEP pushing. If I can inspire, then that is the inspiration for me. Who gets a chance to have their daily struggle be an inspiration to someone else? Thank you.
To everyone: My mother is typing this post while I dictate . It takes me a long time to gather my thoughts on what to post but when it comes to me it just flows but what you might not know is that I can’t stay on task long enough to include details. If you get a text from me or an email, it will be short and to the point. I need to get the information or communication out before the thought is gone and once it’s gone, it’s gone. I have forgotten what I was doing because an email came through or another thought came through or the dog walked past – I have had about 10 partial posts, none of them completing a full thought. Anything longer than a few sentences and I’m either repeating myself, or are totally off track. It is so frustrating and much easier to give up, but I don’t give up.
Maybe a voice recorder would work for some but a voice recorder doesn’t help me stay on task; I need a person to help reel me back in. My therapists actually think this is the best way for me to be able to release and communicate the feelings that I have without the frustration of trying to think, stay on task and type at the same time. Does this make me less of a man because I need an assistant to help me write? No, it makes me smart because I am becoming aware of my short comings and am adjusting accordingly. This works until it doesn’t.
My name is Mike Rosner, and I sustained a severe traumatic brain injury on October 21, 2007 after driving while intoxicated…this is my story.
I think I tend to overestimate my abilities or progress, but with the recent events I feel it hard to deny that I am progressing in areas that surprised even me. My brother got married on Saturday may 22, and I was honored to be chosen as the best man. The events leading up to the actual wedding were kind of hairy in that its not always easy for me to keep up with what’s going on.
One of the duties of the best man is throwing a bachelor party and so as it turned out, we had plenty of time to work on it. I knew ahead of time that I would have difficulty keeping track of all communication but I didn’t REALLY realize how difficult it would be. I found out that it was not possible for me to keep track of the texts coming in, the emails, the phone calls, the voice mails…I couldn’t do it. I felt so confused that I just stopped taking information in. I got stuck. It”s hard to explain what it feels like but “flustered” I guess is a good descriptor. So, I thought to make a central repository for thoughts and ideas by creating a social network event on Facebook for the bachelor party.
The problem with that is, people are used to being in contact in other ways with which they have no problem, but that I would still struggle to keep up with. I felt like I was on the verge of letting Nate down which would mean I was letting the brain injury win. I didn’t feel like I was the best man. I needed to use a compensatory strategy, for instance taking notes when people called, but that in it’s self is a challenge. I’m still not good at doing what I never HAD to do before. I understand that I NEED to be a good note taker, that I HAVE to be a good note taker but it’s coming to grips with the difficulty I am facing now, that is STILL the issue. It’s not that its overly difficult, it’s crazy, you CAN’T understand, it feels like it must be impossible to understand because it feels like I still don’t truly get it. I have a hard time accepting the differences, but I AM still progressing.
Ideally, I would be writing down the details when someone calls to use two senses to make the information create a memory but that doesn’t happen as often as I need it to happen. If I should take a note, I run into the issue of over estimating…(here it comes again)…over estimating my abilities. I misjudge my ability to remember and only write down a few words and then when I look back at my notes,there isn’t enough to help my brain recall the information that I needed to remember.
There’s no way to explain this but I can’t see that I am not healed. I can’t see that my thoughts, the processes for thinking and analyzing are different. Most of the time, I don’t understand why I still need therapy but looking back, it’s different, I see it different. Looking back I can see that the frustration and disappointment of facing and not being able to meet my own expectations, comes out as anger, which is resentment toward myself, played out as anger toward those closest to me. Seeing it, facing it is all very confusing and then the progress that I’ve made is impossible for me to measure because although I know that I’ve come a lifetime away from coming home Jan 4, 2008, I still cant grasp it. I can’t hold on to it.
