Traumatic Brain Injury

A heartfelt poem about my experience after enduring 3 TBI’s in 8 months.

Im a halfwit
With half a brain
A shell of the man I used to be

I can’t feel emotions at all,
Yet, the swings of my extremes showcase that I am an emotional disaster

A life filled with achievement and success it’s purpose made sense
But, if I can’t feel...then it all seems senseless

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again...

Then define- me, because everyday I wake up hoping I will be normal again, I keep hoping that each positive coping skill will last longer than a brief moment. I keep hoping that I can feel a connection with anyone again.

I feel like a drone that was rewired to feel apathy, anger, and irritability. It’s intense. Everything is intense. Except the taste of food. Except anything pleasurable its like some cruel sadistic joke.
I’ve lost control and its affecting my relationship with myself and my family.

Wait
What was I saying?

Mindlessly I wander finding destinations never intended.
Because when they say memory is a fleeting thing, well I feel this fleet set sail a long time ago stranding me at the island when I meant to walk to the kitchen sink.

HEY!!! Can you hear me!!! I’m still here!!

This is the voice of myself, while I watch from distance as I speak words never intended
-only thought-
actions impulsed without control into reality.

HEYYYY CAN YOU HEAR ME!!! What you see is not me, but Im still here.

Disconnected its like the ghost of myself is incapable to connect with anyone else.

My interpretations are so far off base, I actually thought I was crowding the plate when I was at home and forgot there was a game.

How can I reflect when the mirror is fluidly changing faster than water. How can relationships not begin to implode slower than an exaggerated count down. because this poem isn’t a poem it is a memoir to the pages of my journal. So I write... otherwise I won’t remember.

My relationships began struggling to survive the moment the two lane street became a TBI crime scene. It was an erratic driver swerving out of control. To the bystanders eye, it seems like everyone who died was an intentional target, but the perpetrator sobbed tears of mental health into trembling hands hoping with desperation that it wasn’t true and they were all speed bumps while he drove a straight line.

Let me smile at you now when you ask me how I am doing, and I make you believe I am fine.

Because everything I have just said I am confident you thought was a metaphor or analogy, but you will never understand, I speak truthfully...when I say, it’s only a cracked door, a glimpse to the disorientation and chaos of my reality since my new best friend moved in. I nicknamed him the Shadow King and Lenny,
But if you spell out his name it’s Traumatic Brain Injury.

Reviews

[DaniElle LaPointe]

Back at it. Missed your writing. Hello

[Lalli]

DaniElle, thank you for 1) remembering 2) missing me and 3) saying hi.

Yes, I am slowly regaining a sense of creativity again after these accidents.

I hope you are well. You are welcome to DM anytime. :)