kootchman...
the head injury was indeed that severe...
but I was 15.
On a ride called the scrambler some guy scratching his .. well you know.. and fantasizing about my cousin's unusually large mammary glands... took the governor off the ride in the hopes of impressing her with a good time.
the guy she was with really enjoyed the enforced cuddle, but I was on the outside and the centrifugal force broke every capillary from my waist up and hyper-extended my neck.
oops!
some doctors believe the resulting limbic insult triggered my lifetime of chronic fatigue syndrome which has caused major cognitive deficits.
My cognitive function now resembles swiss cheese.
I test barely above retarded on spacial skills, can't add, subtract, multiply or divide worth beans and word finding can be a real bear.
Yet, I somehow manage to pack a car better than anyone I know, can execute complex mathematical equations and can define enough words with textbook accuracy to keep my verbal scores on IQ tests more than respectable.
I am much slower than I used to be but still find myself impatiently waiting in conversation for others to get the connections that are obvious to me and I seldom get past the second chapter of a mystery without figuring out who the killer is.
my listening skills and reasoning skills still seem to be sharp
but I have to double check and triple check sometimes to make sure I have all the information I need to make a decision...
and if i don't find what i am looking for where I expect to find it,
I forget what it was I needed
I can't follow a recipe because i can't keep track of whether or not I have completed a step without a list I can check off...
and even then I worry that I may have checked a step off before completing it..
but I read cookbooks for inspiration
and cook well enough that people are pleased to get an invitation to my table
I can respond to questions all day
but find it really difficult and time consuming to originate thought.
It takes me a long time to write a reasoned argument.
Yet, I persevere
I speak publicly and I write.
sometimes I wonder who I might have become
and what I might have accomplished
if that young man had paid more attention to safety and less to .. well you know .. those irresistible impulses that seem to govern some men.
And as it is, I have done better with what is left of my brain than many who have the full use of theirs.
Now, don't you feel like a jerk?
but thanks for giving me the opportunity to let people know how much I and others with cognitive difficulties struggle to make the most effective use of what still works for us.
perhaps they will think about this reply next time they are inclined to nitpick someone they know nothing about because of grammer or punctuation or spelling or literary style that irritates them.
perhaps