Divorce/Break-Up Songs that Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 14 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "M."

1.) One lovely thing about researching Divorce/Break-Up songs has been the insight that I've gained in the process. In this particular example, I have finally figured out just what exactly is wrong with Kanye West: Oedipus Complex. Whatever else may be disturbing about his character or temper, one can't help but feel a little softness for a man who so clearly loved his mother. She was a talented, creative and intelligent woman in her own right, so it's no wonder that her child might write a song about being jealous of her boyfriends and trying not to become like them one day. Assuming the song is based on life, of course. Of course, I may just be saying all this because she was an English Professor for roughly 31 years, and I most certainly do have a soft spot in my heart for educators. Anyway, from Donda West's son: Mama's Boyfriend.



2.) Mean, by Pink. She seems to know something about it. Kind of depressing. meh.



3.) Memphis, Tennessee was originally sung by Johnny Reed in 1964. Either covered by Reed or ChucK Berry, the song is the same -- I had to listen to it twice to realize that the "Marie" that the man in the song is singing about is his daughter and not his ex -- He gives it away at the end when he points out she was only six. This ending is the clincher here. It's that style of singing, though, where the tune is kind of monotonous and the singer isn't very expressive, so according to my lights it only gets a vomit. He did, however, sing Secret Agent Man in 1966. That's a fun one. Kind of dumb, but fun.



4.) Did you know The Drifters sang a song called Mexican Divorce? Me, neither. It's just like all their other songs, except not about making out under a boardwalk, and with an occasional female chorus. I thought maybe I've never heard of it because it was racist or something, but now that I've heard it, I think it was just bad. Vomit.



5.) Miss You, The Rolling Stones. It's The Stones, man. What can I say?
I used to find Mick Jagger kind of creepy, and so the video grossed me right out as a teen. I'm sure they've got better songs, and this one drags awfully long for what little it has to say, but, again -- The Stones.



6.) Misunderstanding, Genesis. For just a minute I thought I'd never heard this song before, but hey, it's Genesis. I knew. In a way I suppose it's no different than the issue I take with the Drifters' song: Doesn't sound as upset as the words would indicate. Sounds pretty dated, and not much to it. No tears or vomit to be had here.



7.) The Moment of Truth, Matthew West. One of those Christian music songs where the singer is addressing his audience, making it sound as if he's giving advice to one specific guy who's listening to the words. Is he listening? I wouldn't be, just because the music is bad. It pains me that so much of this music is either boring, tacky, elitist, or just a poor copy of rock music. This is in part because these songs are way more about what the artists are trying to say about their religious beliefs than whether or not the music is well-written. You can find some deep messages with a lot to say, but the music kind of ruins it much of the time. It's not all bad, and this song's message isn't all bad, but once the divorce or break-up has already happened, it takes a lot of work to pull it all back together. I guess it's the question we all end up asking, "Is this worth it?"



8.) My Bed, Sunny Sweeny. I hate this song. It makes me want to vomit.



9.) I know these are supposed to be songs that start with an "M," but this song popped up along with Sunny's other sunshiny little numbers, and I just have to remark: Drink Myself Single, also sung by Sunny Sweeny, is the epitome of all that's awful about country music. She's mad at her partner, decides to dress in her low-cut top and tight blue jeans, and then go out and get staggering drunk so that she can find out what it's like to sneak home late after sleeping around like he does. Great. That'll really help you make some wise choices and improve your life. I hate music that encourages people to abuse alcohol and and/or act stupid. VOMIT



10.) When My First Wife Left Me  ~ The lyrics aren't good. The guy lost his wife, rightfully blames himself, and then sings about it, but it's John Lee Hooker, and that man sure does have the perfect voice for the blues. He's good, too good to mock. Probably too good even for me to comprehend.




Well, I don't know about you, but I'm glad all that's over!
The blues number was easily the best music in the bunch, more because of who sang it than what it said on its own. The rest of the songs were pretty Miserable.

Tune in Next Time for some songs that start with the letters NO!

Divorce/Break-Up Songs that Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 12 & 13 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "L," and a Couple of "M's."

Turns out I couldn't find very many Divorce Break-Up songs that begin with the letter "L," but no worries -- There's still plenty of misery available for this one day, and enough misery to go around still tomorrow. 

Although I started on this subject as a response toward songs that made me mad or sad, I am finding, as my sister once told me, "The reason there are so many songs about having a broken heart is because that really happens to a lot of people all the time, and that really is a big deal." It was nice to hear it, simply because I'm so prideful that I don't want to admit that someone could make me feel so bad about myself or my life. I try to shove things down and be stoic about them when really writing or singing a song, writing a poem or short story or letter, or even painting about what hurts -- No matter how truly awful, funny, sad or true to life that expression of your feelings may turn out to be, it's best to let yourself grieve before moving on. Otherwise, you stay stuck in this mode and start weeping at odd moments, like when Can't Help Falling in Love is playing at some gas station, or you get angry when you hear Queen over the sound system in a department store singing Crazy Little Thing Called Love because it's just so horribly cheerful. In the end, you can use that time to put the power back into your own hands where it belongs. You don't have to allow someone to make you feel bad or question yourself. You've got the power to get over them and let them go. I guess what I'm saying is, "Listen to these songs and wallow in misery if you must, but if I could I'd choose to make you laugh. You deserve that gift, so go ahead and give it to yourself."


1.) Ben Folds' Landed. It's okay. Not the kind to make me cry or vomit, but it's simple and it does what it came here to do.



2.) In Love for a Child, Jason Mraz sings about being a child of divorce. Having no idea what the reference to the pool and losing memory was about, I looked the song up. I read that every time Mr. Mraz sings this song live, he dedicates the song to his mother. In the September issue of Richmond Magazine, there's an interview stating that "While the song could be interpreted to have left Mraz feeling negative about the whole situation ...Mraz says "this is a love song... really when I look back at my life, I was loved through and through and through. So it was a really powerful song for me and to share it with them too ." 
Because it speaks of lost innocence and misunderstanding, it's a sad song all the same.



3.) I hadn't listened to more than one minute of Fishbone's Ma and Pa before I started smirking. I probably should include in my already long title "Also Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Laugh." That said, like Love for a Child, the song addresses what divorce can potentially do to children. It also suggests that there could be a better way to handle that experience so that "little sister" doesn't have to act out against all the fighting. Maybe if it were less dated it could be a better song, but for now all it does is make me want to...vomit, I guess. Laughing is not an option, and it does get less funny as I adjust to it... oh, crap. This is catchy, too. I'm going to be singing it out loud some time tonight when I least expect it because it's now stuck in my head.



