What Duck Dynasty Teaches Me

     I am fortunate to have a variety of mentors who have helped me to learn how to continue living and having a life after my brain damage. I appreciate people who have believed in me enough to teach me about responsibility and dreams at a time when things were pretty dark. Traumatic brain injury changed my life. Although my life is different now, I still very much have a life.

     Through my interaction with conservatives on Twitter (tm), I am reminded that in spite of my present neurological difficulties I can keep striving. I do not have to be a lump in a chair sleeping my life away to the drone of teevee talk shows. I can be a contributing self-supporting member of society. There is no self-esteem to be found in hand-outs. No one owes me a living. 

     Yes, I am an atheist. I have been a non-theist for many years. Even so, I can certainly learn from those who have differing religious viewpoints. I have found that in spite of my non-beliefs, I fit in better with those of a libertarian bent than I would have ever suspected. And I discovered Duck Dynasty.

     The Robertson family is from around Monroe, Louisiana. They are proud red-necks. They make me laugh. They remind me of folks I used to know when I was living in Baton Rouge. They are practical and fun people. At the end of the show, they pray. They get to do that. I don't care. The right to self-expression is not limited to "those who agree with me totally on everything." I stand with Phil Robertson. He expressed his Christian beliefs in an interview with a magazine and the world blew up. He has an absolute right to do so. As a heterosexual man, he does not have to understand same-gender love and relationships. As a Christian man, he does not have to endorse something that he believes is wrong. No one has to.

     Here are some of the things that I've learned through watching Duck Dynasty:

Being different is okay.
     
Doing stuff differently than other people do it is okay.

Building stuff is fun, even if it comes out weird.

I can express myself without cursing.

Family is important.

sapphoq healing brain damage

This is spike's brain

This is my post- t.b.i. brain.  As I've said before in these pages, her name is Briella.  Still brilliant, just a bit sideways.

My brain is a bit different now.  I've gotten used to her glitches.  I adjust when the whirley-gigs fly out of rhythm.  I no longer run after the scattered pieces of random chaos.  The patterns that are my thoughts are snatches of memory and pieces of dreams.

It takes courage to dream new dreams.  I don't have too much of that yet.  I've only scratched the surface of possibilities.

sapphoq healing t.b.i., brain damage, attitudes and a bunch of other stuff 

Random Chaotic Style

Early on after my accident I slept a lot.  Twenty two hours a day.  Barely up for meals and doctor appointments.  I wasn't able to walk the dog so I hired a neighborhood kid for that.  Housework was impossible.

Let me back up there.  I wasn't real talented at things like organization or wanting to do the housework before the accident.  After the accident that got much worse.  I'm still endeavoring to dig myself out even now.

Even now, housework is a struggle.  [More than it ought to be, I tell myself].  And add this random chaotic style-- which is the way I approach everything these days-- well, the house needs help.  I had a housekeeper for awhile a couple of years back.  It helped to have someone do some of the extras.  I was able to go through stuff and toss it with someone else around.

When Dad came to live with us a few times before his dementia ultimately dictated that placement into an adult supervised living house was best, at that time he was able to clean.  His organization skills were somewhat intact in spite of his dementia.  There was a weekday schedule.  I got up.  Walked the dog.  Then we cleaned.  Then we went to the diner for coffee.  Then we came back.  I walked the dog.  Dad would fall asleep in the living room chair.  I walked the dog.  I did other stuff around the house.  Then was dinner, television, sleep.  The routine was good for me.  With someone else there and working along side of me, I could find the initiative to pick up the house.  It still was not a terribly organized house, but it was better than it is now.

When I do chores, my high distractibility kicks in.  I may start off by clearing the dining room table to wax it but in the middle of moving stuff and putting things away, I wind up doing something else like cleaning out the closet.  Random chaotic.  When I don't do chores, nothing in the world can get me to move.  In one of the t.b.i. support groups that I used to attend, I learned that the inability to get things started in the absense of untreated depression or other conditions was related to impaired executive functioning of the brain.  I figured I was a bit lazy.  Truthfully I still do.  Or, even if my executive functions are a bit impaired, the end result certainly looks more like "lazy" than like brain damage.  I know I've said this before.  I can work with "lazy."  If I call it "lazy," that means I can fix it or do something to get myself to be a bit more active.  If I call it "brain damage" or "executive dysfunction," altering my behavior becomes a bit tougher. 

Dad is currently afflicted with a monothematic delusion.  He thinks the postage stamps are not postage stamps.  "Are you sure?" he asks me.  He remains unconvinced by my explanations of forever stamps.  Even the stamps he has had since July with the American flag on them are imposters.  "They look smaller than real stamps," he tells me.  "Really," I tell him, "Those are the postage stamps."  Dad shrugs and mutters, "We'll see if any of this mail comes back."  I know this is from the dementia.  It's neurological, organic, not able to be fixed or altered.  The best I can do is reassure him that the stamps are indeed stamps.  If he ever gets really upset about this, I will have to take the mail and tell him I will post it at the post office.  At least he doesn't think I am an imposter.  That would be far worse.

Dad has a monothematic delusion from his dementia.  Not fixable.  I have mild executive dysfunction, amotivational syndrome, whatever.  Not fixable.  I am lazy.  Ah.  I can work with that. 

At first, I blamed all of my problems on my brain injury.  From what I've casually observed, this appears to be common in the early stages of learning how to deal with a damaged brain.  Now I can see that some percentage of problems were always there even pre-injury, some percentage of problems were always there but the t.b.i. made them worse, some percentage of the problems are brand new since the t.b.i. and related to my screwed-up neurology. 

I don't want to make excuses for not living up to my responsibilities.  So I won't.  Today in this blog post.  I am lazy.  Oh sure, I got brain damage, numbing fatigue, a host of complications from the t.b.i.  I'm not going to let that stop me.  Okay, things are not automatic anymore.  Okay, motivating myself is difficult.  Okay, some of this neurological, screwed up, organic.  So what?  I will find a way, or several ways, to work with my random chaotic style in order to push my laziness to the side.  To clean a house.  To organize.  To put things in their place.

There is one thing that is really good.  One thing that is a beacon of hope.  Since I no longer remember where I got all this stuff from, or why I wanted it, it's easier now than it ever was for me to throw away what is too battered for anyone else to use.  And easier to give stuff away to the local thrift shops.  I carted a sweater across country-- twice-- years ago, and I didn't even like the sweater.  At least that sort of thing is not what I am struggling with these days.  I have the ability to let go of stuff nowadays.  As a direct result of my brain injury, that is easier.  I certainly would have been better off had my car accident never happened.  But it has happened.  So I have to work with what I got in whatever way that I can work with it.

If I want something different I have to do something different.  Doing more of what doesn't work just doesn't work.  Brain damage or not, I am capable of learning and of changing. 

sapphoq healing t.b.i wanders off to clean the sink


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