Back in May of this year, I had a mild concussion. A concussion, is a concussion, no matter how mild or severe. It affects you in ways that can become hard to deal with. It was a hard blow to the back, right side of my head. I was hit with my steel front door of my home. Upon impact, I fell into the wall, screaming in pain and crying my eyes out. My dad came to me and helped me sit down. I could barely keep my eyes open because of the pain and felt like I was losing some consciousness. Within fifteen minutes, my dad was driving me to the hospital. We had a longer wait for the triage nurse than we did for the actual doctor. The doctor diagnosed that I had a mild concussion, and was just glad that I didn't lose consciousness, and that I could remember what I was going to do before it occurred. My life since then has felt very disconnected, and I often don't feel like I know who I am anymore. Before the concussion, I was mostly always happy, my speech was pretty perfect, my memory wasn't fantastic but wasn't horrible either. Loud noise and bright lights weren't an issue and I loved blasting my music. And I could focus on things I loved despite distractions.
Since the concussion? Everything has changed. I can't tolerate bright lights, I almost always have the screen brightness on my laptop or cell phone turned down. I turn the volume down on anything I'm listening to. I used to drive with my music playing, but now it just irritates me and I can't deal with the sound. The sounds at work are more irritating and I find myself asking people on a regular basis to repeat themselves because I either misheard them or couldn't hear them. My sleep has been severely damaged. I'm almost scared to go to sleep some nights, and when I do sleep I welcome it strangely. But I wake up a few times through the night, and when I check the clock I grumble and roll over. I often feel like when I wake up in the middle of the night I'm running late for work. I never want to get out of bed anymore. I have a hard time remembering things I've done, even that very same day. And have a worse time trying to remember the things that I've said. I stutter where I never used to. I can't remember words that would come to me so easily before. Even writing this out feels like a tiring chore that I don't have the mental capacity to do. I can't focus like I used to on the things that I love: reading, making cosplays, taking photos... I'm easily distracted by something shiny now or some strange noise that I can't place it's source. I have near constant headaches. Almost every day I have taken Tylenol to deal with the pain of the headaches that plague me. I used to think it was lack of hydration, or no caffeine (since I have 1 coffee each day), or whatever. But nothing I've attempted has reduced my headaches. I'm at constant war with myself of what I want to do. Do I go to work and suffer through the loud noises and stupid questions from some of the people I work with? Or do I stay home and deal with the household noise and drama and let that pound my skull in instead? There is no real escape. I'll pretend to be fine on the outside, make it look like I'm healing and that everything is right as rain. But on the inside... I'm screaming. Because I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know how to cope and deal with the things that I have been dealt. I never spoke out about how I feel until now due to the stigma that seems to follow: "Oh you're just milking it" "Something else must be wrong" "You're imagining it" Or I get people overreacting and telling me to go for a catscan or they start suggesting all the things that I've already tried to do. I'm hoping future visits with my doctor may help... but truly only time will tell.
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About the Blog
From now on this blog will be about concerns and life. Costumes will not be posted about here, events will not be either. Instead I'm dividing my blog into sections. Archives
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