John Fish B.Sc.
Publishers of Tenby in Wales (UK)
ROWSE LITERARY AGENCY Strange New World: by Jill Hodges
Coping with Brain Damage
Biographical Statement My name is Jill Hodges I am 43 years old. I have lived with my partner Jaci for 11 years in the town of Monmouth South Wales. My parents brought me up in the valleys of south Wales, although my father is from Oxford he met my mother and stayed in Wales. I am a well-travelled individual and after leaving school ran away to Kenya to get away from a despot father. I continued to travel around various countries until I returned to the UK around 1984. Education: I gained a 2:1 Major/Minor Honours degree at the University of Glamorgan in 2000 in Psychology and Astronomy. I have researched a variety of subjects that include: Obesity, Alternative evolutionary theories, Auditory Illusions and speech patterns, and Space Anomalies. My present research is in the field of Sumerian culture and biblical anomalies and enigmas. Before the accident I worked for the mental health department of County Hall Cardiff City Council. I was due to take a Masters in Applied psychology in the October but I fell from a first floor building some 20 feet down and ruined any chance of gaining it. After four years of trying to regain basic abilities such as walking, feeding myself etc, I decided to document my life in the hope that others might gain from the experience and could use the coping strategies I have developed myself. My memory is still poor; I find it difficult to function under certain conditions that others find second nature to cope with. Fact is I do not really understand fully your instructions to allow the submission of this work, so I do apologise if it is not correct.
Synopsis This work takes a lighthearted journey into the serious problems of brain injury and the problems faced by the patient and their families. It deals with day to day accounts of the strange new world that having brain injury places the individual in and also deals with the coping strategies that can be developed to help an individual offering help and encouragement. The symptoms addressed here are Temporal lobe epilepsy, derealsiation and depersonalisation to name a few and describes in my own words how the world now looks, feels and how the external world now affects me. So who might benefit from reading this work? Why is this work special?
Sample
The beginning I woke up in a semi dark room with lights and bleeping sounds, in my mind only seconds before I had been standing at the top of an outside fire escape; it had been a good day I had spent with friends so where was I now? The topic of conversation over a game of chess that evening had been our favourite, where did the human race come from, were we left here by another race of beings and deep cosmological questions, big bang theories and does god exist or is she/he just a fictional character developed over the years to make humans think that sins are there to be forgiven. (I know we are sad but there you are we enjoy a good debate.) I could only move my eyes at this point and my vision spun me around for a few seconds before I could focus on anything and if I leaned to either side I spun like a top. (This I now know was due to Occipital lobe damage.) All I could see when I did stop spinning was tubes and lights, which I may point out looked the size of fire hoses. My mind started to wander and then it came to a hell of a conclusion. That's it I had been abducted by aliens. I can't tell you the panic that I felt on realising my dilemma then I started to struggle, suddenly I was surrounded by beings then it went dark. Well as you can guess I had not been abducted at all, but I had fallen from an outside fire escape come entrance, which just happened to be an old metal one god knows how many feet up and knocked myself out in the process. I sustained a three quarter fracture to the skull and lost copious amounts of spinal fluid, which probably did not help the old grey matter one bit as once emptied of spinal fluid my poor old brain would be left to bounce back and forth something like a lose egg in a cake tin. I was left, apparently, with damage to a few areas of the brain, some that deals with sorting out incoming information and other areas that deal with balance and vision among other things. My perception of the world had changed, but still at that point I didn't know. I had not realised also that I was paralysed down the one side of my face a type of palsy from the fall. I had been drugged up to the eyeballs and could only grunt at that point. Trying to make sense of what was going on was taxing and hurting my brain to think. It was quite a while before I became aware of what people were saying to me as I had such a problem understanding exactly what they were saying. Their speech sounded foreign and not at all like English. At that time I just took it to be an alien speech code as I was still under the impression that I had been abducted by another species from afar, that is why it was no surprise that I understood not a thing that was said. And why not run with this theory? My change of vision or perception bolstered this thought. Whoever was speaking to me looked pretty weird? For example I could not make any distinct characteristics such as a nose or mouth so I had assumed that telepathy had been used to communicate. Looking back at the whole scenario it leaves little wonder why I signed myself out as soon as I could. I lay there trying to think, trying to place my thoughts in order. The first thing I knew I should not do was panic I told myself to stay calm and play it by ear, after all I did not know how these beings would act, and then suddenly it went dark. When I next became aware of someone or something next to me I noticed that I had hold of something that was over my mouth. I was trying to tug it away, then whoever, (or whatever), was next to me was trying to restrain me, I pulled at whatever it was, and then it went dark again. I now know that I had been on a ventilator and had been giving staff at the ICU a right old time, so they sedated me quite a lot in order to stop me from pulling out pipes, drips and whatever else I could get my hands on. I felt better the next time I woke as the ventilator had been removed, however I still assumed that my theory was correct and was quite confused when daylight came as nothing I had ever seen before was right there in front of me and I still feel like it today two years on but on a much smaller scale. I still suffer from vertigo even today but with some easy exercises it stops for a few weeks. I remember hearing other people's voices, the familiar sounds of human speech. I remember thinking that they too had been taken by aliens and even more confused when my partner turned up to visit. In fact I was beginning to think that everyone had a part to play in this abduction theory. Perhaps they were cloned or brain washed. (Oh my God!) Acceptance and trust, apart from a cool head, is something any one in this situation must have, but how and when you are ready to accept what you are being told and trust the right people is very hard and takes an incredible amount of time patience and energy. Imagine waking up in daylight to see your ex-partner walking towards you as you lay in bed. You know (think) you have not been involved for two or three years. Then bit by bit nothing makes sense. In reality you are told that you had spent at the most a week apart, most confusing and that seven years together was more like it, not three at all . The flood of questions in my mind echoed from ear to ear. Did the aliens really get me? Are these people real? What planet am I on and how the hell did I get here? And why the hell me of all people? The question of why me only began to open up once I had been taken back home. I had wandered about the house and found a computer. I was told that it was mine and that I had bought it when I did my degree, to which I asked, what bloody degree? I could not remember doing a degree. I found weeks later that I could turn the computer on. I sat looking through files and documents that I had no idea about. I opened some files and to my utter surprise found that I had a degree in Psychology with Astronomy and space science at Glamorgan University. (Wow... I wonder how I did that.) To my amazement I was shown a video of my graduation in the year 2000. I sat there agog, I was speechless and bewildered. The person wearing the cap and gown looked like me, but was it really? I felt that it was not. I could not believe my eyes. Even today I still wonder if these are false memories planted in my head, but why that would have been done I really have no idea. The weird thing is I feel homesick and I want to go home, but where do I go? Do I really belong here on this strange world? (Reading back over this work, as I am now, a year on I realise now that I am stuck here. Not much has changed in the emotional department I still feel homesick (12/1204) and nothing feels real. My feet and hands feel as if they belong to someone else and so does my face somehow, Today it is not a question of what I see per se but of what I feel. I really do not know if something is real because I do not get the feelings that it is. Forgive the vagueness of my explanations but this is new to me also. The nearest analogy that could illustrate this feeling is like living inside a video game, anything could happen at any time weird monster machines lunge toward me from out of a wall. Lucky for me, I have had my partner with me on many occasions who has reassured me, for example, that the coke vender at Gloucester Royal wishes me no harm and it is plugged into the wall socket so, no it can not go running about after me. One particular event at the hospital involved such a machine. We had been to the Neurology department, on leaving we had to pass through a reception area where a Coke machine stood at the end right by the exit, I had not encountered it on the way in as it was behind me and out of view plus I had not turned around. On the way back out however things took a turn for the worse. Suddenly I saw it. It seemed to be a swirling mass of colour with long trailing arms flowing out toward me, and boy did I panic. Then, unable to move I froze to the spot pointing and blubbering about some strange creature. Logic and reason had vacated my brain and so I was half dragged half coaxed down toward the beastie with the waving arms and swirling things, I felt awkward and embarrassed to find out that it was in fact just a coke vendor. It had taken sometime to be convinced and I was showing physical signs of anxiety I was starting to hyperventilate and sweating to the point that my shirt was stuck to my back. I was scared for my partner, myself and all the other people in the room. I had felt helpless and still remember the fear in me, however, I have no clear recollection about the event. The recollection that I have is only the feeling, not as one may expect memories to be. For example when one thinks of a white sandy beach and a clear blue sky images appear in the minds eye. In my case I remember only the feelings that I had experienced I have no images of what actually took place, just tabular Rasa (a blank slate). I tend to think that this type of phenomenon could be a knowledge based attempt by the brain to understand something of which it has no meaning for. By this I mean, if I had been a god fearing individual would I have seen a different pattern such as a demon if I had sinned or even a divine entity within the mish mash of colour that I perceived as a strange creature. Who knows? When our brains pick up on incoming information it automatically looks for a familiar pattern to help it to understand what it is looking at. This is why some people when looking at the patterns on their curtains and carpets they see faces and other familiar shapes appear. Another example of this is cloud formations that look like ships or sheep. If ships had not been invented, then we would not recognise the ship like shape in the cloud formation. From psychological studies of infants and neo-natal studies, it has been found that our brains are genetically pre-programmed to look for a face. People will tend to see, in other things, familiar patterns and the brain will pick out a memory that will be the next best fit, and my brain picked out an alien substitute image because my visual cortex and my eyes had both deceived my memory due to the injury my brain could not make out the information from the external world. Mmm, wonderful. This problem on its own is, in my opinion a bugger to deal with, however mix it up with balance problems and you have another problem again but that is another chapter and best kept for later. Depersonalisation/reality displacement. I searched for information about this disorder after being advised that the feelings that I were having is possibly due to reality displacement. I asked my GP and he suggested that it may be referred to as reality displacement or some type of depersonalisation disorder quiet often associated with serious head trauma. At first I found very little under that particular heading. It was only by chance that I found a link to a website called depersonalisation.com. Perhaps it helps that I have a little knowledge of the psychological and physiological workings of the brain, then again maybe not. I am not quite sure if its good thing as ignorance seems blissful sometimes. I exhaust myself searching for an answer in the hope that everything will turn out alright, but it is a long hard struggle and I feel the effects badly. I think it is harder to accept that I have had a brain injury rather than have been abducted and thrown into another universe because there is hope that one day I will escape and arrive back home, but if this is all due to brain injury I feel I am stuck with it. Does that make sense? This scenario reminds me of the drunk searching for dropped keys outside under a lamppost, even though the keys may have been dropped elsewhere it remains a more easier task to search under the light than in the dark, even though that may not be where the keys are. Get it? I feel like a fish out of water and I feel the need to be with my own kind, perhaps as time goes on it will become easier to cope with I really do not know at this stage, perhaps I am dreaming lets hope that I wake real soon. Micro lapses. Accompanying this reality displacement and adding to the problem, is what I can only describe as micro time displacements. To illustrate, my partner and I had to visit the hypermarket at Cardiff gate. After travelling about fifteen miles I became aware that I did not know where we were, I had no recollection of getting into the vehicle let alone leaving the house. I tend to think that these micro time lapses are due to a backlog of incoming information being sorted in my brain as it seems to happen when I am in a situation where there are various types of stimuli an example of such a time is when I was taken up town shopping. It was a sunny day; there were endless crowds of people, there were streams of traffic, noise and bright sunlight and shadows. Shadows cause many problems. As any paint artist knows, if you want to illustrate depth you need dark colours. Shadows usually mean stop there is a hole. In my case I cannot afford to make any mistakes, if I fall down a hole I'm not going to be a happy bunny, so what do I do? Quite simply I stop or step over most shadows, which I am sure amuses most other pedestrians but it jars my bones when I step down or up a curb that is not here. On another occasion on a quiet road I was just about to step out into the road when a bird flew overhead, the shadow that it cast ran in front of me causing me to stall and falter. If a car had been coming I could have been hit. Edges are a problem sometimes. Glass I tend to miss completely so large windows I tend to head butt whilst out window-shopping. Usually these days I get around that problem by surreptitiously holding my arm out at waist level while moving towards a shop window. When my hand touches it I stop walking towards it. Easy when you know how, not so easy when you have someone talking to you though because you either miss all that you are being told or you hit the window or kick your foot into the wall below the window. Crossing the road is a nightmare. I can't really judge distances and often walk into moving vehicles usually the back end of them, as I get too close sometimes and just clip them with my arm although I have been known to just stop and stand in the way, this causes drivers to shout and beep at me but I just shuffle off and bump into something else as I get more confused. It is rare that I venture out alone and must trust the judgement of others. This can be very distressing at times I have come to trust my partner implicitly but not many other people. Actually the problem of crossing the road is a product of a few symptoms and as time goes on I am sure that I will improve as my balance and visual impairment improves. The foremost worry is that I just cannot make my mind up if what I am seeing is true or false far away or near. The feeling that something is near and something is far away feels the same now so I have to judge by the size of things and how quickly they change size. To put it another way, if the car seems big I stay on the pavement, if its small in size I run. On other occasions we might meet people that want to stop and talk, this irritates me beyond belief because sometimes I feel they are not familiar to me and even worse if one person changes place for another, i.e. they swap places whilst talking to me and I get distracted, I tend to think that the one I was looking at has changed into someone else, and that is scary. What is annoying is that people think that because I no longer have the palsy, I am fine and back to my normal self. I know I am not, I am aware of changes although I find difficulty in explaining all of them. Another thing about conversing with people is that I find it hard to keep up with what is being said and often people talk over me as I take so long to answer. Sometimes people speak for me and finish of sentences. Often the opposite of what I mean. A nice little example of how it sometimes goes for me is the little story of three old women sitting on a bench outside: First old biddy: Isn't it windy? Second old biddy: No, it's Thursday. Third old biddy: So am I lets have a cup of tea! I have come to realise that if I close my eyes I can take in a bit more and get it right, that brings problems within itself as it is considered rude to close one's eyes whilst being spoken too, and it is dangerous when walking and talking. Unlike the old biddies I am not deaf my hearing is finely tuned and if anything is hypersensitive to sounds. You may be surprised to find out that people tend to over emphasize words as they would to a deaf individual, this I do tend to over look, as it is sometimes amusing. I sometimes feel that I am like a bad egg, undetected on the outside and rotten inside, you can't tell until you see inside it. It is frustrating and infuriating and just to recap nothing seems real, sounds and smells are different sometimes to the extreme, I have this constant feeling that I should be somewhere else, I try to believe what people are telling me but there always seems to be doubt in my mind as to their veracity. Is there a plot? Am I being controlled by something else? Are these people or a figment of my reality? I can't make up my mind on many issues. And the noises in my head are awfully distracting as well as annoying. Even going to the toilet and taking a bath has its problems. I mean to say what if I think I'm in the loo and I'm not? What if I am sat on a shop display in B&Q? (Stop giggling!) Bathing has always been fun for me it is way to relax and unwind and play with our animals with the bubbles etc. Now I dread the thought of getting in, as it feels drastically unlike it did before. The bath feels hard and cold against my skin and the water around me makes me gasp for air. Showering is not so much a problem so its not like I have problems with hygiene as I will shower, but I do have an awful problem staying in our bathroom upstairs, again I have no idea why. Other things that make me uncomfortable are going up our stairway as well as being in the upstairs bathroom. I find it difficult not to sit on the stairs and this is something that annoys me and I cannot seem to stop it happening, for no reason at all I will suddenly get a burning desire to sit on the stairs. I throw my hands up in despair, why do I do these things? I also have bouts of uncontrollable laughter. This has and could lead to all sorts of problems as it is difficult to contain. It happens for no reason and is embarrassing especially in a crowded place or inappropriate times. I find it impossible to control it and become irritating after an hour or so. Getting back to the sitting on the stairs, I would not mind if I was sat there doing something useful or even trying to read but I just sit and stare listening to the noises in my head. Another strange thing is that I keep looking for our kitchen light switch in another place. It is as if I am expecting it to be on another wall, very strange do you not think? I keep wrenching our kitchen taps the wrong way so they become jammed off, I can not seem to remember which is the correct way it is to turn them on or off. I might expect to do this if I had just moved house perhaps but not after living in the same place for years. Parallel universe syndrome or is it this dreaded symptom? I am beginning to wonder as many strange things are beginning to emerge as time goes on in this strange new world I seem to have woken up in, or perhaps I am dreaming, who knows? For a very long time the only real link with reality I had was old pictures and the way that our animals reacted to me, still with the pictures I have this nagging doubt in my mind that it is not really me in the picture even though I am reassured by friends and family that it is me. People I had once worked with I no longer know, again it is not so much what I see but the feelings I have about them and now to combat remembering new names I have to constantly go over them in my mind and hope that I remember the face too. Some time this week I went for a stroll through the park with our two dogs I was feeling rather tired and suddenly forgot about the dogs when I became interested in a bird that had flown low passed my head and swooped up into a tree. After a few seconds in my time I walked off. I looked about saw no dogs so I thought I had been to the shop, on realising that I had no shopping I thought it strange that I was in the park without the dogs as I did not have a need to be where I was without dogs or shopping as all my other places to visit were in the other direction. If it was not for the fact that a neighbour had been watching me for twenty minutes and knew the dogs had wandered off I would have been stood there still pondering my next move. She walked over and asked if I was okay she brought the dogs with her, they had made their way to her house sniffing about in the grass. Most people that know me are very kind in that respect they keep an eye out for me and that is nice to know. However people that do not know me tend to think I am intoxicated or just give me a funny look. I used to be quite active and most of my activities now are confined to safe places and places I can be escorted. I no longer fish as it is near water and there is the possibility that I may fall in have a seizure and drown. I keep myself amused by logging new species of birds, trees and insects that I have not seen before, even though I seem to have information about their habitat and general bits of information which I recall after finding out what it is that I am seeing. For example, I know that a butterfly lays eggs on our cabbage plants, they do not bite or sting but I cannot remember seeing one before now, but I must have seen one before. Trees look so different to anything that I have ever seen before and I love to watch them. Flowers look bright and even rain holds me captive for hours on end. The floor feels strange beneath my feet, if I take off my shoes it feels even stranger just as if the ground is moving around my feet. It is real difficult to explain but discovering this sensation was and still is such a big deal to me even today. Everything feels different, it looks different and feels strange. I was most amused by the feeling I got from chewing bubblegum , and I have to say that I felt as if it was chewing me, so I have not had it since. I have developed a strange desire to taste things these days but it is the texture that interests me the most rather than the taste. It has been explained to me that this could be dangerous, I try to resist the urge to taste things but sometimes I forget and have a mini lecture from Jaci about the dangers of tasting things from plants and why I should not pick things up from the floor. I have to admit that I enjoy chewing crunchy textures and have taken a liking to hot and cold foods together, the variation of hot and cold is an enjoyable experience, something I have not known before. (How bizarre...) Daisies are nice to suck, I have an endless supply over the park but once again I have been warned by Jaci that dogs pee on flowers. (Yuk!) I went through a phase of munching berries from the garden, much to the horror of Jaci and her daughter who lives next door to us. When I look at trees I have the burning desire to eat a bit if the bark. It seems so delicious and makes me salivate. I like licking rain drops from windows too, the taste of the rain water and its soft texture feels so good against the glass I get pleasure from it. Again Jaci informs me that flies land on windows so, I have been banned from licking the windows and also it makes the glass smeary. I enjoy smelling new things too, I love the smell on cats, dogs, petrol and creosote and plastic bin liners. At first I thought that I had lost my sense of smell, however it has altered. Eggs smell like onions and so do many other things. Trying to keep new memories in my head is taxing although I am doing well on that score I tend to become confused when the external stimuli is too much for me. But tasting things is the best way for me to find out what something is, I can smell it and taste it and lock its texture, colour and scent into my brain and recall it at a later date, but that is not always the case as I found with beetroot, beetroot to me is tasteless, scentless and looks a funny colour as if it is not devised for easting at all. It is all very new and the world is full of new things for me to discover what ever way I do it, I will have fun. I spy This game is a good one for focusing on independent items that tend to blend in to other things. However, do not try this in a supermarket, as it will make you feel ill. A major problem with super markets is the many different types of lighting and noises, people and different temperatures. Only recently have I noticed how cold it is in the isles containing butter and cheese etc. Okay so what? It is cold in all cold storage isles, ah yes but do we really notice the difference, yes we do but I notice it to the point where I stop and cant focus on anything else but escaping from it. This means a mad dash to get my mission done. The utter loathing I feel for those particular isles is extremely uncomfortable and for some reason I think of it as my fear factor challenge. Lights are another problem. The lighting in supermarkets are designed not only to let you see, designer lights are specialised to create an environment that will influence the shopper into purchasing more as are the packaging and structure of the store itself. So shadows and lights again, lots and lots of multi-coloured packets and tins and shining swinging bits and bobs come shooting around my head as I blunder and stumble into shopping carts and other things that come at me ninety to the dozen. How do I cope? I just go slowly and let people dodge around me apologising as I go. It is all good fun I suppose, but when it becomes just too much, I retreat to the safety of the car and sit in silence or both Jaci and I leave the shopping until another day and just go home. New adventures New tastes One positive thing about all this is that I have had more new experiences than I have had in a while. I have also found that many things I did enjoy I now detest or am not bothered about. It seems odd that I do not know if I like certain things such as my dilemma of if I liked malt drinks or cocoa, I can never get it right it seems so I just ask over and over again, but I do forget and I do not know how to stop this other than write my opinion on my arm in pen. I have been told that I do not like it, but while shopping I will insist that we buy both just to try which one I like, but I do not like either and at one time we had two lots of each in the bin, as they were not used. There other such stories as you can imagine. Such as thinking that you like Marmite only to find that you absolutely hate it Yuk! It does seem funny though that some things I know I like and others I seem to have lost the plot with. Pickled beetroot is another strange thing I have developed a taste for, I have astounded many with this new trick of mine as everyone has been telling me that I hated it before. I cannot argue with them as I really have no idea if I did or did not, very peculiar. I may add at this point that I am getting better at trusting my partner's judgements on things that I am not sure about. I have too, else our kitchen would be full of things I do not like. Mmm not good Taste and smell Since the accident my taste and smell has altered drastically. This is a problem when cooking, as I cannot taste or smell it however this affects others who have to endure my cooking, as I cannot taste it. I cannot say that I have no sense of smell or taste because I have it is just different. I smell onions from many types of food, even things that