Just shut up and carry on

I am not saying this to anyone in particular.  But I do think that people may be saying it about me.  I am not going to shut up for the moment as I need to write this down to get it out of my head!  Over the last four years I have been saying I am recovering from a brain injury.  Over time I realised that you don’t really recover.  I think people are misled by the term brain injury as you think it will get better.  You may injure your knee or cut your arm.  That is an injury that will heal and get better.  After time everyone forgets about it.  I think the type of brain injury that I have is also hard to understand.  When a person has a stroke people around them can see the effect of it quite clearly and everyone knows about strokes.  I think the term brain injury should be changed to brain damage.  If I said I have brain damage I think they would then understand that it is quite serious and will not get better.  I have had wonderful support from everyone  but I am starting to get the feeling now that they think that I need to just shut up moaning about my problems and get on with it.  I suppose I have been getting on really well and it shows that in time I can do things, but nobody can get inside my head and know what it is like to be me.  I don’t want to say it is good that the whole pandemic happened but I think that in some ways it can show people what it is like to have a brain injury.  I think I have written about this before, I have also listened to a great podcast which says that last year the whole world got a brain injury.  Life changed completely and now things are slowly getting back to ‘normal’.  But as this happens you realise that there are things that have changed completely and will be hard to go back to.  I feel like I have been ranting a bit so I need to get to the point, why do I need to shut up?  It is probably not the right thing to say but do people think that I go on about my injury and try to use it as an excuse to not do things?  I have been told that it is not an excuse, it is a fact, I have a brain injury.  Recently I have been asked to do something that I really don’t think I can do.  I have spoken to people about this but they seem to think that over time I will be able to do it.  I have tried to talk to them and explain the problems that I have now, but they don’t seem to be listening or understanding.  I guess I have to give it a go, and I am, but it terrifies me to do it.  I have told them that but they just don’t understand.  It feels like I am talking to a brick wall.  Someone else told me if you can’t do anything about a worry then just don’t worry about it.  I have tried to do something about this but as I say nothing seems to work.  So I have decided not to worry about it.  What happens will happen.  Since my injury I have found it so helpful to talk about things as it really helps, and I do talk about this problem.  But are they getting bored with me?  I know everyone has their own problems.  That’s why I think I should just shut up and try to carry on.