Brain Lock

I've had another issue that has occasionally cropped up since my TBI. I get something in my head and set about doing it... no matter what! Indeed, I discussed one occurence of it in Mike's Regrets; almost getting another TBI by trying to body-surf dumping waves at a surf beach I went to.

Quite suddenly, I become much less aware of any factors indicating that what I'm doing isn't the best approach. Something else happens, something new crops up, but I just seem to ignore it. It's as if my brain isn't flexible enough to cope with the changing situation. It doesn't happen that often - normally my brain operates more or less as it used to. When it does happen, though, I describe it as brain lock.

For me, brain lock is almost as if I simply forget to think about other stuff. I become focused on the task at hand; on doing (or saying or being) whatever it was I had intended to do. And I seem to ignore everything else, no matter how relevant.

As I've written before on this blog, I can be very determined about stuff when I want to be, but this is different. When I'm being determined about something, I do my best to take in all relevant aspects of ths situation. When I've got brain lock, it's as if I'm simply ignoring everything else. Brain lock seems a great way of describing my problem.

I have yet to come up with a full-proof way of dealing with my episodes of brain lock. I hope that it will be at least a little easier if I'm aware that sometimes I do it. As I get more experienced with the new me, I hope that I'll become better at knowing when I might get brain lock.

I don't know if every TBI recoverer suffers from brain lock, but suspect it might be quite common. Whether it is or isn't, though, I write about it here to give readers a better idea of the sorts of problems they might face. I do believe nearly every TBI problem can be solved, or at least substantially helped, with a bit of careful, thorough thinking and problem solving. I hope this one isn't any different.

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. I've now added a post about Managing Brain Lock

Another Approach to Therapy - Learning to Sing

I've always had a loud, deep voice, but it's become noticeably more raspy since my accident. I've also lost some control over my volume and pitch. Speech language therapy I had early on seemed to give me little relief. Part of that (perhaps a large part!) was that I found the exercises difficult to keep doing because I had trouble applying them in practice.

I'd been conscious my voice still needed work, though, and eventually I came across another way. I've started singing lessons. My singing instructor certainly doesn't have a speech therapy background. She was quite surprised when I explained my plans and hopes with my learning to sing, but we started lessons anyway.

I noticed an immediate improvement in the quality of my voice and I feel there is big potential for further progress. Singing allows me to practice using my full vocal range. As well as that, by it's very nature, singing well involves a much greater need for control over one's voice (compared to speaking). Perhaps because of the way our brains are wired, it's easier to hear when I'm not singing well compared to when I'm not speaking well. So it's easier to feel like I'm making progress.

I don't propose that learning to sing will work for everyone. Instead, I write about this here to discuss the value of thinking outside the box to help TBI recovery. Think about what it is you want to achieve. How have you been working on it so far and how has that been going? What other things, what completely new approaches, might help you out?

Cheers,
Mike

Keeping At It!

In the post, Breaking the 40 Hour Week Barrier, I showed an Excel graph of my return to a 40 hour week. I guess I'm fairly unusual and not everyone wants to get back to work as badly as me. Whatever your goal is, though, the message is, pay close attention to the progress you're making towards it.

I've often described how TBI recovery takes time! Sometimes it seems so slow, it's extraordinarily frustrating. I've learnt, though, if I pay close attention to what I'm working towards, I might well find I'm still making progress. It might not be happening fast, but, if I keep a record, I can see it's still happening.

Whatever my goal is, even when it's something funny, like talking properly again, I do my best to figure out a way to measure my progress towards it. There's no need to make some fancy graph, just to find some way to measure my progress. For example. to work on my voice, I might well try recording my voice at various points in time and, particularly when I'm feeling down, go back to earlier recordings to listen to my progress.

So I feel better if progress is being made. If no progress is happening, I still don't feel bad. I just think about new approaches. What else could I be doing to improve? Keeping track of my progress is a great way to keep my motivation up, to keep pushing forward.

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. For those interested in my experiences working on my voice, please have a read of my post, Another Approach to Therapy - Learning to Sing.

Tranquilo

I know a bit of Spanish and one of my favourite words is, tranquilo, which basically means, calm or be calm. I've always been someone who tends to get a little wound up at times, so, as I go about life, I regularly need to remember, tranquilo. Here, though, I want to write about how I think the word's also good for my recovery.

A brain injury often means the brain won't work well. As well as that, it often won't work well in surprising ways; in ways you wouldn't expect. One of the ways my brain, post-injury, doesn't work so well (and I suspect this is quite common) is that it won't quite follow what's happening in social situations fast enough.

Often, I find myself thinking, why did he say that, what will it mean if he does that, or, I'm not even sure what he's talking about. I've come to realise, though, the need for tranquilo; the need to remain calm, to stop and think through what's going on; to wait until things become clearer. Before I realised that need, I would quickly interrupt a situation to clarify what was being said. Then I'd be a little embarassed when that was obvious to everyone else in the room.

If, like me, you're quite an active person, it is a real issue not being active, waiting for clarification to come rather naturally than asking for it, directly. I've found that (not for the first time :-) TBI recovery does require a whole new approach, though: the approach of being tranquilo.

Cheers,
Mike

Making Steps Manageable

In my post, Small Steps, I described how a close friend and I regularly talk about breaking our recoveries into small steps; each step building on the last, but none building too far. In the post, Mike's World Tour, I described how I took a month-long trip from New Zealand to South East Asia to see how capable I was to travel. I did this before taking a year long world trip while I waited for my brain injury fatigue to reduce enough for me to work better.

My friend and I have an ongoing debate about whether this month long trip was a small step. I admit that, from the outside, it looks a fairly massive thing to take on. Yet I still argue strongly that it was a small step. I do so because it was very manageable.

It was manageable because I had a reasonably clear idea of what the difficult areas would be for me: coping with fatigue, coping with lots of very unusual situations. It is true that, although I had a clear idea of what the problems might be, I didn't know how big they might be. But, if my "small step" had gone badly, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. I was on a tour and could have holed up in my tour bus and hotel rooms and got through any big problems. In addition, I was lucky enough to have members of my family along with me to help me out if any one situation went wrong. In the end, though, my "small step" went well and I got enough confidance to embark on my longer trip.

I guess, to me at least, that's the true definition of a small step, It's small because I've made it manageable. I know the issues will likely be and, if things go wrong, it won't be the end of the world.

Cheers,
Mike

Small Steps

I have a close friend who's also a recoverer. She's recovering from various issues related to depression. That sort of recovery is no less is a long road than a recovery from TBI. As we go through our recoveries, one thing her and I often talk about is the need to break recovery into small steps; each step builds on the one before, but none builds too far!

We both think about where we'd like to end up and then break that goal into a series of small steps to get us there. Each step is taken with a very clear structure in mind if things go wrong. When you're taking small steps, it doesn't matter so much if you have to take a step back down.

Of the many things I've become able to do using small steps, probably the best demonstration of it is my return to full-time work. My goal was always to work full-time as a competition economist and my Occupational Therapist helped me break this into small steps. I took on a support role, doing a few hours a week of background work supporting other competition economists. I gradually built up my hours and the pressure I faced until, finally, I was once again working fulltime as a competition economist. As the graph in this post shows, it wasn't a fast process, but I did, in the end, get there.

In many ways, my slow progression just happened naturally. I would handle one bit of work ok and then accept a little bit more. I initially found stress difficult to handle, but, by increasing is slowly and with supports in place should I find any one bit too much, I gradually became accustomed to it.

Having a process in place to gradually become accustomed to things is key. Nothing should be rushed! Everything should be in small steps!

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. I've written another post on this topic, Making Steps Manageable.