one might not connect, such as onion odours coming from chicken pork and eggs. Could it be that the reason I seem not to recognise some people is that my smell leads me to believe that they are not who they say they are? After all smell is important in relationships with people, if they don't smell right but they look familiar it is bound to be confusing I should think. (Or is that a bit deep?) Cooking with chillies or curry tends to be a bit of a shocker. I know when it is hot as the back of my head sweats and my partner runs out of the room to get water. I am not usually allowed to cook unattended, as I tend to forget what is happening next and wander off and do something else. Examples of this behaviour is forgetting that the bath is running, that the dogs are outside, I have no socks on or there is food cooking and I have been known to leave the oven on over night and most annoyingly I find half consumed cups of tea around the house, obviously me as I am the only tea drinker. I have cut down on cigarettes too as they have gone out before I remember that I have lit it or indeed which ashtray it is in. I roll my own too so that helps as I am that slow at rolling it takes about ten minute per roll up. Another annoying thing about lack of taste is salt. Salt tastes weaker that it did and as any chip eater knows oven chips needs salt as does Tomatoes. But I can't taste it so it piles up on my plate like the slalom slopes of Aspen. I have found the answer to this problem it is called Losalt and it is low sodium but high in salty taste. I keep saying lack of taste, more to the point I should say alteration of taste, most things smell and taste of onions as I mentioned earlier and I have no theories as to why this should be as yet. There is something positive about not having a good sense of smell though, as we live around farms it makes cows smell nicer, but not chicken poo. Between one thing and another my brain has placed me in a very strange world. Taste, smell, vision and balance all altered and alien although rather familiar too. Many new fears and new things to learn probe and investigate. The feelings that have me believe I should be somewhere else remain with me all day, as does this constant feeling that nothing is real and this homesickness is driving me insane. Fatigue Everyone has fatigue at some point, over worked psychiatric staff in Cardiff down to basket makers in Africa. The feelings are the same, we feel drowsy, sluggish and irritable. Attention and focus diminishes with tiredness and it is not surprising as the body has many functions and tasks to be carried out every second of the day, some we think about some we do not, such as breathing or eating. I find it difficult to multi-task, my head hurts and becomes hot when this occurs my judgment becomes confused and I lose the ability to walk in a straight line. I have this constant feeling that I have a tightly fitted scull cap around my head and this distracts me quite a bit. Sometimes if three or more activities are going on around me I freeze or slow down. It helps me to refocus my attention if I am able to close my eyes but not for too long as I have been known to simply fall asleep. It would seem that my daily capabilities are linked to how fatigued I am or have been the day before and also the amount of stimuli that I have incoming from my environment at the time. To illustrate this I will tell you about my day out at Asda after my stint ( Little visit) to the hospital. Thursday morning I swung myself out of bed, eyes shut tight my legs are like lumps of lead and my throat is dry I have slept from 8:30pm last night without waking. Finally after three hours of shuffling about trying to get dressed and find where I have placed trainers, cups of tea, toothpaste and a huge range of other lost items that I knew I had only just put down somewhere we are ready to visit the post office and then Asda. My treat today for not putting my sport top on backwards is a Big tasty from McDonalds (Keep the big tasty in mind here okay) I was sleeping before I got to the car, I tripped over two shadows and scared next doors cat under a parked car, I miss judged the headroom getting into the car and hit my ear on the side of the roof getting in. Once in the post office queue I nodded off and slipped off the lottery stand that I had perched my elbow on just missing a stack of beer cans and catching my funny bone on a door handle that I slipped passed much to the delight of my local post master and assistant. Who ever called the funny bone the humorous should be shot, it hurts like crazy when knocked. Docile and battered I walked back outside to the car where my partner pointed out that I had forgotten all of what I had to pay (Phone, gas electricity, daily newspaper, lottery and student loan.) The ironic thing was I had a list in my pocket I was so tired it was all I could do to say hello let alone remember what I had to do. I slept from Raglan services to Asda at Cardiff gate, a journey of approximately 48 miles I think. When we got to Asda we decided that it would be a good idea to shop first then go get my treat and a cup of tea (Mmm) I was a wreck coming out of Asda after all the hustle and bustle and deciding where to stand not to be in the way, we got the shopping done after about two and a half hours as I kept getting lost and bumping into things and as we neared the checkout my stomach was yelling out for a big tasty my mouth watered. Packing done we paid the bill, I slugged my way to the car we threw the bags in the boot, god how far is it around the corner? My stomach gave out a nine point nine on the Richter scale as we pulled up to the booth and the big tasty was at last in sight we got the bag and parked up I took one mouthful and threw up. Be warned tiredness can kill and make you throw big time. I was so exhausted I slept all the way home, without the big tasty. Ever had one of those days? Home life and Relationships. How do you know if something is real? I suppose if you hit something solid it must be real but what happens when you know it must be real but nothing feels real at all. Memories tell me that reality had existed but now it may only exist when I feel something solid such as another animal or something like a building or a car etc, and then I can believe it because I have to believe it as I can now feel it. Feeling that I should be some other place doing something else mixed with the problem of not having a grip on reality is extremely hard to live with especially when you feel as if you are not at home and with the person you were with before an accident. Can you imagine waking up in some other person's life? Not knowing that the computer in the study is yours and has been for four years? I am still vaguely amused every time I turn my PC on that my name appears on a file or a piece of work done sometime ago. I read reports that I once prepared wondering who wrote it but knowing it was I all along, how do I know it was? Because it has my name on it, other people have told me that I did it. But what if they are lying to me? Then again why would anyone take such actions and set me up in this way? I am only me after all and there I rest my case. I think the F.B.I have bigger criminals to chase than me. But that is what it feels like sometimes. Even after consoling myself with such arguments I am still not sure. It is exhausting having to always test the veracity of what you are seeing and feeling inside. That gut feeling you get when you know something is wrong, or perhaps just not right and you cannot place your finger on what is wrong, that is what I feel everyday of my waking hours now. Deciding what is reality and what are false feelings takes some effort. It can also take up a great deal of time. As I am writing this I keep wondering why I am doing it at all. It may be just my imagination playing tricks with me. Perhaps I dreamt that it had been suggested. Logic tells me though however hard my feelings tempt me to believe that it is not true, I have to trust that it is. When I crossing the road a fight breaks out between eyeballs and emotions. It would seem that my eyes tell my brain "Stop. There is a car approaching." And my emotional response is? " What car, is there a car coming or not um, really can't say old bean I'm not sure there is something there looks like a car, sounds like a car, but no it cant be can it?" By this time I could be squished or still stood on the spot knees swaying back and forth trying to decide to run or stay. Now I just go and pray on the way over to every available god known through out history. Sounds like fun does it not? Let it be said the effect is far worse in a supermarket or crowded room, however the bumps are less major and painless. The biggest problem I have had to deal with as yet, in relation to this reality displacement as they call it. concerns my partner. I try to talk about how I feel, but I feel as if I go on and on and on. A never-ending stream of how things are how I feel and explanations for unusual conduct. It really is hard because I know everyone has problems my partner being no exception has a severe disability also. Having to accept and trust everything people say is hard and I am not very good at it. I become suspicious quite easily and have to be reassured many times over that all is well and good. Paranoia I trust my partner because I have to have some grounding in reality somehow. I would be lying if I said I liked it, because very often I feel that information given to me is false. On the other side where logic lives the argument is why would my partner lie to me, it must be true that I was here before the accident because there are pictures and clothes, neighbours that know me and some I also feel that I recognise. From here on in I have decided for the good of mankind that I am going to keep a diary. Today is the 3rd of March 2004, I know this as it is on my computer screen and it must be Wednesday as I am allowed up later this evening as I do not have to go to the out patients at the hospital in Whitchurch. In the morning, see what you can achieve if you concentrate. I have had an awful week and have deafened most of the staff bemoaning my fate, actually today I feel as though I have had a breakthrough from the focus and attention group run by two delightful staff members on a Wednesday afternoon. The answer to a major problem I have is to wear earplugs when working on something, it helps a great deal and although I still have ringing and buzzing and other kinds of white noise and thumping in my head, the only true voice I hear is my own and I am chuffed to bits with it. Thank you people! The pitch of the TV set has been muffled and I am working a lot better, faster and accurately so. Go girl what a brilliant suggestion miss pigtails. It strikes me as strange as I sit among other patients in the smoke room. I do not know everyone of them but some I have become very fond of. I believe that I get such a lift from these people and I have yet to realize just what it is that they give me. I can explain what I get from the staff and let me say here and now I understand only too well what they experience on a day-to-day basis and it is a very stressful choice of career and very demanding even to those that brag they have become hardened. Rubbish! I get support from the staff if and when I need it, that is how it should be and it is. I recognise a lot of the time the support I do need and I go off and moan and moan I use the staff like sounding boards and if the one is busy there is another to help. In fact I like every one of them equally, each has their own little idiosyncratic ways that makes each one special to me. Right enough crawling my knees hurt now. I am surprised to find when the smoke room fills up people open up and talk. They do a fair bit of moaning, but it never seems to be about what they are suffering from, however they do moan about the ward, the hospital, the staff, the ambulance service, even down to the financial state of the health service. But they never seem to moan about the cleaner on the ward or the fact that someone has burned the carpet or defaced the walls or equipment, in fact one would think that most of the day patients were prisoners being locked in the building. It sounds just like a "them and us" scenario, I wonder if that is why they bond so well in the smoke room? Oh no now I feel like 007, a mole, a spy. Will I ever cope with the paranoia? I am sure that the psychologist I regularly bend an ear for most times will help me over it. Actually we did speak today and I still am amused by the way I am being encouraged by her to write. In fact she says really positive things to me about what I have written. But I still do not believe that my qualities are such that I could write professionally let alone make a career out of it. People moan about many things but if they are moaning and as they are implying nothing works for them, why come to the day unit then? 29TH FEB The last week has been awfully depressing. I feel rather down and cannot seem to be bothered to do much at all. I have been researching into this affliction that is tormenting me to death. Thinking about my discoveries I should be glad that I have at last found others in my situation, however it has only confused me further because I have found three possible explanations and terms for it one being Gross cap syndrome on which I have to gather more info on. It has been suggested to me by my GP that the feeling of a tight band around my head may be Gross cap. I do not know if this is correct or not at this time. I believe I had an accident because all information about it is there in black and white, so there is no room for disbelief no matter what my inner feelings tell me. What really concerns me is that it had been suggested that I am suffering from "reality displacement", part of the Gross cap syndrome, a common thing I understand from medical staff at the Gloucester Royal when head injuries occur. During my search to find out more on the condition I found nothing of that title, nevertheless after many weeks of searching I found two other similar conditions that share some commonalities with this affliction however I would not say that all are familiar to me and therefore I feel I do not have. Depersonalisation disorder I would say sounds remarkably similar to what I am experiencing but so does what little I have found on Gross cap syndrome (which includes the feeling that one is wearing a tight fitting skull cap 24 hours a day) and reality displacement disorder and desensitisation. So which one is it? Or is it a possibility that the cause has something to do with the severity and duration of each symptom? I have no idea. I have taken this information from a public website; "Depersonalisation is a change in an individual's self-awareness such that they feel detached from their own experiences, with the self, the body and mind seeming alien or distant." (Kind of, yes I can see the similarities) Harmless I suppose when in a safe environment but not when one is interacting with a hostile environment such as: a busy town centre or a noisy kitchen full of sharp utensils and gadgets that can burn, cut and blend or a shop full of shoppers with shopping cart rage under the influence of children. Derealisation is said to be: Hang on just a second is it just me or has that sentence just inferred that it is all in the mind? So how come I feel like this permanently? I read that there are other ways to become desensitised and one way is to take a nasty fall on one's head. I suppose that it could be a symptom more than a disorder, the disorder being the harder to improve? I really cannot decide. All I want is a way out of this state I know I was not like this before that fall and that is what makes me so angry, it is frustrating to be slow and incompetent. Even watching snow falling makes me giddy and tired. I feel that my senses are turned up full and my brain hurts from the overload and yet I find that under some circumstances I function a lot better, but, and this is a big but, the world that I need to function in at 85% needs to be quiet and slow, no rushed conversation or loud noises or other conversation, let alone 100% how can this ever be? It is an impractical world that I look for in my search. I try so hard to be normal I feel inferior and less able than I ever did. I make myself go outside and continue to do so even today. I know it would be much easier to comply with my feelings and give in, stay safe indoors but if I do that I may as well have died that night. It is not only going out that has changed by the way of perception and emotions, taking a bath is probably one of the most horrific events of my day and I loath it beyond belief. The way it feels against my skin makes my blood run cold and my bones feel as if they will poke through the sides. I hate the way the water feels too, I get quiet claustrophobic some times and the water feels quite weird. I know I am repeating myself but it does terrify me. I used to be much more self-assured I mixed well with others quite the gig animal that raved in laser lights until six in the morning and then gone to work on the Saturday, no more of that for me I can only just put up with an indicator light for a few seconds before I feel ill now. I suppose it is good for me to have a moan, especially on paper as it saves staff having to buy earplugs (haha). According to other research I have found: A psychologist by the name of Dugus coined the term depersonalisation disorder in 1898 also stating that it was a unique medical condition. Until recently it has resided under the umbrella term of Disassociative disorders in the Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) which is said to be the bible of psychiatric diagnosis. On one of the web sites that are dedicated to Depersonalisation disorder I found this information. I cannot tell why it makes me feel a bit better but it does. How bizarre. Oscar Janiger a Los Angeles psychiatrist who had suffered with Depersonalisation disorder himself, apparently he was a former associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine, and treated countless patients with Depersonalisation Disorder through out his forty odd year practice. I also found out that: "Depersonalisation is the third most common psychiatric symptom and frequently occurs in life-threatening danger, such as accidents, assaults, and serious illnesses and injuries; it can occur as a symptom in many other psychiatric disorders and in seizure disorders. As a separate disorder, depersonalisation has not been studied widely, and its occurrence and cause is unknown." Patients have a distorted perception of themselves, their bodies, and their lives, which makes them uncomfortable. A person may feel as if he is an automaton or is in a dream. Often the symptoms are transient and occur with anxiety, panic, or phobic symptoms. However, symptoms can be chronic and persist or recur for many years. (Ah ha sounds more like it, so I might be a D-person after all then) Patients often have great difficulty describing their symptoms and may fear or believe the symptoms mean they are going crazy. The patient often feels unreal and may experience the world as unreal and dreamlike. " "Some patients are minimally impaired; others become severely compromised or even disabled. Although some can adjust to depersonalisation disorder or even block its effect, others have chronic anxiety about their state of mind, worry whether they are going crazy, or ruminate on the implications of their distorted perceptions of their bodies and their sense of estrangement from themselves and the world." "Complete recovery is possible for many patients, (Oh good) especially those whose symptoms occurred in connection with stresses that can be dealt with in treatment (Oh no). Other patients do not respond well to treatment but may gradually improve on their own. (Ah ha, that is one answer I had an accident that is why my condition is not improving as fast as I had hoped, still Rome as they say...) "The feeling of depersonalization is often transient and resolves spontaneously. Treatment is warranted only if the disorder is persistent, recurrent, or distressing. Various psychotherapies (e.g., psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, hypnosis) are successful for some patients, but no one treatment has proved effective for all. Tranquillisers and antidepressants have helped some patients. Other psychiatric disorders, which are often associated with or precipitated by depersonalization, must be treated. Treatment must address all stresses associated with the onset of the disorder. Diagnosis is made based on the symptoms. The physician must rule out physical disorders, substance abuse, and other Dissociative disorders. Psychological tests and special interviews are helpful." Okay so I have had tests and I am undergoing therapies of various kinds some that I understand some I do not. If it helps lets do it I say. I am coping better than I did last year I think. People tell me that I have improved in various ways. I suppose it's like being born again but with a more upgraded intelligence, for want of a better analogy, but in a different world on another planet. Perhaps I have been switched with a doppelganger from a parallel universe and that is why it all feels so unfamiliar but so very familiar I really do not know and now I have confused myself so much I have a head ache and the sides of my head feels like two saddle bags filled with hot water, I need a break. During my break in the kitchen I realised that my functioning was slow in reaction and it took some doing to get a simple task done. The task was to get tablets into a weekly dosage box marked with the days of the week and clearly numbered. I have left it on the table half filled and with the wrong dosage again. Once again the variations in noise were too much for me I am really annoyed with myself. It would seem that different cycles that a washing machine goes through has different frequencies of noise. When certain frequencies are sounding it really inhibits my performance in basic tasks. I remember something from newborn and infant studies years ago how babies and toddlers were sent off to sleep by the noise of a car engine, this is not a quote but I think the it had something to do with frequencies and tones. Perhaps the noise inhibits the functioning of my brain because it is tired anyhow so the noise lulls it, it's a theory. Perhaps that has something to do with it all, I do not know. Perhaps it would have been better to have not known my self before. I feel a sense of loss un-yet I know who I am. Am I going through a grieving process for my lost self? My psychologist thinks that I am as I have spoken to her today. I was going to take this in with me but I thought it was pointless, not because of the results from the team that looks after me but, I didn't think it was worth it, I cannot say why as I do not know, I get those feeling of worthlessness quite often. I think studying psychology has hindered me somehow. I just cannot stop researching and generally wearing myself out. I need to know what is going on and how I can help myself most of my time awake and even in my dreams. My biggest fear is that on the career front time is running out for me. Most positions require a minimum of three to five years experience and time waits for no one including those with problems such as is being experienced by myself and countless others. I feel quiet worthless at times and it amuses me to hear another person remark that I am academic. If I was so clever then I would be able to make sense of this and set myself free from this insania (Oh no when did Peter Andre get into my head?). I still have a sense of humour that is a bonus and yes I can make light of this entire mess if I try but sometimes it strikes a sinister blow. I recall how easy it was to take on mounds of projects and finish them all within a few days, now it takes me weeks in a quiet and isolated environment. Interruptions blinding my concentration and putting me all on edge that leads to confusion and fatigue. Oh no I feel a ditty coming on... My Temporal lobes have been jolted, my parietals are still in a mess, the visual cortex is buggered and my best thinking now done with a guess. The world looks to me like I am dreaming, I feel alien and rather alone, at least if I was a real alien, I would be able to go and phone home. As it has been shown I can still string together a little rhyme, but I am in semi quiet and it is directly internal, all I am doing is typing down my thoughts so that is not as cognitively taxing as typing research from a book or another secondary source and it has taken over an hour to accomplish and now yet again I am in need of a break. Capgras Syndrome was named after its discoverer, the French psychiatrist Jean Marie Joseph Capgras. The person's main delusion is that an impostor or an exact double despite recognition of familiarity in appearance and behaviour has replaced a close relative or friend. The following information I have taken from a web page. "The patient may also see himself as his own double. Also known as Delusional misidentification, illusion of doubles, and illusion of negative doubles, misidentification syndrome, non-recognition syndrome, phantom double syndrome, and subjective doubles syndrome." Delusions better known as false beliefs sometimes have bizarre content that are held with strong conviction even in the presence of contrary evidence. For individuals suffering from Capgras Syndrome they typically believe they exist in a world of impersonators. This feeling in a delusional world of doubles can be so alarming that it drives the Capgras sufferer to psychotic behaviour. The syndrome typically has the following characteristics: The person is convinced that one or several persons known by the sufferer have been replaced by a double, an identical looking impostor. The patient sees true and double persons. It may extend to animals and objects. Associated Features: Differential Diagnosis: Schizophrenia Cause:
"Although incredibly disturbing to experience depersonalisation is quite harmless, it just feels dreadful. It is caused by a shift of perception in the part of the brain that provides us with awareness of our environment and disappears after anxiety levels have been reduced back down to a 'normal' level."
"A change in an individual's experience of the environment, where the world around him/her feels unreal and unfamiliar. Again, this symptom is caused by a change in the way senses perceive our surroundings due to sensitised, anxious, nerve signals reaching the brain. It is completely harmless but can be disturbing. The more you give it credibility, the longer it stays with you. As anxiety levels are reduced, derealisation disappears. "
The person is conscious of the abnormality of these perceptions. There is no hallucination. The double is usually a key figure for the person at the time of onset of symptoms. If married, always the husband or wife accordingly.
Some disorders have similar symptoms. The clinician, therefore, in his diagnostic attempt, has to differentiate against the following disorders that need to be ruled out to establish a precise diagnosis.
Alzheimer's Disease
Huntington's Disease
Multiple Sclerosis
Traumatic Brain Injury
Substance-Induced Delusional Disorders - hallucinogens and alcohol
Mood Disorders with Delusions - manic and depressive types
Dementia
"It has been reported that the Capgras Syndrome and related substitution delusions, that 35% have an organic aetiology. Some researchers believe that Capgras' syndrome can be blamed on a relatively simple failure of normal recognition processes following brain damage from a stroke, drug overdose, or some other cause. This disorder can also follow after accidents that cause damage to the right side of the brain. Therefore, controversies exist about the aetiology of Capgras Syndrome; some researchers explain it with organic factors, others with psychodynamic factors, or a combination of the two."
Treatment:
Personally I think I am definitely more of a D-person, how about you? It has been a busy week for me and now I am winding down. All this thinking and this
typing is killing me quietly and I need to sleep.
As I lay in bed this morning I could hear music playing away outside, our neighbour was washing his car. The music was not loud but still I was aware of my eyes jumping about in time to the music. I lay there just thinking about my eyes, feeling the way they seem to move around in the eye socked searching for light, jumping to every sound, they feel abnormally big to me. One of our cats had jumped upon the bed but I was concentrating so much on keeping up with my eyeballs that I must have leaned my arm on top of her back, she screamed and swiped at me just catching my arm. As soon as I realised what I had done I tried to make amends but cats are hard creatures to please and trying to explain that I was sorry was futile, until lunch anyhow.
This is something you can try yourself, just close your eyes and listen under normal conditions we hardly realise that out senses are responding to every minuscule bit of information whatever the source, just make sure that you are not leaning on a cat at the time.
It is hard to explain just how hard it is to focus on something that once was an automatic procedure. An example of this is falling over whilst watching clouds go by or trying to walk in a straight line while carrying cups of liquid. Walking upstairs whilst carrying the ironing and negotiating which foot goes where and how high one should step.
Focus and attention is everything. If you are not focused then you will not be paying attention and that is probably why I tend to throw away spoons, knives, table mats, cartons of milk and other such things that I should not be throwing away.
It is quite easy to take for granted all the things we do at one time, such as making tea, coffee, and sandwiches whilst keeping up with the conversation and with music playing in the background.
