Dwelling

Various thoughts.

My friend from the frozen north called today and we discussed the same things over again.  You need to!
She said she thought Walrus was a good person when I introduced him in September, but in March she wrote him off.  That was when I paid a bill for him in front of her, and very soon after he snapped at me rudely when I was annoyed he'd planned something badly.
She said something about 'textbook brain injury' so I went and looked it up.

• Debilitation, fatigue.  YES
• Sleep dysfunction, i.e. insomnia, day and night confusion.  YES
• Lack of stamina.  YES
• Problems planning, organizing and initiating tasks.  YES
• Difficulties with multitasking and sequencing, i.e. keeping track of two things at once.   YES
• Need for structure and direction to accomplish tasks.  YES
• Poor concentration, attention and memory.   YES
• Problems retrieving information from memory.  
• Although intelligence remains intact, there is slowness in processing information, particularly new information especially if fatigued or over stimulated.
• Problems with pacing activities.  YES
• Difficulty with judgment and decision making.  I think so
• Irritability  YES
• Impulsivity   YES
• Difficulty dealing with change. 
• Inability to cue, leading to socially inappropriate behavior.  (?)
• Isolating self as feeling different, and therefore treated differently  YES
• Hard to “keep up” in social situations.
• Poor coping strategies which impact on interpersonal and vocational efforts. ( Maybe?)
• Vertigo (dizziness), light headed feeling.
• Tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
• Light or sound sensitivity.
• Smell and taste alterations.  YES
• Visual, speech and hearing disturbances.
• Stress related disorders-depression-frustration.   YES
• Emotional liability, i.e. crying for no apparent reason.
• Emotional / behavioral outbursts.
• Compulsive talkativeness.
• Balance and co-ordination problems (motor co-ordination).  YES
• Personality change.
• Chronic pain, including headache.
• Inability to return to work, or, if able, at reduced capacity and with great effort.  Possibly
• Family breakdown.
• Possible misdiagnosis as, for example, psychiatric illness or malingering.

Walrus has quite a few of these characteristics, as I've noted above.  

I'm just trying to process all this.  

I didn't really understand the extent of the brain injury, or the impact of it, for a long time and I tried to deny it.  He's having trouble accepting it as well.  As would anybody.

How much does that list let him off the hook for his behavior?

He's a good person, I truly believe that, and still intelligent, but he wasn't really a good boyfriend.  Look at everything he has to deal with.  

Other residents in his group home were really not functioning at the level he was, and it drove him crazy to be lumped in with the guy who asked for chocolate milk every 5 minutes.  But let's say he lost 8-10% of his brain function. It's still a lot.  Brain injuries get better, but it takes a long time, and it won't ever be the same.  People with brain injuries have trouble with subtle social cues, and often struggle in relationships.  

I know Walrus feels like he's lost his friends.  He lost so much.  I feel so bad for him!  This is heartbreaking.

I want to post here what he wrote to me about how people see him but that seems like an invasion of privacy.  I already blog about him secretly.  It was the saddest thing ever and made me feel like I'd let him down.

I think I understand what he's going though, but then I look again and I've only scratched the surface.  He knows his brain isn't working the way it was before and it's frustrating.  Some of the changes I believe he can't see, and he only knows people are treating him differently.  He doesn't know when he misses some of the subtler things in a conversation and then says the wrong thing, for example.

It's only when he writes that he can say how he feels.  Each time, I realize he's picked up on a lot more than I thought he has, and his emotions are a lot more complicated then they seem in day-to-day dealing with him.  I should have tried to get him to talk more.  I think he wanted it as much as I did.

I wonder what the break-up is like for him.  I'm a wreck, despite the fact that I never was crazy-in-love with him, and was thinking it wasn't working anyways.  (Go figure!)  And I'm not dealing with depression and all the complicated emotions that go along with his stroke, so one can only imagine his process.  I don't think he was quite as in love with me as he thought he was, but I think he's not as 'free' as he thought he was going to be either.

Damaged goods.  He told me he thought he was damaged goods and no one would want him.  I tried to prove him wrong.  But how can he be there for me, how can he make me happy, when he's depressed and struggling to find a new identity, one that includes this stroke?  It seems like when you need someone the most, that's when you have to do it alone.   Happy people have happy relationships.  

Everyone's talking about me finding something 'better' and I am uncomfortable with that word.  

Easier, maybe.  

This is so sad.  I am sad.  I can't fix him, and I can't stay if he isn't good to me or to himself.  My heart goes out to him.  He's got a tough road ahead.