Burnout, butterflies and caterpillars

I had a similar epiphany a few year ago when I had a brain injury.   I'm not the same person that I was.  It's like all my masking has been broken and I'm very aware that I'm not the same person.   I can read documents from a few years ago and I don't recognise ever writing it and it's a much higher level than I'm able to do now - like comparing Shakespeare with The Mr Men.

My language skills are very much reduced and my memory is shot to bits.

I actually prefer the new me.

I'm a lot less critical and much more easy going.   I can't work any more so it's nice to let things drift.   Nothing needs to happen in a hurry.

I spend my life planning what I can do and trying new things.   White water rafting next week - sky diving the week after....

Yes, this, absolutely! I’ve had to learn to mask again since having my brain injury as it totally tore apart whatever facade I had constructed to  disguise my oddness! Losing ability is very difficult to come to terms with though, especially when you’ve previously been used to functioning at a very high and very efficient level!? Do you have difficulties with your long term memory then? My short term memory is ok and my long term memory is still extremely strong, it’s more working memory that I struggle with, which is essentially an issue with the ability to hold more than one thing ‘online’ at once, not memory per se. So previously I could have easily held 6/7 tasks online at once and switched effortlessly between them as necessary whereas now I can only really hold one thing online at a time, if something distracts me or I have to do another task then it displaces the original task and I temporarily ‘forget’ it. It does come back to me though, usually at times when my brain is not as busy or distracted, such as when I’m driving or trying to get to sleep! Personally I find that lists of everything and reminders on my iPhone are my saviour. How about you?

It totally made me have to re-evaluate and restructure my life though. It’s stood me in good stead for getting an ASD diagnosis actually as a lot of the changes that people start making post diagnosis, I’ve already made them so I don’t need to do so again. I also find I’m more chilled out post ABI. I now have a degree of what I refer to as ‘don’t give a s£&@ness’ (non-clinical term!) it’s easier for me to just leave something rather than continuing to worry about it when there is no point and I’m not going to achieve anything by it. I also found that because of the overlap of ASD and ABI symptoms, I’ve already worked out ways (sometimes quite random) of managing ASD symptoms, which is handy! I’m better at enjoying my life now too. I think that an acute event like that gives you that new perspective, life is for living not just existing!

I used to have an eidetic memory.  I know sooo much about soooo much that I cannot properly describe to anyone.  I used to devour encyclopedias when I was about 4.   I'm into anything technical - ridiculous data about every car, plane, train, bike, you name it - I would memorise a 55,000 item stores list because I could.  I know the specs & pinouts to all the 4000 and 74xxx logic chips etc. etc.   I was literally a walking computer.   It meant I could be very successful and impressive with zero effort.

Then I had my brain injury - viral encehpalitis - a few years ago.

I survived - they reckoned I had only a 10% chance.but a lot of the other meds I was on seemed to protect me.

A couple of months later went on a phased return to work - and lots of people were coming up to me asking how I was - I had no idea who they were - I went to a meeting and sat around a big table and everyone was asking me how I was and they were talking about projects - and it became clear the I was supposed to know these people and what was being talked about - I had no clue.

I was clearly a very important person in the company involved in all sorts of high-profile things - but I had no memory of any of it.   

Things were really tough from there onwards - having to write everything down - looking and feeling foolish because of my brain - not remembering conversations, not recognising people I've worked with for 20 years.

I lasted another 2 years before they could see I was sprialling down with the chronic fatigue and the pain.

They made me a good package to go away rather than me walk away with nothing.

My brain is like a huge encyclopedia - I have the index but chapters & chunks have been randomly ripped out - I only know what's missing when I try to access it - and nothing's there.

The memory specialist made a really helpful comment - " Get used to being like normal people."

Unfortunately, when you've been driving a ferrari for so long, being stuck with a malfunctioning 2CV is a tad irritating.