Another scenario could be at work. The noise of computers, the moving off furniture as someone shifts about. Perhaps someone has a cough, someone else is breathing heavy and then you have the noise of traffic and you have to answer the phone among muffled conversation.
Sometimes it is possible to cut down on distractions such as wearing ears plugs to cut background noise but visionary distractions tend to run amuck and there is little that can be done.
A perfect illustration of how hard it is to cut out visual stimulus is a little story of a car ride to Newport concerning a bag of sweets and a small stone.
Bright and very early one morning my partner decided that a ride out to Newport would kill or cure my depressed head that I had been wearing for a week. The air was crisp, it made the tips of my ears sting as we set off to the car, only a few feet away from us, nonetheless a mile or so for us as the shadows leaped up at my eyes and the sun shone like it does in the Alps, bloody blinding.
I must say that my hard working partner deserves a medal the size of a frying pan, guiding me whilst keeping me upright, watching and holding on as I make my wobbly way.
Once in the car I try to get my belt on, I close my eyes all I see are green and yellow after images that dance around in my head, this makes me quite giddy. I start to laugh I cannot say why but what ever it is, it is all-good, and it has to be, why else would I laugh?
With that consoling notion I ease myself back into the seat and watch as the light show commences. I hear and feel the engine start, my partner's pride and joy is now in gear and off we wiz in some direction at this point I am holding my stomach as I chuckle away, I have parted with hard earned money for a ride like this at the fairground in Barry Island.
I wait for a few minutes before I attempt to open my eyes let alone look out of the window with the landscape and other traffic going by at strange angles and speeds. My partner reaches over and rubs my hand to let me know I am not alone. I am asked if I would like a sweet, I say that I would. I ask where they are, I am told the glove box. You would think that this is a simple task, but the sun is still shining and where I have had my eyes closed I still have a trace of after image going around at a fair rate and I am now disorientated. I find the sweets, take one out and turn to where I think my partner is sitting open mouthed in readiness, but no, I threw it on the floor. Still laughing I tried all ways to find it, so I dished out another but this time I just held it out for it to be taken. The sun is flickering now and I am squinting into space as I am feeling about on the floor. (And before you say anything the floor was clean and the sweet was a smooth mint.) I thought I had found it, but with all the focus taken from my sense of touch I grabbed the mint (Pebble) and popped it into my mouth.
There are times to tell one's beloved things and there are times that you do not, this time was one of them. That pebble had obviously been in the tread of my trainers. Oh no!
On a more serious note, noise and light is very taxing. I wonder if we actually broke it down into percentages, which would be the most taxing senses? I would not mind betting a pound that vision is at the top of the list perhaps followed by hearing then smell and touch.
If you think about it flashing lights are so annoying and so is loud music, neither of them conducive to the functioning of the brain. Then you have touch and smell. I think that touch might have the less taxing effects. For example, I could easily be able to read while someone is massaging my back but if some dirty sod gave a disgustingly bad smelling fart I would not be able to concentrate at all.
When I could drive I used to absolutely enjoy night time motorway driving. The darkness around me, the acceleration and loud music there was nothing I could not do in that car.
I was a space cadet going through lanes of flashing lights, I would shoot invisible laser guns from the headlights at the space pirate lorries that passed me. With a bit of imagination and Lisa lashes on the CD player I would be flashing passed the lights at warp speed.
Today that fiction is my reality, flashing cone lights render me useless. I slow down mentally, my speech becomes slurred and I am hardly able to put a sentence together. No Gate Crashers Ball for me this year, although I have been told it has been nearly three years since I ever attended a function like that, but time has little or no meaning for me. My attention to time has altered too and that is a problem that holds many others.
Time since the Babylonians and Mayans time has engulfed our lives Egyptians, Aztecs and Incas everyone is at it. Every day our world is run by time, night time too. It is a very strange concept because all it does is force people to rush about and become stressed, but not me, not anymore anyhow.
When I worked I had to be there on time. It was pretty straight forward I got up, I showered had a cup of tea, drove to work. Time for many of us goes rather quickly in the morning especially if a family has a child to attend to that is common knowledge. However what has happened in my life causes time warps, sometimes worthy of Moulder and Scully investigating the strange phenomena. I feel an illustrating story coming on. (Looks up, clouds and wonky vision twig light zone approaches)
Sometimes on a Monday evening I visit a close friend to play chess, it takes approximately five minutes to walk from our front door to his.
Sometimes I have taken twenty minutes and I cannot explain why. This problem is extended to making tea in the kitchen, dog walking and other things.
Asking me to make a coffee is like asking a Greek waiter for one, you will get it when it arrives, although I try to be as quick as I can. How long I take depends greatly upon the amount of activity I suppose, however these lapses of time have occurred when only myself has been present and the kitchen was relatively quiet. Is it an overload, it may well be. I have always been an active thinker. My mind will debate by its self all day. The content of the debate could cover a thousand topics from cosmology to environmental issues, scientific analogies to what does an insect think or even better what is for supper and can I find a fag paper? There seem to be musical tones being emitted from the central heating tank and it sounds like a repeat of Dido's new songs. No wonder I find it difficult to maintain my focus and attention as the water system sounds like another song. Hey and even better, our refrigerator sounds as if it just asked me for a water bottle. I would like to impress on staff at this point I do not really believe it ok, I know they are just sounds just in case you think I should be sectioned.
The therapy at the day unit will help me with this, I am hoping to see some improvement in a while, I have no idea how long I have been attending but I realise that it will take time.
There is a worrying aspect to all of this and that is the safety aspect.
If left unattended in control of the cooking I tend to become side tracked and often had burnt pans and set fire to the toast and such like accidental happenings.
Other problems might sit at the other end of the spectrum. Over focusing tends to be just as much of a problem than not focusing, for example in the kitchen earlier I was pouring out a drink, in an attempt not to spill it or over fill the cup I became suddenly aware hat most muscles in my body were stiff and at peculiar angles. I was also biting down on my tooth into my lip, which was quite sore afterward.
I mentioned this strangeness to some friends of mine and they told me that they too had noticed. One pointed out that my hand would be held at an angle and held there until I had finished doing whatever it was. They described it in an analogical way; my brain seems to be acting in a similar pattern to a printing queue on a computer.
When the system is full other programs have to close down and only when the queue is systematically reduced will the program respond by spooling other information.
That explains why I cannot any longer drink from a cup and walk as I did before when I was in a rush. If I drink, I stand very still these days.
Touch is a very strange concept; it gives much information about our external environment such as; when to put more clothes on when to take some off, it gives direction of what is touching you for example, a stick touching your back, a stone in your shoe and so on.
When I touch something I can feel it is solid or fluid or electrically charged from the static that my body produces. I can feel the Sun shining on my face and arms, but it could all be a dream.
I try to focus on reality and it is extremely hard to say if something I am touching is real or a figment of my imagination, however I cannot doubt that it is there. This cannot be logical and therefore it confuses me how can I get this feeling from out of my body. I find it difficult to function when I have this paradoxical problem to deal with because if I find no answer in solving it, am I living in a real world?
Am I acting accordingly? I do not know so I just respond to other people event-by-event, happening-by-happening. Every second of my day I watch and observe situations and try to read peoples responses so that I can tell if I am acting appropriately because as far I can tell, I do not know. Confused? Join the club.
Sensory deprivation has its weird moments. Since I have been wearing earplugs to block out external noises that I find distracting I have come to realise that my brain has switched tactics and now I find myself suddenly snapping out of trances.
I seem to be experiencing micro glitches I think my eyes are taking a battering now. They have been taking the overload from the ears (I think she's going to blow captain, "aye Scottie")
As I look at the screen now and again it flickers to me not to look away, it entrances my eyeballs with its flickering nano pixels. That's it I was captured by aliens and they are sending subliminal messages to me through the computer screen. They are saying, "Go to thy kitchen and make a cup of tea."
"Yes master I will obey". And off I scuttle to get the flask that my partner has made me, so that I do not have to operate the kettle, as it is 23:33 and I still find it difficult to settle so I am alone down stairs in the study. "So caring", I smile to myself as I pour it over my feet because I am thinking of how good she is for caring. I hate irony.
There is a positive side to having the attention span of a dead kipper I hate to admit that I really enjoy a hand rolled cigarette, however since the accident I have saved quite a lot on tobacco and cut right down as I very rarely finish rolling one and sometimes find that a half made cigarette is still in front of me after sitting there for half an hour or more.
When I do manage to roll one, I usually lose it and if I do not lose it I quite often drop it in a sink of water or put it in the bin and set fire to the bin, mistaken by my brain for an ashtray.
Pain is another deflector of focus as are headaches and other symptoms that make us feel unwell.
Much time had passed after the accident had occurred and the medication that I was prescribed was being reduced. During this time I became more aware of feelings and I became sensitive to touch in that something would feel familiar but it felt alien, I was under the notion that these feeling were being generated by the cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs, perhaps an after effect of steroids and such like.
Daily I have headaches I have four different types of headaches sometimes |I can have one or the other and on the odd occasion I have experienced all four together.
The first headache I describe more of a head pain rather than an ache. This can be disabling alone at its worst.
It tends to attack the temples and travels down the back of my head. The pain reminds me of the feeling one gets when a hair clippers is held at the back of the head at the protrusion just above the nape following down to the neck to the tip of the spin.
It is a burning sensation that gives the feeling of blistering of the skin, like a fuzzy irritating stinging feeling.
This then spreads to the ears and side temples, the feeling there is very much the same and the effect can last for several days at a time and seems to be running on a sliding scale from a minimal percentage of around 2 at its lowest up to a blinding 100 percent which switches me off completely.
This happened to me over our local park when I had decided to have a swing. I had left the house with the headache I find it difficult to give in to it, hence the bruises, bumps and scratches I now wear like badges.
If this occurs in a shop I know the cause, but I am not so sure about an explanation for every time it has happened, although it rarely occurs in quiet settings apart from when I am worried about some or I have a problem to solve.
The second headache is with me all the time that I am awake; it feels as if I am wearing a skullcap. The feeling goes from the top of my nose up about an inch and a half like a band. It travels around my head to the back and straight up over the middle of my head back to the top of my nose in between my eyes. This has varying degrees of severity and tends to be forgotten until I am trying to focus on a task, such as typing or reading or keeping track of a message on the phone among other things. Travelling in the car intensifies the feeling greatly and quite often it fatigues me to the point that I have to sleep else I am physically ill.
The third type is a banging thumping feeling that does not seem to originate from any particular point of origin, it just arrives for no reason other than to annoy me. It is sudden and electrical, it can last from seconds to almost a minute perhaps I can not be sure, in real time it could be an hour, only I am sure if this occurred for a noticeable length of time then someone would have detected it by now?
The fourth type is not unlike a migraine effect. It attacks the sinuses and the eyes. This I usually get from being anxious and being in the car does just that. This usually I can half by taking prescribed painkillers of a fairly medium dose.
It is accompanied by the feeling of blistering and has a buzzing feeling to it usually around the top of my head about five inches in circumference.
All four of these happenings affect my ability to function correctly in many ways as you may or may not appreciate.
They reduce my output so I am slower in reaction in decision-making especially if I am conscious of some other input such as when I am cold or being rained on, all these distractions take up much energy.
To a person without these problems everyday tasks goes un-noticed as other tasks are carried out time after time after time. Even as I am typing this I am aware that an earplug is pressing upon my skin and it is annoying me to hell and back. The out come is that I concentrate so much upon the earplug that I start to make spelling errors and although when I type I use two fingers and I dare not look elsewhere other than the keypad I still cannot get my fingers to hit the correct keys.
My arms feel alien to me they feel as if they belong to someone else.
Have you ever seen demonstrated the party piece performed by two people. The one stands behind he other their arms pushed under the person in front? It looks like the person in front has really weird arms the one at the back desperately trying to find the mouth of the person in front? This is usually done with a pint of something just to add to effect and it looks hysterical to the audience. A good analogy of how I sometimes feel about my limbs.
I know they belong to me but I feel that they don't for example have you ever been in the situation whereby someone you know goes away for a few years, you miss them so very much yet when they get back you feel nothing? That is how I feel about me, that has me worried slightly I have no logical explanation and I am too tired to reason why.
There are many questions in my mind as there are stars in the sky and there are as little answers as there have been contacted from alien life.
One such question is how is it possible for me to regain some sense of reality but not one hundred percent?
I realise and I am so thankful that I have not lost the skill of reading and writing and playing chess. In the unit, there are some people that are not as fortunate one such young man comes into my mind.
Thinking of him makes me feel so many emotions it is unbelievable. He was a singer, a performer he could play a keyboard and he sounded just great he and his mate had a two-piece band, I recently purchased a tape from him. I had not realised that it was his tape playing in the background and in passing I mentioned how nice the music was. Little by little he explained to me that it was in fact him singing and playing the keyboard. He could take off a load of artists such as R.E.M and the stones, he played Robert Mile's track Children among others.
Now this is the bit that sucks, during an accident he lost the ability to speak and has other physical disabilities, what a f*****g waste. Please excuse me this one swear word but if you only could feel the pain I feel for him it brings water to my eye (only the one works, it is not a misprint.)
The day I was made aware of this I was incapable of doing anything else but think about the traumatic event in that mans life. He would have gone a long way in the entertainment industry they were already touring clubs. He has a real talent and that is the damming thing he still has the talent but not the ability to carry them out functionally or physically that amounts to a very high cost in a person's outlook on life. And that is the most frustrating and unstoppable thought once it enters ones head.
Frustration can take your attention no matter where you may be or what ever you are doing. For example: You are with some people perhaps three or four others that stop to speak and some how in the conversation some one asks you a simple question such as so what are you doing these days? Before you can think of an answer the thought of not having anything to do makes you angry and sad. You already feel bad inside and outwardly although you try to cover up the fact that you have very little you can do, your body language has given you away with an unconscious slumping of the shoulders.
Most feelings that I feel are heightened by thoughts and I am very aware of it. I sit sometimes a search the web for alternative remedies for a calmer life from sucking celery to breathing deeply to the sound of whales calling each other I try in desperation to slow down my thoughts or block out stimulus from the external world so that I could have at least lied about something. Made up some story but instead I slurred something about a psychiatric day care unit and Sunlight disturbing my brain.
Needless to say it is at times like those that you find out who your real mates are and those you are better off without, still it hurts and then this goes on around your head and makes you feel worthless. It is a spiral in a downward manner the death spin how I think at all amazes me.
Social life is supposedly to relax ones soul and make new acquaintances and generally do what ever you find to be sociable. It extends ones knowledge by communication and shows an interest in other individual's well being and so forth.
I cannot state that I do not have a social life, but I can say that it has definitely changed in a dramatic manner. In fact I see very little people then all at once I may see many and have so many visitors that I fall asleep on them. But only three of my academic friends have stuck by me Duncan, a former lecturer and dear friend and my old mate Chris who got a first let me tell you and Mark who got a first also.
I did have a phonebook full of numbers a network of people that I could rely upon and they could rely upon me, whatever the task. Now they can no longer rely on me I am no longer part of the collective so to speak and the rest is obvious is it not?
The world seems to have little time for D- People. There I have said it I am a D-person. I had an accident that has left me with an affliction known as depersonalisation disorder among other things. And I do not like it one bit although I seem to be coping underneath I am annoyed but patience is my only collaborator while time is my Othello, my nemesis.
I am going to wage a war against my brain and I bet I lose. It is a lonely planet but I like it quiet.
Most of my attention goes on focusing on the reality side of things. I am afraid that if I let go that I may slip into an insane world with no way out while I battle with the real world, as it seems to me.
I apologise if that makes little or no sense, there again perhaps one ought to be worried if you should know what I mean.
There was a time I remember that I questioned my insanity but I cannot for the life of me decide when it was perhaps it just then or perhaps a week ago, who knows and the more I sit here thinking about it I do not really seem to care. It would seem that I am having a change of mood.
I think it has something to do with writing down my thoughts, I ramble away to this computer as if it gives a stuff about my problems, but it is I suppose a good sounding board as I have bound to have mentioned somewhere among these pages.
I do not foresee a future in publishing, as I would bore the pants off of anyone. But on a more positive approach it is good exercise for my brain and practice makes perfect. Night time is the perfect time to write for me, it is nice and quiet but I feel the cold and the heating has gone off on the timer.
Now I am faced with a problem that should be easily dealt with but no matter how I try I cannot make up my mind what to do and in the process I am freezing cold and slowing right down. So I hear you say turn on the heating, ah but then my beloved upstairs in bed will roast, so I have one other option. I have to turn on the portable gas fire. This mind you is at 2:52 and as you can appreciate if it is cold and especially at night, sound travels faster and a longer distance.
Now do I chance gassing myself? Or perhaps blow up the house. Even worse still I could wake up sleeping beauty upstairs or chip the wood work as I am in the study and it is in the lounge, behind the door which is at the side of the surround sound unit and television which I am bound to bash into with the fire.
Meanwhile back in the study my fingers are now turning blue and I am feeling like I am made from steel as I trudge to get the fire. I have no reason for not just going to bed. It would be so cosy and warm I love my bed especially when the cats are there, purring makes me sleepy.
This behaviour has cropped up before and without being crude, it happens usually before a monthly cycle if you know what I mean. Usually about two weeks before I have surges of pure energy for approximately twenty-four hours a few days a week. I use the word pure energy in a lose manner as sometimes I run out of puff and that influences the occurrence of the dreaded micro lapses in time spans and gaps in memory such as I mention about the Car ride shopping.
Now I am really cold, I have to take the chance and get the fire. If some finds this one-day and this ends right here, it was because did something with the fire, or scratched the woodwork okay...
I have returned unscathed and intact, however long it took, it was far too long and now I am so tired and hot that I no longer need the fire on but I got it in here with out waking. I feel lucky now I will return to my twittering after I carry out an old pagan ritual involving the Moon and a Hand full of silver.
Bad luck strikes in the kitchen and the cat is covered in water, cold but still water. I mistook the cup for the kettle and tried to fill it up from the water filter, it has gone everywhere and I failed to notice until half of it poured out.
Perhaps this is a bad idea and I should go to bed. I can see that it is 3:25 AM the right hand side of my screen has a clock as do other computers I suppose and sense tells me that I should go to bed, but I feel a sense of dread. It is a bit similar to the feeling I have when entering the bathroom upstairs I hate that feeling, for no reason at all after the fall I have had problems with entering the bathroom, again I do not know why nor can I tell you just what it is that makes me feel like this.
What I can tell you is sometimes I have a fear and loathing of that room so strong I will not go in alone. I try to rationalise my feelings and even though I realise the stupidity of my reactions I still find it difficult to cope with it. I have become better at coping with the problem by opening the bathroom window for ventilation in case it was just claustrophobia.
I do not have the door shut whenever I feel like this and I want a bath, if I need to use the toilet I use the down stairs facilities. I have even just gone in there to force myself, sometimes it works, sometimes I have to give in and get out.
I cannot give explanations and I cannot really say one hundred percent I know what I feel when it happens. I feel anxious about being in there and although it does not happen that often, it still is a bother if I am on a cleaning task. I tend to forget what I am doing as I just have blank moments then leave or just feel the need to get out, so I yield to my emotions and try to leave slowly so that at least I do not have to feel so bad about giving in.
I wonder apart from individuals that suffer from genuine phobia's just how many other people go through the same feeling about particular situation such as I have experienced. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would see life from the other side of reality, how strange everything appears, bizarre, complex and loud. Sharp, dull and every other sense that I have seem to be turned up to the maximum output and I cannot find the remote control to turn them down.
Come another few hours I will be useless and almost comatose through lack of sleep better to work while I can. I hate cyclic events, they do not come with instructions and I have no idea how to stop these disturbed nights. At least I think I know what it is. And my PA keeps a record of events that lead to behaviour disturbances such as sleep irregularities as I forget quiet a bit. It is 3:51 AM now and checking the time I am wondering when I will stop this mad few hours and get some sleep. Did I record the time on here somewhere? I will check. 2:52 that is almost an hour is it not? I think I am actually ready for bed now it is now 4:05Am and I have been leaning on my hand whilst having a nap. Goodnight. Time watching is taxing especially with the noise of the fire and the water pipes I had to take out my ear plugs to move the fire and I have lost them, yet again.
I wish I could get myself upstairs I am so fed up with feelings that will not allow me to settle into bed even though I am in desperate need of doing so. I will sleep down here to night on the new sofa, but I have no covers down here and I really feel as though I cannot go up the stairs.
I cringe at the thought and after staring at the screen with my head cupped in my hands I tackle the problem with compromise that when I get tired enough I will go to sleep. Now I have a severe headache and I have to go upstairs before I blank out completely.
It is two days later and I have returned to my computer in an attempt to write something down. I think I over did it the other night and now I am experiencing what I call a toffee moment.
Toffee moments as the name implies is a period of time when I feel as if I am walking through a pool of warm gooey toffee. I am slow like a three toed sloth ambling along, my responses are slow and my speech is impaired slightly by the fact that my head is banging and I fail to think quickly enough for my mouth so I say nothing, just mutter a reply and grunt in agreement now and again, suites me fine.
In toffee mode I find it difficult to deal with society. It is all so loud and colourful, faces and bodies swaying around me and I just toffee walk my way up through town hanging on to my partner blindly being led by the arm through the swirling masses.
Today I had put my shoes on the wrong feet again, but this time the error had been spotted before I tripped over my sticking out feet. This was just as well as today the Sun is shining but it is cold, so how bad could it get. I am blinded by shadows and dancing lights and moved by the swirling crowds brought out by the nice weather, delivery vans and lorries pull off, pull in and unload, I am starting to get slower and more confused by the minute. I trust the arm that is clutching me tight so I am not worried, just very tired.
Suddenly we are back in the car and just pulling at outside the house. Thank god for micro time lapses. I do not bother to report these occurrences now as the response is always the same and there is little one can do to resolve them and little can be done because before I realise what has happened, it is over.
What might have happened to me if I had been alone in town? Would I have wandered off somewhere or just stood still? I have no answer to that and I certainly do not wish to find out.
A little while later I sit trying to make sense of a conversation I am listening to on the television, sometimes it takes while before I get over the symptoms of overload. When I ask what was being said I was told that it was the weather forecast, strangely enough I thought it was in Russian. That happens quite a bit too. When trying to follow a conversation, sometimes the speaker will, for a few seconds sound as if they are speaking far too fast for my brain to make sense of what was said.
