This is what I drank in training, and the Ironman. Now it's the Goofy Challenge

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

My head is odd!!

So I have a brain injury. Over the years I have come to a certain level of acceptance of this. Today however, I have an interesting running discussion in my head, about my head, to myself, within myself. (I now I am confused to)










Basically it started with. Why do I get the thoughts I get? I don't mean this in an abstract way. I mean after my brain injury my brain no longer sends signals the same way it did before. It's not a good or bad thing, it just is.









So why do I sit here on the way to work with a 30 second sound bite of a conversation I had yesterday that has no meaning? I mean it's a like a broken record that just keeps replaying the same section of a conversation over and over again, in great detail. It's about where to a quality food massage but a qualified and licenced massage.









It's not the details of the conversation, or anything special about the person. In fact that's kind of the point. There is nothing special about the conversation at all. What I find interesting is why does that conversation stay with me in vivid detail? Why does my brain choose to run that memory over and over again?









After my injury I spent approximately a year learning how to learn again. I learned strategies, tips, and focus and attention exercises. I changed my diet I ruled out distractions. I put every bit of my neural energy I had into learning. Less than 10% of the new information would stick. No matter what I did. No matter how hard I studies.









When parts of a class or presentation did stick, my ability to recall it when I needed it was all twisted and distorted. Never would the right information, in the context, at the right time come out. Lots of useless, irrelevant, non-sensible data when I don't require it, none or very little useful/required data when needed. Lots of crap data, when I need gold. Some gold when crap would be a more appropriate use of mental energy. Good Foot massage is a case in point.









I can't remember detail in how to plan a complex staircase, or the math to construct a support beam. Yet I can have an in depth discussion of the time, place location, name of the masseuse I got after the Ironman. I mean right down to the type of cream and the solution he put in the foot soak. It's so weird.









My head is so odd!!