Entry #2
Kinda sick of this same interaction that I keep having with lots of different people. I know they mean well but holy fuck if it isn't upsetting. It's even happened here on the forum. I dint want to be so upset about it but I guess I'm just too petty.
People often downplay, minimize, or dismiss my problems or the reasons I'm here and wanting to CTB. I'll tell the story, highlight the key role two recent concussions (in December and May respectively) played in bringing my life to the shit state it's at now, and I'll be treated like I'm ridiculous or that it's no big deal, or, in the case of here, I'll have the occasional interaction with the rare type that'll imply that I'm overreacting and don't belong here and have no justification for feeling the way I do and wanting to CTB. "It's just a concussion" type shit.
Firstly, there are several reasons that I desire to CTB, not all of them recent problems or relating to the multiple concussions. But I'll just focus on those in this post because honestly it's a bigger deal than some want to acknowledge. Even though a concussion doesn't cause severe physical or structural damage to the brain, it's still a brain injury, and even if it's comparatively less serious on the spectrum of brain injuries, it's still an injury sustained to the fucking brain, which is scary and invariably will cause issues. Both times I was quite symptomatic, I had a lot of different symptoms, and they were pretty intense. Although I had healed from both, I am stuck with pretty bad PCS and possibly migraine issues. These injuries have caused longer term complications that have dragged I to the present, 8-9 months after the first one. The concussions have changed everything about how I experience life, causing what I can only think to call some kind of cognitive impairment, reorganized my thoughts and feelings, memory difficulties, brain fog and trouble thinking, even changed how things internally feel and how I process emotions. These things vary and fluctuate over time, and some of them are somewhat episodic, but overall a lot of the complications have worsened out of time.
I had to stop working and stop my spring college term in April because of this. I feel that a previously bright future has been jeopardized by this. I don't really have much of a future. Even if I did, again, everything, right down to my own thoughts and even how I sensually experience the world has been altered in new, uncomfortable ways.
I have been completely socially isolated. I have been stuck at home mostly over all of this. As time goes on, it's more difficult to hold and maintain conversations with friends because the impairment is bad and worsening. I lack the confidence to make new friends because I hate this new me and don't want it to be the version I introduce people to. This is starting to take a toll, and even if miraculously the seemingly intractable symptoms were to go away and no longer serve as an obstacle to daily functions, the emotional wounds are deep and everything about this would haunt me. This has changed me.
At one point there it was in question whether there was also a separate neurological problem I was dealing with, and I was scheduled to go in with a neurologist in early June. Ive met with her, but this was all complicated by the timing of the second concussion and regardless the neurology meetings and treatments have proven unfruitful and useless.
After that second concussion I gradually started developing severe anxiety around reinjury. I can't handle a third one. This anxiety plagues me all day everyday at this point, it's easy to trigger, and impossible to break. It's torture and it's constant. This has strained my family life.
So, I've been rendered a perpetually symptomatic, sick, socially isolated, emotionally wounded, involuntary NEET who is enslaved by constant fear and with seemingly permanent cognitive losses and no end in sight by these concussions. Best part, I get people, especially IRL, who endlessly downplay it and act if my negative feelings and death wish over this is absurd. Often they won't even deny any of the details listed above but will shrug it off as "no big deal" and expect me to be happy as this awful new me and just cope with the 8 lost months. How the fuck am I supposed to feel?!
To anybody here, online in general, or that I know IRL, I really wish I could say to you that when you say shit like "it's just a concussion" or imply that this is all "no big deal", you are telling me to enjoy this hellish parade of events that has fucking broken me. Rest assured I have made tons of efforts to get better and still try to play my best with this shitty hand I've been dealt. It's just not worth it. I have considered my options, thought long and hard about this, I'm certain I want to CTB. I need that permanent end.
Sorry for how long this is to anyone who reads and for the out of character anger within it. Interactions like this really hurt and irritate me and I usually try to Bute my tongue but I wanted to vent about how upsetting it all is and explain why the sentiment is so stupid, unfair, gross and wrong.
