I am not a liar...

... though at times I may seem like one.

As an example, when a particular location was mentioned I commented that I had never been there. Said this to the person who physically visited the location with me! But, at that moment, when asked about that location I had actually never been there even though I had been there.

This is the disaster that can be caused due to memory issues. At that moment I truly had never been there... until the person looked at me sideways and said "Remember the school bus exit?"
"Aahhh, yes now I remember!"

Additional complication, Aphasia. It's a condition where I say the wrong thing and don't even realize I did that. We may be standing outside enjoying a beautiful moment in the sun, nothing happening other than enjoyment, and I'll say, "what a beautiful Red sky". The sky is and was Blue, not Red, but I actually did say Red.

Did I mean Red? Heck no, but you will hear that.

And therein lies the damage that this condition causes... There are times where I am asked simple yes/no questions. I'll respond quickly, like most people, but that is where Aphasia can strike the hardest: I'll sometimes say the opposite of what I mean and not even know it. Did I mean it, heck no, but that doesn't change what I said.

The best trick from the other person in that situation is to pause then asked me "Are you sure?". To stop and challenge my response as if I meant to misspeak into a lie is not the ideal response. I truly could've accidentally said the opposite without knowing I did... or I could simply not remember something that happened 10 minutes ago... until I take a moment and think. Truly think, a moment where one chews on a thought.

See my disability, being brain damaged, is that any "snap-kick" thought of mine is not to be fully trusted - ever. Not that it will be wrong, just that it could easily be wrong.

And therein lies the pain of my life where other people are concerned.

Who paid for this land?

Politicians - make your laws, break your laws but they do not actually protect your laws.

Lawyers - Argue your laws, use and abuse your laws, but they do not protect your laws.

Judges - Interpret your laws, strive to honor those laws, but do not protect your laws.

Police Officers - Try to enforce your laws, try to stop fellow citizens from acting uncivilized. But they do not protect your laws.

Reporters - Report the news, mangle the news, and provide you with their news about your news. But they do not protect your Freedom of Speech.

Teachers - They promote liberty and freedom, they show how liberty and freedom was achieved, they show the cost that someone else paid for freedom and liberty.

 Soldiers - Protect your laws, protect you from uncivilized hostility that would devastate your life, your family, and everything you care about.

Veterans - All of them but especially the ones eligible for the Veterans of Foreign Wars did the protecting.

This is the land where you can be as hostile as you wish to those who protect(ed) your right to commit that act. Rarely do we ask for anything in return. Never do we take your things, never do we take your partners, and never do we openly complain when you disrespect us. Many other countries you'd be whipped, mutilated, and/or shot for such things.

All in all, this is the Land of the Free. We proudly defended this land, and you, no matter what cost we had to pay.

Abandoned

That is what I am.

Wife and family still by my side, thank God, but in almost every other way I have been abandoned. It is almost as if my accident never happened, at all. If the scars could be wiped away from my body, I bet that "they" (whoever they are) would make them disappear as well.

My accident report doesn't exist. In fact, for me to try to get any information about that day I, a brain injury survivor, have to drive down to Boston and show up in person to get any answers. The financial burdens from a couple of weeks in ICU, again wiped clean. All the critical life support time at Brigham & Woman's, all the surgeries, the time coming out of coma at Northeast Rehab Hospital, all that medical treatment was (for me) completely and totally FREE. I can not find out who secretly paid all the medical bills either. "They" did not wish to be known.

Since I do not know "who" New Hampshire Lawyers don't want to be bothered by me. Firstly, things happened in Boston. Saying Boston is an almost immediate get out of my office response. Finally, after years of desperately (me!) trying to find legal representation I contacted a nationwide service. The service took 3 days and said, "Since we don't know WHO, and without that we don't know what you could gain, we politely reject your case." Don't know what I could gain?

HOW ABOUT SOME FUCKING ANSWERS!!!

Please, without the accident report - which I'm sure would appear if someone sues over this matter - we don't have names of any witnesses and we don't know what happened to me. And to be honest, that is all I want to know: What happened!! Why is my life now such a burden to everyone around me, including me, now?

And people wonder about Robin Williams actions? Here was a resoundingly successful man in the prime of his life facing a sudden inexorable decline into senility and madness. I face that reality every morning when I wake up, I know that depression, I know that mental anguish.

That is what I think many people (even close family) don't understand: Just because I am seemingly jolly go-lucky in attitude, just because I apparently have memory issues, people seem to think I laugh my way through life. I don't.