I know its not just me, I’m pretty strong but how blessed am I that I have come this far? What did I do to myself (hind sight, right?)? What an idiot! I had a lot of fun but it was not worth it. The mental fatigue of a brain injury is so draining. it’s not that hard, this rehab stuff. it’s all pretty simple in theory but the drain on my brain from just trying to remember what one person said on a five minute phone call is ridiculous. Physically, I’m good. The mental fatigue is a killer. I thought I was going to end up letting Nate down and I couldn’t take that so what ended up happening was that I had to rely on one of Nate’s friends to be MY best man. If I was a poet like Nate, I would probably be able to whip up a rhyme or two for “datsar“, but I’m not, all I got is thanks, thanks a lot - BIG UPS John, nothin’ but love!
The best man speech was daunting. Again, I was able to plan ahead and enlisted the help of my “area renowned” speech therapist. she helped with the organization of my thoughts, providing an outline template that I could use to plan for formatting the speech. the content was relatively easy because I knew what i wanted to say but I struggled with organizing my thoughts much like posting on the blog. It’s much easier for me to dictate what I want to say, while someone else types because my thoughts get lost. So, in writing the best man speech, I was able to catagorize my notes and distribute them to the outline accordingly. It took a few weeks to actually write the speech and then practiced delivery with my therapist, “take a breath here, pause here, hurry through here, take another breath, animate this part”. Breaths, emphases and pauses were notated with underlining and slashes.
I had practiced to the point that I wasn’t nervous,it was just “finish the speech” when the time came. I practiced one last time in the stairwell and then SHOWTIME! Honestly, I don’t know that it could have gone any better. I felt relieved afterwards, a big weight lifted and still receiving compliments a week later.
It was awesome! I knew it was good when I saw Nate and sylvette’s reaction. They were as proud of me as I was of them. So, I guess the hard work is paying off.
A week later though, I am still recovering. The most significant event of my life thus far, has been my brother getting married and me fulfilling the duties of the best man. Mentally, it was exhausting which wore me down physically. This last month has been my K2! I’d like to say it was my Everest but I can only hope that my life’s journey is not finished and that somewhere in the future lies an event that will surpass. I am still the older SINGLE brother.
Congratulations to the two youts, Nathan and Sylvette Rosner.
“I am still pushing you” is tattooed on my back, in Chinese characters as a kind of means of motivation, to say that “someone” is still pushing me. I’m not sure there could have been another time where these words would have meant as much. I don’t actually read mandarin, so some parts of it may have gotten “lost in translation.” With everything that has taken place in my life especially recently that is exactly what I need, someone to continue pushing me.
Death is so final. That is what gets me sometimes because it is so final but with me it wasn’t. I don’t know that it matters “why” as much as what I do with it. So much death has taken place in recent months I feel like everyone is dying off but that’s not what’s really happening. There are good things that happen but we just can’t see them because our immediate attention is pulled toward tragedy.
My Aunt Darby died at the end of December. She was my mother’s younger sister. No one saw it coming. she wasn’t sick, her heart just stopped beating. Her brain was without oxygen for over 15 minutes. It was the first death that I’d been a part of where someone was in a coma after a brain injury only I was on the outside this time. As morbid as it sounds it was interesting for me to be a part of it. It felt awful seeing her in a coma because I felt like my situation inspired people to have hope for her but it made me feel sorry that I survived at times. Not because I didn’t want to live or wished it was me but because my survival gave our family hope when maybe there should have been none. It was an awesome experience for me to see the other side of the hospital bed but in those awesome feelings was confusion. One of the things that was important during those times were the facts. It was really important for me to remember the facts. There were times when I couldn’t remember what was going on and unknowingly put my foot in my mouth. I was confused at times because she was still alive but it seemed like everyone was talking about her like she was dead. Because of the memory problems I have it created a huge challenge for me to keep on top of what was going on. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing but I wanted to be there for my family. I was able to talk to my speech therapist about what I should do in this situation. She suggested I write down daily updates so I would know the facts for the day. I think through her death, I gained an awareness that I had lost since my accident. An awareness of how what we say or do effects others. It was like she passed me a baton. An empathetic baton for me to continue running with. You know she never felt like she was a part of my recovery but I hope that I honored her with a better awareness of how others are reacting to situations. I want her to know that she did help in my recovery and that although it was through her death, she played an instrumental part. Most people know me as Mike but my close friends and family know that my first name is actually Jennings. From a young age, my Aunt Darby always called me Professor Jennings. I hope to honor her dream by continuing this recovery and becoming again the intellectual she always saw in me and that I aspire to become again.
