Having lots of problems. Initially sought to create this post as a Forward Look (FL) as opposed to the retrospective summary of the End of Month Reviews. I am now attempting to use this post as a vehicle to understand what is taking place.
Dr H has provided me with a letter for submission to TAQ. I have been avoiding reading it. This morning I opened it. Problems seemed to begin after that reading.
Last night I attempted to make the blog current. In the past few weeks, a great deal of work was not performed. I had a heavy schedule of winter expeditions, snow shovelling, and similar activities. Work on both the blog and on TAQ submissions was put on hold. The plan for today was to complete a submission package that was scheduled to be mailed on January 29th. But what I really want to do, right now, is to escape into the forest. This is avoidance behaviour and I am attempting to counteract it, or understand the cause.
I had a similar strong reaction on Friday during a meeting with Dr H. She presented me with a copy of her letter for submission to TAQ. I read it and was dismayed. I thought I had packed it but, on arrival home, discovered that I had left it behind in her office.
Both letters contain 3rd party descriptions of the person I presently am. I do not wish to acknowledge this person. I do not wish to accept the fact of the injury.
I have previously discussed with both Dr H, and Dr D, my theory of the injury (intended to be posted in the PCS Thesis – Injury Model post). They are in general agreement with my synthesis of contemporary medical research. The bottom line – I have incurred brain damage / injury which cannot be reversed.
With walk-therapy I have increased the effort to the maximum of which I am capable but there is no associated increase in benefit. I appear to have plateaued. My present walk-therapy goal is one of maintenance, to get through the winter without allowing the effort to drop off. My experience from last year was that such a drop off made it extremely difficult to restart in the spring.
The understanding derived from the Injury Model makes walk-therapy and the TAQ hearing moot. No matter what the outcome of the hearing might be, it cannot alter the facts of the injury. I think I have been operating in the belief that should I prevail in the litigation I would recover in some way. This notion goes back to the early 2012 period of injury discovery and diagnosis. I then had the notion that there existed rehab support which would address the injury and deliver an opportunity for full recovery. The missing ingredient was money and the insurance company was obliged to provide the necessary funding.
Somehow, I became anchored within this insurance-litigation-recovery sequence. My first major submission effort in November, December, early January 2013, was informed by this perception. The same perception has underpinned my walk-therapy efforts. If I exert myself to the utmost, I will recover. This is a variation of the epigram in Goethe’s Faust: “Whosoever increasingly strives upward…him can we save.”
In summary:
- Objective 3rd party observations reveal a continual sequence of problem behaviours from the date of the accident up until the present.
- Walk-therapy does not produce further evident positive result.
- Blog therapy helps me undertake a variation on CBT but it does not alter the underlying injury model.
- The injury model, developed using the best available research I am able to muster, is strongly suggestive of permanent injury.
- Successful litigation does not change this outcome.
- Further effort on my part is likely to have little beneficial effect.
I feel like a blind man throwing darts at a wall in the hope that he might hit the bullseye.
I have undertaken considerable effort in regard to making TAQ submissions. This effort has lead to the discovery of the injury model presented above. This revealed knowledge now enervates all of the prior motivating factors. I am left with an empty haggis bag as a brain (not entirely as bad as all that. I am better off than many others. But still very changed from my pre-injury state). My psychological response is to get away from all of this, to escape to the solitude of the forest, and go meet more spiders.
Resolutions
I need to quell the turmoil.
I must work to complete the present submission package.
This will require a trip to the copy shop.
The copy shop walk will be my reward for my submission effort.
It is now 1227. The sun is out.