This might be a foreign concept for those of you who are not affected by a TBI (traumatic brain injury) but my brain doesn't always connect correctly with my body. Sometimes, my brain will send a command to my body to do a certain movement. My body will either ignore the command totally, react really slowly or do something that I don't want. It is very frustrating. It doesn't happen all day, every day but, it is still fairly frequent.
Due to my tbi (traumatic brain injury) from the vp shunt failure, I have brain damage. Specifically, to my fourth ventricle (that is the ventricle in your brain which controls speech and balance/mobility. Life is not easy. However, I am not here to complain. Things could be much worse for me than they are. I am grateful for what I can still do. There are so many others much worse off than me.
Given the fact that I have brain damage, I can no longer do everything easily and automatically as I could in the past. Going through all of this has made me appreciate the small, daily things in my life that I used to take for granted but now realize that they are little miracles.
Your brain is incredibly powerful and that fact should not be taken for granted. Because of my tbi (traumatic brain injury) I have to do things repetitively that I could do previously on the first try. I have to have patience with my brain and body. I no longer have the luxury of giving up right away. However, going through all of this has taught me that nothing that I want to do realistically, is impossible. (I won't be climbing any mountains anytime soon). Hard, yes. Impossible, no.
For my entire life, even prior to my tbi (traumatic brain injury) I would give up the minute things got hard. I would say that it was impossible and I would not continue to try. Since I have come back to Texas, in January of this year, I have managed to acquire some patience, perseverance, fortitude, resilience, dedication and determination. I assumed that it was something that you had or didn't have. However, after 41 years of being alive, I have managed to change my old patterns of behavior.
I have learned throughout this journey that while my brain doesn't function like it once did (neither does my body). I can manually activate neural pathways, which used to activate easily and automatically. For example, this doesn't work 100% of the time, every time. However, I can mentally imagine a set distance for myself to go on the elliptical machine. I do this before I ever set foot on the machine. I can then generally meet or exceed the distance which I thought of mentally. It is as if I can will a result into existence simply by imagining it. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
In addition to previsualizing the outcome that I want, I can also force my body to cooperate with my brain. Again, this doesn't always work for me, for an unlimited amount of time. However, generally speaking, for years since all of this started for me, I would just accept whatever performance that my body was willing to give me. I would just say to myself, well I guess that is the best that I can do. That is, until I came back home to Texas in January of this year.
I made a conscious decision to stop letting my body only give me the bare minimum and just accepting it. I started commanding my body like I was a drill instructor in the Army. It sounds crazy but it really does work. I don't beg, plead, ask or only hope that my body will do what my brain commands. I tell my body that it will work for me and do what I want. It feels really good to be back in control of my own recovery. Amazingly, generally speaking, it listens to me. My brain is like a strict parent. My body is like a rebellious teenager, no longer able to do whatever it desires. I have set minimum standards for myself. Whenever my body can't or won't meet them, I no longer give up like I would have in the past. I do a mental reset and keep going. I refuse to let one bad performance affect my whole workout. I have "off" days, where nothing works correctly for me. It is disappointing. However, I don't let my "off days" encourage me to give up. I go to sleep, get back at it the next day and generally speaking, I am back to normal.
I don't tell you all of this to brag. I am no one special. I am just trying to do the things that I have found which actually improve my quality of life. For those of you who have healthy brains, none of this may apply to you. I will tell you what absolutely does apply to you though. Having patience, perseverance, fortitude, resilience, dedication and determination. If you don't think you have any, don't lose heart. If I failed at doing a balance exercise, 29 days in a row (trust me when I tell you that waking up every day and knowing that I would fail was not easy). However, I didn't give up even though I wanted to. On day number thirty, I finally did it successfully after 29 days in a row of constant failure.
I was in a negative feedback loop for a long time. This was due to a combination of having gone through a period of clinical depression and naturally having lower levels of dopamine in my brain due to my brain recovering from this tbi (traumatic brain injury). Dopamine is the chemical which gives you drive, motivation, reward, happiness and the desire to continue. I was able to break out of my negative feedback loop, of always thinking that I would never get any better, never trying because I never saw any improvement, and never seeing any improvement because I never tried.
I was able to break free from my negative feedback loop through a combination of daily physical exercise and taking the last minute of my daily shower, ice cold. Both of these strategies helped me to raise my dopamine levels naturally. I would love to blame my lack of dopamine completely. It would help me excuse my lack of motivation and progress. While I do believe that it absolutely affected me, it would be a unfair of me to avoid taking any personal responsibility. I also had something to do with my lack of progress.
The only thing which I can say in my defense, is that you can't change the past, only the future. Better late than never I guess. I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for my family and friends, most especially Jenny and my parents, to know that I was clearly capable of doing more, yet I didn't push myself. I am forever grateful to them and myself for breaking free of my 41 year old pattern of giving up to easily and quickly. I am so lucky that they never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself. Now that I have identified the problem, I have also found a solution to the problem of lack of motivation. I hope never again to return to my negative feedback loop.
It would be super easy for me to just give up. I could say that I am in the best possible shape that I will ever be in and I could call it a day. I would then have Jenny, Eliana Valentina, my parents and my in laws (along with everyone else around me) caring for me intensely. That would be the easy way out. However, I would have to live with the fact that I would be unfairly punishing everyone around me. They would have to modify their lives only because I would be accepting mediocrity when I am capable of doing so much more even if it is harder for me. I no longer want to accept mediocrity when I know that I can do better. If not only for myself, I owe it to everyone else around me. I didn't ask for any of this. However, they didn't either. Sometimes, you are dealt lousy cards in the hand of life. No use crying over spilled milk though. You have to play with the cards that you are dealt.
My biggest regret is that I wallowed in self pity for so long. I wasted my time and the patience of everyone around me. However, as sorry as I am that it took me six years to change my mindset, I am glad that it didn't take me 26 years to realize it. As the old sayings go, you should not cry over spilled milk and you can't change the past, only the future. I will continue working hard to make sure that I never return to the way I was. I recently heard a saying that I really liked. It was, You need to exterminate the ants (automatic negative thoughts) in your mind.
I am doing all of this hard work for everyone around me who has given me unlimited support. However, I am doing this most especially for Jenny and Eliana Valentina, in addition to myself. Because I know that they won't be able to go back to normal life until I do. They didn't ask for any of this (even though I didn't either). They do not deserve to be prisoners of my health issues. Not when I have the power to improve myself. If they have not given up on me, then I can't be the first one to give up on myself.
If I can do that, you can do anything you set your mind to. I self limited myself for far to long. Do not make my same mistake. You are in control of your life.
Til next time, Tyler
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