I didn’t really think about this until a couple of months ago when I heard someone saying it. The lady who said it was on TV and talking about her husband who now has a brain injury amongst other things following Covid. When she said it it just hit me and got me thinking. Over the last few years I have been trying to understand what happened to me and thought that this understanding would help me move on and accept who I am now. I guess there are two types of acceptance, acceptance from other people is also very important. This is not a criticism of anyone but I am starting to feel that sometimes people forget or don’t realise that I still need help with lots of things. The brain injury hasn’t gone away, it will always be there. Even I forget sometimes, which is quite nice. Things seem to be going OK everything is normal then I do something that I think is stupid, something that a normal person wouldn’t do and I am right back again into reality. I know that I am very self critical, I think I always was. I have been told lots of times that everybody has problems doing things and making mistakes and I do understand that but it does not make it better. I guess it would seem strange to hear that I just can’t remember how I was before as it sounds so silly. I know that I need to try to stop looking back all the time and remembering how I used to be as I know that the old me is not there anymore. Perhaps it is easier for those around me to accept the new me as they are looking at me on the outside, I can see the inside and it is very different. I guess this is the invisible side to my disability, I can only see and feel it 24 hours a day. Again I realise that this is not something that I need people to see but it would make life so much easier. Recently a couple things have happened that I feel can help people recognise my disability. Both things have shown me that I am different now and still need help to do things. The problem I find is that all the difficulties I have can’t be seen on the outside and I worry that people think I am exaggerating the problems that I may have. I wish I was. Back to the title of this post, is acceptance giving up? It would be so easy for me just to accept the way I am now but I think I have learnt over the last few years that even though it can be hard to see, I am still recovering and striving to be the best I can be. I think a part of this is still related to trying to understand what happened to me, I feel like I go on a lot about this but it is one thing that I still don’t know about. I am slowly getting there though little pieces of information emerging, by chance and a little bit of snooping but I don’t think I would ever really know fully. So should I just accept it? Acceptance isn’t giving up and I am not quite there yet.
Published by A Recovering Brain
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