If you fast forward a tape by holding down the play button the noise that you hear is recognised as speech but the bad streaming, so to speak, causes it to be stretched and distorted into high frequency sounds this makes it difficult for the brain to make any sense about the content of the sentence let alone decipher any true meaning.
It is the 10th of March today and I really had problems about going to the day unit today. I really did not want to go. Yesterday was the same. It takes it out of me travelling in the Ambulance car and I find it very difficult to function in the mornings, however if I get up at 6am I tend to become more alert and by the time I am dropped off at the unit I am tired but at least I can function.
On my toffee days I get irritable and tired easily. A Toffee days expends more energy than I have and I have felt this toffee mode coming on over the last few days and today is no exception.
Yesterday was a below average day today is just below that again. Once I arrive I am usually okay and one cannot help but laugh at the things people do and say, staff and patients alike.
On route to the physiotherapy room today I felt unsteady. I also went down with another individual so between electric trucks whizzing about driven by porters that just adore the horns on the trucks, doors that open out in front of you, wonky flooring and someone going on about other things it is a wonder I arrived there at all.
While trying to balance myself by holding my handout on a wall, I noticed a silver coloured stem coming out of the floor, I thought it was just another coloured tile and stepped on it, it was discarded rubbish someone had dropped onto the floor a cigarette packet in fact. When I stood on it I suddenly felt a foot hirer and tried to jump down from it, kicking the wall instead and sending myself flying.
Sometimes that corridor can look menacing. It is, or seems to be a twenty pence piece shape and it the light must reflect in all kinds of directions, this prism effect can be immobilising at times especially if one becomes distracted.
On the occasions that one of the electric trucks pass by I tend to stand still with my eyes closed. Over the weeks I have come to learn that the more distractions that I eliminate the less time it takes before I can function again enough to carry on going.
I would stand with my fingers in my ears but I need to be holding on to something as when I close my eyes the after image flickers in my mind and makes me quite giddy.
Thinking back on how it looks id difficult because I am afraid it may well be just my imagination playing tricks on me. Usually I walk holding onto the wall or just walk straight up the middle of the corridor.
If you stand looking at the floors in the corridors I am sure they look crooked and the edges against the walls seem all tucked or rolled so that it seems rounded. Today I tried to focus on what exactly it is that makes it look that way. I can only guess that the problem is caused by shadows, and the way the light distorts the image, as yet I have suppressed the urge to stoop down in the corridor and investigate further.
At the bottom of he wall there is a black coloured band that runs along it, it looks strange and gives me an actual physical feeling, which must be all in my head, that I am walking through it, like walking along a beach up to ones ankles in water. It seems to stretch out across from wall to wall like an invisible fuzzy band of warm air against my skin. I know this cannot be and I am sure if I were able to block it out of my vision the feeling would probably not occur. Still nothing fazes me these days I get used to experiencing from downright illogical to downright bloody weird.
Another thing I have noticed about the black painted band on the wall is that it follows on to the doors but on the doors a wave has been painted not a straight line so it looks not unlike a step up and a step down the other side.
I have become aware of this now so I no longer try to step over them. It is quit strange though that the fuzzy warm feeling I get when I think I am walking through the black line painted on the wall as I approach the doors the feeling rises in correspondence to the height of the paint, then drops back down as the paint shape returns to a line.
The most logical way I can think of this occurrence is perhaps the anticipation of walking through something as if my brain thinks it is real and so prepares to feel something perhaps giving the impression of warmth and fuzziness? Does that make sense at all?
Some years ago we were in the car at a roundabout and a class one articulated lorry ran into the back of the car. For days I had serious neck and back pains, a nurse at the hospital started to man handle me a bit even though she did not intend too, her Nordic appearance made me wince as she tried to shuffle me into a cubical kicking my ankle apologising she did so. I just caught sight of her huge hand heading at speed toward my aching back and amazingly even before her hand landed I yelled out in pain, the pain I had felt was real but only to me. Anticipation is a mighty good catalyst of false feelings.
Could it be that the feeling I get while walking the corridors at the hospital is kin to anticipation? It is all so psychological and suddenly it is all as clear as mud.
I have just noticed that it is snowing quite a lot, watching the snow falling makes me tired, so I have closed the curtains. I am trying to type but today I am so slow fatigue has set in and I think it is time for a rest. I feel a great sense of heightened input today, even the feel of my arms on he desk to the feeling of my sweatshirt sleeves are highly annoying. Perhaps a cup of hot tea will do the trick.
I do hate to brag, but I will. At last I have found a way of placing our kettle back on the base unit in a more elegant and safe manner. I know I have the dexterity of a Penguin wrapped in duct tape but if I hold my arm out to pick the kettle up of the base, and swing the upper part of my torso until the spout is over the cup then pour and swing carefully back it ends up back over the electric connector on the base, then its just a matter of a gentle touch down and mission accomplished.
I dislike being like I am so much I will my-self daily to attempt at least one thing a week that I have problems with and placing the kettle back on the base unit was a problem in that I would very often miss the connector and it would tip over or get scratched at the bottom and that looks awful doesn't it? Not to mention the frustration of it all.
This problem of not knowing where edges are or could be is not going to defeat me, I will out wit my brain back into the real world, I miss driving so very much and thinking of it makes me rather depressed.
After the death of my mother about ten years ago, I have forgotten what year but I remember the day quite clearly, I suffered from severe depression there had been family trouble before her death and the way it happened was too much for my system. The result was as I said depression, I got over that loss and I was coping quite well. I attained an honours degree and was well on my way back to get a master degree. Now I have another loss to deal with, however the depressive feeling is different than that due to the loss of my mum, my best mate.
The desire to get through this fades now and again in sea of troubles and woes; I bemoan my fate to my computer, cat, and the ears of the staff at the day centre I attend.
I make myself sick sometimes and even as I am writing this, a voice inside me asks why and what for. The feeling of embarrassment I experience is almost shameful. I catch myself thinking just whom the hell do you think you are to be writing this way? And what is more, I cannot or could not in a million years tell you why I feel this way.
Believe this or not, I am experiencing an anxiety attack right now. I have a lump in the lower part of my throat, it feels very real but I know it is not so I am breathing slowly but deeply as I am typing. I know what caused this to occur, it was just thinking about the way I feel about this writing I am doing. My throat is dry and I am shaking. It is very strange what a thought can do to you. Just like watching a film I suppose, some individual get so engrossed in a film that their pulse and heart rate increases at the climatic moments in the story, also some people become so emotionally engrossed that they cry. I suppose these feelings that I experience are self-perpetuating as for every time I think about it I will feel awful and worry about it even more.
It could go the other way as I am hoping and by experiencing these alien feelings and thoughts that I will be able to over come them.
I say this in total earnest and believe it right now, but who knows what I will feel like when another worrying thought comes to my attention.
After testing my blood sugar levels I find that they are quite high. I administer my dose of insulin. I have found that since the accident I have little warning of an on-coming hypoglycaemic turn. This means I need to replenish my glucose supply else I blackout and go into a comer. I wonder why this is?
Usually I know by the usual signs, one becomes hungry, you begin to shake and have cold sweats other diabetics will more than likely have their own tell tale signs individual and unique to themselves but generally there are a few common symptoms such as hunger and tiredness.
I just have to be that little more careful but it is difficult as I feel now that during the day should I go out that I had best not take my morning dose just in case. I feel much safer and it seems to work out nicely.
In the morning I have to visit Frenchay Hospital in Bristol to see someone about something. I have been told many times today but I seem unable to find the file from memory, so to speak. I think it is because today I feel run down and fatigued. It has been cold and my functioning on a pretty low level. I have been sat here wearing a sweatshirt seated next to the radiator and still I am cold. I have the journey to Frenchay hospital tomorrow and I am not looking forward to it much. My mind is buzzing with thoughts and I am really just plodding along. I feel as if all I am doing is rambling and not making any sense at all.
The computer screen makes my eyes dry so I have dropped some false tears in to combat the problem. Here comes a moaning session I fear and a little experiment to try and combat my eyes distracting me because of the flickering of the screen. It looks like the screen does when the television has lost the channel. (Usually at the crucial point of the film, or a winning goal.)
Anyhow here goes.
I have tried switching off the monitor while typing and so far, so good. I am one of those people that cannot afford to take one's eyes from the keyboard. I can always use the spell checker later.
Actually it does seem to be helping my eyestrain for the want of a better description. It does seem strange not to be able to glance up now and again, but I am finding that now the screen has become still my eyes feel under less tension. Now I will turn the screen back on as I find that the longer I am typing the more ridiculous mistakes I think I am making.
Well that gave the old grey matter a kicking, now I feel bushed. After a while one tends to forget what has been written and in my case the letter "T" sticks on my keypad so I cannot tell if it had or not. I think that anyone would have problems after a while, not just a brain-injured individual. After that prognosis I feel better about it, not.
Every time I hear the advice that time is a great healer I heave a great sigh as if the troubles of the world rest on my shoulders. I feel like this because I am impatient and as hard as I try to disguise how irritable and frustrated I am, the worse it gets for my inner self to cope with.
That's it I am going to have to go to bed, I have no brain left goodnight computer.
All this has me wondering just how much of what is wrong is psychological, if it is then I can do something about it relatively quickly if it is organic, such as a damaged area of the brain perhaps not.
I feel as though I should not have read all that about derealisation and Capgras and depersonalisation. I am interrogating inner self again and this feeling that I should be somewhere else doing something else is always within my mind, I have tried to shake it and failed as yet. Perhaps it is due to my day at the day unit and it is bitterly cold outside, not even my study feels that warm and my desk is right up against the radiator so that I am always sat next to it. I despise being cold.
It is Friday morning and today I visit Dr Bird at the Burden Centre at Frenchay hospital in Bristol. Although it is an afternoon appointment we leave I am told at one thirty so that if there are any delays whatever the reason, we will be early.
My partner has woken me with a cup of tea and the one of our cats is sat on my arm and it is dead. As I go through the morning ritual of thought processing I get confused and just cannot for the life of me remember where we are going.
At times such as these I have become lazy, I just go along with whatever, as I know I will be guided through the day. First, I have to shower but I do not want to go into the bathroom so I hang about drinking tea and playing with the cat. In the process I completely lose track of what I supposed to be doing. I hear my name being called and I am told to shower, so I try going into the bathroom with the cat, which helps me as I feel that as cats are highly tuned creatures, if anything was wrong in the bathroom the cat would feel this and not enter. Now, this is hard for me to admit especially in black and white as I suppose I could be signing myself into a straight jacket, however I do need help with these feelings as they are inhibiting in many ways.
At last I shower and I am safe with the cat back in the bedroom. For the last few days I have felt rather toffee like and isolated from the environment I get this quite a lot, as I am sure I have mentioned.
My partner calls to me that a cup of tea is on the table for me in the kitchen so I dress as quick as I can. As I walk down he stairs my feet hurt, I am used to this feeling now and know that it is because my trainers are on the wrong feet again, so I rectify the problem before I break my neck.
At least it was only my trainers today, I have put my underwear on correctly as my partner bought me some with small pictures on the front. I do think that the pictures could have been more suited to my character, I think Piglet and crew does me no justice in the credibility stakes, but hey who will know right?
We are taking a packed lunch today and a flask of coffee as I have had insulin early. The weather is quite bad we have had snow, we decide to travel the safest route I am glad to say, I hate travelling in motor vehicles especially around bends and narrow lanes in the snow. I think I may have a heart attack just thinking about all this has made me tired.
The journey is over the one way, we arrived early enough for me to recover slightly but by the time we saw Dr Bird fatigue was setting in and I had an awful time of it in the waiting area, I started to panic.
It makes me so furious that I can not control my own emotions anymore. I have always since leaving my family home controlled my own emotions I was in control up until this fall and now I am faced with all kinds of controlling symptoms that I have to give in to such as this inappropriate laughter and it is for no reason. None what so ever and further more it is embarrassing and can happen at anytime. Usually an inconvenient one at that and today was no exception.
I took an instant dislike to the feel of the building, it felt sinister and cluttered, I felt very closed in. I tried to console myself by analysing what was going on in my head, I say my head but my whole body feels uneasy for being here and I want to leave.
My partner is getting worried I can tell so I try to control my feelings and calm down. I have no reason for the way I felt but I had this dread of impending doom and at one point I jumped up and said I was leaving. I find it hard to stop myself doing it. The only way I can describe what happens and the feelings that I experience at that time is utter fear and I have to get people out and myself. Logic does not come into it without a fight, it is very fatiguing and I feel stupid about it all at the same time, then I get hungry and I feel weak, then all I want to do is sleep.
But, along with these feelings today, I also had another visitor from within a symptom I thought I had seen the last of, unreasonable and inappropriate bouts of hysterical, unstoppable laughter.
After I had inspected the vents in the ceiling and paced about I sat next to my partner where I knew I would feel much better. As I did so a gentleman walked around the corner, I looked directly at him and fell helplessly into hysterical laughter. What was worse five minutes and just as I was forcing my jacket into my mouth while tears streamed down my face, he came back and the same event took place. How rude did he think I was, to make it even worse the poor chap was obviously not well and had also had a head injury. My partner was hysterical too as laughter is contagious, between trying to shut me up and stop laughing there was little one could do but hope hat I did not end up being confronted for being so rude or punched at least.
We had just seconds to calm down as Dr Bird walked around the corner I felt that a quick explanation I felt was appropriate and tried to explain without exploding into laughter again. I was hurting and out of breath at this point I dare not look at my partner or her at me. Unperturbed at this Dr Bird took it all in his stride.
I do not recall much about what took place, however I do remember being a little confused as I thought at one point that we were in a police station or a bank at the time I could not decide which so I did my usual and played it by ear.
I have decided to send a copy of this to Dr Bird as he says that it would be handy, I think it would probably double up as a sedative or comatose if one reads it all.
I went straight to sleep once back home and I have had such a headache since. It is the headache that feels like as if I have burnt skin on my head. It feels as if there are red-hot needles, millions of then under my skin on my head trying to burst out from beneath. My temples are throbbing and my eyes are heavy I am confused and can hardly move. Once in bed I slept without waking until the morning.
I sit here trying to type and put my thoughts into words, I am feeling it is a struggle today. I am wearing my earplugs and I have darkened the monitor.
The keys on the keyboard seem to be jumbled up today even with the earplugs, which are a little annoying but they do help.
Over coffee this morning my partner enlightens me by filling in the blanks about the visit to Frenchay hospital the day before. Although I am not really paying attention I do hear and grasp some of what was being said.
All I want to do right now is feel real, I have this urgency within me and I have no clue as to why. I ask if there is anything important happening and I am told there is not, so why am I feeling like this?
I feel as there is something I must be doing, I try to let it go but it is a strong feeling, enough to distract my already over loaded brain. I help around the house with the daily chores such as dusting and general cleaning. I think that today not a lot else will get done other than some typing away on the computer. I like a good moan but this headache is getting worse as the hour ticks by, I think I will close my eyes for a while and come back to this I feel irritable and jumpy.
It is Sunday today and no prizes for guessing who slept through? Another day wasted and today feels very much the same. I sit here with my earplugs in trying to put some thoughts down but the pain I have in my head is getting worse, its very irritating.
I am not giving in to it there has to be a point in my life where I will be able to function through these problems, although I have not noticed any major changes. I still find myself holding my limbs at awkward angles while trying to concentrate and I still am unable to cope with multi-tasking without getting severe pains in my head. The confusion is still prevalent and toffee days still occur, am I expecting too much?
Surely it is time that things altered; still I am glad that I can still write. I used to research and write most of my spare time and I miss it, however this is good therapy, am I repeating myself? I think so; in fact I feel as if I should pack it in right now and have a long break. I am feeling rather blank and miserable and unable to concentrate on what I am doing. Roll on tomorrow.
March the 18th
Now I am buggered, as I cannot for the life of me think how long ago it was I wrote the last entry. It would seem that I have had a time laps again. So now I am thinking, where the hell have I been and what did I do since I went to Frenchay hospital.
It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I have read back the last few pages and I still cannot think what has happened since. Okay, now you will see how brain injured patients recall memories. (Sits blankly looking at the screen hands being wrung like old sheets)
So, what day is it? It must be Friday because yesterday I was asked to go into the post office on my own, while my partner waited in the car outside and get some electricity, gas and pay the phone and we always do that on a Thursday. So what day did we go to Bristol for god's sake? (Blinks in disbelief)
I have had to give in and ask my partner what happened in between going to the hospital in Bristol and today. I am upset and feel empty headed I cannot accept that I thought that I cannot recall that it was last week that we went.
I cannot really explain how I thought that it was only a couple of days ago but logic tells me that if it is Friday today we must have gone last Friday as there is only one Friday per week.
I think I am going mad and now I am really feeling upset with myself. That is annoying and frustrating and stupid. The stupid thing is, I read back over what had been written and I had typed in it was on a Friday.
Right, I know what happened today so let me garble on about our day out. It rained, we went shopping after going to but a new rug for the kitchen and a throw for the new three piece. I threw a wobbly in one of the shops because there were too many people and desperately needed to get out. I became wet through as I zigzagged for the car and the skies opened up, down came the rain, only to find the car was parked way up the other end to where I had zigzagged.
In the rain I find it hard to function, my balance is somewhat unstable and all my senses come alive, the rain stings and the wind blows I start shivering and before you can say "Bloody weather" I am totally fatigued and walking as if I have emptied a bottle of vodka in one mouthful.
Never mind, I made it to the car and once inside my nerves gave way and I started to shake. At this point I cannot decide if I actually want to sit on my own, so I get out. I stand there for a while then get back inside. Then out then in. Then back out actually managing to lock the doors took one step away turned back and opened them again and got back in.
I sat there for a while contemplating if I should go back inside the store and wait for my partner outside the checkout. I wrestled with this idea for what seemed ages. I did not look at the time as the ignition was off and I get confused with the switches on this ignition. We had this car after my accident and have never become familiar with its controls so I did not want to potter with it in-case I did something wrong.
I calmed myself down with a smoke and sat there contemplating my next move. I really did not want to go back in, I had become agitated and irritable by the flow of people. It seemed like I was drowning in a sea of bodies as I was bumped and moved trying to walk was too much for me and my brain was throbbing and so hot one could have cooked an egg on it.
In the end I managed to get out of the car and wait outside the entrance. I am not sure how long I waited but I was so glad to see that familiar smiling face hobbling toward me, complete with rug over shoulder.
I took charge of the rug and hopped like a happy bunny to the car only to find that the rug was too big for the boot and the car, so we had to fold it in four in the rain, what a day, and so, off to Asda.
As I have mentioned I am sure, my partner is disabled and sometimes finds it necessary to hire an in-store mobility scooter. We did a limited shop as we were both tired and soon were back outside at the car. I took the opportunity to test out my driving skills and guess what? I managed to avoid hitting anything, however the battery was just about to go and it had a top speed of 1 mile per light year, that's 0 to 60 in twelve years, not bad on the flat.
It is Friday today, a new day and a surprise that today is Friday as I thought it was Friday yesterday and assumed that it was Saturday morning. It is today that I get a Playstation 2 and eye toy game plus a driving football game.
The idea is that I get my coordination skills going and hopefully get more exercise. Gravity can sometimes be unkind I hate moving about rapidly.
Since arriving home from hospital I have discovered that my arms and legs move independently and I find it difficult riding an exercise bicycle. I start off well but suddenly my left is totally out of synchrony with my right and I throw my self over the handlebars. I just wonder how I am going to cope with the eye toy?
It is the 21st of March today, I have just checked on the computer calendar. It does not seem like a Sunday as I have had quite a busy time today and Saturday is a blur as I had been re-potting sweet peppers and playing who wants to be a millionaire with Jaci. It is quite tiring and I am slow to answer, as I have to repeat the questions in my mind, as they tend to be quite long. I am far better on questions that are shorter.
Mark has been to visit today. I am always glad to see him, we tend to chat and play on the PS1. We like the shoot them up games, as it is not as taxing on the grey matter and driving games are the same, just something to vegetate to and again as with my other games I am not as good as I used to be.
I am surprised at my success on the eye toy; I seem to be able to cope with interacting with it more than using a keypad controller. I suppose this is due to the fact that I am interacting as a whole and not just using my hands and eyes. It seems to be giving me a lot more fun than normal exercising and doing the same job.
Monday morning came and went and I slept through until late I think it was about eleven thirty when I got up. It must have exhausted me yesterday on the Eye toy and today I cannot keep awake, I had to go back to bed around three and slept until six in the evening.
I have made many mistakes today and I have become aware of other malfunctions, for example my speech seems to be slow and slurry and I have been getting words muddled and giving sentences which are incorrect and without meaning. I feel so lethargic my limbs feel heavy and I really need to sleep. First I have to take a bath, I have put it off since Friday I think? I had showers instead but I feel that if I give in to not taking a bath I will only be making things more difficult. The problem with taking a shower is that my favourite cat Spliffy will not come in to the bathroom and I dislike going in alone.
Tomorrow I have to go to the hospital in Cardiff and I am not looking forward to the journey. The car ride is taxing there has to be a way around this. I am guessing but being shy of a good theory I came to the conclusion that I have to cut down on incoming information somehow as I tend to think that most of my problems occur due to some kind of over load in the sorting office in my head. I think I will have a chat to a staff member about this as they are full of good ideas and bound to come up with something.
Tuesday morning arrives again, my alarm clock is screaming at me to get up
I have a strange feeling that things were going to feel odder than usual today, as it was it turned out quite a day.
I got out of bed feeling miserable and irritable. I have been feeling rather down as of late but I have become quite good at hiding it as I just feel as though I moan considerably and probably do.
I know exactly what the problem is but it is another thing trying to put things right and if one more person tells me how lucky I am not to have had considerably more damage and that other people are worse off I will scream.
I was slow to get dressed my hair remained the same as the night before, just a few prods here and there flick the front down and it is done a right mess but quiet fashionable I convince myself in the mirror.
The ride to Cardiff was quite taxing as usual, however I had one of my favourite drivers today and he has a very nice car.
I stared out of the window at the world whizzing by at a million miles per hour wondering what was flashing by? It was another car. I can make out what things are when they are moving away from me as they seem slower somehow but it does not stop me feeling that nothing is real, I have a feeling that it will never go away however I cope with it more these days.
