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LJ as therapy
Jun. 5th, 2009 11:09 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
bubblegumsleaze.livejournal.comBecause the connection somewhere between my hands and my brain is faulty now, making it hard to write, type, do anything with my hands other than carry stuff, typing has been designated an OT activity. What this means is that I have a long space every day I have to practice fm things including typing. Sooooooo I get to get online :)
I seriously fucked up the hands. Not only is there a cognitive issue between my hands and my brain because of the head trauma but I managed to do a whole lot of nerve damage. I have fingers that won't fully unbend and a few that just hum and tingle all the time. I find it strange to have so much of my treatment program in a psych hospital be geared at OT, at getting my hands working again. It's a nice change looked at from a certain perspective.
This is supposed to get my mind working again, too. Or my creative function maybe? Communication? I don't know what to call it. My thoughts feel old and rusty. Communication with myself? I used to feel I had too much to express and I wrote and wrote and wrote just trying to get it out of me and down where it couldn't do any damage. Now I feel like I have nothing going on. Nothing to say. When I do feel like there's something to express I don't know what it is. It just doesn't come.
I suppose I shouldn't complain about it. Not too many people could have so much physical damage go on for so long inside their brain and still be alive, let alone coherent, so I don't really have anything to bitch about. I came out ahead of the game in this, because even though I can't seem to think as well and I can't really work my hands the way I want to, I'm walking and talking and thinking perfectly well enough to function, even if it's not at the creative level I'm used to. I'm doing things I couldn't do before, and I don't keel over on my face every couple hours anymore. My room to complain is a hairsbreadth.
Funny how I do it anyway.
A lot. A whole lot.
One of the NA's here brought me a tshirt on Monday that said "Member in good standing of the NOLA Piss and Moan corps."
Surprising? I guess so. It took me most of the day to decide to have a sense of humor about it. I couldn't make up my mind if I was mad or if i thought it was funny.
She's cool though, it wasn't really possible to get mad about it. She's been keeping me up to date on all of the stuff I was involved in before, the cold storage and the levees and all of the activistic stuff I quit when my memory failed me. Along with the POINTED tshirt she brought me a copy of the NOLA Levee, which is a satirical newspaper that exists only so we can laugh at everything that's wrong with our city. I guess if I can laugh at that I can laugh at myself.
Something else I've discovered is that where writing with any kind of flow is difficult, READING is almost impossible. Not the act of reading words, which I have no problem with, but understanding what's being written. There are so many subtle little things that were wiped out of my brain and every time I hit something that I need one of those little subtle understandings for, I'm at a loss.
Numbers, for instance. I can read the words for numbers. One. Two. Three. I can't read the numbers themselves though and I can't even find them on the keyboard. I figure the things that mean nothing to me must be them.
I know what numbers are. Theoretically. I know they're a way of notating a system of counting. I know what counting is, theoretically. It's keeping track of numbers. It's how many, how long, how far.....
But it means nothing to me. I can fully understand "so many" and "a long time" and more open concepts with regard to time and distance...a long way, a while ago, but if anything numerical is thrown in there it all ceases to have meaning. I understand number concepts but not numbers themselves.
Try to read the newspaper when the section of your brain that processes numerical input is missing.
Try to read a book.
Go ahead.
There are times I stall when I'm writing because I'm up against a wall because of a numerical issue and I have to ask someone what word I need to write to express the thought.
I have to ask people to explain what I read. There was a meeting about the streetcar line expanding into the Bywater. I want it to do that because I live down by there and it would be really cool to be able to get around without having to walk up to Canal st or to the riverfront or whatever.
I started to read about the meeting and got stopped cold at the very beginning because it started with how many people were there.
I had to get Jenny to translate for me. She read me the number and then had to tell me if that was a lot of people or not a lot of people.
It's frustrating and I feel like I'm going to keep tripping over it forever.
I'm told I can relearn that, that some other part of my brain will probably take over as long as I don't avoid it and keep on trying.
Until I do though it means I lose my guardianship of myself, because some of the requirements are that a person be able to count money, understand monetary systems, manage their own finances. I also would not be considered safe on my own because I can't use a phone. I can talk on one, yes, and I can answer one, but I can't use one to call anybody unless they're programmed in by name. I can't find an address unless I know what a place looks like. I can't tell time anymore.
Weirdly enough though, I don't feel like I'm screwed.
I think it's worth it, this trade off.
There are other things, little things, that are definite obstacles and challenges that are new for me. But I think we all need our challenges and if old ones have been eliminated then new ones must come to take their place.
