I’m not angry that I had a brain injury. I am not upset about the unfortunate thing that happened to me, to which I subsequently live with everyday. I don’t have the energy to spin my wheels and be angry. It’s too exhausting to bestow my energy with anger. I wouldn’t rule out having depressive moments because of unresolved feelings and stress and anxiety and discomfort from my brain injury. But I think those things – stress, anxiety and worry are all things everyone deals with, brain injury or not.
My brain injury and the story that comes with it makes me unique and different with a special story to tell but all I want to do is be happy, however that is defined. Find the answer for happiness and I’ll give you a cookie. I sometimes pretend I am on the beach and I imagine the relaxation of the heat from the sun and the warm grainy sand between my toes and the smell of the salt from the ocean and the sound of blue ocean waves relaxing every limb of my body. When I do this my mind and my body becomes calm and I’ve worked hard to wire it that way. But no matter how zen I become I feel like I could have a sudden hardware failure at any given moment. The hardware being my brain.
After experiencing a brain injury that was acquired and not from an incident like a car crash, a hit to the head or fill in the blank, the notion it could happen again never seems to go away and likely never will. I imagine cancer survivors experience the same anytime they have a fuzzy feeling or an ache or a pain or numbness or unease in their body.
It’s an alternative way of living but I don’t have a choice in the matter and even though It’s been almost 21 years since my brain injury, which was an AVM (Arteriovenous malformation) don’t try to pronounce it, I’m still not comfortable living in this body. I daydream about laying atop a soft white fluffy cloud feeling no aches, no pains, no stress, no unease in my jaw or head or foot or arm and just being comfortable.
As I try to help others going through the same thing I’m starting to realize I need to focus on healing myself and sharing those experiences. I’ve been slowly rewiring my brain through meditation, gratitude, optimsm and exercise and this is a daily practice that brings hope even though it doesn’t happen overnight.
Through this journey of healing myself I’ve been researching alternative forms of treatment or medication. Let’s call them alternative treatments for the alternative person. Treatments such as psychedelic therapy which are therapeutic practices involving psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline, 2C-B, and MDMA. I’ll write about that in a future blog.
Since I’m not angry at my brain injury this gives me the opportunity to dig further into treatments, practices and functions that can help to improve the lives of brain injury survivors everywhere and I’m thankful for that.
I’m not sure if this is my purpose in life but I’ll give it a shot!