With this post I am going to institute a new rule. When I enter a post about feeling down I must also make an attempt to identify the triggers for that depressed emotional state. If I am able to identify these triggers then I can try to avoid such events in future. That is the theory.
In the prior post Good News I indicated that I was not in a positive frame of mind. In keeping with my new rule, these are the reasons.
In preparation for my first visit with new Doctor N, I worked to put together a data package reflecting all the medical information previously obtained. As of today I have been seen by five physicians: Dr L, Dr D, Dr H, Dr T, Dr H2 (not to mention Avocat B and D). So Dr N is Doctor number six.
It was depressing reviewing the past assessments and related materials.
Health Service Vacuum
The information package for Dr N included four reports by Dr H. Item one was the initial insurance claim submission made in the fall of 2012 and Item two was a follow-up submission made in the fall of 2013. Item three was a referral to a Gatineau rehabilitation clinic made in the fall of 2012. This was refused as I was not funded by insurance. Dr H also sought to refer me to brain trauma clinics in Montreal (refused as I reside outside their catchment area) and to brain trauma clinics in Ottawa (refused for the same reason. There are no brain trauma clinics in Gatineau).
My injury is one thing. But the injury has been compounded by the fact that I live in the wrong province, one incapable of providing essential services to its citizens. I also suffer from living in the wrong community, one which lacks both Doctors, and treatment facilities, and is therefore completely dependent on facilities made available elsewhere. But these remote facilities are also overburdened. So I have become a geographic and political Zombie – untreated, unsupported, unassisted.
What was the second reason? I know I had one a minute ago. [ I am leaving this comment in the text. I work very hard to deliver a “clean” and readable narrative. In some cases this has resulted in me going back into old posts and completely rewriting them due to the host of problems I discover when I re-encounter my previous work. When I create a new draft I will enter parenthetical notes to myself. These indicate forgotten items, or problems that have occurred in the course of writing. These notes are typically edited out of the text prior to the entry being posted to the web. I suspect this clean-up activity gives an incorrect impression of my abilities. Because of this I have decided to retain the preceding comment and add this explanation.]
Abandonment by Previous Social Contacts
Several weeks before meeting with Dr N I had seen Dr D. She encouraged me to increase my social network. After seeing her I found a lost password for my membership in a social network. When I signed in I found several messages from former colleagues and friends. I messaged each of them and informed them of my present situation and of my injury. Big mistake. The result was either no response, or what I interpret as a “brush off” response.
I do not hold my correspondents to blame. All forms of mental health injury, or illness, are heavily stigmatized in contemporary society. I suspect that were I to have been the recipient of one of my own emails I too would be uncertain how to respond. I would likely have acted in a similar way. So I have become a social Zombie, isolated, suffering from anomie, increasingly alienated from normal community and social interaction.
Increased Self-Awareness
This needs to be explored further but I believe it to be an issue. Part of the rationale for the web site TBI Proposal was that once the site was completed I would be able to send out simple notifications to interested parties. This has not proved to be so easy.
I have been writing cover letters to introduce both the proposal and the web site. These letters are proving to be very hard to write, much more difficult than the proposal site itself. I note the quick onset of fatigue and the associated headaches if I try and “push through” the fatigue. I am motivated to exert myself to achieve an improved life outcome but am constantly thwarted by my injury. This is frustrating, and ultimately very demoralizing.
These blog posts are relatively easy to write. [ Not completely true. I am re-editing this post for the fifth or sixth time. Some posts have been heavily edited prior to being posted and are then subject to 37 revisions after posting ] But most of these posts are expository, or descriptive, in nature. I am writing about something that happened, about my experience. When I attempt to write a proposal, or a cover letter, I am no longer dealing with my direct experience. I am dealing with multiple levels of abstraction: figures, facts, statistics, rhetoric and all the rest.
I noted this same effect when writing the proposal itself. Some sections were easier to complete than the others. Plus, the proposal text underwent several iterations over the course of a year. These iterations provided me with a great deal of existing text to use as a framework. The cover letters are unique to a single recipient and are more difficult to produce for exactly that reason. So I have become an injury Zombie. Each attempt to resolve my situation serves to reinforce my predicament and drive home the nature and extent of the injury and my glacial rate of improvement.
The Big Picture
Before seeing Dr N I unearthed a document which describes the extent of brain injury, and provides statistics on the staggering economic and personal costs. It also describes the degree to which this form of injury is frequently misdiagnosed, or overlooked completely. On one hand these TBI statistics provide some comfort in that they document the fact that I am not alone in having to face these problems. There are thousands of other Canadians who are similarly afflicted and I am sure that a large percentage of them suffer from injuries much more severe than my own.
After a brief moment of relief as I realize my experience is shared with a great many others, I arrive at the unwelcome realization that we are all part of the same Zombie horde, abandoned by the society of which we are a part, turned into outcasts, avoided and shunned. And, when I visualize myself on this unwelcome Zombie life trajectory, I plunge ever deeper into despair.