Monthly Archives: April 2010

Living With A Brain Injury – April 2010

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No brain injury is the same no matter its cause and a brain injury is never a static thing. It’s role in your life changes and shifts for a range of reasons. It is one experience when you are rested and, in all likelihood, another experience when you are tired. In a state of fatigue the brain is not as able to compensate for the damage. Aging too impacts the role the injury plays.

As one who lives with a brain injury my responsibility  is to keep an eye on its role in my life and do my best to manage it. My injury is a result of being held up and shot in the head in 1984. There is one immoveable truth that stands tall in the face of this or any disability or disease for that matter. They d0 not define who we are unless we allow them too and the most certainly do not define our value in life.

My closest friend, Michael Sulsona, lost his legs in Vietnam and another good friend of mine, Jim Cesario, suffered a spinal cord injury. Both men use wheelchairs. Both also deal with people talking to them in very loud voices because for some odd reason people think if you use a wheelchair you’ve suffered hearing loss. Go figure. Both men, by the way, stand way taller in life than most people I know.

No matter the wounds of life,  you are not gone.

It seems to me one of the keys to improving quality of life is acceptance, your capacity to accept the reality that is you. This requires honesty. For me, I’ve accepted I am an alcoholic (I will be eight years sober this July 12) and I have accepted that a brain injury and PTSD are present in my life. By accepting the realities you face for what they are, you stay right sized and by keeping them right sized you do not lose you in the process.  That to me is the greatest discovery of all. No matter the wounds of life,  you are not gone.

There are still days my fear and anxiety stop me from getting out of the house, or drive me out of my backyard and back into the house, but even so, I am more than okay. On those days I am by no means a defeated being. I am surrounded by books and the house is filled with music and, of course, the bird feeders are filled with wondrous visitors.

Your most powerful weapon

No matter what you are facing in life, you are not gone. I can tell you too that honesty, which is the core fuel for one’s capacity to accept, is your most powerful weapon.

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Free Spirit Walking

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There have been some rather remarkable walkers throughout history. Charles Dickens was known to walk hours at a time, sometimes throughout the night, his dazzling shape-sifting imagination working away. Jean-Jacques Rousseau too, a distant relative of mine, very distant to be sure if you were to look at my current walking regimen, was another, and then, of course, Henry David Thoreau. 

Tonight I was reading an essay on walking written by Thoreau when I happened on the following passage: “When a traveler asked (William) Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.”” There is something familiar and spiritually delicious there. As if we are being allowed a peek into something ineffably special. I am by no means unique when I say that immersing oneself in nature brings you about as close to God, or higher power, or essence of life as you can get. You are dipping into nature’s design, untrammeled by the whims of humankind.

Since I was a boy I’ve had and still have a wonderful relationship with nature. There is a kind of freedom to free spirit walking, the body warming up, settling into its own rhythm, and then the mind opens, ideas move into the open, perhaps carried on the mellifluous song of a bird, or the rhythmic percussion of  tree branches dancing in the breeze, or the joyous beat of the heart you feel when a baby rabbit darts into the open, gives you a quick look, the disappears so quickly you wonder if you even saw it in the first place. Your mind, heart and spirit open, and you are alive, joyously so.

Life is good. Live it. It’s here for you too.

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The Nitwits Among Us

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No matter who you are or what walk of life you happen to be on, you are sure to have a nitwit or two within your orbit.

Now I suppose the definition of a nitwit can vary. One definition I ran across says a nitwit is a stupid or foolish person. I don’t know that stupid fits into my definition of a nitwit, but foolish does.  Foolish in the sense that some nitwits seem to focus on things out of some kind a voyeuristic penchant for that they stupidly (okay, so maybe stupid is part of it)  see as meaningful nastiness or pettiness, born of resentment.

There is one nitwit who  likes to leave nasty comments (though never his name, so we are talking cowardly nitwit) on this blog, usually when I am talking about my disability. All you can do is smile, wag your head, and comfortably conclude the person has way too much time on their hands and is well ensconced in a hair shirt of resentment. The best definition of resentment I’ve heard is this one: resentment is a poison you take and hope the other person dies.

So, what to do with the nitwits in your orbit? First, don’t respond in kind. In all seriousness you are wise to keep in mind they are wounded beings and as such deserve compassion. Compassion does not mean you have to like them or their behavior. But you do yourself a service by realizing they weren’t born nitwits. Life experience led them there and just as in the case of an alcoholic, you can’t free them of their nitwitedness unless they are able to admit they are a nitwit in the first place.

And anyway, while the person and their behavior might be anything but likeable and cute, the word nitwit is! So, enjoy the word, pray for the nitwits themselves, and move on.

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Vatican Message Sinks Lower & Lower

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With Pope Benedict – a man who covered up child molestation for God knows how long –  present, a Vatican official had the slime-ridden audacity to equate the world-wide cry for justice in the face of a pope and other catholic officials who covered up or took part in child abuse, to the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. To utter these despicable words on the day Jesus was crucified is nauseating to say the least.

Father Cantalamessa said “They (Jews) know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms.” All of those involved in the abuse and cover up engaged and still engage in criminal activity. For slugs like Cantalamessa and Benedict to claim the heat they are feeling is unfair is equivalent to Charles Manson claiming his prosecution was a wee bit overzealous. Now there’s an analogy that works!

What galls me even further is the absence of an outcry from world leaders, including my own president, who is the best president my country’s had, certainly in my lifetime, which makes his silence all the more troubling.

Unless you’ve had your head up your ass for the past decade or two, just got back from a trip to another planet, just bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a guy named Mouse, or are an out and out liar, you know damned well there is a real world wide problem of child rape in the Catholic Church, and the cover up continues.

Issue warrants, arrest them, charge them, convict them, jail them.

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The Birds Outside My Window

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It occurred to me recently that I still allow the daily mishaps of life to interrupt my appreciation of life. Take, for example, the fact big banks are scum.  My bank, Key Bank, will pay anything that comes in to my account even though they know  I don’t have the money to cover it, and then they nail me for a $38 overdraft fee. Key will do this several times knowing full well there is no money left in my account. Why do they do it? It gives them money to spend on things  like bonuses for those big wigs who work on ways to rip off the public. In other words,  fuck the “little guy”.

Yes, I am responsible for managing my money, no doubt, but it is a monthly battle for me with the combination of living with a brain injury and a fixed income. 

So there I am sitting on my couch fretting over the fact I would be arrested and sent to jail if I did what I wanted to do which was to drive to Key bank headquarters, find the top dog, and kick his ass. Now as I’m relishing the idea of rearranging the body structure of the top dog  I am half paying attention to my bird feeder on which two Chickadees and a Titmouse are having a feast. As I am in this moment it occurs to me that the nastiness and greed inherent in the bank policy was robbing me right then and there of enjoying the astonishing wonder of watching these birds feed, that this moment was mine, and the banks and bullshit of daily life ought not to take it away from me. And so I enjoyed the birds.

As you go through your day and deal with the bullshit and unfairness that comes your way, don’t let it stop you from enjoying the birds outside your window.

Oh – I’ll be joining the move your money movement, something I would encourage all of you to do. Basically it is about moving your money to local banks who are far more likely to treat you like, well, human beings.

After you do that, you can go back to enjoying the birds outside your window.

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