Frustrated

I'm just a little ticked off this morning. I'm GRATEFUL for my amazing recovery, but my brain is still disabled. I hate to admit that, but it's true. I've had MULTIPLE people who knew me earlier in life mention that they can't tell a difference in me or how I relate or interact with the world. It's there. Subconsciously, I keep people at a distance because I'm not sure who I can trust. "Are you just going to be another person who will hurt me?" A cognitive disability, even though I look "fine" on the outside, is almost worse. There's not a "flag to tell people "there might be someone who you need to talk slower with, be more careful with, that can't do all that she was doing before the before the stroke... Not that I want you to patronize me or talk down to me like I'm stupid, but I just can't take information in the way that I use to. All that I was doing before the stroke wasn't healthy either and I realize that now. It took having a stroke to really find myself, once and for all. I realize that will be an ever evolving process, and I'm terrified to share it with another person. Things seem so easy... just take the bus or arrange a ride when you need to go someplace. A guy in my community got to see what a grocery trip with me on the bus is like the other day. We left around 1:45 and got back from the store at 4:45. It's like an extreme sport. Pushing your way through crowds for what you want, and waiting for a long time to get your bus even if it shows up and if not, walking home... I think we walked at least 2.5 miles that day at least.

Reading. This week I have EIGHT chapters just in one class, but a chapter and a lecture in the other class, and I'm supposed to be preparing this intense paper called an IBS- an research paper where you're supposed to pick out key Biblical passages and do cultural studies, word studies, and get to know the passage and be able to explain your paper with sound Biblical supports, and study for an COMPS (our comprehensive exam testing us over all that we've learned in the 2+ years here. ALl my classmates are "reviewing", while I'm relearning. It pretty much SUCKS!) My Neurologist had said a couple of week ago to keep my stress levels down, and I wanted to laugh in her face. My last semester of graduate school, assignments and readings up the hoohoo to the point where I can't even read for fun, and I'm supposed to decrease my stress? What else can I cut out of my life? And my dad has the audacity to ask if I've sent out resumes yet? I don't even have time to pee, let alone look for jobs and apply for them... Love you very much and that's one of the main reasons I'm moving back to the Midwest (If you've been to Colorado, you know what I'm sacrificing...), But I feel like I've heard that itch and I need new start. So just because I look "normal" doesn't mean that I am. What takes you an hour to read takes me three. Add up the EIGHT chapters I have to read for one class, followed by the one and a lecture and studying for COMPS in two weeks, and preparing things for the IBS... yeah, I want to vomit. The math just simply DOESN'T work out. Not even for an "able-bodied person. I need about 9 hours of sleep to function each night or could trigger a migraine which doesn't add up at all. I got started on Anxiety pills last week to help me focus while trying to study, and hopefully they will. I just need understanding from other important people in my life that I just want to live a "normal life" now with a TBI. My passions have changed a bit. I've overcome HUGE obstacles and have no idea what's next. So give me some grace and back off. I'm trying the HARDEST I can right now. There is really nothing else I can cut out. I'm living off the bare minimum here. I have no room to budge. If I did, I would probably use it. This is what you get with me right now. Like it or not, this is me, at my wits end, trying to survive, getting close to graduation (89 days), and each day trying to make it. This is the best I can do with what I have. So back off- I'm trying my hardest, and if that's still not good enough, not my problem. What takes an able-bodied person an hour to do takes me three. Multiply that by how many things I have to read coming up, and there is simply not enough hours in the day to do it all, even though I desperately wish that there was. I wish things were back to the way that they used to be. They won't be, not matter how many people are thinking positively for me.

This is who I am now, take it or leave it. I'm happy with the new me, and it took having a severe stroke to find the me that was in there all along. Now I have a voice, I can speak my not-always PC mind. I question. My glass is ALL full, of the good and the bad. That upsets some of the very important people in my life, and I get it. I have new passions. Not that I'm not passionate about the injustices of this world, but I have new passions. Medical anomalies who have been told by the medical community over and over "we don't know what's wrong with you". That breaks my heart because I've been there myself, and I'm still there. That's an injustice, here in America. It shouldn't have to be that way at all. I think God is firing up a new and holy passion to be a voice for those who don't have one. No idea what that look like yet, but I know it's going to be big. Bigger than me, so that' how I know it's God and not some funny taco I ate yesterday. And that's what I'm thinking right now. Love you all, but am going to need some time to just sort things out in my life. Prayers, kinds words, and help with these assignments appreciated, along with money to pay for these incoming medical bills that I have no idea who to pay. Still praying for a miracle, but instead, playing the part of the ostrich and pretending its not happening, So far it's not working too well. Love you all very much. Pray for February 26, the day of COMPS. It's going to have to be all Jesus... I know I can;t do this on my own at all.
Love, Amy Christine