Sunday, May 12, 2019

TBI in musical form.... ? ?


This is one of my favorite Beatles tunes, "All Too Much" (a good remake by Paul Gilbert can be viewed here.), and to me it really is a good example to me of what a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) is like for someone who has no insight into what a TBI "feels" like (or better, how it can feel).
That is to say - the various layering of this song and the weaving of the sounds is how it does "feel" like with a TBI. Particularly how there's one part where the mix gets(to me) sort of muddied, and how if you just get into the song, it has several parts that have a kind of sensation of having your head in a fish bowl/underwater vibe.
Now I am not saying that having a TBI is a wonderful musical like experience, it is rarely such. But rather that with some moments of having a TBI (at least in my experiences)it is the sensation of being on an internal remix of how things are processed, and that it can feel like someone other than yourself is at the "mixing board" of your cognition. It's like someone is adjusting the equalizer of your brain. Sorry if that sounds either "trippy", or if it makes the experience sound like others might enjoy it - as I doubt that is even remotely true at all.
A musical analogy is about the only one (and best for me) to use to illustrate about TBI.
My TBI (and spinal cord injuries and their neurological damages)occurred over 22 years ago, and I tend not to talk about such anyone, it can be a devastating situation that festers and worsens with time (and without treatment) - and the real depressing part is that it is an invisible condition. Those who know you often will only see and thereby project the "good" upon you (in this case, me), they are likely to exalt how well you (I) do, and don't understand the enormous effort to come across as "normal". They don't accept and "see" the degradation of things. For it is a slow and incremental trending down, and isn't seen. Sometimes that is no doubt due to either "not wanting" to see someone you care about decline, or just having limited exposure to things.
Then there is the sad fact that resources online are extremely spartan. Most resources for TBI are skewed towards those with a support system in place (having family and friends) - in other words someone who is alone with a TBI are left to fend alone for themselves and resources just are almost callous in their directing you to a clinic or group, which if your TBI is debilitating enough you cannot access. For if you are able to conduct yourself and access such, your TBI is not that debilitating.
My bottom line is this - the mental health system in the U.S.A. is rather impotent to serve a number of conditions. TBI is sort of an umbrella term, as how it impacts someone varies. If a little more attention were applied to provide more adequate services towards the many living with TBI it could greatly help many (and that includes not only those with TBI, but friends, spouses and family of those with TBI). THE one biggest missing component is UNDERSTANDING, and a little compassion - for I have dealt with a number of professionals who were dealing with things more like a business than a human situation.
They seemed to have such a limited background/education in regards to TBI, that the TBI was almost discarded and they instead applied a cookie cutter approach to cherry pick what conditions they were knowledgeable with, and only discussing those. But then again, many professionals tend to (in my experiences) 'part out' people/patients/clients rather than dealing with them (me) as a 'whole' living being. I understand that many health care professionals have specific specialties, but to fix on one "part" of a person and not deal with the "whole" person is foolish.
Like how a TBI impacts the whole person is almost unreal - but we are in a world of "quick fixes", and more often than not a person is seen as a particular body part or whatever specialty area...

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