On Thursday, I met with N. The experience was powerful and confounding. I commenced jotting notes to myself in an attempt to unpack what had taken place. This series of posts reflects the trajectory of that day, and my associated analysis.
 

Amazaon has sent a communication that the Ghost in My Brain book will arrive today. A little worried as I have had problems with reading long form text. Snippets and chunks are OK. An entire book is a daunting proposition.

In this series of posts I have been trying to unpack why the meeting with N was so unsettling and powerful. This review has triggered an array of thoughts ranging from forgotten details of past relationships, issues of honesty and trust, concerns over my ability to be honest with myself in respect of the injury, and more. Certain of the issues are part of the boy meets girl, man meets woman, dynamic that has been playing out on the Internet for millennia. Some of the ideas are likely better addressed in a person to person setting rather than being tossed into the melange of thought on the web. And certain of the conclusions are simply unbearable, though they keep falling out of the trees with a heavy thud.

The key elements appear to be these:

• The injury results in a sense of mistrust. The “taken for granted” nature of all sense perception is called into question and placed in doubt.
• There is a loss, or attenuation, of existing skills. This contributes to social awkwardness and withdrawal.
• The combination of these two factors results in an overall sense of caution, or inhibition, or the attempt to conceal the attributes of the injury lest these provoke negative social reaction. This gives rise to “feigning normal.”

In a sense, the mTBI victim goes into the closet and attempts to remain hidden. The psychological dynamic may be similar to the LGBT use of the term but it is a different type of closet. My hunch is that the retreat occurs and the retreating individual fails to notice the fact of social withdrawal. They fail to understand they are acting to “feign normal.” In the attempt to regain social skill mastery, the mTBI victim imitates what they believe to be normal behaviour. In actual fact, this attempt at normative behaviour may be self-deceptive and may function as a social shield, or mask.

Part of the power of the interaction with N derived from the stripping away of this social shield. It was possible to describe mTBI phenomena and have it instantly recognized by the other party. This is different from the dynamic that occurs with my doctors. I am honest and open with them but remain conscious of the fact that I am not fully able to describe my experience. Our culture contains a thousand allusions for love. More metaphor and description of this emotion pop up in our culture every day. There exist enough public descriptors for “love” that we can each identify, and communicate, this very private emotion. There are few public descriptors associated with mTBI and a limited, to non-existent, shared vocabulary.

It was this ability to engage in a discussion of mutual foibles that made the meeting so powerful. Social hesitation evaporated as both parties to the communication shared similar experience. It was liberating to confess mTBI related foolishness and not worry about being viewed in a negative manner. To not have to be worried about social exclusion. To not have to worry about creating misunderstanding. It was possible to admit to social clumsiness and lost skills and to have those serve as the basis of shared laughter rather than the dead silence that floods the conversation when the other party realizes you are partially deranged, backward, or slow.