Disability and Me by loren gahala

Disability and Me by loren gahala

July 13,04 The fall of Icarus and the birth of Sisyphus.

If you knew my pain and the weight of my burden you would not be quite so quick to judge.

Disability is:

Disbelief!
Watching what's left of my personality be consumed by constant pain and frustration.
Trying to zip up my jacket five times before finally giving up.
Having people walk faster to get ahead of me in line at a restaurant.
Getting doors slammed in my face.
Balancing on a tightrope.
Going through the motions and putting on an actor’s smiling face.
Looking at my body and no longer wanting to eat.
Looking at my life and future and no longer wanting to live.
Being able to sleep but not being able to get any rest.
Losing everything that I love; that which made me who I am and being expected to carry on.
Simply trying to endure and survive.

Loathing the "friends" whose gratitude has grown old, those "friends" who enjoyed my prosperity but will not voyage with me in my grief”

The reality is:
The forced compromising of ideals and the lowering of standards and expectations.
Finding the disabled bathroom only to be for a right handed person.
Not being given the right of way when attempting to cross a street or parking lot.
Witnessing perfectly healthy people park in the handicapped space.
Dropping things more times than I care to admit or remember.
Struggling daily.
Having to ask for help for everything, simply because there is just no other way.
Having to re-tell my tragedy a hundred times to people who don’t even care or matter.
Wondering where the fuck all my so called friends are and have gone!
Listening to people bitch and moan about the most trivial things and wishing I would be so lucky as to only have those problems.
Disability to me is bitterness and jealousy.
Having hurt feelings along with everything else.
Living with regret.
Trying to get by on a fraction of my former income.
Becoming the invisible minority.
Reaching out only to find that so very few are there.
Wondering how much more I can take.
Just wanting it to be over!
Having become such a burden to my friends and acquaintances, that I very rarely getting invited or taken anywhere.

 "That Heartless"

Thanks Loren for allowing me to post this poignant, hard hitting, viewpoint on the day in the life of someone who has been on the other side.

If you have information, suggestions, links that may assist those living with a TBI or caring for one with one, please feel free to submit your letters to klm@memorybankinc.com 

Two Shades of Grey

Though this picture may not look too ominous to the untrained eye, the right side of the picture close to the skull that is darker in shading is the left side of or left frontal region of my brain that is "No More", or dead tissue that probably attributes to my short term memory and recall issues.  Still on the right side a white dot close to the skull shows the glow of the aneurysm clip.