4.) Made of Money, Adam Ant. It's bad. This video is pretty hard to look at, considering it's just his face and has no lyrics. Add to that the fact that the lyrics are really bad (makes me choke on my shreddies" was my personal fave) and it makes me want to vomit.



5.) Did you know that Eddie Cantor was the first to sing Makin Whoopie? I'm bemused that they were allowed to film/record this in 1928, but mind you it was before the heavy censors came raging through Hollywood. [Side Note: In case you didn't know that 1920's movies were done in color, I would like to point out that at this stage of development, historically the color process for films involved a two color (red and green) additive system that used two color negatives pasted or printed together, and I believe that this video is a result of that process]. The song about marriage and divorce (in case you didn't know), and is really rather cynical for being sung by a comedian. And for the record, by all reports Cantor was happily married and had five daughters. I'm going to end on this note despite the fact that the song is also pretty silly, this version especially so, making me want to roll my eyes like Eddie Cantor rather than laugh.



Tomorrow I'll have a list of  ten more Divorce/Break-Up songs that make me want to cry/vomit beginning with the letter "M." 

Divorce/Break-Up Songs that Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 9 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "I" ...and "K."

1.) I'm So Happy I'm Crying. Usually Sting is a great lyricist, but this song is kind of bad. I hate to say it, but I think maybe he's reached that point where he's resting on his laurels. In truth, he more or less reached that point somewhere around his 1993 album, Ten Summoner's Tales. I'm smirking a little as I type this because of his fascinating haircut in the video. The subject matter lines up nicely with Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Vomit. My apologies, but I will not be posting the Toby Keith cover. I just can't take any more.



2.) Idiot Wind~ I suspect there is a reason that this Bob Dylan song isn't all that well known, and I further suspect that no one ever wants to get on Bob Dylan's bad side.



3.) In If Leaving Me Is Easy, Phil Collins kind of makes me want to vomit. Get over it, man. Move on. These lyrics are insipid and so is the music. I'll see you an In the Air Tonight and raise you a One More Night.



4.) In Pieces ~ Linkin Park. Not terribly impressed. Bleh



5.) Speaking of In The Air Tonight... I think what makes this song effective is that it comes from a firm perspective of rejecting the other person as opposed to the part of us all that likes to pity ourselves.



6.) It's Over, sung by Rod Stewart. I like a few of Rod Stewart's songs, but this is not one of them. The lyrics place it undeniably on this list, but I don't have to like it.



7.) This is the song that comes on at two in the morning when you're driving home from someplace you didn't want to be, don't want to be on the road, and are struggling to stay awake. Then good old Carole King comes on the radio singing It's Too Late, Baby and you nearly get into a car accident, unless you're quick to turn to another station. If there's anything to be said about this song, it would be that she tries to be grateful for what was good about the relationship. I think being able to acknowledge something like that at the end of a relationship helps you feel better prepared for another one -- certainly more so than spending too much of your time dwelling on the bad times and either hating your ex or yourself for mistakes made.



Now, luckily for you, I have run out of Divorce/Break-Up songs that start with an "I," and I have found no Divorce/Break-Up songs that begin with "J."
Unfortunately for you, I'm ending this list on a low note, because I did find just one single song beginning with a "K......

8.) Ending on an even number, I present to you possibly one of the worst bands of all time: Abba, cheerfully singing Knowing Me, Knowing You. It's not quite as bad as Fernando, but close.



Tomorrow, or on some other day this week, we'll look at Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Vomit/Cry, 12 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "L."

Brain Matters: Should Insurance Cover the National Average, or The Individual?

When did my blog get hijacked by Traumatic Brain Injury and Depressing Divorce Songs? I'd love to tell you that this is not one of the two, but I'd be lying. I have something more I feel I have to write concerning TBI.

If you've suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury, you don't even know what you don't know. Not being able to trust your own mind is a scary and often frustrating experience, by and large because you have to listen to and trust the opinions of others, since nearly everyone, not even just the experts, can see and experience how you are doing so much more objectively than you can.

Initially I just had to go completely on what everyone else was telling me. For months as I did test might be wrong with me, or could be wrong with me, like that my Executive Functioning might not be up to snuff, or that my short-term memory was so messed up that I couldn't be sure if I'd just said something or not. For awhile, it felt as if I were carrying around every single last one of the symptoms in my head. In truth, there were many things that I knew were not wrong, but quite a few other things that I just wasn't sure of. It was like trying to step through the woods on a dark black night. Oof! Just ran into a tree.

Now that the last of my test results have come in, I am happy to say that I know a lot of things with me are great, although a lot of other things are not. My neuropsychologist is an idealist and champion of hard cases like mine. He is intrigued that I'm intelligent enough that I could drop down from a Verbal IQ of 136 to a Working Memory of 86, because that's a 47 point drop. If we were to liken that to the Average IQ of 100 and I dropped 47 points, then I'd now have an IQ of 53, which I believe would have meant an adult foster care home for me. This is what he means when he says that I'm so lucky that I'm smart.

But here is where the problem comes in: Although I was smart enough not to be rendered incapable of taking care of myself, I still have a brain injury, I have still lost parts of my mind that I was literally attached to. Many of my test scores state that I rank as "Average." I don't mean to be an intellectual snob, because there I don't have a brain cell to stand on, but my neuropsychologist doesn't think it's fair to leave me at average when I used to be so much more. I feel as if people with real problems everywhere will be disgusted that I'm so worried about this, but the man won't let it go. He feels passionately that the point of brain injury treatment can be likened to any other kind of injury in that, if I had broken a leg and went to the hospital for it, the auto insurance would happily have covered the cost of getting a cast and healing my leg to be as much like it had been before the accident as possible. Not so with brain injury. In cases like mine, where someone who is "really smart," gets into an accident, the insurance companies have a harder time believing that the person needs all the therapy it takes to get their brain back up to snuff. From their perspective, if the tests come back average, then there's no injury to be healed.

Since I want to concentrate on these rather than dwell on anything else here's a breakdown of my strengths:

I got Very Superior Scores in --

1. Oral Information Processing. This means that I can now reason things out loud better than in my head.
2. Vocabulary. Not surprised. I'd venture a guess that this wasn't damaged all that much, although it has to be said that I often can't remember words that I used to know. If I want to say that I'm "annoyed" by a remark, I don't automatically say that I took "umbrage" because all I'll be able to come up with is "annoyed." Yet I'm sitting there saying to whoever I'm talking to, "I know that there's another word for that! It starts with a "U," I think...Argh!" (I know, I know: Cry you a river, right?)
3. Letter Fluency, in which I got a 98, but in Word Context I only got a 75, and in Repetition Errors, which was a similar test to Letter Fluency, I only got 50%. The inconsistency is due to brain damage. Now, maybe these are average scores, but the neuropsychologist says that I should have been Very Superior in all of these tests. He says my efficiency has taken a 48% drop! And I am not even getting into my mental health scores, because those are all skewed as well, resulting directly from the accident.