Looking at the hills and mountains in the distance I have the feel that it is for the first time I have experienced the wonderful scenery but I know better.
The sensation of actually seeing it all moving is making me somewhat dizzy. I feel as if I am seeing things in segments rather than as a whole also a strange phenomenon that I now treat as normal. I did say it is just a feeling I have on the actual eyeball, nothing really but the feeling is there sometimes, more so when I become tired, I gaze back out of the side window.
There are the mountains in the background all moving the same speed then a little closer the hills are moving just that much faster. The sky and clouds above, they look like holograms and tend to seem either static against the blue sky or non-existent if it is raining as the rain impairs my vision.
As things get closer they tend to blend into streams of blurry images. The strange thing is I keep wondering and looking and next thing I recall is waking up. It is all too much for my tired and battered brain to handle and so I sleep away the journey.
This afternoon I have physiotherapy and after this morning's journey it takes half the day to revive so I am relieved to have a few hours to sort my head out. I am not sure what else I did that day as I had left my daily personal organizer (note book and pen) at home.
Sometime during this week my partner was called upon to set up a video system for a neighbour. I not wanting to get in the way stayed at home, after a while there was a knock at the door, reluctantly I opened it to find that our neighbour's husband looking rather sheepish, my partner needed some help so I went around too.
As I walked in the chatter between the three of them and the television set was too much. I tried my hardest to listen but soon I became unsteady on my feet, my speech started to slow down and become slurry.
I felt as if my head was going around in circles I had to get out, I made a guess at the channel was out, made my excuses and bolted for the door.
Very much the same has happened at the bank. I thought as I was feeling particularly well this one day I walked into the bank on my own to make a deposit.
As I entered the bank I found there were many people the queues were extremely long, there were children running about and screaming. There were people talking quite loudly and I was being jostled about as people tried to get passed.
I stood at the end of the queue waiting as best as I could without swaying too much as there were no barriers near by to hold on to. I stood with my hands slightly out so as to aid my balance when suddenly a child ran into my arms spinning me around in a fashion that would have looked real good on a snow board. I regained my balance but felt slightly shaken my head was starting to burn up on each side of my head then my left eye started to burn, now I was irritable and anxious and the bloody queue was still as long.
Suddenly there was a loud whining noise, which really drove me up the wall. Someone poked me in the back I glanced around to be told to move down by the person behind me but on turning back around the room started to spin and I nearly toppled over. The comic behind me advised more water with it and suddenly I wanted to smack him in the mouth, but I resisted, just.
Walking back to the car was awkward and after realising that I had wished the teller a Merry Christmas instead of good bye confused was an understatement.
I was aware that people were staring as they went by. I could feel the heat from my head as it turned crimson. I walked as carefully as I could and as normally as I could too but I still managed to hurt my ankle as I misplaced my foot on the curb. Another toffee hour approaches I told myself getting into the car. My partner took one look at me and drove me home where I fell asleep on the sofa for a few hours.
On my second visit to Whitchurch hospital last week I had written in my book that I have a mission to fore fill. A fairly new group has been set up for people with brain injuries called Neuro. It caters for many individuals that have head trauma variously caused, it allows support and projects neuropsychiatry in a much more positive light to the general public. There are days out organised as well as safety issues which are distributed throughout the general communities, hospital and other such establishments, my task for he group was to inquire about a visit to the Science and technology Centre in Cardiff. I had suggested a visit might be stimulating.
I made a telephone call and spoke with a very pleasant lady on the phone who seemed to have quite an understanding of head injury patients. We spoke for a while about noise levels and she suggested that a visit during the quieter hours may suite the group better.
At the start of the conversation I detected her agony as she tried to tackle a few problems, obviously approaching a delicate subject such as learning difficulties and abnormal behaviour is difficult if you are a kind and understanding person. I wanted to ease her pain as she struggled a while trying to ask the question of whether there would be any risk to other users of the centre, such as young school children as schools use the facility on most days.
I helped out a bit by taking over the conversation and saying it myself as I knew where the conversation was leading. During the conversation it became very clear that there are certain safety factors that have to be taken into account and when I mentioned Whitchurch hospital, neuropsychiatric day unit, it brought it home to me that I too could be a safety hazard and that hurt.
I thought of a few things that could be written down under the heading of safety hazard. For one things the noise in the Science Centre is very disturbing, as I spoke on the telephone I could hear the roar of people every time someone opened the door in the booking office.
As the booking officer had explained people that have had strokes or head injuries fail to deal with noises, they become confused and function is impaired. I had to agree and thanked her for her concern. It was then she suggested a more appropriate hour to visit saying that after a certain time the schools leave and it takes a good hour and a half to see most displays. We then disgust prices for group bookings I thanks her again and she gave me her name and direct line number telling me to contact her directly when we wanted to visit.
I have come to realise that not many people are as helpful and understanding as her, I think we need a few more like that.
Getting back to the safety issues, I too become confused and unstable in crowds. Particularly when there are other things that are highly distractible such as a light show would be at the Science Centre. It might be that we visited the planetarium there, as an example. Can you imagine the state we would be in coming out from a darkened room full of moving skies as the constellations spin over head? Would it not be my luck to crush some ten year old as I toppled over and be cast away in irons for the rest of my unnatural life?
It just brings it home that unless things improve drastically, how things used to be and how things are now are light years apart.
Doing my bit of information seeking has given me insight to how other people are and have been for a long time differentiated against. They are outcasts from the life they new before because now they are seen as risky in public. I become irritable enough to want to clock some people sometimes, but I stop myself and I curb my language in public but some injuries cause people to act in ways that are out of character for them under normal circumstances.
I think I shall retract the idea of visiting the centre and at the next Neuro meeting will divulge the reason why.
It is hoped by Neuro that a number of houses or flats can be purchased at some stage so that patients returning to the community will have a half way housing scheme to help integrate them slowly so as to adjust to community life, not just throw them in at the proverbial deep end.
In my humble opinion this will make such a difference for individual's that have been hospitalised due to brain damage however caused. Many find the transition difficult. One minute they have full time care and support in an ergonomically adjusted environment then they are released into the community often with little support, it seems all or nothing although time, man power and finances are hard pushed so an organisation such as this one is well over due.
I admit that I may not be of much help at this time but I would be proud to become a member and help build in any way that I may be of use. It will aid myself in organisational skills, which I am useless at right now without my note book. I tend to see this little book as my brain and I treat as such, oh look it is almost blank just the same too.
I am hoping that in time I may return to work. My finances have become greatly reduced and I find it difficult to think that I will be on this income for ever, until my pension and then it will drop again. I find it hard to save enough to take care of my partner and I after retirement age so something has to happen. The other thing that makes me rather sad is the fact that I studied so very hard for four years and now I cannot further my career as I had hoped.
I had many ideas of what I wanted to do, neuropsychiatry was but one area of psychology that I found utterly interesting. I also would have liked to have become a trauma counsellor but that too looks pretty far off now.
I have had sound advice from a lady psychologist I talk things through with, she has suggested that I concentrate on what I am good at rather than thinking about all the things that I no longer can do or now find difficult. I have tried to think of what those areas are and I have come up with blanks so far. It would seem to me that I am good at very little right now, except moaning about this damned affliction.
My balance is better than before I started receiving physiotherapy. I find that I walk better if I have my hands in my pockets as I tend not to sway as much. I can correct my vision by turning my head when looking at something passing me and it does help crossing the road, although sometimes it is rather hit and miss depending on what is on my mind.
The feelings that I have of being in a parallel universe are just as strong and I live every day as it comes. If I do make plans and they happen, they happen if not, oh well.
I have been reading on depersonalisation disorder just in case there is anything that can be done to stop it, but it would seem that those individuals that become relieved of the affliction seemed to have caused it by substance abuse or it has become apparent during times of stress, both of which have the symptoms go by their selves. Accident damage tends to stay, charming and just my luck.
There does not seem to be much information on how to deal with it. I may be looking in the wrong place and have yet to find anything however it is frustrating. I still find it difficult to enter our bathroom without faltering. I dislike it so much in there and even after analysing myself I still have no theories let alone any conclusion.
I would seek advice from old colleagues but I have lost touch with many and feel that only at a last resort would I push myself on individuals that can only accept me for what I was and not for what I have become in their eyes.
I have started to delve more deeply into Depersonalisation disorder via the Internet. The links I found were few and far between, however I did come across one site that held a few surprises for me even if it did not help.
Not to complicate things and tire me out I shall from here on in refer to Depersonalisation Disorder as (DD) and a person suffering from it (DP).
Many of the case studies of (DD), it would seem has originated from severe drug and alcohol abuse. Others tell of childhood trauma and abuse or shock and there were some cases that originated from giving birth.
Many cases too were catalogued from early childhood and seem to stem from a type of temporal lobe seizure (Temporal lobe epilepsy) and in a few cases (DD) has appeared without rational cause as well as severe head injuries.
It would seem also that (DD) can and does exist as a symptom in many other illnesses too, usually from a young age but sadly the most cases seem to originate from substance abuse and alcohol.
The symptoms of substance abuse cases state that they feel as if they are in some other persons body and that they do not have the feelings that they are real. Personally I feel real and I know that my environment is real, it just does not feel as it should.
I feel as if this is the first time for me to ever have visited Earth, and yet it seems familiar. I suppose that the levels of severity and the individual damage has much influence over the symptoms that occur, however I know who I am, it is the others I have no idea about.
In my search I uncovered the Cambridge questionnaire that gives the scale for (DD) constructed by (Sierra & Berrios 1996).
I have decided to use this scale in order to analyse myself, how exciting.
The questions were set out so that answers were given rank priority, such as often, all day Etc, I think I will just do it my way as it is easier for me as not all the questions apply directly but could fit in slightly, if you know what I mean so here is the list.
Out of the blue, I feel strange, as if I were not real or as if I were cut off from the world. As far as this question goes I can only say that although I feel as if the world is different I do not feel cut off from it, I feel very much a part of it however strange it may feel.
What I see looks 'flat' or 'lifeless', as if I were looking at a picture. Well, that is strange because I do see flat things that are not flat, but only under certain circumstances such as dark back drops or shadows on steps in sun light. Usually everything looks like a 3D effect that moves independently enhanced with dark lines around them as if draw in charcoal.
Parts of my body feel as if they didn't belong to me was another question that I had to think about as I know that my body belongs to me, however I keep thinking that I remember them to be smaller or a different shape but when I try to remember what shape I thought they used to be I cannot for the life of me remember enough to give any description. One question that surprised me was, I have found myself not being frightened at all in situations which normally I would find frightening or distressing. This struck a cored as I remember a few months after coming home from hospital I showed off something cruel when my partner's mother came to visit to go to the seaside. Reluctantly they agreed and we set off for the coast where I had another major strop as I wanted to go on one of the rides that turned every which way but upright.
As I sobbed like a three year old and just as I was about to throw myself on the floor, reluctantly again they purchased me some tickets to have a go on another more sedate ride. Actually I have to admit that I had agreed to this but then as I had the tickets in my hand I made a dash and boarded the ride of my choice. By this time it was starting to get embarrassing for them, so they let me get on with it just praying that what ever brain cells I had left would remain intact by the end of the ride.
The ride in question should have had me screaming and yelling as usual, not a good choice for someone that had sustained head injuries such as I had but, in the name of science, you know how it is nothing ventured nothing gained. Actually the only thing that I was concerned about was that I could not find where the car was to wave to my partner's mother. It was something and nothing, not at all what I remember the rides to like, what a bummer. But it did teach me one thing, rides were a waste of money at least until my head becomes better.
My favourite activities are no longer enjoyable was another question that I felt was not pertinent to my condition as I enjoy a game of chess and I still enjoy video games and being with friends.
There are other hobbies and interests that I no-longer pursue but that is simply due to other symptoms such as being unable to look up in the air for any length of time, this I suppose is because of Occipital and Parietal damage sustained during the fall. And I become so tired after walking around what with one thing and another I no longer walk for miles at a time, but I do walk around the park so that is not too bad at least I can get out.
My concentration is poor but this can be over come when playing chess as I have a silent environment, but my major pastime was driving and that I can no longer do because of many reasons not just because of the depersonalization I think if it was just that I might be better off, I do not really know and can only make suppositions at this stage.
Whilst doing something I have the feeling of being a "detached observer" of myself. This question again I had to think about. When I am doing anything I know it is me that is doing it, sometimes I do feel awkward but I tend to think that this may be due to concentration.
I concentrate so hard that sometimes I find a limb such as my arm or my hand is being held in an unusual position, for example my middle finger will curl upwards as my arm sticks out at a slight angle. Lately I have become aware of this but I have been doing it for quite sometime. I catch myself doing it as the level's of concentration needed are lowering as the task reaches completion. I am also aware that my motor functions continue to dissipate as fatigue conditions progress.
The flavour of meals no longer gives me a feeling of pleasure or distaste. This is interesting tome as since the accident I have had problems with taste and smell, which I assumed to be due to conditions altered by the damage to the brain. I also have had to re-learn what I like as I could not remember many of the foods or drinks such as whether I dislike malt drinks or not.
The next question made me feel put out as I would have liked to have felt like this. My body feels very light, as if it were floating on air. (Mmm, fat chance I will ever feel light unless I lose a few pounds).
When I weep or laugh, I do not seem to feel any emotions at all. This does not apply to me at all, I become very emotional, not for the sake of it but if I feel strongly about something I can become emotional. As an example, and at ignoring my better judgment to split on myself I can tell you now that the reason I cannot watch animal hospital is that I cry a lot and that is not good for me. I am a sucker for old people and animals, trees and people with problems and I am hurt and disgust by racial discrimination, fact is I do not take kindly to discrimination against anyone without justifiable cause. Things such as this these days can and do have me in sobbing mode for hours if I am not careful. So, yes I have become more emotional but not unjustifiably so. On the other hand I do get bouts of unstoppable hysterical laughter for no reason at all as I think I have already written about and that is an emotion I suppose.
I have the feeling of not having any thoughts at all, so that when I speak it feels as if my words were being uttered by an 'automaton'. This question again does not fit in with any symptom I have. I have a plethora of thoughts whizzing around my head and yes, they all belong to me. Next question please Mr. Tarant. Familiar voices (including my own) sound remote and unreal. No phone a friend for me this time, I know my own voice is real and it is quite loud and I have no volume control as my knob fell off years ago.
The only strange phenomena as far as speech is concerned that I do have now and again is what I refer to as "Fast forward speech".
When this happens the speaker sounds to me as if their speech has suddenly speeded up. When this happened first I thought that the news was being read in Russian. It still happens quite a bit but it has decreased in frequency, thank goodness for that.
I have the feeling that my hands or my feet have become larger or smaller. This sounds familiar to me as I feel that I remember my hands being smaller and when I look down at my feet they seem some feet away, not the usual vertically challenged view I remember .
My surroundings feel detached or unreal, as if there was a veil between me and the outside world. There seems to be an amount of truth for me here as I do feel that my environment is different and yet it seems so familiar. The only analogy I can give is that I feel as if I have become born again in an environment that is familiar but one that I have to be re-educated in.
I try to think of a better way of putting it, but I feel that I am unable to encapsulate the entire sensation that I want to portray other than I feel as if I have been off loaded here from another dimension or planet that was similar but different from my own.
I am not quite sure if I ever will be able to and I am not sure if there are ever slight changes as I forget from time to time the most ridiculous things let alone subtle changes in environment.
It seems as if things that I have recently done had taken place a long time ago. For example anything which I have done this morning feels as if it were done weeks ago. Now this one is a definite yes and I am stating here and now I remember not being like this before. I have always had an explicit memory and could tell of chronological events as if they had just happened and knew exactly when and where. The profession I was seeking required such a mind and researching takes memory to its full capacity if one wished to make a name for ones self in such a competitive field, not only that but most researchers are dead nosey if they admit it, that is why they like probing into the unknown. So yes to that one before I waffle away bemoaning my fate once again.
Whilst fully awake I have "visions" in which I can see myself outside, as if I were looking my image in a mirror. Definite no there, however I do get imagery perceptions that merge into each other particularly if I am fatigued. One face can distort then change into another if I one person for example swaps places with another and I do not notice at the time.
Many times I have noticed that I see images in hedgerows or clouds more prominently than I remember before, that is probably due to my hyperactive sensitivities that I has developed. I am these days so much more aware of the environment that I am now in.
I feel detached from memories of things that have happened to me - as if I had not been involved in them. This often happens with work I have prepared in the past. When I come across it I always assume someone else did it.
I fail to remember myself participating in some events that I am told I did take part in, however some events I do remember being involved in such as flashes of events like my teaching practice, usually the horrible bits but no one said my Amygdala was un-functional.
I do not remember my graduation, but I remember the day my mother died. I remember taking part in something in Cardiff University but I could not tell you what it was without prompting, how very strange.
I have problems though as I have mentioned earlier, with the concept of time, memories could cross and then of course cause all sorts of problems, for example.
I was told by both my partner's mother and my partner that we had visited a shop up town and made a purchase, in my mind it was weeks ago and therefore I argue that after having the purchase for weeks on end perishable goods would not be exchanged, in truth it had been that morning that we had been to the green grocers and bought slime filled lettuce, not as I thought weeks earlier. I would hang an innocent man in a court of law if his alibi depended on me placing him away from the crime scene on a particular date or time. So yes I can safely say that I am like this 24 hours a day all week for nearly two years now, I have the dates written down to remind myself, if I could remember where I have placed them.
When in a new situation, it feels as if I have been through it before. No this does not happen. Well it does, but not enough to say it has an unusual frequency of occurrences everyone has the occasional déjà vu. It has been suggested by many eminent scientists to be a disturbance in synchrony between both hemispheres of the brain. Nothing alarming there or Para psychological, next question then.
Out of the blue, I find myself not feeling any affection towards my family and close friends. No this definitely does not occur. However I need more quite and space these days and I do hide away a lot more but my feelings of them are the same as I remember, I dislike them all equally. Another quip and not true at all, so moving along swiftly.
Objects around me seem to look smaller or further away. This actually is spot on. I look down at my feet and they seem so far away, not only that but I have trouble with steps and stairways especially when emphasized by shadows. My perception of distances and objects seem to be rather obscure and they were not before else why should I find them unusual, therefore my perception has changed. Crossing in traffic is unreal. Two story buildings can look like skyscrapers from the right angle and paintings sometimes look as if they are mosaic, or 3D and they can be perfectly normal. Textures make the difference I think and our door mat looks just like me a gigantic Weetabix sat there by the front door. Err next question before I get sectioned.
I cannot feel properly the objects that I touch with my hands for, it feels as if it were not me who were touching it. No this is fine I do not have this problem, however I think that I have much more sensitivity now than before. That is how it feels anyhow, it could be due to many neurological blips in the brain that just makes me think that way, I am not sure where the line is drawn between feeling that something is a real or a phantom feeling or am I just babbling now?
I do not seem able to picture things in my mind, for example, the face of a close friend or a familiar place. No this does not relate to me either as I have many pictures in my minds eye, they drive me crackers when I am trying to sleep as my eyes follow them around and makes me feel quite nauseous. Even as I ride in the car with my eyes closed I can see lights jumping around. My minds eye is intact and I see familiar faces and objects too vividly if you ask me.
When a part of my body hurts, I feel so detached from the pain that if feels as if it were someone else's pain. I wish, my shoulder and neck is killing me slowly via sleep deprivation.
I have the feeling of being outside my body. Again this does not apply to my condition. I feel very much in my body, it is my mind I feel out of.
When I move it doesn't feel as if I were in charge of the movements, so that I feel 'automatic' and mechanical as if I were a 'robot'. Sometimes this happens but it does seem to be linked to fatigue conditions and external distractions. It gets a little better after I have rested adequately.
My toffee days must be quite amusing to many people as I trudge zigzagging along, tripping about with my arms stuck out at weird angles blinking and squinting trying to stop the dizziness and become focused. Next please.
The smell of things no longer gives me a feeling of pleasure or dislike. No my sense of smell has altered tremendously but I can differentiate between pleasurable smells and stinky ones, we have two dogs and we eat lentils beans and pulses on a regular basis. Believe me I know what stinky smells like.
I feel so detached from my thoughts that they seem to have a 'life' of their own. This I do not fully understand and if I were filling in the questionnaire I would not be able to give a rating on this. I am not detached from my thoughts, but my brain has a life of it's own so to speak as it does not allow me to slow down my thought processes enough for some information to make sense. I do not understand that either, but it gives me a head ache. The other thing about my brain is, I thought that I controlled it, wrong!
I have to touch myself to make sure that I have a body or a real existence. If this questions means did I ever have to question if my existence was real not by validating my body's veracity, then yes, but I have given up on that due to the conclusion that I was indeed real and that nothing else was. By the way did you know that if you pinch the back of your arm you feel a pin prick type sensation on your side? See what I do in the name of research. Next question for one hundred pounds, and no conferring.
I seem to have lost some bodily sensations (e.g. of hunger and thirst) so that when I eat or drink, it feels an automatic routine. No, I enjoy trying different meals and the one's I know I like. I wonder if this encompasses change in taste and smell? If it does then yes I suppose I have, but not loss of appetite in fact it has increased but that is more than likely to do with the Epilim, I have asked my consultant and he agrees that in some individuals it has been found that Epilim can increase hunger. I am quite happy to blame the Epilim for my love handles all twenty one of them.
And the last question is. Previously familiar places look unfamiliar, as if I had never seen them before. I have this in reverse. In the early days I did get quite lost in familiar places and still do now and again, especially if I become confused due to crowds and noise. Again I regard this as information overload as my senses are hypersensitive these days.
As I read through these questions I cannot help but think that they are somewhat leading questions. However, the scale was constructed for, as they worded it, normal people. I vaguely feel that any person having a disorder that influences them to look for symptoms will have a field day with this questionnaire. Perhaps I am seeing something that is not there, but who am I to argue, I am sure they know best and I am just learning, the hard way but I am still a novice to this.
I think that there must be so many levels of (DD) as there as with many other disorders, I am not quite sure which level I am on, but I do know that I am becoming very tired and mistake are cropping up left right and centre, I will close down now and sleep.
It is the 9th of April today and we set off for the usual garden centre and DIY stores in search of a green house. Well a plastic tent lean to thing that reminds me of an oxygen tent and it is sixty pounds, day light robbery I declared to the security guard as we left the store.
