This is the third Groundhog Day. Like the preceding two, it opened with sun in chill morning air. Unlike the others, I woke at six and immediately went back to bed.

My recent discovery is having a big impact on me. It had been my intention to devote most of the weekend to continued spring cleaning. Instead, I have spent the time investigating my own mind.

Last night I had a horrible dream sequence. It was an image of white maggots teeming inside my own brain, deep in the centre, gnawing away at all they could reach. From the outside their presence was hidden and invisible. Their activity was only made evident by continued deterioration in the mental functions of me, their unwitting host.

I am the Clouseau of psychological investigations, bumbling about, completely unable to see what is taking place around me. I am attempting to be reserved, and practical, and intelligent, about these matters. I cling to the keyboard as the single piece of flotsam in a broad and desolate ocean that reaches out to the ends of the earth. And, like Conrad’s Kurtz, I am left muttering some variation of “the horror, the horror.”

So much for mixed metaphors as a start to the morning. First, the bad news.

I have been seeing a dentist and periodontist. After the accident I had night seizures and nipped my tongue and ground down, crushed, or fragmented my teeth. Dr B advises that I have teeth that have been fractured below the gum line. They will have to be removed. There is much work to be done, a considerable degree of conferring between me, and the specialists. Dr A has taken an active role and has been very helpful, acting as the “lead manager” running point, guiding and explaining events to me. I missed undertaking actions, or failed to understand what I was to do; this was the reason Dr A stepped in and I am very grateful to him.

I now suspect that the communications problems were due to the fact that almost all of the communications were verbal and I failed to remember elements of our interaction. I now have a very strong preference for email and feel uncomfortable with phone communications. I suspect this is due to the deficit.

There was an episode of a year ago when I was driving with a former girlfriend and she requested we take a certain route. I agreed with the change and then reneged and failed to make the turn when it was required. She accused me of bad hearing and there is evidence to support that interpretation. It is also possible that I simply forgot her request and my own agreement to it. I am still confused over what happened.

In the post  Austerity and Disability  I described my attendance at a seminar on disability cuts in the UK. This was primarily a verbal event. I only retained one significant fact – people in wheelchairs being tipped out of them and accused of being charlatans to gain access to benefits. Since my notes were unintelligible (my handwriting is a bad scrawl), I had to search the web for a printed document in order to gather more information. My recollection of that event was as poor as my recollection of my last visit to Dr D.

I may be painting a picture of this deficit that is worse than it is in actuality. The past hour has been spent in silent review of whatever problematic social interactions I am able to remember. I am starting to blame all of the world’s failed communications, bad speech, confused directions, and unintelligible comment, on my deficit. This is unreasonable; I think the world should accept its share of the blame.

I am also conscious of the fact that this self-flagellation is amplified and supported by my history of childhood trauma. After an abusive encounter, I would blame myself for what had taken place. I saw the event as being my fault, my responsibility. There would follow an extensive investigation and self-review to identify the actions which had triggered the attack. The outcome of this was two fold:  1) reinforcement of a negative self-image in which I am at fault, or incapable in some way. I am falling into the same psychological trap with this query into my cognitive deficit;  2) a strong urge toward post-event rationality, an investigative review of all actions in an attempt to gain understanding. This is the germ of my affinity for intellectualization and reason. These blog posts are evidence of the same behavioural traits at work.

Clouseau and the Maggots  –  Conclusions

1. This is a real phenomenon. If my assumptions are correct than it has the potential to truly play havoc with all interaction. I don’t think it possible to go through life with everything reduced to the transfer of text notes between individuals ( of course the world is headed in that direction anyway which implies the presence of assistive technology to re-mediate the problem ).
2. To a degree, I am making a mountain out of a molehill. This is primarily due to the shock of discovery. The first encounter of any kind is always slightly traumatic.
3. It cannot be due to any tumour, or other form of brain degeneration. This would have been picked up by the MRI testing. The maggots exist only in my dreams.
4. It is possible for me to have successful verbal interaction. I have conferred with Dr H and Dr D for several years now; my sense is that those conversations went well. This is not a case of sudden abrupt senility. I need to have confidence in my ability to conduct my affairs.
5. I cannot rule out the possibility that this is a framing issue. I have acknowledged having similar deficits and memory lapses in the past, and have recorded those events without experiencing any great concern. Those prior lapses did not significantly impact my daily life. I only noted the lapse when it was too late to do anything about it. In the current case, I experienced a memory lapse and this memory lapse was noticeable and significant as it did impair my ability to perform an activity. My response has been due to:  1) the immediate impact;  2) the experienced limit to my action. The implied severity derives from this framing not from the event itself.
6. There is a problem with a subject attempting to assess him / herself. I need to address this issue with Dr H and Dr D and obtain their opinion.