I got Superior Scores in -- 

1. My General IQ, which is now only in the 77th percentile even though the neuropsychologist's
   
   sliding scale puts it at around 136 pre-accident. See what I mean, though? I'm not sure how upset I ought to be that I'm getting Superior Scores instead of Very Superior. They are just numbers to you, but to me they're every day things that I used to be able to do, like reason something out in my head instead of having to draw myself illustrations or talk out loud -- or to spell without having to use spell check. 
2. My Right-Handed Tactile Form Recognition, but not my Left. On the right side I got a 90%, while on the left I got 19%. This, my friends, is due to brain injury.
3. Symbol Searching and Word Reading are both tests that have to do with Information Processing. These two were Superior, but in most of the other other tests concerning Information Processing, I scored much lower. It's what the neuropsychologist calls "a diffuse issue," because the scores range anywhere from 94 (Very Superior) to 19 (Mildly Impaired). 
4. He says that I'm good if I can lock onto one task and do only that, but as soon as you add any
   
   kind of multi-tasking, I get lost and overwhelmed. I see it every day when it takes me over an hour to do the dishes because I'm trying to figure out where everything ought to go, what order they ought to be in, and heaven forbid what other people are trying to say to me or what I'm wanting to mention to them, because I have to put my dishrag down and really listen, or talk, and not be doing anything else, or I will get confused. This is not my normal.
5. In Visual Organization I was Superior at Perceptual Reasoning and Visual Puzzles, Matrix Reasoning, and the Hooper Visual Organization test, although I scored a Low Average
   in drawing a clock and Moderate-Severe drawing a bike from memory! I'm an artist. I'm supposed to be able to do these things. That is brain injury.
6. Memory and Learning was actually all over the scale of score options. I got some
   
   Superior, High Averages, Low Averages, and Mild to Moderate to Severe scores. The tests range from being in the 91st Percentile all the way down to the 2nd Percentile. I am not joking, but I'm not officially discussing my Moderate-Severe scores yet. Superior scores would be anything visual that relates to memory. I can remember a picture I've seen very well, and recreate pictures that I've seen (Unless they are a bike, apparently). Did you know that the largest component that they use to determine your IQ is your memory? Well, mine is damaged.
7. In Language. Thank God my brain didn't injure my ability to communicate much. I've got quite
   a few Superior Scores, but I've got a localized injury that doesn't affect my speech production.
   The Neuropsychiatrist says that only a highly intelligent individual could come out of an accident like mine and still be average in so many areas related to language production. Is this Good News, or Bad News? I think I have to make my own choice and put on those ruby
   
   slippers and let all the bad curl up and pull back under the house. I'm not in Kansas anymore. In Oz, people have been known to turn into The Wicked Witch of the West and think that my ability to communicate makes me unentitled to any assistance from Glinda the Good Witch... I am actually quite amused as I find myself visualizing my Neuropsychologist floating down in a pink bubble wearing a huge crown, with golden curls instead of his shiny baldness. One can only hope that he never comes across this description of him. Maybe he'd change is mind about my having superior intelligence.
8. Under Executive Functioning, there's Verbal Concept Formation. These tests are half Superior and half Average. 

Well, at this point I think this entry is probably getting boring (Who really cares about all this besides me, my closest friends, immediate family, the neuropsychologist and my therapists?), so I'll skip High Averages and Low Averages and just cut to the chase with Mild and Moderate-Severe Brain Injury effects.

1. Motor Function. My fine motor coordination is Moderately-Severely damaged, and my gross motor coordination is Mildly damaged. These do play into my driving skills, although currently the insurance company is fine with having me out on the road. 
2. Attention and Concentration. This is the worst of it. I thought I was joking when I said in a

   

   Symptoms of ADHD

   previous post that I'm ADD now, but I'm now officially considered ADHD. My working memory, symbol span, attention capacity test (8 standard deviations below the norm),  and visual ADHD scores are all Moderately-Severely damaged. Other areas are mildly damaged, such as my listening skills and spatial attention. Earlier tests all confirmed this information. Right now, I can not switch quickly from one task to another without getting lost in where I was. Tonight I was having that problem while on the phone talking to a man I've been dating. It's later in the day, I'm tired, so I kept losing my train of thought.
3. Visual Organization. I touched on this earlier. I couldn't draw the bike or the clock from memory. In these skills I range from mild to moderate to severe.
   
4. Memory and Learning. These are skills I need to finish my Master's Degree. My Logical Memory is Mildly Damaged, while my Visual Working Memory is SO low that I only got a 2% and a 4% ranking. It's all connected inside our brains -- the memory and attention and the eyes, etc. I find it fascinating at the same time as it is alarming. There were apparently perfect scores in memory tests where I had to remember certain patterns. Visual-Spatially I was very intelligent, but I scored as Mildly Damaged in recall testing . I scored a flat 16% across the board even though in the different tests I was supposed to have my scores move upward as I
   was repeatedly shown the same information. 
5. Impairment Measures. My Neuropsychologist says that there is a set of tests that are very detailed and sensitive, acceptable by corporations and courts of law, one of which is called the Halstead Impairment Index, that I only did well on half of the questions/measurements (0.5), leaving me with a Diagnosis of Moderately-Severely brain damaged altogether despite what anyone else thinks, because a score of 89 functional IQ is not okay for me, is not my norm, and I should not settle for it. I am so conflicted about this. I've been trying to accept that I have a brain injury and that some of it is never going to come back, and the therapists all agree on that, but this man who specializes in the diagnosis of brain injury rather than just the treatment of it is telling me that it's not true that I have to settle for anything. He is fighting for me to get the best possible care, and he is the only one.
   
   Who is right? What is right for me? I don't think any of us are raised by parents who tell us to strive for averageness. It's always excellence that is the goal. It's really hard for me to be okay with this when I've got someone, anyone really, on my side who says that brain damage is brain damage, and it shouldn't be measured by anyone else's brains but against my own. 
6. The Achievement Tests.Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic. They're all average. The Independent Examiner had me take all these tests, too, and he feels this is fine, whereas my Neuropsychologist says that the Independent Examiner "Doesn't 'get' that a highly intelligent brain like yours should not have to slow down to take timed 6th Grade academic tests."  ["Except possibly in Math," I would add.]

The final area of concern for me -- one that I asked for an explanation and clarification of how these

scores relate back to my everyday life in practical terms -- is my Executive Functioning. It's something my family and I have been worrying about all along. Just how altered is my ability to, say, manage my own bank account, do things independently, and reason out complex problems? On one test I scored Moderate-Severe. I made 60 errors when I shouldn't have made even 40 errors on that kind of test.Then there was a whole battery of tests in which I scored "Average," but my Neuropsychologist contends that they're "pedestrian" scores for a College-Educated High IQ." Gotta love a man who thinks so highly of my intelligence. It's quite touching, really. 

