THE TRUE-ER REALITY (OF BRAIN INJURY)
I wandered to the local shops this morning, the world spun with vertigo, a cabin fever forcing me out and about. I bumped into a friend. Socially deprived and forced to live like a hermit, I love these random meetings.
We hadn’t seen each other for years. She knew about my brain injury from my social media posts. She remarks, You look GREAT! No one would ever know you have a brain injury.
My friend’s kind, sincere comments both encourages and concerns me. She is accurate. I indeed look healthy but the reality of living this life is a different story. How do I show an invisible injury? How will anyone understand I’m going through unless I tell them?
Invisibility has been a burden since the beginning. In hospital, I was treated for ‘heat stroke’ after a triathlon race. The medical people found it difficult to believe me because I looked fit and healthy. A few months earlier, I’d represented my country at the World Championships.
When the neurology tests all came back negative, including a spinal tap and an MRI, the doctors decided it was best for me to be assessed by the psychiatrist for mental health issues. They had me transferred to the psych ward for evaluation, sedatives and counselling.
Discharging myself before I got trapped down that rabbit hole, I sought other tests which revealed brain inflammation and swelling. It makes me wonder, if doctors don’t understand what I’m experiencing then how will my family and friends?
The reality of brain recovery is this: the *extra* effort that goes into everyday activities. A nameless beast which adds another layer of stress in any situation.
The effort it takes for me to shower and get dressed in the morning. The amount of energy I need to remember the day of the week or to complete a simple mathematical task, 80–55 = ?
The energy it takes to eat a meal because the left side of my mouth was paralysed and only just waking up now, two years later. How I can’t hear myself talk, so I whisper softly. How every sound makes my brain rattle like a pinball machine and I have to concentrate so hard to hear above the racket.
And, how I lean on my family: my dear dad vacuums my room, my mum drives me to doctor’s appointments, my sister chooses and buys my clothes. Friends drive me to yoga and take me out for lunch.
In a fortnight, I’ll be tested for a mild form of dyslexia. I find it hard to think of words, I’m adding letters from other words to others, writing p’s as b’s and my handwriting is messy. I forget the correct pronouns or leave them out all together. I also have trouble reading books, the characters blur and mumble on the page.
This is all new to me. Pre-injury, I was a speed reader, during the summer holidays, I could read a book in a day. I dux-ed my university degree without hardly attending classes.
Now life is very different for me.
These struggles are all hidden behind the end product: No one sees I can’t remember to touch type. I use a speech activated microphone to write. No one sees the amount of drafts this post goes through until it reaches the final copy. No one sees that I send each piece to a friend who kindly corrects spelling and grammar errors before it’s published.
No one sees the hours I send on dictionary.com looking up definitions and synonyms to rebuild my vocabulary after memory loss. No one knows I regularly use made-up words on my blog (see emberance in the second paragraph).
No one knows my eyesight constantly into double vision, blurry when I look at the screen so I type with my eyes shut. No one sees the constant ringing in my ears from tinnitus. No one sees me collapsing into bed, dog tired with notepad in hand, scribbling down my day so I don’t forget what happened during this time of my life.
It is not my intention to hide these struggles, but how do I demonstrate the extra effort I go through?
I could leave all the spelling mistakes in this post. I could slur my words when I speak to friends. I could trip over my feet when walking up to yoga because of the vertigo. I could stop washing my hair and look like a grub.
I could do those things, but I’d rather not. I persist with mastering these everyday tasks because I want to teach my brain how to work properly again, I don’t want to stay injured. I hold myself to a high standard because that’s where I want to get back to.
I carry on as I have been for the last two years; when I walk through the local shops, I look normal like anyone else. No one will ever know, unless I tell them. I’m happy to tell them, if they ask or have read my blog.
I appear different on the outside to how I’m actually experiencing the world on the inside, the complicated duality of brain injury recovery.
Striving to be normal comes at a cost of, unintentionally, hiding the injury and the efforts that accompany it. It’s just how it is.
I post everyday here: instagram.com/sarahrasborsek, and my writing is available here: sarahrasborsek.com