Complacency will never get anyone anywhere.
I can't type anymore. It takes forever and I'm sick of backtracking to fix every other letter.
I seriously fucked up the hands. Not only is there a cognitive issue between my hands and my brain because of the head trauma but I managed to do a whole lot of nerve damage. I have fingers that won't fully unbend and a few that just hum and tingle all the time. I find it strange to have so much of my treatment program in a psych hospital be geared at OT, at getting my hands working again. It's a nice change looked at from a certain perspective.
This is supposed to get my mind working again, too. Or my creative function maybe? Communication? I don't know what to call it. My thoughts feel old and rusty. Communication with myself? I used to feel I had too much to express and I wrote and wrote and wrote just trying to get it out of me and down where it couldn't do any damage. Now I feel like I have nothing going on. Nothing to say. When I do feel like there's something to express I don't know what it is. It just doesn't come.
I suppose I shouldn't complain about it. Not too many people could have so much physical damage go on for so long inside their brain and still be alive, let alone coherent, so I don't really have anything to bitch about. I came out ahead of the game in this, because even though I can't seem to think as well and I can't really work my hands the way I want to, I'm walking and talking and thinking perfectly well enough to function, even if it's not at the creative level I'm used to. I'm doing things I couldn't do before, and I don't keel over on my face every couple hours anymore. My room to complain is a hairsbreadth.
Funny how I do it anyway.
A lot. A whole lot.
One of the NA's here brought me a tshirt on Monday that said "Member in good standing of the NOLA Piss and Moan corps."
Surprising? I guess so. It took me most of the day to decide to have a sense of humor about it. I couldn't make up my mind if I was mad or if i thought it was funny.
She's cool though, it wasn't really possible to get mad about it. She's been keeping me up to date on all of the stuff I was involved in before, the cold storage and the levees and all of the activistic stuff I quit when my memory failed me. Along with the POINTED tshirt she brought me a copy of the NOLA Levee, which is a satirical newspaper that exists only so we can laugh at everything that's wrong with our city. I guess if I can laugh at that I can laugh at myself.
Something else I've discovered is that where writing with any kind of flow is difficult, READING is almost impossible. Not the act of reading words, which I have no problem with, but understanding what's being written. There are so many subtle little things that were wiped out of my brain and every time I hit something that I need one of those little subtle understandings for, I'm at a loss.
Numbers, for instance. I can read the words for numbers. One. Two. Three. I can't read the numbers themselves though and I can't even find them on the keyboard. I figure the things that mean nothing to me must be them.
I know what numbers are. Theoretically. I know they're a way of notating a system of counting. I know what counting is, theoretically. It's keeping track of numbers. It's how many, how long, how far.....
But it means nothing to me. I can fully understand "so many" and "a long time" and more open concepts with regard to time and distance...a long way, a while ago, but if anything numerical is thrown in there it all ceases to have meaning. I understand number concepts but not numbers themselves.
Try to read the newspaper when the section of your brain that processes numerical input is missing.
Try to read a book.
Go ahead.
There are times I stall when I'm writing because I'm up against a wall because of a numerical issue and I have to ask someone what word I need to write to express the thought.
I have to ask people to explain what I read. There was a meeting about the streetcar line expanding into the Bywater. I want it to do that because I live down by there and it would be really cool to be able to get around without having to walk up to Canal st or to the riverfront or whatever.
I started to read about the meeting and got stopped cold at the very beginning because it started with how many people were there.
I had to get Jenny to translate for me. She read me the number and then had to tell me if that was a lot of people or not a lot of people.
It's frustrating and I feel like I'm going to keep tripping over it forever.
I'm told I can relearn that, that some other part of my brain will probably take over as long as I don't avoid it and keep on trying.
Until I do though it means I lose my guardianship of myself, because some of the requirements are that a person be able to count money, understand monetary systems, manage their own finances. I also would not be considered safe on my own because I can't use a phone. I can talk on one, yes, and I can answer one, but I can't use one to call anybody unless they're programmed in by name. I can't find an address unless I know what a place looks like. I can't tell time anymore.
Weirdly enough though, I don't feel like I'm screwed.
I think it's worth it, this trade off.
There are other things, little things, that are definite obstacles and challenges that are new for me. But I think we all need our challenges and if old ones have been eliminated then new ones must come to take their place.
Complacency will never get anyone anywhere.
I can't type anymore. It takes forever and I'm sick of backtracking to fix every other letter.
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