Another series of tests related to Executive Functioning were quite fascinating in that all my verbal right-brained comprehension scores were really high as compared to my non-verbal left-brained scores. I wasn't very efficient, but I did manage to get through those tests with average scores. The

one my sister has drawn an illustration of is labelled "Toddler Stacking Toy," because it is, and I was Mildly Impaired on that one. I remember it very clearly, because it was a toddler toy, and I had to really think to come up with the right sequences and strategies to stack them from biggest on the bottom to smallest on the top. This is probably my strangest test result of them all. I could not reason out in my mind how to get those stacked the right way following the rules I was given. The rules were: 

1. You can only move one piece at a time.
2. You cannot rest a bigger piece over a smaller piece.
3. You have to get all the blocks to stack in the center, from biggest on the bottom, to littlest on the top.

I remember feeling embarrassed or almost ashamed that I couldn't do it as quickly and easily as I had expected. I was really sweating it out at one point. 

"What do I do about the fact that I was incapable of completing that 'Move-Accuracy Ratio" test?" I asked the Neuropsychologist concerning this stacking humiliation. 

He replied, "You remember that you have a much easier time with verbal reasoning than non-verbal reasoning, so when you're trying to work something out, you benefit by running it by your sister or another trusted friend or advisor."

This is actually something the Cognitive Therapist has been having me do. I feel stupid when I'm
doing it with her, because she'll have me playing a game or working out a puzzle and I'll have to tell her out loud what I am working on and why I am doing it the way I am, what order I'm planning to go in, and how I'm going to keep track of where I left off if I get interrupted. To me it feels as if I'm moving my lips while reading. I think of how ashamed students are who have to do this in the higher grades, because it marks them out as poor readers immediately. Just now, as I am typing this, I suddenly understand those students so much better. They have to read out loud to visualize and comprehend what they're reading.

They are like me.

It doesn't mean that they're not intelligent.

It just means that they process information differently than the majority does.

I am going to be one bad-assed teacher once I get through all of this and get to teach again!

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what the Insurance Company thinks, my family thinks, my friends think, or even what my Neuropsychologist thinks.

• Ultimately, this is all just statistics and labels. What I can and can't do is all up to me.
• This experience will make me a better teacher.
• So memory and learning are going to be a little harder, so what? Because I am a teacher, I know how to learn new things. I can apply what I'm learning to my life.
• I've gotten quite a few Special Education credits, and credits for a Reading Specialist endorsement. What I have found in these studies is that the strategies that help students with special needs are strategies that would help anyone. I'm not ashamed to use them. I'm starting to test them out myself. That's just good teaching. In general I would advise that you never ask someone to do something that you wouldn't also ask of yourself.
• I am strong enough and smart enough to figure out what I do and do not need and believe.
• Do I want Justice done? Yes, but if it doesn't happen, I can learn to be content with what I've got because whatever it is, I am not average in any way that matters. Ask anybody who knows me and they'll tell you.
• My reality is valid. I'm the one stuck wearing the ruby slippers. I have to walk my own way home before I can learn the lesson from this strange and interesting journey. 

Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 8 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "H."

1.) Brad Paisley's Harvey Bodine. This is a bit of a strange "break-up" song, considering the man dies and realizes his marriage was so bad that he was relieved. It's true to life so far as men being emotionally abused just as often as women. It's a silly song, but I imagine divorced male country song lovers everywhere could appreciate it.






2.) Her Town, Too ~ James Taylor and John D. Souther. This song is so dated-sounding to me. Additionally, it makes me want to sleep, or to go into town and see if I can find some elevator music in one of the buildings there. That said, I rather like that the song sounds empathetic. Still gets the V.



3.) Pink Floyd's Hey, You. It's not entirely clear that this is a divorce or a break-up song. I love Pink Floyd, but it is a serious mistake to listen to this song if you are lonely, and that's what losing someone brings on, so I'll give it a Cry.



4.) Highway 20 Ride, by Zach Brown Band, is probably even more depressing than Reba Mcentire's Every Other Weekend, and that's saying a lot coming from me. I wonder if this is a horrible song for recently divorced men to listen to, or if it would be somehow therapeutic to have it come on and burst into tears. I hope to God that never happens to some poor fellow on his drive to get his kids for the weekend. That would certainly make me want to throw up out of sheer empathy.

  

5.) House of Broken Love ~ Great White. I took one look at this video and heard the song and vomited. Sorry. It's just so greasy and cheesy. Also, these men should not have better hair than me. Maybe I'm just jealous.



6.) Mary Chapin Carpenter's House of Cards has pretty good lyrics. I wish the music was better. Sad. I just don't like it. Once again, nothing I'd spend much time on by choice.



7.) Housewife's Prayer, by the Pistol Annies. Depressing. No one's divorced yet, but sounds to me like they are well on their way. V.



8.) How Do You Love Someone ~ Ashley Tisdale. I've never been terribly impressed by Ms Tisdale, but the lyrics to this song are very telling and true to a lot of women's lives. Sad, I guess, but kind of an Early 90's kind of "sad," which also means bad.



9.) Theory of a Deadman's Hurricane. Hurt and Hurricane. Bleh. Meh, even. V, but nice lyric video.



I was hoping to give you an even ten, but I ran out of Hs. If you think of one more song, I'd include it on the list for you. Hopefully you are not actually reading this and listening to these songs, because I assume you want to live a happy life. Tomorrow I've got like 15 songs that start with the letter "I." Wouldn't Sesame Street be proud of me?

Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 6&7 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letters "F" and "G."

1.) Our first song tonight has a very cheerful pop song feel to it, but if you read the lyrics it's really kind of horrible. It's kind of like how The Everly Brothers smile their matching white smiles and sing "Bye Bye Love," which by the way should have been in Songs That Begin With "B." Ah, well. Can't have them all. There's a lot of heartache out there, such as mine as I listen to Tesla singing Falling Apart. Vomit!





2.) Family Portrait. P!NK, of course. This song is depressing. Reminds me of my childhood, except that I only wished my dad would leave. The bit about having two addresses and splitting the holidays makes me feel bad because then I'm thinking of my own children. In 2001, P!NK wasn't even a blip on my radar. She seemed to blend in with a lot of other singers at the time. I think the song is sad, but still just makes me want to vomit.



3.) Fool For Your Loving ~ Whitesnake? This song is better than I suspected, but my expectations weren't all that high. I kind of like the bluesey feel the singer has in his voice, but the music and lyrics categorizes it as somewhat vomity because they just don't match up.



