Insight

This section is designed with the TBI'er in mind.  It's bits of information that I've gotten from other BI'ers written especially for US, and those who want to SEE into what things are like from "OUR SIDE"!

This may be an idea, a reaction, a response, etc.  These "insights" are meant to help us see another BI'ers point of view.

What seemed to help me the most about this idea, was that although I myself may have times that I don't know how to SAY or WRITE something, someone else can say it EXACTLY how I wanted too, but unlike ME, they were able to put it into my unspoken words!

I hope this section will help you too!  ENJOY! 

~ barbara jean ~

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This question was raised in one of the TBI email groups I was on:

I have been in situations that SHOULD have made me euphoric, but instead, I find that I am numb.  But basically I am devoid of feelings.......just "numb" with a smile.  WHY?

Executive Overview

- Living bonked is a life of "big" emotions, so if we don't laugh at small things is that a big deal?

- Every day is attention to detail, do I have time to stop and smell the roses?

- We feel accomplishment and jpy in what we have and do, but is that a certainty?  Does is call for a reserved response?

- I know I can smile and laugh. Why not do it?

Comparative Emotions?

Having been bonked, I can remember the "frustration," "determination," and "reserved joy," I felt of being alive.  None of these emotions were ordinary in size.  As time passed these three emotions probably swelled to even greater percentages of my overall emotional response.  By comparison, a birthday party or graduation, my own or someone else's seems minor.

By comparison, the small joys of life have become consumed by the effort of living life; faded by the accomplishment of living today bonked and all the determination that goes into succeeding.  A bonk success is simply accomplising what I did before, accomplishing daily life, or appearing "normal".

Distraction and Competition

Each day and every day, each activity and all the activities a bonk joins, or a bonk attempts, or a bonk steps back from is done from a perspective of evaluation, comparison, and negotiation.  Can I do this?  Can I do it today? Do I have the energy for this?  What is the problem I am going to have? How do I minimize the negatives to get through this?

A simple happy event like a birthday party is full of distraction.  The effort of planning, coordinating, organizing are not so simple but an accomplishment.  Being present in a room of noise, motion, activity. Interacting with individuals who know me, before and after, dealing with expectations.  It is hard to have time to be "over the top" joyous, to have spontaneous excitement and happiness.  I'm busy with a million things that have to be dealt with.

It's not that I don't see this should be a happy, spontanious time; it's that other things have to be dealt with that are distracting and competing with my emotions.  A clingy person who doesn't understand me and keeps making inaccurate remarks or is too helpful to me.  The surpise I feel in accomplishing this particular event, all those things that went on before what others see now.  So many things today are accomplished by plan and hard work that the culmination even is less free will, less spontaneous.  My inner joy of accomplishment may exceed the joy of seeing a loved one grow older, of thinking of what they have accomplished in the last year, of the expectation that this event will bring a new future to the person.

I don't have time for all the connective thoughts that previously contributed to my "joys."  I am busy, dealing with the previously inconsequential and background issues, that are now bigger and more in my conscious.  I did not have to deal with a room full of people before.  I moved about and participated.  Now I have to guard against too loud a room, too many distractions, too many people addressing me, too many rapid changes in subject, dialog, conversation or activity.

These things take concentration to deal with and compete with just giving a free emotional response.  Constantly in my self-awareness is the issue of overload?  I have to guard againt too much of a positive or negative thing. I don't want to be seen as incapable, as unable to complete what was started, as fragile.  But if I overload, Bonk, shutdown will give that appearance.

If I can complete an activity, task, or goal by being slowed down, or in slow motion, or by slivers of effort (walk in to a room, interact, walk out, walk back in, interact, walk out) then my perception is that others "see" me as capable.  If I charge into a situation, overload and bail out, the response and perception are "Oh, they're just not capable!"

In day to day life, I'm busy constantly monitoring what I do, how it will be perceived, what my degree of accomplishment is.  My monitoring of these successes and difficulties and the constant emotional adjustment, distract and compete with my ability to respond like others to open events and accomplishments.  For my case, when I have thrown caution to the wind and given free reign to spontaneous emotions, I find my energy soon depleted.

