Brain Injury Is: having to endure, not only the knowledge that you have a brain injury, but also havng to endure social rejection by some of your friends, loneliness, depression, strange acting medications, and scary-sounding diagnoses, like organic brain disease - whatever the hell that means.
This morning at work, as I was kneeling on the floor of Target, the store where I work, the thought crossed my mind again. This thought has visited me often, and seems to always be a part of my day. It keeps me ever mindful of some things that are buried deep in the past. The thought is never harmful, but it never goes away. This crazy thought tells me to be alert, for at any moment, someone from my past life who knew me professionally, would find me there on the floor putting Crest toothpaste or Tampax on a shelf.
Prior to my stroke, I worked with lawyers, doctors, judges, and other professional counselors. How would I feel if one of the attorneys who referred files to me and respected the work that I did, would come in and see me there on the floor? Personally, I am rather proud of the fact that I can still tell the difference between Crest and Tampax. However, could an attorney, seeing me kneeling on the floor, understand that my working at all was an accomplishment? He probably could not, and no one should expect him to. Thank goodness that most of the people I know live in the northern part of the state and never get this far south.
I am thankful for being able to work a little bit on a part time basis and for being as productive as I can be. How many of my former associates and clients, however, might start to laugh if they saw me drop one tube of Crest for every five that I place on the shelf correctly? This is really the hard part of disability for me, remembering what my life used to be. Sometimes I wonder if I should continue in a job that is so totally different for me.
At times when I am bumbling around, forgetting what I am doing or who I was helping, the thought comes on again. I start to wonder what the customers must think of management when it hires a person who cannot keep things straight or remember what he was doing. I wonder if the customers think I could not make it in any other job and had to work at this level. When these customers see forgetfulness, they probably have the opinion that I could not have finished high school, much less have earned a Master's Degree.
The real losses of disability are the remembering of what once was. The loss of self-worth, the feeling of not being productive. For me, even being seen doing something so different is stressful.
I dealt with my loss of memory and other skills sometime ago. These losses, however, will be a part of my life forever. These losses may seem remote and unconnected to the original event to a person who has never had to deal with a major disability. They are so hard to see in someone else, and usually not discussed much by the person who experiences them.
To be truthful, I do not think that anybody really cares about my education or work experience. No one knows about any of these thoughts that come over me at times. I keep waiting for some of my former clients to come in, and I think I know what they will say. They will say something to the effect that they heard about my stroke and they are glad to see me doing so well. They will never know how hard it is to put Crest tooth paste on a shelf.