4.) Fortress Around Your Heart, by none other than Sting. This song doesn't actually belong on this list because I love it. I love that entire album. Sting really is fantastic with the clever lyrics. Man, it's been ages since I listened to this song, and I can still sing along. If it should happen to make you cry or vomit, please let me know.



5.) Free the Butterfly, by Suzi Quatro. This one sort of takes broken relationship depression and tries to make it into a sort of inspiring song, but it's still terrible. I won't be buying an album anytime soon.



6.) Get Her Back. Robin Thicke ~ This song commits the cardinal English Teacher Sin of changing back and forth between directly addressing the girl as "You" and then singing "Her." I don't think I want this guy to give me "that thing" I wanted. I'd prefer to ask someone else. It's a boring song. I suppose I could use it as ambient music...



7.) Get Hurt, by The Gaslight Anthem ~ This guy came to get hurt. Huh. And I don't get the line about how he hears they don't bleed in California. What's that supposed to be? Kind of repetitive. Yep, vomity all right. And victimy. Shame on you, dude. You should know better.



8.) And for some reason, Janis Ian's Getting Over You makes me sad. This is how you know you're not over someone quite yet -- when too many songs remind you of them, and make you sad when you hear them. It was easy to get over my ex husband. He made it easy for me. But when I hear this song I find myself thinking of how hard it is to get some people out of your heart and your head. Staying friends, as she refers to in this song, makes it nearly impossible, because there is no closure. Cry.



9.) Ghost ~ Katie Perry again, not sounding very inspired or original, and most of the lyrics are repetitive. Blah. And yet there's this one little stanza that caught my ear: "Something has died. Now that I have made up my mind I'll be all right, it doesn't haunt me at night." We've all gotta get there someday, someway.



10.) Goodbye ~ I liked Avril Lavigne pretty well when she released her first album, but I tired of her quickly, and this song has effected me similarly. ZZZZZZZZZZZ



11.) Last but by no means least, Goodbye, My Lover, sang by James Blunt. I find it beautiful because he manages to sing it so sadly, and with so much emotion. The way he's hanging on and waiting is depressing, but it kind of makes me want to cry. I like the song, darn it.



Well, then, now that you are properly depressed, I'll leave you to dwell on your losses until next time, when we listen to Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 8 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "H."

Good For Anyone

A year ago today I was sitting in the day room with a motley collection of misfits listening to a discussion about relaxation techniques and guided meditation. There was Larry, a man who walked with the aid of a cane and sometimes seemed lost inside his own head, Merte, who kept bemoaning the fact that no one would give her a ride to Vermontville, Sadie offering cigarettes to everyone and hoarsely

warning them they'd get herpes if they kept trying to smoke cigarette butts from the ashtrays out on the patio, Jane who wore the same scrubs every day and played her guitar every night, Greg slinking around in a hospital gown trying to locate and steal sharp objects so he could kill himself, John with the anger management issues, Alan from Africa who wanted to go back to his own country, Lin from China who had been on a wait list for an apartment for over three months now, my room-mate Sarah who'd been admitted by her boyfriend and girlfriend so they could have a break from her, Lisa who lost her little boy and didn't have the will to live anymore, and finally James, a pleasant fellow who seemed to have gotten lost in the city, except that he was trying to convince the nurse that he needed more drugs because they were better for him than all the alcohol he must have drank to appear drunk from it even then, five days into his stay. I could try to say that I didn't belong there with them and that there had been some kind of mistake, but truthfully I felt perfectly natural and safe in their company...except for maybe with Greg, because I wasn't a hundred percent certain that he wouldn't decide to take someone out of this plane of existence along with him if he finally located the elusive sharp object.

I heard the intercom asking for me to appear outside the door to the counseling offices, so I left the group early and stood beside the glassed-in nurse's station waiting for them to unlock the door. In a moment, it clanged loose and the counselor on the other side held it open for me. I was glad to see that it was Tracy and not Laura, because Laura's sympathy seemed forced and strange to me, while Tracy was very empathetic and matter-of-fact. I followed her to her office and waited for her to sit down before sitting across from her myself. Tracy looked the way you might look if you'd been up on third shift all night long and now had to stay at work because your replacement never showed up that day. She looked that way because that is what happened to her, and it wasn't the first time I'd notice it happen. 

"So," she asked, "Are you excited to go home with your sister today?"

I wondered if she was disappointed that I couldn't muster a more enthusiastic response than "Yes."

"I saw your painting on the table in the day room last night," Tracy told me.

I smiled because I'd hoped I could show it to her before Thea came to take me home.

"Tell me about it," she said, "What made you decide to paint a bird, and why does it look like its nest is on fire?"

I quoted Emily Dickinson: "Hope is a thing with feathers. It perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words..." Dickinson would have gone on to say "and never stops at all," but I didn't think that was true at the time, so I stopped.

Tracy had this reaction to me, that I've often encountered in people who held some manner of authority over me, where she seemed delighted to have me there, as if I were the bird in the painting, stuck someplace it didn't quite belong, and had broken out in song. She also had the other reaction toward me that I've often seen, the one where she had no idea what I was doing in there singing instead of out singing to the world at the top of my voice.

I don't have much of a singing voice. It's why I started painting.

"You're going to do really well," Tracy said happily, "You've come a long way since you came to us a couple weeks ago, and the program we've put you into is good for anyone, really, but I think it will be especially helpful where your PTSD is concerned."

Everyone kept telling me that the type of therapy they'd referred me to was so great that anyone would benefit by it, but it was like we really were sitting in the shadow of an enormous elephant holding his massive foot to his pursed lips and wheezing "shhhhh!" 

When Thea arrived to take me home, I felt as if I were leaving a warm and dark cave. I climbed into the passenger seat of her car and leaned my head against the window, blinking at the golden glow of leaves scattered over the ground in the sunlight. It was like the world had been painted fresh that morning and hadn't even dried yet.

Probably the most unpleasant part of counseling is the first meeting with a therapist, in which you have to tell your life story in exchange for assistance changing the ending. I've done this several times in my life, and I'm not ashamed to admit it anymore because I'm always hoping that someone else might feel just a little bit less alone if they knew about it. Mental illness is a scary thing to carry around with you, because no matter how smart or talented or strong other people may think that you are, you spend most of your life attempting both to accept and to hide this problem from yourself as well as everyone else, trying not to burn out before your strength runs out or your fears become real. Neither of these things is really going to happen, but when you're struggling with depression you simply don't know that. I'd been referred for DBT, which stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. It's kind of like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, except with elements of meditation and PTSD coping skills thrown in for good measure. I was to see my new therapist once a week, and also attend a DBT Group on a weekly basis.