Jolly go-luckiness is a family trained defense against life's many sadness-es. It helped me handle my P.T.S.D., being able to talk with others as an equal helped me as well. That equality has been stripped from me. The words "brain damaged" does not come up but that is how I am treated. By family, by friends, by the Government (on all levels), and by legal representation.

The only thing that sometimes pops into my mind is why haven't I ended this problem? If I did so, family would be released from further emotional and financial baggage I present and "they"/"who" can now stop worrying that I'll find them and sue them for interfering in those so called god given rights that I sweated and bled to defend. That is the bitter irony for me, here I spent a couple years of  my young life defending American freedoms... while having someone now using those freedoms to deny me mine. In many ways I wish "they" had just killed me: all of this would be over, for me at the least.

Yes, my life sucks and I am abandoned searching for ways out of suck.

Exhaustion is my enemy

    Granted it is everyone's enemy. For me getting tired intefere's with my ability to speak, to think, and to stay upright. I've been letting my enjoyment of working allow me to get into situations that are, in hindsight, high risk and should be avoided.

    See part of my daily routine, since my accident, has been a nap. It usually takes place in the afternoon after 6 - 8 hours of wakefulness. The more mental activity that takes place in that time frame, the more necessary the nap becomes. With my new job I strove to find one that I could work 3 - 4 hours in the morning, go home and take my wife to work, then go home and continue my daily routine.

    Here is one aspect that is surprise to people when I share it: My pain NEVER stops.

    The extensive nerve damage in my forearms makes it so they are always a live wire of pain. This pain has become, essentially, background noise that is always heard but unless you focus on it, not paid much attention. As I get tired, the background noise/pain becomes more noticeable until I reach a point where my arms become inoperable.

    Last night, after a day of 12 hours of nice mental activity I paid the unwanted price: I fell down. I was so tired, unrealized, that I stumble while going through the front door of my house. The door, which closes on it own, snagged my back heel causing me to stumble. Hands full at the time I went down falling into a window, ripping the screen, and landing heavily on the window frame cracking some ribs. I also sprained my ankle in the process and scratched up my body in various areas from sudden violent contact with things.

    This places me in an awkward position indeed: Scheduled to work, going to see if I can call out so I can go to my primary care physician to get properly checked out and treated. Also going to see if work can comply with my shift request or I'll have to say goodbye to them and continue looking for worthwhile activity with which to spend my days.

    The terror I put my wife through during that fall - I will not let that happen again, ever!

Does the knife thank the grindstone?

Hmm... I've not shared this thought exercise here as I've shared with others in various other venues but it is probably one of my better thoughts, ever.

See the best knife is a sharpened one. A dull one is just that, dull and uninteresting. Of no matter, no notice, and of little value. The grindstone helps the knife to become the most useful, valuable, and effective it can be. But does the knife say thank you? It usually does not but it would miss it.

That is what I've been missing. The people who used to be very involved with my life. They were my grindstone. Many are still available but I've inadvertently sunk inside myself kind of like a turtle. But in fairness many of them haven't thought about that question or how they interact with me. They are still my friends, no doubt, but they try not to stress me. And therein lies their failure: I need stress.

I need challenge because with out challenge I slowly become a dullard. And that has been bothering me for a few months: How do I tell them they are no longer providing me what I sought from them and they are not doing it out of love for me? Not easy to be so open while being almost asshole at the same time. So, I've finally succeeded in getting a job.

Apparently I'm more competent than I feared as the job is vigorously seeking to engage me in as many work hours as possible. Today was an interesting accomplishment as I left home at 6 a.m. to get to work at 7 a.m., took a 2 hour break in the middle of the day, then returned to work at 1 p.m. and worked till 5:30 p.m.. A nice vigorous 10+ hour day and I did not need to take my daily nap to accomplish it!.

The job is trying, and succeeding, in being supportive and flexible to my disability. The job is also being something of a grindstone. The activity itself is the real challenge. My co-workers set up the work but don't get in my way when I go to take care of it. Granted they are starting to realize I don't shoulder any burden I can't handle but the learning process is moving along at a good clip.

It is just interesting to me how something as simple as a hardworking job can revive my spirit!

It's a Reason, not an Excuse

Recently I was approached with a troubling situation. Troubling for the people wondering, not a problem for me at all. When the situation was presented to me I laughed and suggested that they move  forward with my blessing. I love nothing more than to be accused of misdeeds that I did not do and can prove it.

So that was the situation presented to me: Some people though that I engaged in some nefarious behavior and was going to seek damages against me for such behavior. In fact this troubled me not at all however it was HOW it was presented to me that got under my skin.

