No Longer High Functioning

As i speak to my friends about how i used to be and how i am now, they mainly tell me that the way i'm 'suffering' in my lack of functioning is the way they live all the time.

I then realized; before the accident and brain injury, i was a high functioning individual. I never had to write down an appointment. It would just be in my mind ... time, date, what i would need. I would remember things i had to do without lists. I could prepare an entire show with promotion, esthetics, for myself and the stage without so much as a list. I would just remember and get it done.

Now my world is lists. I generally have about 4 on the go at the same time, but they never coincide with one another, so i never remember which list to look at, if i remember to look at a list at all lmao! Yes ... i have to laugh ... or i'll drive myself insane with frustration.

I finally got a paper daytimer. I tried to use my phone. It was not working for me as i couldn't see if i was packing my weeks to the max. I would put things in and then would have too much on my plate for a recovering person. Now i see my week laid out as a schedule. It's working. I can put addresses and what i need to bring with me in this book.

But just the other day, i realized that i was beginning to remember the odd appointment. Not the ones i have every week at the same time ... those ones i have a grasp on now. I've healed enough to see a recurring schedule. But the one offs? They've been difficult.

But here's one that i was thrilled about! I put an appointment in my book and put the letters dr beside it. It wasn't my doctor, because i have to see a few, so i have to always put in the name of the doctor i'm visiting or i won't know who the appointment is for. But for this entry it just said dr with no period beside it, as in 'dr.', and i had no idea what it was for.

I would look at it every day and look back a week and forward a week to try to figure out what this appointment was for.

Finally the other day, as i was at my acupuncturist (which i write down as such to remember who i'm seeing) i was speaking about this damn appointment and how i was afraid of what it was for fear of having a missed appointment and having to pay for it with my entire meager disability cheque lol!

Then my tongue felt my temporary tooth from a cracked crown i had a few weeks ago and i remembered that my appointment was coming up. I looked in my book for that appointment and couldn't find it. I knew i had written it down, because i have enough focus now to write down appointments the moment they arise so that i don't screw up.

I realized that this mystery appointment was my dentist. Now, this would normally be something that people wouldn't get too excited over ... but for me? I was thrilled! I made it through a thought process that enabled me to remember that i have something coming up. It's not quite the high functioning brain that i had before the accident, but i'll tell you ... it's closer than it has been for the past 14 months.

This pleased me. I had a moment of realization that it's possible ... quite possible ... that my brain may return to a high functioning workstation.

I have new hope :) these are the days that make me smile ...