On the first day of DBT Group, I encountered another white-walled room crowded with misfits, and I wasn't there more than ten minutes before once again I felt right at home. Within half an hour, I was extremely uncomfortable and just wanted to go home, because it turned out all of them -- ALL of them -- had at one time or another tried to commit suicide.

It was as if the elephant had accidentally sneezed out the secret he'd been holding back, and it hit me like a stream of water from a firehose. Tracy was right that this therapy was good for anyone else, but she hadn't really mentioned that everyone in it had, at one time or another, been sitting beside absent-minded Larry listening to Sadie talk about Herpes and wondering if Greg was going to kill them before they could do the job themselves.

I found myself listening closely to everyone else's stories, trying to find differences and similarities from myself so that I could figure out if I really belonged there with them or not.

I was telling myself that this was some kind of mistake. I shouldn't be here with Becky, who had had her stomach pumped no less than ten times in her lifetime, or with Matt who kept making up wild stories about his adventures strolling around town in a speedo so that he didn't have to talk about how scared he actually was of always being socially awkward and dying alone. But then Bonnie spoke up and said, "I'm really good with people. I'm always trying to cheer them up and make them laugh, draw them out of themselves and look at the bright side of things. They don't know I'm doing that because I really badly need someone to do those same things for me. They see me smiling and I think they think I'm really wonderful..."

I could tell that she didn't believe that she was wonderful, that she thought she'd somehow managed to fool all those people. I understood this about her because I have often felt the same way about myself. 

You can say what you want about Group Therapy, about how cheesy, embarrassing or cliche it looks on tv, about how you're not really a "people person" and therefore would never benefit from it, how there's no way in hell you'd talk about all your deepest secrets in front of a room full of strangers, or that sitting and listening to people complaining about their lives doesn't seem productive or especially helpful to you if none of them actually have your specific problem -- and I mean, you can say that if you want to, because I certainly did. And I actually am a "people person," but just at that time in my life I really didn't want to be. 

The reason I'd been hanging out in a "Crisis Prevention Center" in the first place was because, like an alcoholic, my life had "become unmanageable." It unravelled and I just wasn't able to roll it all back up -- again. I felt like I'd somehow ruined and wasted my life and could never catch up, that I was useless and had nothing more to contribute to the world. I wanted to be physically, mentally, and financially stable like everyone else seemed so effortlessly to be, but I'd given up on the idea of ever making that happen. 

Here I'm going to do something outrageous and tell you that giving up on the idea of being physically, mentally, and financially stable like everyone else was the best choice I've made in my life to date, and I'll tell you why: 

• I've never been physically stable; I'm a serious clutz, and I've decided to be proud of it.
• Mental stability is in the eye of the beholder. As my Neuropsychologist likes to say: "All the truly intelligent people in the world have some level of neurosis -- that's how they're able to see the world differently than everyone else, and that's what makes them unique and special."
• I looked up the definition of neurotic because I've always assumed it meant "CRAZY," but really it's a much more human concept than that; It's "a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality." Think about this definition very carefully before you go judging anyone else, and ask yourself this: "Do I have any of these traits?" I'm willing to bet that you do. If you're one of my friends, then I know you do, because my friends are all very highly intelligent and funny people.
• I don't have to be financially stable like everyone else, either. First of all, because not everyone else is financially stable. All I really have to be is financially stable enough to take care of myself and my kids. I don't have to be like everyone else. Even everyone else isn't like everyone else.
• The reason I feel at home among misfits is because I know how they feel and they know how I feel, and together all we have in common is all that matters -- That our lives have been such that we're forced to be more honest with ourselves and others than makes us (or others) entirely comfortable. 
• We meet in DBT group each week and we make ourselves roar with laughter at how funny life is, cry for each other when we hear how harsh the world can be, and how broken the world can be, that the people who occupy it think that the worst, most embarrassing thing they could ever do is to be entirely honest about their faults, their pain, their problems and struggles. 
• We meet in that room and we see, over and over again, what great strength and courage it takes to admit our weaknesses, and how much more beautiful we all have the potential to be when we learn to show empathy and compassion for someone else. The question is not "What could I possibly get out of discussing my problems with people who have no way of relating to me, let alone helping me?" 
• The are actually two questions, and they are: "At what point in my life did I decide that my problems are so different from everyone else's problems?" and, "At what point in my life did I decide that I'm so much better or more important than anyone else that I think my problems are more worth listening to than theirs?" 
• Or maybe it's more positive to ask ourselves this: "Why do I think my problems mean I'm worthless and have nothing to contribute to the world when having them enables me to light the way through the dark for other people who struggle?"

I've attached a painting that I've done for a person who is in my DBT Group. Because it is for a person in my DBT Group, it is also good for anyone else.

Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 5 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "E."

I'm pretty sure I need to start doing more than one letter a day for these songs, but it does come in handy on days when I'm in a hurry. If all goes well, we'll have five songs that start with "E" this morning, and then I will see you tomorrow, maybe. Or not. I'm pretty busy on Sundays.

1.) First song on my list: Emergency, by Paramore. Should I vomit or cry? I have no opinion of this one. It seems rather generic to me, so my response is pure apathy. If it should happen too affect you more strongly than this, let me know, 'cause I got nuttin.



2.) Every Breath You Take ~ The Police. Was this song ever romantic to anyone out there? I personally looked at it as possibly the most creepy stalker song ever, even in 1984 when I was in Elementary School. Although I have always enjoyed Sting as an artist, stalking is not cool, so this merits a certain amount of spillage.



3.) Evil Eye, by Josh Ritter. Oh. My. Goodness! Now, this song is just hysterical! I'm not crying, I'm not vomiting -- I'm just sitting here watching the video and smirking.



As it turns out, I was unable to use two of the songs. One of them, by a group called Lighthouse, was actually a praise and worship song about being close to God. This seemed a strange choice for Google, but you never can tell with the Internet. It's like a box of chocolates.

Divorce/Break-Up Songs That Make Me Want to Cry/Vomit, 4 of 26 ~ Songs That Start With the Letter "D."

In today's journey into the heartbreak and tears of bad music fans everywhere, I give you just five songs that start with the letter "D."

I'm actually beginning my list of songs (that either make me want to cry/vomit) feeling a strange sensation that is neither tears nor upchuck, but rather a sort of resigned acceptance, bordering upon admiration.

1.) In 1968, Tammy Wynette became the first ever person to sing about divorce. Were it not for Ms Wynette, I would have no divorce songs to complain about. And yet here she is in her bleached blonde bouffant, singing from her heart and personal experience the helpless grief of knowing that you're making a decision that you fear will steal all your child's sense of happy innocence, security and trust. I know how that feels. 

