Oh, I was going to rant today about my assailant, who broke the right side of my face and gave me brain damage.  Oh yes I was.  All I had to do was hit publish.

You will notice there is no post about him…that would be because his trial date is coming upon us like a holiday I’m trying to avoid.

January 24, 2012.  I don’t want to give the defense anything they can use against me, so I thought I would publish this instead.

When I was being tested for brain damage my test administer showed me four simple random images drawn out in an outline.  I don’t remember exactly what they were, though they have plagued me since that day.  It was my first visual test.  All you test takers out there know, no one is going to show you four random images, if they aren’t going to ask you about them later.

We’ll say she showed me an outline of a bat, a plane, a tea cup and a balloon.  I had something insane like 10 seconds or 30 seconds or some ridiculous amount of time to look at them and commit them to memory.  It was soooo easy.  I mean, who would miss that?  After about five minutes of doing something different my tester Dr. Yuka asked me to recall them.

I struggled.

I struggled not only to remember them, but also the mnemonic (memory trick)device I had used to remember them.

After an arduous struggle, I came up with two.  Two out of four.  Did I mention I was suppose to be getting a PhD?

She went to move on.  There were very few times during the testing process that I was unwilling to let go immediately and move on.  This was one of them.  I wanted to see the pictures, again.

There they were.  The last image really was a tea cup I believe.  How could I forget a teacup?  It haunted me.

How could I not come up with four words of images I had just seen?  I smiled politely, and we moved on with the test.  I hardly noticed as I tried to brandish a hot poker of a teacup in my brain.  I feigned innocence and asked her to repeat whatever question she just asked me.  It wasn’t unusual, I had to do that all the time, anyway.  Apparently, I’m ADD now.  No.  Not the one that is over diagnosed that they give everyone.  The actually ADD.

We aren’t talking this was years ago, or a year ago.  I think this was maybe 6 to 12 weeks ago.  Stupid teacup.

I managed to continue through the visual testing sections doing abysmally, but working my butt off.

But no one told me the blocks were coming.  Actually if they had, I would have thought little of them.  I mean they’re blocks.  I’m pretty sure I saw pictures of chimps doing the exercise I’m about to describe in the 1960′s getting ready for space travel or some such thing.

I was unprepared for the blocks, though.  Ahhhh, the blocks would even rival the teacup.  The blocks were simple enough looking red and white diagnals on the surface of a six-sided die.

They started me with three, and asked me to make the right side look like the picture on the left.  As if this was challenging…all was going well until we hit about the fifth dice.  I just couldn’t make the shape.  I tried it a million (well if felt like a million) ways for what seemed like an hour.  Eventually, I admitted defeat.

My test taker then pulled out all 9 dice.  On my left was a picture that might as well have been a Rubik cube.  It was diagonal lines of red and white.  How easy.  seconds passed.  How could that be hard?  Minutes passed.  How the hell do you make a horizontal stripe?  What felt like half an hour.  If given the test today.  I would still fail it.  I just can’t make it click in my mind.

They would definitely revoke my Mensa card if I ever bothered to get one.

I dunno how many IQ points it cost me getting repeatedly hit in the head, but I’m guessing more than three.

I saw a little kid playing with blocks as I walked by a daycare.  I wanted to shout at the kid, “If you can’t get it; it means nothing.”  If the kid doesn’t get it, it probably doesn’t.  When I don’t get it, it’s brain damage.

Damage caused by a child in a man’s body that threw a temper tantrum and broke someone else’s toy.  Why do I say he is a child?  Did he seem in anyway childlike, no.  I just refuse to believe at this moment that any REAL man would do that.  I suppose a manchild is the closest response I can have to that.

Before he punched me to the ground he said, “If you are going to stand up like a man; I’m going to beat you like a man.”  I held two dog leashes one in each hand, which did not even allow me to throw up my arms or hands in defense.

I’m glad one of us was considered a man that day.

Love,

Angela

This is the straight up advice column today.  I’m like Ann Landers only without the letter write in…

Kind of a saucy little title.  Reads like your TBI could be your friends and family, of course nothing could be further from the truth.  It’s not warm and/or snuggly, or comforting in anyway, or is it?

I know what you are thinking.  How could there be any kind of upshot to brain damage?  Well, you gotta dig deep for this one.

One answer, you might find out about is unconditional love.  It can come from surprising places, and there are all different types of love.

I was adopted; this wouldn’t normally play any kind of role in brain damage; however, it does when your entire adoptive family is dead.  True I have a second cousin living in LA that I keep up with, but for the most part you can call me fairly relative free.  I’ve met both my biological parents and my half-siblings.  Nothing against anyone in anyway, but I didn’t grow up knowing them and they didn’t raise me or were raised with me.

If you have family, no matter how they drive you nuts, they can be a good support system, and the place you should start.  Like it or not, you’re blood.

Barring family you may have a spouse, domestic partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, a someone, something, or some beast in your life that fills that role, no matter what you call them.  (I’m really trying not to leave anyone out here.)  No judgements.  If you have a person, place or thing (that’s right, a noun) do not push them away.  You may want to because you don’t want them to see you like this.  Knock it off you need the help.

Then you have friends.  This is your life.  You picked them.  Whether or not they stay around is impossible to tell, but if they don’t you know to be choosier next time around.

I won’t cover co-workers, because you won’t be going back to work for a while.  They move into the friend category, or into the acquaintance slipstream of people you may see in passing in brief moments in your life, but really could give a plastic kitten about.

Your advantage, you get to find out over time who really loves you, no matter who you were as you transform into who you are.

If your the one with the TBI, you’re not going to realize this for a while because your world consists of me and not me.  Sorry, but it’s a little narrow.  Don’t worry it gets bigger later.

Here’s the important part: you can’t take care of yourself on your own without any assistance, so don’t attempt this at home, on a closed track, or with a professional driver.  You are going to have to take help, because no matter how clearly you think you are thinking…that’s right.  You’re not.

The thing you’re not going to get, at least for a while (and I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty) is how big a drain you are on your loving resources.  This means as much as you need help, you need to make sure they are getting help too.

Ask them.

Hell, tell them. (You get some latitude with brain damage.) Take a day off, go hang out with friends and have a margarita, and for deity’s sake tell them to go get a therapist.  Don’t try to trade this one in on your local priest, preacher, rabbi, etc. and so on.  I’m not saying don’t use all your resources; I mean you and the ones you love need to talk to someone professionally trained, no skimping.

They will not judge you.

All of you need that right now.

Having said that not all therapists are created equal.

If they ask you if you are the boy or the girl in the relationship, I believe you have the right to bitchslap them and walk out of the office.

If their opening question is, “Have you ever had the urge to sleep with your own mother?”  You have the right to punch them and walk out of the room…unless the answer is yes, then I would stay for the rest of the session.

Okay, don’t really hit them, just juke them on your way out.

If you don’t jive with the one your friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s dentist set you up with, I don’t care how many letters proceed or follow their name…find someone YOU can talk to.  I don’t care if you can talk to this peep for free, if she/he sucks you can find someone else for free or someone you can afford.  Ask for a referral to someone who is not like them.

It might go a little sweeter to talk to your regular doctor she/he should know someone to fit your style.

Keep getting referrals until you find the one, and until they find the one.  If you’re going to get through it together…well it takes a village.  You’re going to have your own village of doctors, make sure your loved ones have the ones they need too.