This time we are going to begin with a table:

Item 5.3 represents a fairly significant change. This change was first noted in the aftermath of my March / April crisis. The crisis came about as I was engaged in what I believed was very positive rehabilitation activity; I thought I was making extremely good progress. What I was actually doing was creating an Internet persona that gave me the appearance of improvement but masked my deficits through the capability of the Internet to time-shift and hide the degree of effort taking place in the background. In reading this text you are engaged with a finished product and have no knowledge of the four or five days of work and 50 plus revisions required to achieve the finished result. The discovery of this masking effect, and of a degree of self-deception, lead to a period of turmoil and ultimately a sense greater self awareness.

As to Item 5.21, all I want to say here is that the plumbing appears to be working.

I have come to the realization that the computer, and the Internet, provide access to a wide range of assistive technologies which facilitate performance. In the virtual world I can do a quick look-up, or push a button and perform an instant search. In the real world, there is no button I can push for help in locating a missing sock. Physical world encounters cause me to confront my deficits and the outcome is both very frustrating and very deflating.

Item 5.9 has been reported to me by one of my doctors, by my son, and by a former girlfriend. I appear to get into a speech loop and continue talking and thereby inhibit, or destroy, the potential for dialog. When I first discovered this behaviour I thought it was a strategy used to mask the fact I had forgotten the thread of the conversation. I did not wish to appear impolite, or admit to my forgetting, so I continued to speak while at the same time trying to remember, or regain, the thread.

Coupled with increased self-awareness there comes  a heightened degree of discouragement and demoralization. I realize that, despite my best efforts, I continue to make the same errors  —  no degree of vigilance appears to be sufficient. This inability to improve, and the “in your face” quality of the error, is the key trigger to an emotional tailspin.

Emotional tailspin is my term for the emotional distress and depression that accompanies greater self awareness. Self-awareness should be a positive attribute, an improvement. But it is akin to being aboard the RMS Titanic and believing the ship to be unsinkable. Recovering from this delusion, and encountering the true facts of your situation, can hardly be described as an improvement.

I was surprised to discover Compulsive Writing as an element in this index. Since the accident, I have become heavily engaged in creating text. This commenced immediately after the accident in an attempt to capture details of the event, catalogue my various minor injuries, and track improvement over time. These were simple short notes. I had a great deal of difficulty with text creation at the time of my first written submission to the insurance agency — a five page letter took over a month to write. And still it contained manifold errors. A second, much longer submission, required over three months of full time effort and relied heavily on the several months of note taking that preceded it.

I have another post on this blog in which I note my affinity for text creation and attribute this to the fact that text is serial, that it provides a mechanism to manage my experience, and that it delivers a conceptual thread which I can follow. Clinging to a line of text gets me through the day and gives me the sensation of being productive. Without text creation I would sit here and have difficulty knowing what to do.

At the same time, I also have a sense that I am using text as a refuge. I become engaged in this blog, or in the massive submissions to the insurance agency, and these efforts define my daily activity, take me out of the real world, and preclude an embarrassing confrontation with my own deficits.

I marked up self-indulgence as I have tried to counter my down periods by affording myself small indulgences such as a foodstuff, or a treat, I would not otherwise purchase. But this attempt at self-bribery doesn’t really seem to work.

On several occasions I have noted that I make faux pas in a social setting. This appears to be due to my inability to “read” the social environment. I attempt to fit in but instead I somehow make myself stand out. These are not off-colour, or indiscreet remarks. Just a case of being slow to pick up and relate with the world, of making the attempt and failing. I do not typically understand what occurred until I review the event after the fact. And then I am embarrassed for making a fool of myself.

Few of these items resonate with me and I can think of no examples within my experience. This does not mean that I do not do any of these things. I have become very sensitive to the fact that I am not fully self aware. In fact, the crisis of March / April 2013 may be described as arising due to my becoming aware that I was not fully self aware.

In this section Item 5.22 Increased shame or guilt appears to be a duplicate of Item 2.8 Feelings of shame or guilt. This item was scored as a “3” in section 2 and has therefore been scored as not observed in section 5 so as to avoid duplication leading to inflated scores.

My blog presentation does not follow the normal ordinal sequence (sections are presented in the order 3, 6, 4, 5, 2, 1 rather than the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and this results in this item being encountered here in section 5 before the reader has had the opportunity to read section 2. To minimize confusion, I have placed the associated text here in section 5 but have left the score in section 2 unchanged.

I have noted that I feel shame, or guilt, over my situation. I have been of the belief that I am somehow weak and I should be able to grow, or manage, my way out of this injury. That I appear unable to do so must be due to some character failing. I feel guilt over this inadequacy (I should try harder and redouble, or quadruple, my efforts) or I feel shame and embarrassment at my failings.

My response to this sense of guilt operates over a range. There are times, especially those times when I am down, when this sense of shame or guilt has a very negative impact. At other times the impact is less. From my perspective the real problem with this shame is that it tends to accelerate the down phase of the tailspin and greatly increases and magnifies the depression, hence the score of 3.

I have felt a twinge of grandiosity writing letters to the Provincial Minister of Health and to other political figures seeking some assistance. Who am I to be writing letters to such exalted personages?

But I have been on a wait list for a family physician for over seventeen months now and this strikes me as extreme. The politicians to whom I write are not exalted personages; they are human beings just like me. They must eat, must have shelter, and must go to the toilet on a regular basis. In these respects we are the same. The politicians have one critical difference in that they have accepted a position in which they hold responsibility for the welfare of thousands, if not millions, of other citizens.

If the politician fails in this responsibility toward the population, I do not think it overly grandiose to bring this fact to their attention. But this really comes down to your conception of the political structure and the relative importance of health services. Up until this accident I have not been a consumer of health services and find it hard to accept that the system is as decrepit as it appears to be. I make the assumption that the politicians all have access to more than adequate health care for both themselves and their families. I can understand why they might not understand my circumstance.

If you are a politician, and living extremely comfortably off the public purse, I can understand why you would prefer the life of the ancienne regieme and not look too favourably on people writing letters which point out your manifest failures. Let them eat cake!