Working for many years in the human servitude field, I began to acquire bits of knowledge about t.b.i. I knew generic stuff like, "People with traumatic brain injury make the same mistakes over and over again." And, "The woman at the front desk of the Running Sores office has one of them and she is cheerful."
When I came down with my own t.b.i., generalities and chromosomes did nothing in the area of helping me cope with the realization that I had no sense of who I had been. Even today, as more memories of my past life pre-accident filter back in through the chinks of the walls of broken and unconnected synapses, I cannot describe who I was. More and more however, I can write about the things I did.
But do actions make the human being? That is one for the philosophers and the scientists and forensic shrinks to debate and toss about.
My old self was a mangled puzzle and one day I left it somewheres where it became absorbed into the energies of other displaced selves. The process of acceptance worked its magic on my newest self.Acceptance is not approval. I didn't have to approve of any of it. I just got on with it.
My traumatic brain injury has made me more practical and much less of a mystic. Car broke on the way to vacation. Did I have it towed and just go home? Or rent a car and get on with the vaca that I had looked forward to? I called a logical person and talked my way through my own thoughts about finances and disappointment. I rented the car. If a logical person wasn't available that morning, then I would have told my self that it doesn't matter what I do.
What would my old self have done? I don't know. She is lost in the droves of displaced personalities and I don't much care.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
Labels: individuality, self, t.b.i., tbi
¶ 11:00 PM 0 comments links to this post
In a society that seeks to annihilate individuality and seeks to impose its' own standards and ways of being upon all of us, I wish to present to you this parable of a bear. In many ways, the bear represents traumatic brain injury survivors and the power-plant bosses the reactions of those who are unfamiliar with the many faces of t.b.i.
With fond thanks to G. for providing this story.
Once there was a bear in a forest. Over the winter, men came and build a huge power-plant where he was, so when he woke up there was some unfamiliar landscape...He started roaming around and suddenly a man came and gave him a broom, "What are you doing? Start workin', ya lazy bastard!"
"But I'm not a man, I'm a bear!"
"Excuses, excuses!"
"No, really, I'm a bear!"
"Bears live in the woods, do you see any woods here?"
"No, REALLY I'm a bear."
...so the Foreman came....
"Sir, this worker pretends to be a bear and doesn't want to work."
"Nonsense, all the bears live in the woods, let me talk to him,"...and he looked at the bear with scrutinizing eyes....Blink! Blink!
"Nope, that's not a bear."
....so when the Bear stubbornly insisted he's not a man, he's a bear, they took him to the Board of Directors.
"Sirs, this worker has been pretending to be a Bear."
They consulted, they looked into their books and documented the situation. Then they had a secret meeting and eventually, when they got out, they deliberated: "In our experience, and based on our thorough assessment, this man is not a bear, but a lazy worker."
...but when the Bear continued to insist this is a huge mistake, everybody got so irritated that they took him to the Owner of the Corporation.
That little old man looked at the bear and then invited him to go on a ride. They got down at the Zoo and went to the Bear Cage, where a bunch of bears were lazily having their siesta.
"Hello, Bears, would you kindly tell this worker he is not a bear?"
The bears looked for a while from behind the bars at the Bear, and then grunted:
"No, no bear."
"But WHY?" shouted the Bear. "Look at my PAWS, look at my TEETH for chrissake!"
"No, you're not a bear. If you were a bear you would be here, behind the bars, right?"
So, crushed, the Bear got back to the power-plant and got his broom and his white casket and became a Worker. Summer came, then Autumn and then, in November, he crawled back in his den and fell asleep.
The End
sapphoq healing tbiLabels: bear, conformity, faces, individuality, parable
¶ 2:12 AM 0 comments links to this post