As the afternoon went on I became unable to concentrate and I was becoming irritable, then came the silly laughing thing I get when I become over tired complete with jumpy leg syndrome I was so relieved to get back home. I used to like going around the DIY stores, we both enjoy home improvements and gardening. That is something that I can still do and gardening is in summer a sedate hobby that I can do without taxing myself too much. I have had to ease upon the home improvement though and I find it annoying that I can no longer use a drill for long as it hurts my head. Sawing I have to do by hand too as using a jigsaw has the same effect as a drill. Trying to keep things still enough to saw a line.
The other thing I have tried today was the exercises that the physio-terrorists at the hospital gave me to do to relieve my aching neck. This involves lying on ones back on the bed and hanging upside down slightly so that you can arch your back shoulders and hopefully get rid of muscle tension, or something like that.
As I tried the whole world started to spin, I immediately felt nauseous, I do not know if I still have fragments of bone in the inner ear cannel but I have been told that it can cause this problem. It just seems funny that it should start up again now. I get this feeling when I am trying to observe the night sky but it seems to be a little worse since I did the exercises today. Perhaps my head is analogous to one of those snow scenes in the little plastic water filled shakers, I shook my head and the bone flies around causing havoc with my balance and vision. Or perhaps I am just allergic to exercise, Mmm!
Come to think of it I get the same problem drinking from a bottle, I absolutely adore Dr Pepper, diet of course and drinking it from the bottle is a problem so I tend to swig it sideways now and move the bottle instead.
The other way it affects me is when I am in bed or the bath, when I eventually have a bath and not a shower. If I sit in the bath and I wash my hair by laying in the water, when I sit up the room revolves around for a few seconds. When I am laying on my back in bed and I get up sideways the room spins, also for just a few seconds. How bizarre.
Thinking about the questionnaire by (Sierra & Berrios 1996) there are symptoms that are vaguely linked to this affliction and I am sure that just as there are as many psychosis and neuroses that share similar traits and commonalities there are symptoms that have little no baring either.
I feel slightly better knowing that there are other people that feel the same, perhaps I should not be, but no one really likes to be that different that they are a one and only, myself included.
While referencing from a psychology book I found that someone had written in the back of the book. It says 19/09/97 start university at Glamorgan first year student. It then goes on to say, well here I am second year student 16th of November 1998, I made it back god this good. Then it says yes I made it back again 12/10/99. Almost at the end what will I do I don't want to leave.
Chris and I are about to sit our final exams. Graduation day is on the 20th of July. Then I saw the message written almost in a frenzied scribble, it says WE PASSED JUNE 2000, next the PGCE (Gluttons for punishment)
The next entry was less enthusiastic, it read NEW YEARS DAY 2001 START TEACHING PRACTISE SOON I HATE IT AND I AM QUITING TO START WORRK AS I CANNOT STAND IT ANYMORE AND FINANCIALLY IT IS NOT WORTH IT IS TOO COSTLY AND THAT'S IT I AM OFF TO DO A MASTERS BACK AT GLAMORGAN IN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY BUGGER IT I SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT FIRST. I AM GOING HOME TO DO A MASTERS YEAH!
I felt so upset when I caught sight of my name, the hand writing looked so different and even as I sit here typing this my eye is filling up, I have this enormous lump in my throat and my nose is starting to run. Where is my cat? I need a hug from her, ah sorted, there she is Spliffy come here.
That is much better, how does she know when to turn up, just as I say that in walks one of our dogs, KC Dog is her full title and she is trying to console me too. How are animals so much in tune with emotions, they know when I am upset or worried and they show how much they care. They make it so very clear and yet they do not speak our language and are said not to have communication skills by many people. I know this is not true I communicate well with animals, it is most that people I have problems with. I still feel rather upset for some reason, so I think I will retire to the bedroom where I will carry out my favourite pastime of annoying my loving partner.
It is the tenth of April today I have just checked on the computer. It is Saturday and my partner has a badly swollen hand due to a strain so today I take over the cleaning today.
As I cleaned around with the vacuum cleaner I noticed how awkward I have become. I have been told on many occasions not to bump into the woodwork and furniture but I am not able to curb it sometimes no matter how careful I am. I know this sounds strange but I never believe that the vacuum is near anything. It is the very same feeling that I get trying to cross the road.
I am trying to think if I get it other times, at this moment I cannot, however I suspect there are occasions I just find it hard to recall I expect.
One particular aspect that I have not yet mentioned in any detail is emotional responses to familiar situations and of course un-familiar situations.
My family and close friends have all contributed to this section as I am not the person to ask about observations of myself.
I prepared a list of questions to ask, but decided to just ask if anyone had noticed any prominent changes in my emotional behaviour. They were in fact a few things such as the level of paranoia directed at people that I should trust and in my heart I did trust them, but not enough.
I realize that since the accident things have become more clear and fit in with medical evidence that indeed I did have an accident and I was not abducted by aliens or by the government and the remote viewing team at the C.I.A in America (not the Cardiff International Arena I may add).
My friends are not covering up for them and neither is my family. I know because I have been told by them a dozen times over in their attempt to bring me back to reality. I nearly drove them all insane and at one point I am told I had my partner in tears with accusations regarding my extreme paranoia. My partner found it harder and harder to cope.
It was only when I started at the Neuropsychiatric unit as an out patient that things started to unravel for me in that I could see for myself just how many other people were in the same position as I was and most of them had accidents in very much the same way.
The point is, when one feels trust in someone it is very hard to ignore that feeling and there are a few main people at the unit that I trust implicitly. One of these people visited my home. I remember sometimes and it gives me a warm feeling and I feel quite choked up for some reason and every time we meet on the unit and even if I do not feel like it I smile from ear to ear, perhaps it is just his expression but he does radiate a warm and positive ambiance and that has to be special and deserves my trust.
There are not many individuals on the unit I feel as if I would not trust totally perhaps four or five but I like everyone and that includes the patients.
So what is this paranoia then I wonder. Is it just because my first perceptions after waking was that I had been abducted and the last thing I remember conversing over was alien life forms and government cover-ups?
Yes, I think it could well be. It had crossed my mind but only lately I was far too busy chasing remote viewing C.I.A agents that wanted me back in the test room of some spaceship. Men in black and such like, perhaps it is real and we are all bred for test purposes and being an astronomer and a psychologist my brain might be worth looking into. (Okay, that was a joke put the white coat with the shiny buckles back for a while anyhow)
I no longer think seriously about scenario's such as those now but I have put in much time researching into the areas of neuropsychiatry that I think may help. As a psychology student one dances around such topics and there is much I have learned from the research albeit at a snails pace with ear plugs in.
One thing I had not realized is that (DD) can be divided into a disorder and as symptoms, I had not thought about this up until now. I really think that this area of research should be pursued as many people seem to suffer from its symptoms in various ways. Until I started trying to find out what was wrong with me I had not heard of anything such as this.
The Internet provides a plethora of case studies but one has to dig deep as it was not easy trying to track information on a subject unknown, some of the case studies have mind blowing accounts of (DD) and takes the individual to the very edge of reality and beyond if they are to be given credibility, which I think is probable as I have been through some of the symptoms caused by brain injury and even in my case reality no longer exists as I remember it.
Reading back over that last section it reads as if I have doubt as to the veracity of some of the statements made by some of the individuals that are in the case studies. I do not doubt what they are saying at all it quite the opposite. On the other hand I could see why some individuals fail to understand the concept and regard the account with uncertainty and sometimes disbelief.
If one thinks about truth in human minds, one can only know what one divulges. Before I had experienced the affects of the head injuries I have I would have held some suspicion as to the veracity of some statements made, particularly over a website. It was not long ago I suppose that I thought I had taken leave of my senses and become totally insane. Direct experience is the best method of receiving information about anything.
Night after night I have sat alone trying to put together a mind map of what has gone on and how I became to be in such a place so I have complete empathy and understanding of what others may be feeling.
I have drawn charts and tried to figure out dates and times and events all in vain as until now and I feel more stable in myself and satisfied that I have had an accident. I am less surprised if someone informs me that the work I am reading is my own, although I am delighted to know that I had a history of academic achievements. I am still a little amused by it all as I think I am quite thick and show little common sense I am told.
I still remember doing things although it seems that it was someone else, I cannot be more specific than that as I fail to find words to describe the sensation.
I think that one becomes more accustom to events that are odd, it is not getting any better for me, but I find that I cope with it all much better. I suppose it is a little like training a horse or pony to cope with traffic. Once you have the confidence built up in the horse by repetitive introduction to noise it will become accustom, becoming more stable in noisy surroundings.
Sounds quite easy putting it like that does it not? I know it is hard but coping is the name of the game as I fear those symptoms are not going away.
Saying that repetition helps but how can one cope with not remembering being taking part in something, and this is something again I did not have problems with before the injury.
I know I have caused arguments after which I have been proven wrong, it is not just one or two either and some times I have to be re-reminded that such and such did take place and I was there or something did happen.
I am afraid that there is not enough time to re-educate my memory for all that seems lost in recall so I wait patiently until something acts as a hook and fishes a memory or two that I can hold onto.
I try to keep hold of memories and remind myself that they are true, but still in the back of my mind a small voice cries out that there is that one percent chance that it did not.
I keep telling myself that it is my imagination and that everything will work out but I still have that element of doubt. It is not half as bad as it was when I first arrived from hospital but those feelings were pretty real to me and it is hard to just let it wash over me.
I listened to a program about sleep sometime this week or last week I cannot for the life of me remember when it was., It narrated an interesting account with much insight on how sleep helps the body repair itself. It also explained how focus and attention is affected by sleep deprivation.
I am sad to say that only a third of the program was dedicated to dreams as since the injuries I have had lucid dreams whenever I sleep. I would be interested to have the dream content analysed as I am sure that I am acting out my life as I would like it to be when awake.
In my dreams I drive I go to work, albeit very different form of employment than I am trained for. I even go horse riding and have a pie and chips super after work and I have a three bedroom flat that over looks the docks and a very large river. Mostly I return to where I left off in the dream and it is fun, I am not worried about it but I seem to have lost most of the colours that I once dreamt in. Now they range from dark blue to lighter dark blues, once again how bizarre.
The other program I listened to was about false memories and to be honest I know that memories can dissipate with time age and other incoming information not to mention suggestion of those you trust. (Oh no, not another paranoia trip.)
Memories can be evoked from many things. Smells, sounds, touch and other such phenomena. This reminds me of a little story that I was told by a lecturer at Glamorgan university.
"A lecturer of psychology started a lecture to a full auditorium of first year students. Being fully engrossed and enthusiastic of his field he began to elaborate on the wonders of the human memory system.
As he stood before his captured audience he gestured passionately to illustrate and bounced about with glee as his story unfolded about an incident that day in the refectory whereupon he had smelt the mushy peas being prepared for lunch.
"Today" he announced to the students "I stood in the refectory and I could smell the mushy peas cooking." He sniffed into the air as his chest expanded to illustrate the yummy and desirable order. " when I smelt them cooking" he charged on. "It elicited a memory from my childhood of my mother in the kitchen and myself as a child waiting for my dinner to cook" he paused to observe the crowd and re-sniff the air for added affect. " Even as I think of it now,. He sniffed again and then shot himself in the foot by saying. " I can still taste that pea ness in my mouth."
Beware that memories of this kind will hang around like a bad smell for years and I bet he still remembers too, poor tormented soul.
Memories can be false and if one cannot recall a memory without being primed what is to say that the memories that are elicited from such prompting are true?
I vaguely remember a case study from the past that required students to watch a video. They were asked questions about the film such as did the woman with the yellow hat drop a newspaper. Even if the woman that dropped the paper was not wearing a hat there were people who were adamant at first that no-one in the film was wearing a yellow hat , they were persuaded that she was as confederates of the experimenters convinced them so.
That element of doubt if seeded can influence the outcome of a memory true or false, it does not take much persuading in many cases.
Memories can be displaced with other events and decay over time in a normally functioning brain providing they get stored correctly after all if one is not paying attention in the first place, the memory will either be distorted and incorrect or not recorded at all, it depends upon the amount of initial attention.
In my case memories are there and I do remember a lot, however they can range from vague to good, but I seem to have trouble with being able to unravel two or more event and the times that they took place.
I have mentioned the feeling that I have all the time, it drives me insane. I feel as if I should be some place else and there is someone else waiting for me and that I have unfinished business elsewhere.
I have no memories of where I should be even though I feel as if I should be some other place, so what is going on? Why do I spend endless hours worrying about these feelings? And why can I not remember if the feelings are real? By the way I feel it appropriate at this point to apologise for repeating myself. The problem I have is that as this becomes a longer piece of work, the longer and harder it becomes to read back over, so I do apologise but at it is far more effect than sleeping pills.
There are so many things in my life that are strange, my emotions, the way I see things, the way I feel. Sometimes it is more than I can bear but I cannot do a thing about it, I have to cope with it. I become so fed up and feel as if I have come to an end in the search to put things back as they were before.
I have to come to terms with it fully at some point surely. That is not to say I intend to give up trying to rectify the problems I have encountered even though I threaten quite a lot. (And now, just to add insult to injury, my A drive has buggered up on the computer, how bad can it get?) I am going to make a cup of tea and cry into it for a while before I throw a wobbly.
During my tea making I thought about peoples definition of the word paranoia, some tend to use the word freely to describe those that ask too many awkward questions. I have come across this usage many times when I think that the speakers tone is snappy perhaps I will ask if there is something wrong and I am told not to be so paranoid. This disturbs me somewhat as this affliction has sent my sensitivities flying out into orbit. The slightest sniff of a tone that could mean I am for the high jump makes me cringe most of the time and it is driving my partner crazy.
I cannot afford to ignore tones in speech, nor can anyone else that would like social acceptance, as it defines reactions. Once taken the wrong way it could start a war with some individuals, my nerves are slightly the worse for wear as they are without the added taxation of offending people by accusing them of talking down, or offensively to me without justifiable cause, not only that, a twisted earlobe hurts and so does a poke in the eye.
As I see it, if one does not ask one does not know and I make no excuses for needing to know if something is wrong. I suppose I do it a lot, so I can see why some people become irritated by it. I suppose I could ignore some tones but with the luck I have, that will be the time that I should have asked and will repent at my leisure for it too, or am I just being paranoid?
The human mind is a wonderful object it can play so many tricks but on who? How can it trick me into acting strangely? Earlier today I was playing with one of the cats on the dedicated work top by our front kitchen window when suddenly someone appeared there and spoke to me.
It was someone I had not seen for a while, even so my reaction I think in retrospect was strange.
He said that I had stared at him, then looked away after say hello and addressing him by name and continued to play with the cat. I had thought that it was my imagination and continued thinking to myself how bizarre this was to have taken place.
I remember thinking that I would have to write the event down when he called me by name and asked me if I was drunk. He was laughing and shaking his head then he put his hand through the window and stroked Jess the cat and suddenly seeing this made me realise that I had become so engrossed in our playtime that I had forgotten about the open window and yes in fact there was a real person standing there looking in at me.
What made me think that it was something worth writing down was the fact that, I cannot remember the event taking place only part of it, such as thinking how strange it was to have seen his face and that it appeared in my head like a thought, not as some that was taking place in real time.
This happens a lot if I am concentrating, it does not feel like a day dream but like switching channels on the television perhaps. The noise levels were not that bad so what happens to cause such an event or is that quite normal sometimes? Perhaps I analyse myself far too much or perhaps it is healthy. At least I am keeping an active mind, wherever I am?
I have however come a long way from the first time I came home from hospital. I am told by many people how much better I am and I feel more settled in myself. I used to refer to our home as my partners, now I say our house. In the beginning it must have been extremely hard, not just for me.
This reminds me that up until this point I have made no reference as to my partner's name or gender.
This was not a deliberate act on my part I thought it would be nice to give my partner a mention by name as she really is the story board keeper. Without her I would have little recollection of anything from taking medication to the fact that my shoes are on the wrong feet .
I think it is time now to name my long standing partner who is one of my biggest links to reality Miss Jacqueline Whiteman. (applause)
In the early days of recovery I had forgotten how to walk without aid. I could hardly speak and could barely stand on my own two feet even getting out of a chair was a major operation.
Most of my memories are not just vague but they do not exist in my mind at all. These times and events I have not forgotten because I did not even have the slightest idea that they were happening. I knew my name and I knew Jaci's name and she was, I have been told is the first person I asked about.
According to staff of the Gloucester Royal Infirmary I was under the impression that she had also been captured by aliens and that I might never be able to be with her again. What a drama queen, not that I remember much about that either, but I remember asking for her. I remember someone telling me that it was either five past two or twenty five past two Am and that she is probably in bed, I then must have blanked out as I remember no more.
After reading what I have just written here you would think that I would be glad to see her at my bed side, and I apparently was until the day I signed myself out. Yes that is correct I did sign myself out, what an idiot.
I had been under severe tension, what with all these men in black lurking in the corridors and aliens flying about the solar system just waiting to get me. At that point in time nothing made sense and the abduction theory would kick in at the slightest cue. I had signed myself out because, I proclaimed, I would be safe with her and that I would protect her and the animals (Yes I had remembered them too) from the onslaught of aliens probably due to land in Monmouth, only god knows what I was thinking at the time.
With warnings that I had to go home with and not anywhere on my own as I was a risk to myself and other people, I was permitted reluctantly by the staff to. They were not happy bunnies about this and they tried along with Jaci to keep me there as long as possible, without tying me up, in the hope that my mind would change, but no my mind was made up I was not waiting to be made into an Cyborg, I was off.
The embarrassment that I caused Jaci was shameful, although we both laugh at it now. She tells with amusement how, I would be pacing about getting all flustered then as I approached yell abuse at her telling her in no uncertain terms to go away and leave me alone as I knew she was an impostor, probably a body snatcher in my mixed up little brain. The next minute I would pass her by again as she sat patiently waiting the outbursts to cease and say to her, hello Jaci and sit by her, next I would be off like a banshee striding along yelling at her to (ABUSIVE GUTTER LANGUAGE) go away. I have no recollection of behaving in this way, I am so glad she understands.
After that was the journey home which I have no recollection just as with the outbursts in the hospital. Jaci tells me that this was quite a journey and she did not know if I would have another outburst so she was pleased when I started to giggle then passed out.
Our neighbours were in their window as we pulled up and I have no recollection of anything so I have had to rely on accounts from them and Jaci. Our neighbours thought that I had suffered a stroke as I was hardly capable of walking even aided and of course I had the palsy down my left hand side.
The other problem was my speech, I could hardly string a sentence together and when I did it was often confused with misplaced meanings.
Her accounts of my behaviour were logged for a while so I had some idea of things I did, for example I would eat things from the ground as a child does. I would pick berries from trees and worry Jaci to death. I know I owe much to her and credit where it is due, Jaci Thank you so much for looking after me the way that you have, but it has been a laugh too although I only just remember some things. It seems funny now because it seems that it was someone else and not me. But it was me and there has been a vast improvement since then and I seem to remember more happening even though I do not know when. Jaci has me in stitches telling me what I did, she is a good woman and has taken much in her stride, she did not have to but she did.
It has been challenging, having to learn basic things again but second time around is always much easier, or so it is said. Even as I am sitting here thinking about it, this depersonalisation disorder or reality displacement torments me. There still could be a marginal probability that there is a conspiracy and that we that have this disorder are being fobbed off, they sent a man to the moon did they not? It never eases up and neither does the need to be some place else, where ever that is.
I have not been feeling, for the want of an expression, my usual strange self the last few days I think it might be. I try to keep track of days and times I keep dates here and there, but that is the problem I become fatigued by all the looking and finding and reading. I have tried to think of a way of stopping this happening, I feel exhausted, semi-functional. The only thing I can think of is that I have had a mild personal dilemma crop up and I have to think about how to deal with it plus my solicitor has sent me a letter that made me think that there is a problem and I cannot get these out of my head. Of course with it come all the other symptoms such as anxiety, and odd feelings that I get, such as not wanting to go out and certainly not travel in a vehicle, so I missed out this week on two visits to the day unit and that is important to me.
I have promised myself that one Friday I will force myself to go, even if I have to wear blinkers and take knock out drops.
The problem I am having typing is unbelievable, I am not the best in the world however I am unusually bad today in that I am very slow. Noises are distracting me and I noticed earlier how clumsy I was just drying a few dishes and feeding the animals.
I think the amount that I have slept the last few days has improved on my mental health as I played chess today, I did well actually, not bad. There was music quietly playing in the background and we did chat during the game but only simple conversation. The problem that I have now is that Jaci has the tumble dryer going, the washing machine and I have so many thoughts that will not go away. Well, it might seem like a lot but there are only two to be honest it is just that I cannot cope with it all in one go, and now someone's dog is barking and kids outside are screaming and it is all just outside the window. Tea break I think. I am so tired I just want to go up to bed, I hope I make it passed the staircase or I might just go up to play with the cat and fall asleep.
Well I made it back, hour and a half later. I made a cup of tea and promptly forgot about. I had gone to the garden to sit among my trees. I tell my trees everything and I watch with love and affection as they grow. Ah, I had better say that I do not however tell the trees my thoughts out aloud, as the dogs tell me that it makes me look insane. After being out in the garden for sometime parading around the trees I thought I felt a few spots of rain so returned to the house and thinking it an idea to have a glass of fizzy cola poured one out, Mmm, wasteful and bizarre.
It is April the 16th today, my wonderful computer tells me. Actually it is very late for me to be up, but I have a confession to make. I really do not want to go to Neuro tomorrow and I cannot help myself either. I have been out locally but for some reason I just do not want to go. I have to say it has bothered me to the extreme, so much so that I phoned the unit and made a solemn promise that I would attend just to force my hand. I hope it works, I am sure that it will and I just hope it is my all time favourite driver, no names his head is big enough already.
Today just like many other days lately I have done nothing special apart from hiding from the world or walking our dogs, bit of cleaning and gardening if you call spraying them with... (I cannot for the life of me think of what it is called, oh bugger.) it is an anti-fungal insecticide? That is the word I wanted, I used an environmentally friendly one that will not kill wasps, bees or ladybirds and I try to spray when the bugs are asleep so that there will be minimum pain I hope so anyway.
I have slept quite a lot again lately. It goes like that I have noticed because I have been keeping an events diary. I go over them now and again, I do not know when the last time was exactly but I think it was recent.