Of all things that were changed by BI, it is the capacity, the total sum available of emotional energy.  If I allow an euphoric event to consume my supply then it has to be refilled to continue.  Just as physical pacing is necessary, the competition for emotional energy has to be met with even expenditures of small amounts of emotion.

Changed Values and Judgment

If considered by a person not in this body but knowledgeable in the effort needed to make this body's bonked accomplishments, that person's response would probably be elation, joy, and surprise over my accomplishments.  How many of you were "diagnosed" as "DOA", "future vegetables", "incapable", or "retarded?"  Far too many of us.  Yet we go on to accomplish so much.  Yet to us the accomplishments often come from dogged determination, from perseverance, from serendipity, and from hard work.

This "focus" of determination or distracted from daily life participation, leads to a life exact, considered, and incremental in events and emotions. Joy and happiness often spring from a more spontaneous response.  Yes, we may have graduated, but we planned to, we set a goal, we worked at every step, we ate the elephant one bite at a time.  Graduation is a post recognition of a determined, focused, mini step process.  The value to me no longer is, what the future is ahead, but the self awareness of the things that got me to this moment.  The reflection then is the work, the effort, the many little accomplishments.  Instead of celebrating the joyous event, I'm calculating what it's cost was; I'm planning what the next level of challenge I can take on; I'm dealing with the interaction of events.

Such mechanical emphasis makes "joyous" response hard.  Yes, I smile. Events are fun.  Favorite activities I enjoy.  Accomplishments are neat. But there is so much more for me to deal with.  My values are longer term.  My judgment of situations include many more complex issues.

My Values and Judgement Are Built On Quicksand

For those with more severe or complex problems than me, I believe your values and judgment have to have had more change than mine.  When I dealt with my problems and accomplished a work around or "recovered" a skill, I feel a certain "joy" in that.  I lost by ability to type.  I "remembered" the home row some months later.  But my speed was off and the errors I made were more frequent than the correct things I typed.  I bought an aid and practiced until I had a little proficiency.  What I have described is the reconstitution of a skill or behavior.

All of us have accomplished this, whether it was to walk, talk, write, eat, drive, read, or wiggle our ears.  A skill lost; a skill re-learned.  But other actions and events have become more notable.  I can attend a gathering now.  But sometimes the noise, the movement, or the importance of the event overwhelm me.

One time I can go to the movies and enjoy.  The next time, too many people in the lobby will leave me so distracted from the rapid switching of attention that I can't refocus on just the movie I paid to see.

Sometimes in the dark, the distraction of voices in different directions, the loudness rather than content of the movie sound, and sometimes defending my drink, popcorn, hershey bar, licorice, bon bons, and gummy bears from my show companion are all too much!

Rather than knowing I can do something (every time), there are events and actions that I never know with certainty if I will be able to accomplish them in the next or current instance.  I can do something ten times and feel confident that I can repeat my performance.  But some circumstance or series of events will conspire to unravel my performance and confound my judgment.  It is hard to feel joy with performance and judgement so variable.  If not constrained, I could easily become pragmatic and frumpy.

A Possible Door Way Out Of This Box

So, sometimes I practice response.  Even though I know that I may do less well than I want the next time.  I "over react" this time.  I have a good time. I do more than smile; add a bigger sweep of emotion.  Whether that is more sway in my hips, a louder than needed voice, a silly twirl for accomplishment, something.  Yes, my wife does get a little embarrassed at times.  But gee, folks I was that way before bonk, bb. (Before somebody asks, NO...I don't wear a tutu?) 

What I find most encouraging about this behavior is that where I sometimes can't get emotional about an event, activity, or circumstance, my own little self encouragement sometimes causes the genuine laugh, joyousness, or silliness.  And as noted above, once happiness is inititated, well I can enjoy life.  Then the smiles, and grins, the open free laughter, that should be there, appear the way they used to appear.

Bees Wax

So I think our staid (sedate, respectable, quite, serious-minded, steady, unadventurous) selves, our lack of emotion, is often based on the "weight" of daily living, the constant attention to details instead of generalities, and on our uncertain continuity.  No matter what I am told about brains, chemicals, and drugs, I think the human capacity for joy and love and play and silliness can not be repressed.  Sometimes we just have to encourage these things until they take fruit of their own.

~ Steve (Plaidhat)

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