I used to have an eidetic memory.  I know sooo much about soooo much that I cannot properly describe to anyone.  I used to devour encyclopedias when I was about 4.   I'm into anything technical - ridiculous data about every car, plane, train, bike, you name it - I would memorise a 55,000 item stores list because I could.  I know the specs & pinouts to all the 4000 and 74xxx logic chips etc. etc.   I was literally a walking computer.   It meant I could be very successful and impressive with zero effort.

Then I had my brain injury - viral encehpalitis - a few years ago.

I survived - they reckoned I had only a 10% chance.but a lot of the other meds I was on seemed to protect me.

A couple of months later went on a phased return to work - and lots of people were coming up to me asking how I was - I had no idea who they were - I went to a meeting and sat around a big table and everyone was asking me how I was and they were talking about projects - and it became clear the I was supposed to know these people and what was being talked about - I had no clue.

I was clearly a very important person in the company involved in all sorts of high-profile things - but I had no memory of any of it.   

Things were really tough from there onwards - having to write everything down - looking and feeling foolish because of my brain - not remembering conversations, not recognising people I've worked with for 20 years.

I lasted another 2 years before they could see I was sprialling down with the chronic fatigue and the pain.

They made me a good package to go away rather than me walk away with nothing.

My brain is like a huge encyclopedia - I have the index but chapters & chunks have been randomly ripped out - I only know what's missing when I try to access it - and nothing's there.

The memory specialist made a really helpful comment - " Get used to being like normal people."

Unfortunately, when you've been driving a ferrari for so long, being stuck with a malfunctioning 2CV is a tad irritating.

Yes - I realise I'm actually quite lucky that my brain injury still allows me to function - more or less.  I haven't lost anything vital to life.   I can still walk and speak.   All of my issues are subtle.   They just really annoy me and I'm disgusted with my own lack of ability.   The most annoying is not being able to think of the right 'grown up' word during a conversation and having to use more basic words to say the same thing.  I'm aware of sounding a bit dumb.

I have occasional moments of clarity where suddenly the most obscure facts pop out unexpectedly - like during University Challenge or Mastermind - even my wife is stunned at all the crap I know.

You're lucky that you survived! They didn't think that I'd survive the first night either. Hey, it will take more than a darn recycling truck to keep this lady down though! It's difficult too returning to work afterwards. I was initially sent back to work after 2 months off. It was way too soon. I then ended up having another 10 months off and then going back to work again. Then after two years back as a Nurse I had to downgrade to working as a Healthcare assistant for a couple of years as I wasn't up to working as a Nurse at that time but I've been back to working as a Nurse again since 2012 and it's all good. Do you know what? I found an article a couple of months ago, when I was looking for something else entirely, that was saying that having Aspergers can actually help someone to recover from a brain injury well. I can't find it now but if I do find it I'll PM it to you.

It must be absolutely awful to have huge chunks of memory wiped out like that? I'm lucky I didn't lose any memories. But back in 2010 I used to do school talks with Headway and two other TBI survivors, educating school children about the importance of wearing their bicycle helmets! Both the guys that I did the talks with had really bad memory, they'd both been in Brain Injury rehabilitation Hospitals for about a year after their Brain Injury. One of them had his Brain Injury at the age of 19 and his entire memory from the age of 12 to 19 had been completely wiped out, literally nothing, nada, zilch was left from that period of time. That must be so distressing to just lose a whole stage of your life like that, scary too! I could bump into either of those two guys now and I'd recognise them but they wouldn't recognise me. In fact I did bump into one of them out in town about a year after we finished doing the talks together and I went over and started chatting to him and it was quite clear that he didn't have a clue who I was, even I could work that out. My memory is weird, it's like me, very all or nothing. I can temporarily forget what I was doing two minutes ago because I got distracted by something else but my long term memory is in high definition. Like with those guys from headway. I can remember the exact conversation I had with one of them back in 2010. The location. Everything. 

It's good that your work made you a good package to retire with.

Yeah that's what I felt like, that I had to get used to being 'normal'! I'm not too sure that with the combination of ASD and ABI that I can ever do normal though!