When I find it I will have a look to see if there is a specific pattern developing but there has not so far, as far as I know anyhow. However it does tend to have a slight random pattern I suppose in that the same symptoms actually reoccur and can be are accompanied by other symptoms, such as fatigue and abnormal functioning on basic tasks, which is the random part. The reoccurring part is that it goes from bad to good in circles. Clear as mud? Good.
I am thinking that I am somewhat like a machine that needs topping up something not unlike a cordless screwdriver I suppose. They are bloody useless also. That statement means nothing though, it just restates something that has been known for a long time. That does not help and it does not make me feel any better.
Let me be rather candid here, what is the problem with me? Well let me think at this time, as I have for god only knows how long, I have felt like an alien from a very similar planet. My perception of the world has changed dramatically and this wonky looking world feels so unreal, but here is the twist I am real. I think that the physical changes are the worst to cope with other than the feelings that one encounters from the affect of (DD).
It is not getting any easier on the behaviour front either. I still tend these days to say what I may be thinking out aloud. As you can imagine it can be embarrassing on occasions and sometimes it can just as funny and give hours of entertainment just thinking about it.
I am hoping things will get better and I can return to work and if it is not to late a higher degree, my stomach flips when I think about that. I my concentration has been appalling the last few days and is no exception this minute, but, I know that as soon as I turn in. My eyes open and I fidget about worrying about the time and the fact that I have to go away from my safe place is haunting my mind. I am doomed, I was hoping that if I waffled away on the computer I would bore myself to sleep. I think it is working actually but my mouth is so dry I have to have a glass of water, ping wide awake again.
I had to stop myself from tumbling of the chair then. I emptied my glass tipping my head back as I did so, the room spun about something cruel, and that is why observing the sky is awkward. I now have to carry out much of my observations by placing a mirror on my lap and looking down into that. However after a while the perception of the image changes and makes it very difficult to not fall forward. Shame really as I miss doing that. The spinning itself last just a matter of seconds now as where in the beginning it was considerably longer which made me extremely nauseas. The main problem now seems to be just the while turning of my head while getting up or looking up. Well looks like it worked doing some typing, I am going to try and get some sleep ready for Neuro. It is a long day for me and I will probably sleep for hours and hours when I get back.
Today it is Saturday the 17th of April. Yesterday I made it to Neuro and as far as I can remember it went well. I did get rather tired by mid afternoon but remained awake during the journey home. I arrived home a little after six, a meal had been prepared for me by Jaci, one my favourites, smiley faces fish and peas Mmm.
Today I am going to try to do something a little more stimulating, I have not clue as what yet and now as I speak I glance outside and it is raining. I know this as there are arrows flying passed the study window.
Yesterday as we sat in the car outside another hospital awaiting a patient from the dialysis department I noticed droplets of rain on the window looked like Russian dolls. Russian dolls are, for those who have not seen them, are small bulbous ceramic dolls, usually painted in national costume, each smaller than the other so that they can be stored inside each other in descending order. Personally they give me the creeps, so do garden gnomes, but as I watched each droplet forming on the windscreen I became aware that I was swallowing and breathing deeper I was starting to feel suffocated by the affect, I had go get out of the car. After few minutes outside the symptoms started to subside and before I knew it had cleared up enough for me to get back inside the vehicle.
I have given this happening much thought over night and although I cannot figure out exactly why it should have occurred I have no theory as yet, but I did give myself a head ache. I suppose if I was particularly candid there are many other such events that I now ignore as best as I can, although sometimes it becomes obvious to other people present in my company that there is something wrong with the way I am behaving perhaps, or that I stare while holding my body ridged.
I am usually oblivious to these actions, I am usually surprised to find that I may have been standing for minutes on end while staring away looking something like a crooked hat stand.
Human beings are not the only animals to have become familiar with my slight behavioural changes. For example KC one of our Collies will bark at me and paw at my leg this of course could mean only two things that she wants one of which is playtime the other is water. For food the signal is different just as it is for take me into the park please and I need to go out the garden.
On this particular day the dogs had been fed, walked and watered. It was a sunny day, but very cold. I had walked our usual route which I know is safe for me but the Sun was blinding, and the clouds were travelling at quite a few knots across the sky making it difficult for me to concentrate.
The shadows leapt up in front of my eyes making me jerk my head about as one does when an objects seems to be travelling towards you at sixty MPH. I had already indicated to the dogs to go on, they did so leaving me to saunter across the grass to where the bench is. On getting to my favourite seat I sat down to roll a cigarette and promptly missed the bench by two foot, bloody shadows.
I staggered to my feet brushing myself down and feeling like a right Idiot trudged off to find the dogs hoping that no-one saw me. On return to the house I felt rather unstable, functioning was difficult, I wanted a hot drink so filtered some water into the kettle then switched it on. I can only hazard a guess at how long I had been standing there waiting for the water to boil, I do not remember it boiling or remember the noise it makes as I usually do.
I gradually became aware that KC was standing at my feet making low throaty growling noises and she had her paw held up on my leg. My attention was then drawn to my leg, it was scratched, bleeding ever so slightly but burning like fire. I bent down and made a fuss of her to insure that she understood that she was a good girl, I asked her what she wanted but she turned around and walked off. I watched as KC left the kitchen her tail wagging, I wondered to myself what she had wanted, usually this meant take notice of me, but not today and why had I not felt KC clawing at my leg, then I felt the kettle it was warm not hot it had time to cool down, perhaps I had suffered a mild seizure and KC knew something was wrong. I can only guess as to what she really meant to communicate but it would seem that as soon as she got my attention and felt that I was fine, off she went to find her sister Rizzo and the cats.
Odd behaviour is something that most of us display at some time in our lives, every animal on this planet displays odd behaviour because we are all individuals and unique unto ourselves very much of the way through evolution and personal self, so at some point we all will carry out actions that others find strange or what they assume to be out of character to individuals that they meet or even know personally.
When an individual has a brain injury, it is possible to confuse odd behaviour as a product of the injury and not the person. I have asked many people that I know, such as close friends and family the question "I am displaying any behaviour that could be considered as odd or unusual?". The answers vary from you are odd anyway to yes so here are the top ten odd behaviour charts hits, music please Miss Lashes.
With friend like this I do not need enemies really and to put a finer point on it I may as well ask the man in the Moon, so other than that I can report nothing on any odd behaviour that I may have developed other than what I consider to be a by-product of another condition, such as fatigue influenced by incoming information that I am slow in dealing with.
I have noticed some changes that I feel I can only just keep control of, my temper is one and my mouth the other. I have never suffered fools gladly and I suppose that I never will, but since I came to land on this planet after the fall I have one hell of an attitude problem with some people. I think the problem is that my brain and mouth used to work together in harmony, a happy duo that would battle with other brains and out of control mouths with ease. Now I feel less confident at doing so, until I actually become so annoyed that it just comes out what ever is on my mind.
Perhaps that is why it is said that I display such childish behaviour when I think I should have my own way. Sometimes I cannot think quick enough to defend my self verbally and I find it difficult to explain some things so I become irate. I become frustrated quite easily then I lose the plot . Of course the battle has been lost then I go blank as quite often I become confused during an argument as it is highly taxing. I sleep quite a lot then to recover and I am starting to see a pattern develop. Everything is taxing, sleeping eating arguing, watching rain or snow falling even riding in a car. I am bloody well fed up with it all and I still feel anxious about not being where I am supposed to be, that is taxing too.
It is just six O'clock and I am desperately tired, my eyes are gritty and feel like lead my concentration is low, my typing is slow and the red lines that are popping up all over the screen are nearly joined up there are so many and suddenly I feel very low, so I think I will pack it in and sleep. I have done quite a bit of typing and the crossword also the mirror gram, walked the dogs and cleaned around.
After two hours sleep I am awake, just and ready for a tad more typing and rambling. I made it up the stairs as my legs were turning to concrete, fought my way onto the bed between the cats and went out like a light.
I am wondering if I was to find ways of not just cutting down on incoming information, but actually increasing the output I have. But how can I increase energy that just seems not to be there?
Cutting down on what is the most taxing of actions cannot actually be avoided as the most taxing seems to come from visual and audio stimuli. To re-address the balance I have tried energy drinks in the hope that a glucose boost may influence my ability to cope with the influx of data from my hyperactive senses.
Being a diabetic does not help here much because and forgive me for stating the obvious but, they are mostly all glucose which in turn gives me such a boost I get fatigued as soon as the high is over. That reminds me of trying to count sheets of paper on my fingers. I could not for the life of me count on my fingers. I had been trying to add together but kept repeating, "one hundred three hundred five hundred". In the end I gave up and used a calculator. Ah, insane I hear you cry but wait, it was tiredness, let me explain.
I had been out in the garden, it was hot, and Epilim makes me thirsty so I drank down a bottle of a well known brand of high energy drink. The affect it has on myself is appalling and I act in a rather loud drunken manor.
My friends tell me it is a similar affect that one would expect from speed and such like. I have never taken anything other than Cannabis, and I intend not to, so the effects are not know to myself but I have observed other peoples behaviour after taking it and by their descriptions they could well be correct, however and thank goodness it lasts only for a short while. Can you see the picture developing?
I slept through until the next day, it was around mid-day before I woke up. I think energy in that form is out of the equation for good as for a while my sugar count exceeded this weeks lottery numbers added together.
I realise that the Frontal lobes are the two areas that deal with information that has to be encoded. To explain this if one thinks of going on holiday to Greece and let us suppose that you are in a shop. You hear what people are saying, you can smell something nice but you cannot understand Greek so the conversation is not encoded as you have no prior memories of that particular language. You can detect a pleasant aroma but you have no idea of what it might be, as you have no memories to recall a name to identify it. It could be someone's aftershave, a flower, some scented perfume or a plant with aromatic leaves. The truth is out there Scurvy and Mouldy says so. What you have no memories of, you do not know about. Simple is it not? Clear as mud as my math teacher at Five Acres collage used to say.
The point is if the incoming information has not been encoded as with the speech in the Greece scenario, one will not know what the semantics (meanings) are or to put it another way, if you cannot speak Greek you will not know what is being said. You cannot encode what you have no code reference book to.
Brains are very much like this computer I am working with, they do as they please. A damaged brain especially with a damaged temporal lobe allows information in, but finds it hard work dealing with the encoding as it is dysfunctional and under stress from the usual influx of information from the outside world. A healthy brain would deal with this quite easy, although over a persistent and prolonged period, as it has been shown with work studies such as with flight controllers, concentration can become a major problem, ones focus and attention can become affected greatly.
A damaged brain is under a constant stress so it is not surprising that confusion is a symptom. To add to the load, when the senses have become hypersensitive to the environment the external signals seem to be more taxing to encode, thus much more fatiguing hence the greater the need for sleep. So sleep is important in recovery. Perhaps I should give into it a bit more but sometimes it is not practical to sleep, but it is something to think about if it helps. I suppose that the only way to look at it is as if trying one has hurt a muscle you have to ease it back into action with gentle exercise, after all the brain is just a muscle so why not treat it as such I suppose.
I find myself questioning the external world on a day to day basis which is tiring in itself I suppose. I am trying to take all this in my stride however bizarre it is. Still I sit here typing in the hope that I will be able to come to some conclusion that will allow me an end to this. I need to go get back home or shake this feeling which ever applies. I need to find the one that waits my return, whoever that may be, or of course shake this feeling and I need to leave wonky world behind and get a life a job a car and fly around the universe perhaps, anything is possible these days. Strange.
I lay in bed the other night half watching half listening to a film called Cube 2 I had not seen the first one but the second film would give good insight into the strange phenomena of Depersonalisation Disorder and how one could explain the feeling of not knowing where one is, or what to do, what actions to take and when. The individuals in the cube however were a little worse off actually as they had psychotic killers to deal with.
On Fridays visit to Neuro I spoke to a gentleman that also suffered from (DD) he told me that this would pass, he also said that he recovered after ten years. That is a very long time for me, I cannot wait that long. There has to be some way around this if not through it.
After I had typed the last bit above this I popped into the lounge to see if Jaci would like a coffee as I was making tea, she was watching a quiz show. The question was, what does the I in the abbreviations E.M.I mean, was it industry or international. I said that it was Industries as I could not think of any other abbreviation that would place the word international at the end, for example Cardiff International arena (where my nephew ice skates) or International airport, but she argued that it had to be industries because international was a newer word therefore it had to be Industries. This for some reason got my back up, so I argued that even if that were true many younger people may not know the label, to which she argued back that even today E.M.I is an ongoing industry and the label would be known to which I replied, with my hand held out to her, what ever. I then went to the study to sulk. Mmm how bizarre.
I have thought about this and although at the time I think nothing of it, in retrospect it is certainly odd behaviour. I also think it strange that when asked this has not come up. Although I get support in other ways I have no feed back per se. I have to dig deep for conversation at the best of times but I could do with a little help on keeping score sometimes, although she does let me know when I have lost something or perhaps thrown something out that I should not have. She frequently reports on how clumsy I am and how confused I get, but nothing that helpful. It looks like I am going to further the investigation, what can I tackle next.
News flash just in:
I was just asked a question to which I knew the answer it was something to do with a river and which town stood on it. I answered correctly the Niger but the reason I gave is that Timbuktu, (I can't spell Timbuktu, hahaha and neither can my computer which is funnier ), was in Canada which I know it is not.
The problem remains with me still I know that I knew where the Niger and Timbuktu is but I cannot but help think that it is in Canada. Explain that one.
It is at times like this that the pattering of dogs and cats paws on the laminated flooring annoys the hell out of me. The screen seems to have become an array of flashing micro specks buzzing about like atoms. The more I look at the monitor the worse they get, perhaps this is my cue to shut down, take my Epilim and go to bed but I can hear the television from down here so what chance of quite is there upstairs. The new sofa looks comfortable so perhaps I will take a quick nap, the only problem is I have these feelings that I should not get off to sleep because there is something that I must do. I do not know what it is but I am becoming bored with this feeling now and sometimes it drives me crackers. I think I find this harder to deal with than anything else. None of the other symptoms are such a problem.
Oops I dropped off to sleep then, I am off to sleep I think upstairs so that I have at least got Jaci to confirm that it is alright and there is nothing for me to do, not that it makes it easier but I try to let her know when things happen, just in case of the unexpected.
Today was Sunday the 18th of April, I had two visitors today my two best mates. The hours went by fast and although we played chess, decided that no music was a good idea. We smoked a few joints, played chess and I made numerous cups of tea and coffee, kept up with the conversation and still managed to cook dinner at eight, on my own, and without any major problems. I have had a good few days and I am enjoying it while it lasts.
It is ten past nine in the evening and I feel fine. And now just to put my new found fitness to the test I am off to watch the film on ITV1.
It is a science thriller so I will enjoy that I think it is entitled What lays beneath, it goes on for two hours I think. Later people.
Today is Monday the 19th of April I did not see the film last night I fell asleep until this morning. I have had another good day today and have been bursting with energy I have noticed though that things are starting to slow down this afternoon.
20th Tuesday of April. Oh bugger, I have to go and get dressed it is Tuesday and I go to the hospital today. So that is why the alarm went off.
Here I am back in the house safe and sound, I had an awful journey home so now I bid you all goodnight I am absolutely shattered. If I can remember anything worthy of typing I will add an entry.
Wednesday 21st of April and to honest I have no clue to what exactly happened today, I slept in the car most of the journey and since then my mind has been erased and so I am going to bed after tea as I feel extremely wonky and every time the wind blows anything outside the window or moves he curtain I suffer motion sickness. I admit it has not made me vomit as yet, but I do hate that sensation I feel as if the world is rotation slowly and I am counter spinning it's rotational path.
I am feeling as if my batteries are running down. My speech is slurry and I have developed the usual problem of under pronunciation of words, such as in the Cardiff dialect. To illustrate, the letter J becomes a D, thus Jaci becomes Daci, which although may be cute to some and fun to others projects totally the wrong image outside in the real world and stereotyping by some individuals and the way they react, very often causes red ears. Especially if I can reach them in time with my open hands each side of their heads perhaps. After all I am only a humble animal underneath and I take offence to being treated as an imbecile.
It is Thursday the 22nd of April today and tomorrow we are having guests for the weekend and Jaci's mother is staying on for a few weeks after the other two goes back to Surrey.
This will prove rather interesting I dare say. I have become rather fatigued today. We had our usual shopping to do plus we had to plan for an extra three and Jaci being Jaci wanted everything perfect as can be. We seemed to be walking up hill every where we went, although it was flat I was having a toffee day, I woke with it this morning. I gazed out of the window to see my flat and lifeless world looking back at me.
I tried to figure out what was in the trees at the very ridge of the forestry. I thought it was a bird a very large bird sat on the top most tree on the ridge. I became mesmerised by it as I rested my head into my hands as I leaned on the window sill. Suddenly I realised that what I had seen had disappeared. I looked up to quick I was jolted backwards onto the bed as my vision suddenly threw me about, again. I think it is something to do with fragments of bone floating around in the inner ear. I seem to recall some one telling me this, but I do not remember who it was, I have been tired lately again.
It would seem that I have a few good days where although nothing really changes with the feelings that I should be some other place and I just do not fit in with any where I am or who I am with, I do feel as if I have plenty of physical energy. I become obsessed with cleaning and sweeping anything to become physically active, adrenaline buzz is an under estimation but that is the nearest analogy I can arrive at. I enjoy it while it lasts, suddenly I start to decline again. It seems as if there are four or five exceptional days where this will take affect however over the next following days, depending on my activities, duration time and how taxing the activities were influence the duration of recovery. Or to simplify it, the number of Toffee days that I have will depend on what I get up to during my good days. Where I seem to whiz around like a ferret up the proverbial drain pipe, until I run out of steam again et cetera.
I found written in my note book that a staff member said to me that I have a lot of physical symptoms. I wonder what that means? Does it mean that not many other patients have as many? Or was the statement just an observation? Mmm I shall have to write in my note book to ask, I have no doubt in my mind at all that I can ask this individual and get an honest answer and it will not be a problem to ask either, this I have come to learn very quickly and from the beginning, strange how one takes to some from the off.
This next entry is going to cause me problems at a later date as I have travelled back in time to fill in some information I have found on head injuries and seeing as I had last entered here about physical symptoms after head injuries here it is. ( Information from Monday May 3rd.)
Cognitive symptoms caused as a result of a head injury may include:
slowed or reduced ability to process information
short or long term memory loss
spatial disorientation
impaired judgment
reduced ability to concentrate
communication difficulties
Physical symptoms caused as a result of a head injury may include:
pain
seizures
muscle spasticity
headaches or migraines
problems with vision
balance problems
loss of smell or taste
speech impairment including slurring of words
fatigue or increased need for sleep
Emotional symptoms caused as a result of a head injury may include:
a lack of initiating activities
difficulty in completing tasks without reminders
increased anxiety
impulsive behaviour
depression and mood swings
agitation
egocentric behaviour
Today is Friday the 22nd of April and it is 3:40 Am. I cannot sleep I have tried and I know why. Today, well yesterday I mean we went shopping and around B&Q store, I became so tired that when we finally did get to bed I could not sleep. I drink decaffeinated tea and coffee I drink far more water than I used to so as to cut down, as suggested by the Physio-terrorists at Whitchurch and I could sleep on a chickens lip at this point but between the urge to run away and find my way home, my jumping legs, joints and banging head aches I feel like downing a bottle of something alcoholic, unfortunately there is more chance of finding the holy grail in this house as there is alcohol. And I really do not like the taste of any spirits.
Annoyances and things that make you go boom.
The hardest self-observation to divulge and admit to even one's self, is wrong doing and explaining ones bad attitude or behaviour. It is difficult because one knows that it is bad behaviour, moreover, bad behaviour without justifiable reason, which there usually is none, is unacceptable and most of the time un-necessary. So why does it occur?
From personal observations, it is because I become annoyed at things. I think at the time I am right, however in the face of evidence, sometimes, I am wrong. I still say each time that Timbuktu is in Canada even though I know it is not, but I cannot remember where it is and I know or have a deep feeling of knowing, that I used to know.
Examples of such behaviour can be illustrated by scenario's such as arguments over when events took place, who was present at the time and where items where placed as well as the irritating things that people do and say. For example I might be getting along with potting up a few plants and as far as I can tell I am completing the task correctly. A few minutes later and some one intervenes just to let me know that I have done something incorrectly and I will become hurt and irritated as I feel useless and totally out of control of my life. I could at one time pot up tomatoes blind folded, but not any more. You know, some feelings make me feel that I should be capable of such things, so I ask Jaci, for example, "Did I used to be good at this? The truth is I should not ask because if the answer is yes then I throw some right wobblers. On the other hand is the answer is no, I suppose I feel less inadequate and try harder. This posses another problem as I feel that my ability to learn new tasks are slow and laborious, hence the feelings of being worthless and useless.
In my life at the moment words cut like blades. I could shrug off a comment about the way I serve up in the kitchen, or the size of the portions I give Jaci's mum. It seems she never stops complaining about the way I go about things and I try to explain about my perception but I am afraid that they think it is an excuse. I find it so hard to feed the dogs let alone for two or three expectant adults. I suppose it is my fault in a way as I wanted to do it because Jaci has not been well lately and I feel as if I am of no help what so ever.
If I am not careful here this is going to turn into a moan rather then observations but hey, I think I am long due a good moan.
I feel irritable right now actually, so lets get analysing. Over the weekend we had quite a few visitors. I have not quite got over that and tomorrow I have to go to Cardiff to the day unit at Whitchurch and the next day then on Friday for Neuro.
I see by the clock it is 26th of April what happened to the 23rd and so on? Let me try to think. Ah yes visitors. There were six people in the house over the weekend plus the odd visitor that popped in and out, plus three cats and two dogs. No wonder I feel drained. People are so taxing, noise is taxing therefore I become tired and irritable. Then the inevitable happens and one becomes less attentive to incoming information and before long the room is spinning voices becomes white noise (Like hissing between radio stations) and before you know it people are either trying to shake you or wake you although more often than not, the brain closes down and the world takes second place to trying to interpret the information that is already in place.
That is why perhaps I become irritable, but what about annoyances because I feel that annoyances can be different and cause different behaviour, for instance if I am irritable I pace around and feel angry. However when I am annoyed I sit down and plan how to get around it, Mmm, strange. Not only that, I find that things annoy me now that did not annoy me before the injury occurred.
My memory has a trace of the weekend, fatigued confused and not at all interested in doing anything I spent most of my time nodding to conversations that I did not understand, smiling for no reason in copycat fashion on cue from the others. That annoys me because I am seen as rude or moody, they are bound to know it is a front?.