It was that baton to ready myself for the next tragedy. My step dad’s brother and his family were murdered in Appomattox, January 19, 2010 and with the increased awareness I had from Darby’s passing I was able to give it the attention it deserved. The Appomattox murders required attention from my back up again, my mother and without her, it was up to me to “cotinue pushing me”. Part of me relying on me is that I need to be totally aware of where I am in space. Just like when I was going through rehab, my equilibrium was off and I needed to be able to conceptualize where I was in space. It was that “where am I?” kind of thought. When fully realized, this disability becomes easier to deal with if I utilize the strategies I’d been taught. So it becomes important for me to build off of that but that’s where it gets confusing. I still see myself as the person I was and the person I was doesn’t need these strategies. It’s kind of difficult concept to grasp. Me seeing the same way but thinking a different way. Things ARE different. Learning to take my time because processing is hampered is exhausting. The whole fact that processing is hampered is hard to accept because that’s not me. It’s NOT me, it’s who I’ve become and I don’t know that person, yet.
If you think about it, my life started over on October 21, 2007, I still have the body and life experience of a 27 year old but the mind of a two year old or maybe in dog years, a 14 year old. It’s hard for me to conceptualize the difference of who I was, who I am so I can just imagine how difficult it is for my friends. I love this life I have now though because when I think about it, I think I can truly appreciate these lessons I’ve been learning. as sad as the events have been, the gain – empathy, patience, love of family and that life is amazing. This life is awesome AWE some – awe inspiring despite all the tragedies. Just out of nowhere life ends and that is what makes life awesome. Because in the blink of an eye, the magnitude of one event to change an entire life is magnificent. it’s not just thank God for today but I thank you for the time I get to spend with the people I love. Whether it’s 10 minutes, 2 days, 9 or 99 years it’s time spent because life could end tomorrow.
I mean seriously, is it not? Not only my recovery but the……overwhelming, I feel unworthy. Ha (breakaway scene from Wayne’s World? Garth on his knees “I’m not worthy”) overwhelming SUPPORT.
The Celebration of Life ’09 was humbling; I know sometimes I can be hard to deal with, tired, moody, frustrated, hard headed, I’m sure I am rude and insensitive and can come off as egotistical but how many times can you say I’m sorry? Thank you is not even enough, I do feel unworthy. The weather sucked, it was cold and rainy not a nice day at all but people showed up. I think I’ve learned not to question things when they seem too good to be true but that’s when I’m humbled and the support is so much more than for what I feel worthy. But I do thank you because that celebration propelled me with the energy I need to keep going. I know I had gotten myself into a funk and couldn’t see my way out but when the planning started, that’s all I could think about. The weather forecast was cold and rainy and we didn’t have a rain date. I thought maybe no one would come or less people would come but what ended up happening was awesome. My memory is not good but I know what happened, I think for the most part I remember who came and for that I am thankful. People traveled from as far as South Carolina and although the weather kept some people away, it was still one of the best days of my life so far. The party, then a movie and then a bar with no drinking. That day was incredible.THANK YOU!