For months, years in fact, I have made myself available for social activity to some of the wondering people. I would, once a month, sit down and have coffee with a few of them who were going to seek those damages. At what point did they approach me? At what point did they seek answers to the speculations?

None, but that did not stop them from including a friend of mine in their hostile solution. The friend contacted me with "Crap, there is an issue!!!" and I chuckled at the silliness he presented. However it was not the WHAT that bothered me, it was HOW it approached me.

What?
Speculations of cheating.
Easy to cure.

How?
Slandering my good name.
Incurable.

That is the reason I blew up. And it could be an excuse, indeed. Yet not the point I was bringing up.

See I routinely talk about my brain injury. I have to, a part of me is trapped by the experience in a PTSD kind of trap. Every day I go through stress and panic over "is it going to happen again?" My accident was totally unpredictable and my emotional mindset is trapped worrying over the next unplanned event in my life.

Being so routinely stressed out my reactions at times can be extreme. The person who approached me got no hostility from me. In fact, I still like him. The people who speculated and was going to seek damages against me, a fair bit of hostility. Undeserved I'll admit but not unwarranted either.

Ingress and social media... those vehicles did not deserve my hostility regarding this issue. Of course there are many other to grump about but this should not have made the list. So I am trying to deal with the guilt of those I disrespected with my actions.

To those who I directed my hostility: Sorry.

To myself, for acting the fool: Sorry.

Accusations

I am a brain injury survivor. Traumatic Brain Injury, in fact. Which means one day, several years ago, I drove down to Boston for the Boston Hub on Wheels charity fund raiser. I paid to ride 20 miles through that gorgeous town on a 10-spd bicycle. At 15 miles something happened which ended up with me doing a 30 mph face plant on the asphalt.

Forearms mangle, face and skull broken, medically comatosed until the bleeding & swelling reduced. I am annoyed that the face fractures were not compound as my disability/damage might be more obvious to people I interact with but it is not.

The lingering Mal-adjustments for me is Aphasia and pain all day long in my arms. Pain is easy to explain but why it lingers not so easy. Nerve damage inside my forearms and my brain takes forever to heal, if it ever will. Aphasia is a cognitive damage that lessens over time due to practice and experience but will never ever go away.

What is Aphasia?

For me, it is the occasional loss of language. At times, I may say words that are totally out of linguistic context of the dialogue I am engaged in. Sometimes, annoying times, I completely lose the ability to speak. My mouth works, my jaws move, but I can't find words with which to speak.

It also has robbed me of being able to dice words to keep anything private. Things that should not ever be said, I will say. Answers that should not be given, I will when asked. It is not that I don't lie - I can't as I do not have the mental capacity to NOT answer in detail to any question presented to me.

Imagine that? Any question posed to you, you answer in annoying level of detail. Not by any choice either mind you.

So here I sit, having to deal with some accusations most dealt to me on the sly. Not upfront where my disability would answer them straight on. No, from side angles where my loss of emotional response sets me off like a time bomb. Where my aggravation levels go to extremes and I respond accordingly thus proving that I am now something of a social embarrassment.

A group of old friends saw me that way, so I resigned from my Lodge. I am publicly banned from some parts of Portsmouth, N.H. simply because in the misbegotten opinion of a few people brain injury makes me "unsafe" for "safe" locations. I am "possibly" mental undesirable to serve the Officer Position I hold with my VFW. But no one has been bold enough to present these questions to me for me to answer.

When I find out about such things I respond strongly due to several reasons: I don't quite have the social know-how to respond well; Emotionally I have been reduced to a teenager; I am by nature an upfront person who strives to address things upfront then and there.

As an example: For a time I worked at Home Depot. A co-worker complained that I made her feel sexual. I made HER feel sexual. I always greet a woman with respect, apparently doing so can cause some people to feel something that they are not used to feeling. My response to this accusation: I quit Home Depot.

Why?

Because such an accusation has no viable response from the accused. Especially given my brain injury. It is so easy these days to paint me with any kind of brush that my accusers wish to paint me with.

So I recently faced several situations where I was accused of not being capable or of engaging in erroneous behavior. In one case, my response shut things down with a speed and firmness that encourages me to trust responding vigorously without hesitation. I realize that may not always be ideal as my response to the other accusation was firm, vigorous, and may fuel continuance of the accusation as "Why such a firm response unless you are guilty?"

Therein lies my disability. At face value, I am undamaged but act odd. And given the speculative natures of other human beings, odd is not always good or welcome. Irony being ironic, I am kind of grateful for this unpleasant situation. Experience sucks especially when you don't have any. This situation is yet another learning experience for me... ... just painful to endure but endure and strive for better I will.