I spent much of the time with my nephew I enjoy his company we never seem to see each other enough but we understand each other and that means a lot to us both. I really cannot elaborate further as I have nothing to report, other than I think I am in for a rough week.
Clutter is something else that makes me annoyed. Since my first flat as a teenager I have become rather house proud and like all good chefs I like a good clean kitchen and everything in its place. I enjoyed cooking. I always had and I enjoy feeding my close friends just to experiment with different foods and ways of cooking. I am not able to cope these days with feeding myself safely let alone cooking for a crowd and it saddens me and is annoying but the more I dwell on it the more I take it out on clutter. These days I need space and spend most of my time cleaning around the kitchen and scrubbing the sink and units.
This may not seem such a bad thing until it starts to get in the way of other things. It could be bordering on obsessive and compulsive behaviour but I suggest the figure on scale here is around 0.02 out of a possible 100 score.
I kicked up such a storm in order to be allowed to cook a roast dinner alone, without supervision albeit the cavalry was camped about four feet away and just outside of the window so that I was also in full view.
I have to say that it took about six hours to prepare the kitchen how I wanted it before I even brought in the vegetables let alone bring out pans and such like. I cleaned and scrubbed every top and surface. All the ingredients were then brought in and prepared. This took quite a time to complete even though there were only carrots, parsnips suede and cabbage to prepare.
My hands feel clumsy and annoy me so much. It feels as if they are trying to do their best for me, but they seem slow and clumsy to me. Mmm, strange that I speak of my hands as if they have a life of their own, but that is how it is and nothing seems to be getting better, however they type well but only with two fingers, three at a push. (But that for many is not so strange so I feel better about it ). I have to say that I can still make a mean Yorkshire pudding, I have a feeling that my ability to do this is due to the fact that I have never measured anything hence the ability has remained the same. I wonder just how true that is?
I watch my hands as I prepared the vegetables and under normal circumstances I would be just watching that I am cutting correctly, chopping correctly and safely, which is not very taxing. The act of holding and turning the vegetables and using the utensils also, not a very physically demanding job on the surface of it all. But, what does the brain think of it all? How much more taxing do I find this simplest task? Very.
It takes me longer to peel three medium sized potatoes, five carrots a small suede, prepare a small cabbage and a small cauliflower than it does for me to vacuum the lounge kitchen hallway landing and stairs.
I watch my hands go about the task of turning a potatoes in my hand as if I were observing another species as it rolls the object around feeling its hard and cold texture. It feels slimy thick and sludgy around where it and the skin has made contact with the skin. I closed my eyes for a while and remember thinking how much like potter's slip it was but it did not feel smooth enough it was abrasive and felt like soft sand among the sludge rather like textured paint. My focus became drawn to the feeling that it gave me, it was not good when I opened my eyes all I could think of was the horrible feeling of starch and that wet potato feeling. I rushed to the sink to wash almost sending my self onto the floor as the room spun round.
Every carrot every leaf of cabbage I felt and it felt as if I had to study each one, texture and smell. In every sense of the word I was actually feeling what I had hold of, not just holding it but my hands were inspecting it, feeling it and they seemed quite happy, but slow and clumsy.
I suppose this all takes time and with a back log of incoming signals to be encoded so there is no surprise then that when this happens to individuals that have no idea what could be happening when they see themselves like this and feel about themselves as they feel that they assume that they are going insane. I feel lucky that my long-term memory did not become affected in any way that would impair what I had learned from University, that would have been such a loss and I none the wiser. As I reflect on that statement I feel I should say that nothing I had learned could have fully prepared me for what I have been through so far, but at least I have some foundations to build upon. If I had a pound for every time I thought that, I would be loaded.
After thinking about the sensations of handling the potatoes and other vegetables I thought about the feeling that I have when I am bathing and how awful it feels to be surrounded by the water and being in a confined space. The two feelings together are probably worse than just the feeling of the water. I come to this conclusion because in the shower I feel better and able to cope, however our shower is over the bath and there is a screen not an enclosed compartment. Very often I will have the window open as just that once in a while breeze makes all the difference to the time variation between having to get out and getting out of the shower because I am clean and done. It is extremely hard to explain how this affects an individuals life, some times when I have been able to explain the dilemma the feed back is usually very much the same.
It is assumed by many individuals that because a symptom has intermittent tendencies that it is not serious or it is all in ones mind. Some may forget if the frequency of occurrence has no regular pattern, for example they may forget that one may have speech segmentation problems where it becomes impossible to encode speech as it seems so foreign.
Another oversight is close family and such like may forget how frustrating it is for oneself to get things wrong and many people indulge in taking the rise out of ones mistakes, but fail regularly to praise the tasks that one completes.
Performing day to day tasks is something that we all take for granted, until something is taken away, you do not really appreciate what a lose it would be, such as the ability to walk in a straight line, to feel at home some where, to know what people are saying to you or even something as simple as drinking tea and listening, which I find very difficult these days.
Today is Friday the 30th of April, I know that because I went to Neuro and I checked before I went, as usual, on the computer before I had left in the Ambulance service car, my usual mode of transport to the day unit.
The day went well as I remember, I look forward to going in another two weeks time. I am feeling fatigued again today though and will more than likely be in bed within the next hour or so. Then again I have some things that I have to do, such as write this entry as I feel that today I let my mouth run amuck and now the group think I need a relate counsellor.
For those of you that do not know, psychologists and psychiatrists have a common goal but set out on varied and some times a very different pathway to reach more or less the same conclusions, the therapies vary also and where psychology will endeavour to prove that a problem comes from within quite often a psychiatrist will say that the problem stems from the past. So I have not really ever held bright views on group work and I for one can say that telling my all to a group of strangers is not something I usually relish. However, I think the therapy is starting to work on me as my mouth went into over drive today.
I cannot believe I had a conversation about my private life and was so blunt about it, that is not my style at all. And besides that if this ever gets back home I will be dead and buried by next week. (Only joking) The only problem is I remember saying something, but I cannot remember exactly what I said and what were just thoughts in my head. After all, I may just have been dreaming and I will awake in the morning, get up, get in the car drive to work and everything will be back to normal, in fact it is probably August and I had better get the forms back off to Glamorgan this week some time and start getting the applications out. So if I am dreaming, why the hell am I so tired after doing anything?
Then never ending fear that the environment is unfamiliar, yet familiar has become my Nemesis. Thoughts of combating it have become an obsessive pastime. It has become a game of chess, on the one side sits my brain on the other myself. But how can ones brain exist as a separate entity to ones mind or as I had put it ones self? I do not understand, I make no excuses for not understanding either as there are many complex faucets to the argument..
Psychologists and philosophers alike have battled through the ages in the quest to find that same answer. Is the mind and brain separate entities that can work as one and as totally independent components?
I suppose to really investigate one should start with a simple question, ah, but such as what? What is it that I want to investigate about myself?
The question was, can the brain be separate to ones self? And the reason why this question is being asked is because depersonalisation disorder calls in to question the existence of self and reality, as well as the veracity of the external world.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987), a psychologist based in client centred therapies suggested that an individual will evaluate every experience in relation to that individuals self concept. Not wanting to become to involved with these theories of self and what not, what this simply means is that we are constantly checking how we think others perceive us and how we really are. Clear as a wooden window? Good.
Theoretically we will assume that this is correct just to set the scene. If this theory is correct what scale do people with depersonalisation have to readdress the balance?
Who is myself? What am I now? I am not the same as I was and yet I am still the same person that I saw before, although I feel different. I know who I am in the mirror, but it feels an unfamiliar image.
Also, I think I am who I am and I am constantly checking with my environment for reality. I am doubly aware of my surroundings every second of the day so, if, as individuals this is an underlying common place behaviour is should be doubly taxing as I am aware of it, it is no longer an automatic function. So does this mean that I have just become aware of the underlying Sentinel that usually runs undetected way below my subliminal understanding? Or is there a second more active Sentinel since the accident and that is why it costs such taxation, thus causing such fatigue and concentration problems?
I think I have mentioned that thoughts are taxing to the point of distraction. One such thought that disturbs me more than any other at this time is my self concept, (this is because I have been reading a book about Carl Rogers and his flipping client centred therapies, and now I can not think of any thing else but, I am just glad it was not a conceptual theory belonging to Freud or I would be sectioned by dinner time tomorrow.).
The point is, if I know who I am, why do I feel as if I am not me when I look in the mirror. It is a feeling, an emotion that is incorrectly placed where ever one gets the feelings. That in itself is problematic as if one thinks of it, where do we get these strange feelings of doubt? In our head? Our stomachs? Or all over? Think about it, when we have feelings of doubtfulness where does that feeling originate? I sometimes experience a gut feeling, but its not in the gut area, it comes from an anonymous place but I can feel it all over my body, then when it feels real bad in my stomach as well. My brain does not want me to know where that feeling of doubt is coming from. It is plotting my demise I fear so now it is war. I do like a good game of chess and I can play dirty too, every time my emotions stop me from going out, I will go out if I can, no wonder it is called head trauma.
So what about the feelings I have about the environment, my external world why is it that it feels so new to me? I sometimes wonder if I have read about this place before some where else.
The perfect analogy for me is the "Holiday Brochure Effect" (Hodges 2004)
Imagine that you are for the first time going abroad, you have been shown a video of the apartment pool and resort that you will be staying at.
You have for instance three months before your departure. You will be excited and probably watch the video and read the brochure a zillion times or more as the days creep by you become more and more familiar with the place you will be staying at and perhaps also dream of your visit.
When you arrive at the apartment it is just as the video showed you. You walk around to the pool side and there are the sun beds you saw. You will be accustom easily to your surrounding, perhaps you will feel as though you have been there before, but, you will have a few surprises as you find that slight alterations have been made, perhaps the town looks the same but it will feel new to you. There will be new smells and sounds that will make a difference to you as they cannot be taken in from a book or video.
Depersonalisation is in my experience quite like this affect in that I experience new things every day, but they seem vaguely familiar as are the people I meet and the places I visit, some places I will argue that I not been to before, even though it has been said that I have. Trying to differentiate how many symptoms are separate from the depersonalisation disorder is difficult to establish. For example, the core symptoms of (DD) are feelings of not being in touch with reality and yet one instinctively knows that those feelings are not correct, something is wrong. If for example the visual cortex has been damaged which makes an individual's perception of the world different to the memories they have before head trauma, how does one know which injury has caused each symptom?
Earlier on today I had a type of seizure which lasted I am informed about two minutes in which time I stood still with my arms raised to waist level, eyes closed. I remember feeling very tired and was just about to rub my eyes, the washing machine started to whine and become distracting. That is all I remember, today I had three people around me, so they were able to observe my behaviour.
My partner, her daughter and her mother were in the kitchen at the same time and there was much going on. I think I had a close down, at least I have not fallen over as yet. After these episodes I become extremely tired and speech becomes an effort thus slurry. To add to this I become very dry mouthed, I fought with it for a while then slumped into a chair for a nap.
This type of behaviour I tend to put down as Temporal lobe over load. I have no idea if this is correct or not but it seems plausible because that is where, I understand the information from the external world is sorted out. On making this assumption though I thought I might mention in retrospect that I had failed to take Epilim last night and had missed my morning dosage. I fail to conclude in my mind whether the seizures are Epilepsy or just over load of incoming signals or a mixture of both. I am would offer myself as a guinea pig and suggest that I not take them, however I am not by any means a hero and if it means convulsing my one and only brain cell in the name of science forget it.
There is a way of finding out I suppose, and off I go to the super highway of information, the Internet.
Today I had a good long conversation with my partner Jaci over a coffee. She opened up quite a bit. She tells me that although I am still me there is and has been a change in my general behaviour.
I suppose it takes a lot for her to have to point these things out because she cares about me and she realises that being disabled in some areas is something I am fighting with, such as not being able to drive or go very far alone and go back to work.
One of the things that Jaci pointed out was that some days I seem quite a bit like my old self, assertive to a point, more aware of what is going on and more able to participate without tiring too much. Other days my behaviour is slow and sluggish and I become less assertive, under-confident and less likely to know where I am. There are other days when I remind her of a 5 year old, I tend to get lost, confused and sleep a lot around these times.
I asked for examples and wished that I had not. I have no recollection of most events and behaviours displayed, however there have been witnesses and not just my partner either. (you ever wish you had kept quiet?)
One such event took place whilst out shopping and I wanted a drink from McDonalds. The story goes I wanted a happy meal, because I wanted the toy, there is proof in the kitchen on top of the micro wave. On the way home I slept, on getting out of the car I found a chunk of chocolate that had been discarded and, I must have stood there looking at it lovingly because Jaci was convinced that I just about to pick it up and eat it, all I remember is her slapping the back of my hand and telling me how ill-disciplined it was to eat from the floor. Help!
Fragmented memories and false memories could of course run riot together, but why did I do that? I wanted to taste it, I wanted to smell it I suppose. From what I can gather and piece together, some times when the feelings are immensely overwhelming I have to obey.
It seems from impartial observations that I am experiencing it may be at that point that I am learning, just like the potato episode. Every thing I touch, everything I smell or observe somehow I sense they are bigger. I can feel every ripple every bump every silky sheen. I am a human magnifying scope in every sense. So how can I put this to good use? I have to get on with my new life. Where do I begin? I just wondered if I could learn brail? Perhaps I would be good at that now and I have always wanted to learn how to read it.
Perhaps this is where Neuro comes into play?
I can see by the clock that it is 1:47am and I am sitting here feeling rather down and I find it very hard to settle down. I tried laying in bed but all I managed to do was get all flustered and irritable, my eyes are irritable but I want to go out, I know that does not make sense at all but it happens now and again. It is like a rush of energy driven by an emergency to get out and be somewhere else, as if I have been instructed to go somewhere specifically to do some thing important, but I do not know where and I do not know what, how bizarre is that?
I suggest that we all become a little like this now and again, but this has been a persistent feeling since the accident that varies in severity and tonight it is becoming a problem. I am tired but my heart is bumping about my ankle joints and wrist joints are buzzing with electricity and my brain keeps planning an escape route to god only knows where. Odd behaviour.
I have no clues to what catalyst left me feeling as I do but I do wish that it would go away, it is driving me mad and earlier on I thought that I had lost my appetite and found a donkeys. I ate a whole bag of marshmallows and I feel sick and I just need to be out there, doing what ever.
I can imagine the state I would get into as it is raining, it is dark and I would get lost or carted off to the cells by the police. Then they would have to bring me home and ask Jaci to lock me up for safety, she in turn would ring Whitchurch and before you know it, nice room over looking the Spar shop across the road.
Ah I know, I could babble on about the awful dreams I keep having about the staff of the day unit. I dream that when the other patients and myself are at home sleeping, we are taken by the staff, who are really aliens from another planet. They have been given the go ahead by the government to take us for experimental purposes, as are others all over the world.
I woke up the other night just as one of them tried to wrestle me to the floor and inject me as I had woken up too early. And guess who the ring leader was? Answers on a postcard please to...Actually one or two could be aliens Mmm, where do J and L come from? The plot thickens.
Actually if I was as paranoid as my loving old trout accuses then I could interpret my dreams as real. I think I mentioned that my dreams have lost most colour definition, however I see things in varying shades of blues from midnight blue to a medium darkish blue and like a slate grey blue. I know strange, but true. The point is, they were in what I call my blue world where I can drive, go out as I used to I work and so on. My usual dreams are different, they tend to be random, they make little or no sense and have no story line as such and lighter in blues and some colour I think. But I have dreamt about being captured before, Mmm see, worried now hahaha not. Well I am not going to admit it if I was or if I believed it to be true as I like to keep one step ahead, just in case one can never be too careful.
And the time is 2:22am and I am becoming slower and slower, I can see mistakes happening on the screen but still I want to stay awake. The need to go out has gone away slightly but I still have electrical discharge between my joints, (see I told you about these experiments, I bet you that I am asleep now being experimented on by the staff at the day unit and I am just dreaming that I am sat here typing this utter rubbish).
Earlier on this evening I did a bit of research into the world of complex seizures and epilepsy. It would appear by browsing through the information that absences have something to do with Temporal Lobe epilepsy, that is weird. I will have to investigate further and see what I can conclude from it all. Good night.
Well here I am the second of May and I have just been informed that today is not Friday but Sunday. Jaci has her son and daughter in law here to visit with both their sons. The house is awash with noise and odours and to be honest I am quite tired already and I wish my mate was home so that I could go and hide around his place.
I have been outside until now re-potting tomato plants which I grew from the seeds I dried from a tomatoes we bought from the store. I intend to grow quite a few and sell them, ah my true potential has emerged, and I will become a garden market grower and bugger the degree.
As I am sitting here I have my music on low in the background, there is something about club and dance floor mixes that I find captivating. It is the beat I think. If you think about it, even when in a foreign language people still become engrossed in the beat, who needs words when you have a good beat and a few simile faces, smiling is infectious and so is a good beat. Long live Lisa Lashes and Dave Pearce, Faithless and the rest of them, not forgetting the Judge.
I still have the feeling today that I need to be somewhere else, but it is not as strong as it was last night, still I have been out with the dogs we went quite a way today. All the way down the bottom of the park and I picked some flowers for Jaci, aw! I felt quite unsteady today as I ambled along behind the dogs, they are 13 years old now and it is showing especially on Rizzo, KCdog still runs around trying to pull me over with the tug rope we have, I feel sad now as I will go to bits when the day comes that one will go, I hate thinking about it. I used to get upset before but now I actually cry at the thought of losing them. I lost my dog the year I moved to Monmouth, she had been hit by a car. She was my friend and we understood each other, what I ate she had and we used to visit McDonalds, she liked Banana milkshake fries and a big Mac, so did I, I miss her still very much. And now I need a tissue.
It was KC Dog that took over from Ashy, when they met they hit it off and became good friends too. It is KC that keeps me safe when we are out, she will growl when some one unfamiliar approaches, holding her head quizzically to one side as if she is quantifying their persona. KC is also the second lead dog after myself, I am pack leader, when she lets me, hahaha, sounds like my old trout Jaci, aw bless.
Actually I had a problem one day over the park and she brought me home quite a few times in fact, however some times when I become confused about where I am, she just lays down until I come to. Mmm, thanks dog.
As we walked among the trees I started to think about the way the land looks nowadays and it is not as bad as all that. I still can hear bird song and that makes me forget all else for a while, I enjoy just sitting among trees and plants listening to the birds.
This behaviour from our animals helps to bring home the fact that I must have been at this address for as long as I am told I have been as animals are funny little buggers, especially cats. I do not remember if I have mentioned out three cats. There is Jess, the kidnapped cat and our two that we waited an eternity for.
I keep pictures of all the animals in the study just to remind me that I am here as they seem to be a big link to reality. If anyone reads this that has the same thing happen to them let me give you some advice, you are not legally bound to take but it is very worth the while to surround yourself with past photographs of you and the people you left behind when you entered the world of (DD).
My books on the shelf above the computer are beginning to distract me today quite a bit, I feel the breeze coming through the window and I can hear the birds singing, I do not wish the window to be closed as it is refreshing and as I say I love to hear the birds singing. However I am distracted by this greatly and I find it very hard to concentrate on what I am writing.
I have not felt so well after the seizure in the kitchen sometime this week, or the weekend I can not remember when it actually was without asking.
The problem with the books is that they are picked up in the field of peripheral vision and when my eyes are moving it makes it seem as if I am on board a ship I do have problems with slight motion sickness, something again that I have not experienced before. Even when I turn around to move or look at some thing I feel as if I am being spun about, however this is something I am assuming will never go as it has not improved much at all since I opened my eyes the first time in intensive care.
That of course is not to say that the treatment I am receiving has not improved my standard of living because it has. I find that the staff a tremendous team and very caring, in truth, I would still be quite a mess if it were not for them. I owe them such a lot and I am very grateful for their extensive help.
The stigma of attending a psychiatric hospital I have found to be amusing, because if I do not laugh I would be suing quit a few people. Not only have I travelled with people that think I am a psychotic killer or a bunny boiler but they also assume that I am un-educated and some thing to be toyed with in that they tell me such exaggerated tales and expect me to believe it too. One such individual argued the fact that meteors were only active during the night time, what complete rot. Even an idiot would know this to be untrue plus I have a degree in Astronomy and space science and there I rest my case.
Just because an individual has a head injury it does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination that ones opinion does not count. I do realise that some patients however become confused and can give false information.
I for one can, under pressure give incorrect information, however one a one to one basis I do just as well as I did before the accident. If I do not know something however I will say that I have no idea but will try to find out information on the subject. There are two things in life that I think is well worth sticking too and the first is be honest about what you know the second is if you are guessing, let it be known.
I have on a few occasions been asked what something is and I will say the first thing that pops into my head, such as bird in answer to tea or coffee? Or fridge instead of milk.
These books are playing with my head so I think it is time to cover them up, I feel as if I am going up and down in a cloud of orange. I can see the orange edges of the books, Penguin books they are, Matt Ridley, Edward O Wilson, Paul Davis and one of Richard Dawkins's and all the edges in orange bobbing around.
I have taken them away now out of sight. If this pile of junk ever becomes published and I doubt that 99.99% I want the cover to be psychedelic pink with lime green circles that spiral outwards so that all the head trauma people have a wild time and fall over. Hahaha. Only joking people I know how varying light shadings can affect ones eyes and brain.
Looking up is still very much a problem in that the fragments floating around in the inner ear makes me giddy. I am becoming tired as I sit here putting my thoughts into text. It is nearly 4pm and the new noises and smells are becoming too much, I will be asleep before to long. I am in the study feeling very fed up, irritable and again there is nothing I can do to alleviate this feeling. I think the fact that it is cloudy and there has been very little Sun light today has something to do with this creeping feeling of doom and gloom that I know is coming, I can feel a pity party coming on, all for me.
It is at times like this, I feel, that one needs support from someone that will understand, if you are lucky enough to have someone that you can ask for a hug and know that it is meant.
If on the other hand you are unfortunate enough to have an ice king or queen as a partner then one relies upon other things such as food, alcohol, not that many of us drink as the medication so often dictates that alcohol is forbidden.
Bright lights are tools for setting moods. Go out and buy a Sun lamp one of those table top ultra violet lights (UV rays are know to pick up moods by feeding the body with much needed vitamins to keep the immune system running smoothly.)