My schedule seems like it’s gotten more regular now. I have the areas best brain injury rehab therapists…we live in the nations capital so our area has the best of the country and our country leads the world, so do I have the worlds best therapists? That is something to think about. Sometimes my schedule feels hectic with pluses and minuses. The plus is, I have the opportunity to have formal therapy every day. The minus is, I have formal therapy every day. Some days therapy is one hour, sometimes its two hours but therapy feels like a full work day. It used to feel like a full work day with over time but I think that’s getting better. My speech therapist is working with me on the intricacies of improving memory and overall recovery. Cognitive rehab helps me with planning and organizing and using new strategies. My other therapist helps me deal with the emotional and social parts of recovering. All of them say that I am above the marker of what I should have been able to recover and they feel because of that, that I have the potential to keep improving. I just have to “buy into” accepting the changes. I work hard when I’m with them and accept what they say because I know they have my best interest at heart but its a fine line between them telling me and knowing what I should do and then what I think I need to do. I think if I accept it maybe that’s accepting defeat but that’s probably hard to understand.
I think that if people understood, it would be easier for me. But then how could it make sense to you because I feel like I try to make it seem easy, like I laugh it off and like its just another day. As much as I would like to think I’m ok, I’m not ok. I feel like I can do the bob and weave type action but I know that I have a long road ahead of me. Its not just how far I’ve come and the relationships I’ve built to help me get through this the most difficult situation in life, but I am growing older and time keeps moving and what am I doing? I am going to have to be recovering for the rest of my life. The rest of my life. This is not just hard, it is more than I can even explain. The things I do aren’t hard when I think about the simple things that I do in rehab but it is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s not hard but it is hard. Its a conundrum.
I can laugh about being a lazy, fat guy and I can work on that but who cares. I can change my body with this brain injury. Its what I cant fix that I can’t even talk about. Its not impossible but the way I feel sometimes is that “you could have fooled me”. Sometimes it feels impossible.
I’m not the same and I realize that. My friends realize that. I’ts too hard. It happened and it is what it is. It’s not outwardly apparent and because of that you have no clue how difficult it is. I don’t want it to sound like poor me, poor Michael because I did this to myself. I’m not asking for a short cut, but I feel like I can make it seem like there’s nothing wrong with me but it appears that maybe I’m not that good at it. What people don’t get is that me just trying to make it seem like there’s nothing wrong is so hard. I cant, how could I tell my friends how I feel about the changes and how difficult everything, and I mean everything is. I realize the fact that I’m not the same but I am the same. I still have the same head, I still have similar thoughts but I may not have the same actions or reactions to things. I feel like I am the same but evidently I am not pulling off this charade as well as I thought. Am I over confident or just…. I do know that I’m not the type to sit around and watch things go by and I want to be a part of my own life. So the other day it became apparent that it’s not them being protective of me, it’s them protecting themselves from me. That is really difficult to swallow.
I get it. But what I’m saying is being in a normal working environment helps me push myself and that’s what I do. That’s what I’m trying to do. It may not seem like I do much to you but like I said, just the action of trying to be like everyone else is more than I can even give words to. I push everyday to do everything, anything. You have no idea. But I do get it and I understand everyone has their own lives and everyone needs to do what they have to do.
Yesterday was the annual turkey bowl. I feel so grateful for being able to walk on to the field and still being embraced by my friends and I am filled with gratitude. But then, no more touchy feely stuff and the next second, I think “let’s get it on”. My mother doesn’t want to watch the games because shes a wimp and I did get hurt. I tackled people, I got tackled and I got hurt. I got elbowed in the face, I hurt my knee and I don’t know that it was good for me, it probably wasn’t. But those few hours on Saturday is what it’s all about. Its times like that, being with my friends, is what I need. That is coming back. It was good for me. There are no real words to explain how good it felt to be tackled. No words but all words.
You know you never realize how important your friends are until the threat of them being taken away or them walking away is real.
It’s getting close to Christmas time again and I remember reading on the blog when all I wanted was a haircut. But those days are long gone. I must be coming back, I got a list this time. For these days, I give thanks to God, to the people who support me and all of you. I’m not sure that I’m worthy.
I had practiced to the point that I wasn’t nervous,it was just “finish the speech” when the time came. I practiced one last time in the stairwell and then SHOWTIME! Honestly, I don’t know that it could have gone any better. I felt relieved afterwards, a big weight lifted and still 
life thus far, has been my brother