D-I-V-O-R-C-E The song is old, and it would be almost satirical or sappy if anyone else had sung it, but I think Tammy's got a beautiful voice and puts just the right level of emotion into what she's singing. Furthermore, women everywhere were given a voice in a matter that no one at the time liked to discuss. She was a gutsy lady in this respect, and therefore has earned my respect despite my lifetime abhorrence of sad country songs that dwell on the negative side of divorce and heartbreak.

I wanted to make fun of this song, I really did, but just you look at her face as she's singing -- I took one look at her face and had to give in. Shoot, if I were the guy in this situation, I'd take one look at that face and renew our vows right on the spot.

2.) On the other hand, Wayne Newton totally makes me want to vomit, singing Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast? Terrible song. And why was this guy ever popular? I'm glad I wasn't born yet when this song came out, because I'm sure it would have made me spit up more than a little. Wayne, you get a "D."

3.) Doesn't Anybody Stay Together Anymore? To be or not to be, this is definitely the question that created this blog series. Did you know that Phil Collins used to have hair? Me, Neither. And I don't mean just a ring around his head, or even just an ordinary amount of hair -- I mean like, a LOT of hair! Amazing. In my personal opinion, this song is kind of generic for Collins. He has much better stuff out there, but the song asks a valid question. I don't cry when I hear this one because it's just not very emotional, and I don't vomit, but I do feel a little queasy...

4.) Don't Give Up on Love, Sanctus Real. I neither love nor hate this song. Total indifference. Oh, sort of a Christian Rock Song. Wait, wait a minute... These are the guys responsible for that horrible Lead Me song, that makes me want to vomit! But that starts with an "L," so this is the song we get today. What do you think? 

5.) Down to Earth, sung by Justin Bieber. Honestly, I have never listened to Justin Bieber. Listening to this song, I can see why people kept calling him a girl when his music first came out. The lyrics are kind of sad, but I don't like the song much. Not my preference in music. Then again, neither is Tammy Wynette.

Tomorrow we will be going over songs that make me want to cry or vomit, 5 of 26, Songs that Start With the Letter "E," including what I consider to be one of the ultimate stalker songs of the 80s! Can you guess which song that would be? Take a guess! 

Have a nice day!

What I'll Focus On

Today I decided that I'm done with brain damage.
If I step back and try to look objectively at my circumstances, there's only three things that are actually a serious challenge. These are:

1. I don't know if I can drive safely right now, and I no longer am sure if the insurance company will pay for my transportation. It's the same old song, different verse so far as Mild Traumatic Brain Injury is concerned: Physically I'm fine; My brain is just damaged. No biggie.
2. My attention span and working memory are in the 23rd Percentile and I'm not used to having to work so hard to pay attention to everything.
3. The neural fatigue is still very difficult for me to predict and adjust to. I'm not used to being so tired so suddenly that I literally can't hold my head up and my eyes open. I have to learn what types of physical activities bring this on, and what types of mental activities bring it on, and then I can plan for resting before and after those types of activities. I don't have to give them up, I just have to plan for them.
4. The Vocational Therapist seems to feel it's unrealistic for my goal to still be getting to teach in a classroom. That's the most depressing thing of all.

The part that is not so serious is mostly my ego, and consists of the following:

1. I miss my independence, having a car, and calling all my own shots as opposed to having to get called to the carpet every time I overdo. And I don't care for the way some people are judging me just because they don't understand what's happened to me, or don't know who I really am. 
2. I now have the kind of attention span that as a teacher always made me want to rip my hair out or ask the student if they planned on learning anything today or if they were just going to sit around calling out unrelated comments that had nothing to do with my lesson plan. I am now that kid.
3. I don't wanna have to take a nap every time I want get to do something! Waaaah! I don't want to have this problem. I don't want to have to micromanage every day for the rest of my life to ensure my brain doesn't shut down and start running on just the generators. I am sick and tired of talking and thinking about all my deficits. Education and acceptance are all very well, but at some point this needs to be about my strengths.
4. I've spent a lot of time and money working on being the best the teaching field has to offer, and I don't want to see that wasted. But I don't know who to believe when it comes to my chances of winning this battle, so I sometimes wonder if I should just defer to the experts and find some nice, steady factory job that doesn't challenge me too much. 

In the name of concentrating on my strengths, I have decided to set myself back to default mode and proactively discuss my options from here on out. This is how I intend to do it:

1. Who cares what anyone else thinks? (I'm afraid I shall be reminding myself of this for as long as I live, but I guess that's not very positive, so I'll have to stop that right this instant. What I'm really going to think is that I will keep encountering this problem until I finally have learned the lesson. When I went from 3rd to 4th grade, I remember specifically thinking to myself, "What?! I had to LEARN the Multiplication Tables so that I could also do them in fourth grade?!" I'd thought I'd seen the last of those little bastards.) And as far as driving and independence are concerned, there is a bus, my family and friends love me, and ultimately what I do with my life is entirely up to me, so no more victim mentality. I'm in control here....and I guess I'll have to stop worrying about the insurance coverage at least to the extent of reminding myself that if I can't do anything about it right this second, so I need to focus on something else.
2. So I'm ADD now, so what? I've worked with a lot of kids with ADD over the years, and you know what? The majority of them were the smartest (and therefore most bored) students I have ever had. Yes, their lack of attention was irritating, and people reacted badly to that, and that made them react even worse -- It was a terrible cycle. Clearly if I'm aware of this, I can beat it. And, even better, when I DO get back to teaching again, I will have a lot more empathy and know some coping skills that could really help those kids. Ta dah! Better teacher already.
3. If I keep plugging away at Neuro Fatigue every day, I can and will build more stamina and also eventually be so good at planning around it that I will hardly ever notice it anymore. It's a non-problem so long as I stop whining and keep working at it.
4. People with physical or mental obstacles beat the odds all the time. They just focus on the positive and work harder than the rest and do amazing things. I just need to keep listing my strengths, keep setting my goals and taking the steps necessary to get where I feel I need to be. 

There is nothing stopping me.

Fear and Discouragement are illusions.

Acceptance

At my Traumatic Brain Injury education/support group my Neuropsychologist told us that many of his clients return within a couple of years with pretty severe depression. I told him that I think perhaps that part of my brain must have been altered by the accident, because most of the time I feel just fine. I feel I'm coping fairly well, but he gave me a sort of pitying look and told me, "Heather, your brain is still so stunned right now that all it can really do is concentrate on one or two things at a time. It's years later, when the brain stops showing signs of improvement, that people look back at their lives and start missing the things they were too injured to take note of." 

