Did you ever say to yourself "Well now I can try out something completely new in my “new life”? That maybe you wouldn’t have done before. For example maybe you wanted to paint birds and sell the paintings. Just fill in the blank with something meaningful to you. So, did you do it?
My story is just a story and it probably isn’t unique: all I have done is battled to get my life to exactly how it was pre medical event. It is really surprising because I kind of felt like I was actually “trying out new things”. But I guess I was fooling myself hahaha.
This isn’t so much a new normal post but rather… what opportunities did you take with your situation? For example maybe learn how to draw. We are all different but there are things that maybe we once wanted to try but could never justify the time to do it. And maybe now we can.
Yes. I’m trying something new that I’ve never done before. My therapist recommended that I should write a book about my experience. I never thought of doing that before her suggestion. I started a couple of days ago. It is a really satisfying endeavor. I don’t know where it will go,but I am really enjoying the process.
I like your post under emotional support and your suggestion about trying something new is thoughtful. The emotional part for me is trying something new always deteriorates me into this inner emptiness. For some reason trying something new makes my former intellectual intensity and capacity for involvement gone. It makes me realize my inner life is apart from this ability to think, to feel, and to do. Then I have an ax to grind. It gets really bad when I unable to cry out to anyone from my inner void and the emptiness just puts a distance between me and my environment. This is a hot issue for me and I can feel the water starting to boil.
There should be a catalyst here, just before the water boils, but his emptiness does not give me any meaningful awareness. My water just boils and giving a meaning to this suffering just creates this anxiety and then more rage. It would seem choosing a meaning for my raging experience could create me and this emptiness could be a positive force. And yet I seem to enjoy my burning rage and this intense power it creates. Learning to let go of this wound and my inner deficiency is realizing how I have got caught in my emotional reactions.
I feel the transformation or trying something new is not a concept or a belief, but more of an opening to this creative flow. It feels like being “told” who I am not can be resolved in creativity and for me writing on this site has given me this creative intelligence. My empty brain and turning around and facing it probably has done me the most good to help resolve my rage. This void is extremely hard for me to face and maybe I can discover a new awareness. My intuition is saying choose a meaning for my experience and this could help create me. It seems choosing a meaning could sustain an awareness and being able to give a meaning is both a self who is empty and the one who lets go into a simple awareness. The awareness becomes the moment and then the self is possessed.
I am just working of letting go of my rage and I am working on making my awareness more alive, so the moment becomes more real. The awareness is simply resting and the void does not need to be resolved. And thanks for choosing to be effective and productive, as it helps me choose to live a better life. Also thanks to you and this website for being a powerful, healing force in my world.
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughtful insights and observations. Your experience sounds familiar and you are an inspiration for how we may consider different reactions and ways to move forward.
Hey Syd, I use to have some real bad rage and as my son started to grow. I lost my temper with him and in hindsight my rage did not match what he had done (never put my hands on him). I went to a phsychiatrist for this reason and he put me on valproic acid which did 2-things. It felt like the lights were turned back on and I realized how hard I struggle to think, and it mellowed me out. After about 2-years my back and knees started to hurt real bad so I stopped taking it. Now I don’t know if this is cause I’m older or what but I do feel like I never went back to the same level of rage. Though I do miss the intensity and energy that came from the rage. (lolol I guess). I think some of our anger rage comes from the fact that we have to think twice about little things like “which way do I turn the door handle” or in my case I have to consciously tell my right leg to go up and down all day and these things wear on you during the corse of a day. Then some one ask you a question and you flip out. But the valproic acid just made it easier for my mind to work I guess. BEST TO ALL
johncaelen you made me reflect on things a little bit when you said about missing the intensity and energy of it. The relief I got from it, I kind of miss it and then I am left asking myself “Relief from what?”. For me, the energy and intensity was good because it helped a bad feeling go away. I got relief from that feeling. The feeling was so bad that I would do just about anything for it to stop.
These days things have cooled down a lot. That feeling doesn’t come as much anymore and when it does I have some coping skills.
Yes I know that all humans react like this, TBI or not. The bad feeling that comes though is so fast and in your face that you want it to go away faster too hahaha.