For my homies with #TBI or who are just getting older … some evening wisdom;

If you can't think of a word say "I forget the English word for it". That way people will think that you're bilingual instead of an idiot.

Copy/paste, but change what the skeleton is holding. Mine is holding my only remaining leg.

💀
|{|}\_🦵
I/ \
/_ /_

#amputee #amputation #TBI

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.

- Cynthia Occelli

#cosoquotes #quotes #Amputee #TBI

And I forgot to add #tbi since that’s how I first connected with so many others going through the same thing.

Some of those early friends are not around here anymore and they will never know how much they were a part of my life and healing.

Also, confession: I’ve been reading some of these for well over a year. It’s still so tough to keep whatever I read straight in my head.

#tbi

And Reading that up there 👆- all over the place, rambling, not quite completed thoughts - I still have a LONG way to go. But seriously, thank goodness for this place, for Jester and for the people who kept cheering me on when I wanted to quit.

#CoSoRocks #TBI #ThankYouJester

Good morning CoSo,

I’m posting lots of my projects- sewing and quilting and painting and embroidery- but lately I’ve also started reading more.
In 2017 I acquired this #TBI that was so severe that I had to kinda re-learn to form complete sentences, forget reading. And for 5+ years I have slowly started getting better (quicker) at writing/typing… that’s actually thanks to no small part of the existence of CoSo.

In my first couple of years this was a safe place to work out my writing.

1/2

FFS universe, why do you let me cut out hundreds of the 4”🔺 for a full pinwheel quilt, only to make my trusty old sewing machine decide this is the day to completely DIE?
Do you know how long it took to cut these mf out? It’s absurd.
Do you know how much concentration it took this mush brain to see a project like this out?
Even though #quilting is something that folks would probably be surprised to learn that I actually do, I absolutely love it and haven’t done it since my #TBI.
#ArtistsOfCoSo

It’s been years since I posted this - https://counter.social/@bettertobend/104283863970792784

Improvement?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TBH, I don’t even remember typing that.

But I do know that I’m still drowning in an inch of water & though it’s easier to roll over now… I still can’t just stand up.

But here’s to another year of small victories & to the slow healing of a broken brain.

Here’s to another year, another chance to meet with triumph and disaster every day and remember to treat those imposters just the same.

#TBI #PTSD

(Pictured: eldest son, lighting a small firework last night)

Very spontaneous decision to experiment in a little exposure therapy, which was surprisingly made easier by setting intentions.

“Do it for the kid.”

For the one that remembers the ‘before time’. The one who remembers years of missed fireworks due to a war he didn’t participate in.

Still a casualty, deprived of things we could never inventory. To see that permanent teen scowl replaced with a huge smile…

SO worth it.

#TBI #PTSD

And I’m going to the neurologist again. 2 visits every week for a month now. Maybe today we’ll get some answers from that 72 hour EEG … idk… press [x] to doubt.

#TBI

I cried during yesterday’s MRI.

Not bc I’m agoraphobic or anything but bc I was literally tortured. They put headphones on me, asked what music I’d like to hear.
“How bout some 90s stuff?” & they put it on a station that, no lie, played back to back Hootie & the Blowfish, Brian Adams, then Pearl Jam’s “Don’t Call me Daughter”
By the midpoint I was MAD AF that I didn’t specify “GOOD” 90s music & was basically strapped down & forced to listen to the worst of the decade for 45 min straight.

#TBI

Y’all, they wrapped my take-home EEG lines with gauze, like a MF mummy.

Said that this week I “might feel more comfortable wearing a hat when I go out.
Wow…🙄🤣 you mean OTHER PEOPLE would feel more comfortable if I covered this shit up.

But trust me, IME ain’t nobody going to say anything about it except for some 6 year old. Some toddler.
And their parents will shush them
& I will laugh
& tell them it’s ok.

#TBI

Good morning my friends,

All 3 of you that will see this … I’m still here! And that’s a small victory 🙌

Nobody asked but this week really sucked. Had a grand mal seizure about 5 days ago & so it’s back to neurologist again today. This time I take home a 72 hour EEG to wear… guessing it will look a whole lot like Eleven from Stranger Things?

#TBI

What a year this day has been.
Last night my brain did The Thing. These things are getting fewer & further apart & “they’re necessary”
You know what else is necessary?
Fucking spiders.

But spiders don’t feel like drowning
in an inch of water & I can’t stand up.
Not for sure the water is even real.
Forgetting the name for water.
Thinking “I’m finally standing up”
but looking down & seeing myself
face down, still drowning.

But bitches, the sun rose this morning
& so I guess we’ll try again.
#TBI

Shoutout to all my friends with a #TBI who sometimes forget words like “chair” and call it a butt hammock and then laugh like you’re totally kidding but you aren’t and nobody else laughs because people think you’re tragic and unfunny, possibly an idiot.
This is a *much* better suggestion.

Wore this thing for a month only to find that the “cardiac events” were actually just STILL just another type of seizure. 5 years later. #TBI still causing #seizures that are almost unnoticeable. They don’t look like falling in the floor convulsing anymore. Now they look like forgetting the word for something. They look like daydreaming. They feel like tunnel vision or even chest pain, tingling arms or sometimes even briefly passing out. It’s NOT a heart issue,it’s still my head.

What I’m ruminating on this am:

“The right to be forgotten” it’s what flashes thru my mind wherever I see mention of CoSo

“The greatest casualty is being forgotten” it’s what is printed on this #WWP t-shirt that I happen to be wearing at the moment

How poetic.

To be comforted by the 1st statement & yet also at times crushed by the enormity of the 2nd. That, in a way my brain can’t yet express, somehow comfort outweighs hurt. That somehow being forgotten can also be a blessing. Amazing.
#TBI

Good morning to all.
It’s a good morning for me, those are happening more and more often thank goodness.
My ability to string together a sentence has vastly improved from 6-8 months ago (since I last posted)... but dear friend reading - if any are - how do I get my PRO account back?
😞 I’m still having a difficult time with multiple step endeavors & apologize for the most likely ridiculous question. #TBI

Some advice given to me from a comment said: “take it in sips, not gulps” TY
Today...Remembering that I used to consider myself pretty clever...funny? Mostly sarcastic. Memories. I loved making people laugh.
Today...I am ruminating on the words of Rumi who said “sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment”...
Perhaps I was not as clever as I thought and perhaps this (constant #TBI bewilderment) has just taken a lot of time to reveal itself as a gift instead of a loss.
Wild.