Despite his rather bleak sentiments on this occasion, the doctor is a delightful man. He's recently moved in both of his parents because his mother has dementia and his father is failing physically. He calls me personally to answer my questions any time of the day, but often long after work hours have ended. Some of the people in the group have been attending for longer than twenty years, and often the doctor knows the names and occupations of all their family members, and asks after their children by name. For S---- (who once was the fastest female Corvette racer in the state of Michigan!), he attended her husband's funeral, and he never fails to tell all of us what a wonderful man her husband had been. Whenever he starts to explain a specific brain function using a former patient/client as an example, he will say, "Oh! I haven't called or written Sarah in a while!" and make a note on his stenopad reminding himself to drop a line and see how she's been doing. I'm told by the Brain Rehab that this individualized, personal approach is rare in Neuropsychologists, so I lucked out in getting such a good one. 

I've received the results from the Insurance Company's Independent Evaluation from the Neuropsychologist they had hired. The results are mixed and rather incongruent. 

Although I scored in the 23rd Percentile for auditory attention and concentration, in my spacial organization and visual-motor processing speed  I tested in the 99th percentile.

The speech language pathologist is assisting me in learning coping skills to counterbalance my deficits. 

I have to learn "self-cuing" strategies, and other things that are very similar to what I'd do with a struggling reader or a special needs student. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Speaking of which, 

I also have a hard time doing all this typing, although I am loathe to relinquish this form of communication because I find writing about what's going on in my life enjoyable and often quite therapeutic. It helps me to organize my thoughts. But my right hand has lost some dexterity because the left side of my brain was damaged, which causes me to miss a lot of keys on the right hand side. I know to proofread everything, particularly words like "you, mom, ploy, yum, hop," etc. I am from the generation of students who were still taught good touch-typing skills, and I learned in college to type words just as quickly as they came to me. Recently I was disconcerted to discover that my hands haven't been keeping up like I thought they were. I'd actually miss a lot of words without even knowing it, because my brain overcompensates by trying to behave as if there's nothing wrong, so my fingers are at work the entire time but many of the words aren't actually being typed, like "I ran the and thought was fine." Another function of the left side of the brain is sequencing, which aids in spelling. Once again, thank god for spell check.

Not addressed in the report would be the visual therapy recommended by the behavioral optometrist. Of all the things that aren't the same, it's the reading that troubles me the most. My eye muscles were damaged in the accident and the therapy is to help redevelop them so that they converge and diverge smoothly together again. They are also not anchoring well, so when I read I skip lines all the time and have to use a bookmark to follow. This is discouraging in a woman who used to be able to read something like Don Quixote, listen to my sister telling me about her day, and compose a grocery list in my head -- all at the same time, without missing anything. Then, even a year later, I could pluck Don Quixote off the shelf and find the exact passage where he first attacked the windmills. Now I have to look at words like ordinary people and have a harder time concentrating and visualizing what I read. I have to read lines over again. If someone interrupts me it's harder to find where I left off. It's like torture. The insurance company is sending me in for another independent evaluation specific to address these symptoms, because of course they always need a second opinion on everything.

If all goes well, I might be allowed to drive again before the end of the year, although I do wonder how that's possible when I get distracted and overwhelmed in busy places where I have to pay attention to more than one thing at a time, and there's the right hand dexterity issues in addition to the eyes. Right now the brain rehabilitation center is playing a waiting game to determine if the insurance will cover a road test with an evaluator who specializes in brain injuries, and there is also some question of whether or not they're going to cover the car service that's been taking me to and from all my appointments. I have vision therapy, speech therapy, speech and language pathology, vocational therapy, yoga, and they want me to have a therapy for eye-hand coordination skills that I'd need for successfully returning to work, but it sounds likely that I won't be getting it.

Sometimes I feel as if I could just google most of this therapy and do it myself, though. It involves a lot of worksheets and computer games to challenge my diverse attention and concentration skills.

I've also got a Vocational Therapist now whose job it is to help me find a part time volunteer position that will lead into a part time job, and within six months, a year from the original accident, I'll be working full time again. The Therapist thinks she can get me a job in an assembly line at a factory, where the work is steady and predictable and my moderately impaired diverse attention and focus won't prevent me from achieving vocational success. They say I should be able to transition into some basic entry-level position without needing any accommodations. Apparently they know of a corporation that hires people with disabilities part-time. 

They don't tell me as much, but it seems to me like no one but my Neuropsychologist believes I'll ever go back to teaching in any classroom. Or at least they don't see it happening any time in the next year or two. It doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying. How can I stop? This has been my whole life, trying to get there. I don't feel I have to let this stop me.

 Still, I was in Cognitive therapy last week trying to do a worksheet beginning with one sentence, and running underneath down the sheet there was a row of twenty-five simple directions (Ex: "Switch the first vowel with the fourth consonant from the end"), and when I got to the last line it was supposed to spell out a completely new sentence, but when I finally got there it was just garbled. I used to give worksheets like that to my eighth graders all the time as a warning to them to pay close attention when reading the directions of any given assignment, and right now I can't even do it myself. The Therapists are teaching me to take careful notes and ask clarifying questions to compensate for this condition. 

Then today they gave me a map with numbers instead of street names, and read directions to me that were meant to help me guess which road had which name, such as "Harrison begins at Brookview but ends running North-West along the third intersecting street. Which road is Harrison?" and I can't listen to directions like that and reason them out in my head anymore. I would forget "Harrison" but remember "Brookview," and I would forget which direction the road was supposed to be in, so I'd ask her to repeat the entire question so I could focus on that. Then I would remember North-West but forget the names of the roads. Once I combined them and asked if street number 9 was the "Harrisview" I was looking for. 

I played a board game with my family for two hours on Saturday, and then suddenly it was like my

brain shut off and the generators kicked on, but I didn't want to be the one to stop all the fun, so I hung in there for nearly another hour as the game wrapped up, until my head was falling forward and my eyes were closing involuntarily. I was struggling to keep them open without being too noticeable, but when I felt forced to bring it up, my sister sent me straight to bed. 

My Neuropsychologist told me that I have to pay close attention to how I'm doing, because this is going to keep on happening to me for the rest of my life if I don't learn how to pace myself better. My sister said sarcastically that he should come home with me then and follow me everywhere, because I can sit and read that long just fine, or write a marathon email, but apparently I'm always one more involved board game an hour away from being as bad as if the therapy had never happened. Too much physical activity can bring on fatigue, or too much mental activity, and I'm having a hard time figuring which activities are going to cause it.

I feel a little discouraged today. Being out of commission for an entire year feels like yet another setback for me. Still, I am a lover of words of wisdom, so whenever I feel defeated by the bulk of changes in my life and despair of anything ever working out, I defer to this quote:

 When I was watching Family Ties in the 80's,
I never would have guessed that Michael J. Fox
was ever going to be such an inspiration to me.