Spent some precious time w/ Danny @ his mom n sister's, talking n holding eachother.
Funny how Danny has always been my knight in shining armor since he came into my life...he always instinctively knew what the right thing was 4 me 2 do when it came to me n my family n things like that,n he helped me in so many ways with things, habits, and opening up abt traumas in my life that I'd held secret. No one will ever ever mean more to me becuz of those things.
Even w/bipolar and now severe brain injury, and all the awful behaviors and attitudes they carry w/them, he says we both know, that he can no longer come before my children and he knows its wrong and can't do that anymore.
So anyway, I plan to continue to help him getting places and in any other way I can, and we arent cutting ties...neither of us wants or is ready for that...and to be honest, neither of us is sure where exactly we really stand right now or what this is...and how important IS it anyway? Whats important is both of us having the courage to do the right thing even tho its so very painful. Not everyone can say or do that...
,,,,so I guess its just one day at a time.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
so this is it
Brain injury has stolen the person I love and changed his life and mine.
We are no longer living together...we may not even be together at all.
I was holding myself in one piece somehow until tonight when we talked on the phone. Now i'm just crying and crying.
It hurts so bad. Nothing in my life has ever hurt like this.
I had to draw a line between what is more important, and that has to be my family. I dont want to lose Danny, but we cant live together either in the current state of things.
He is no longer here, and my heart is aching...but I have to put it all in a Higher Power's hands.
A year ago I was sleeping alone and crying because he lie in the hospital close to dying. Now 5 days before Christmas, I am without him again...and crying. I remember thinking the night of his accident when he was so critical, "If I had only known you were leaving I would have held you a little longer...a little tighter last night." Now i'm thinking the same thing. I would have kept my head on his chest all night and listened to his heartbeat. Instead, we were quarreling about some silly shit.
We both know that rationally thinking, it needs to be this way...but our hearts say a whole different thing.
I know I will get to see him, and probably even be taking him where he needs to go, but everything will be different now. And all I can think about right now is our happiness and funny times...our hours cuddled together making silly jokes and laughing...how safe I felt in his arms. How we understood each other without even speaking. And even how we argued with the same amount of passion as there was in our love.
Life and its twists and turns is unfair, and yes, I am angry about it. I am angry at brain injury and how it has fucked up so much worse something that was already so hard to try to overcome...but we WERE.
I don't know what to do with these feelings...the love, the anger, the sadness and the fear. I am just trying to hang on. I couldn't sleep last night, and tonight I've been to bed twice, and then the sobbing hits me. So I am awake...
I didn't think it would turn out this way...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
A YEAR AGO...
Sunday Dec. 4th was one year since Danny's accident. A year ago I was at his bedside night and day, fearing the worst and hoping for the best. I was given the gift of a life experience during which I was able to witness the miracle of near death and the journey back from it. Yes, it was a gift. My love and prayers were undying. I learned about faith, and realized for the first time in my life what love really entails. As things improved and we traveled the rocky road of early recovery, I felt in my heart more and more, that everything would be ok in the end.
My faith is waning at times... my patience, and on some days here and there even my love.
Traumatic brain injury changes brain chemistry...some of it anyway. In the past months we have switched from making slow progress, and have slipped onto a downward spiral. Danny's mixed bag of predisposing issues further complicated by brain injury, has become a nightmare that no one seems to be able to rescue us from.
His lack of motivation has been a detriment. The medications which helped him so much over a year ago no longer work. Its become a routine of trudging from doctor to doctor hoping for some light to be shed. The attitudes caused by his personality disorders, and the attitudes caused by brain injury, are blended together and nearly inseperable. He needs psychiatric guidance, perhaps before additional brain injury treatment has any hope of being successful...but by the same token, its likely that without brain injury rehabilitation, he won't have the ability to absorb any of the psychiatric help offered.
I don't know what is going on alot of the time. It has all become so complicated. So often I don't even recognize this person that brain injury has made Danny become, and I really feel sometimes that he no longer recognizes me as well. He knows that our near two years before the accident happened, but it is sketchy and sometimes only recalled by me giving reminders and clues...then it seems to come back as a memory. But I feel as though he is "on the outside looking in" alot of the time and can not really feel, or remember how we felt. Sometimes I feel I've become a stranger to him, or a "new" person and that what we had is gone. He continues living in the past and pining for an ex in Germany who has gone on with her life and writes asking me to please have Danny stop emailing and calling. Its painful for me feeling as though she is who he remembers most. And where our age difference made no difference to him before, he is looking at it at absurd now. He says it doesn't matter much to him, but he worries about what others think.
In the past weeks we have been discussing perhaps moving on. He feels he is wasting my time and my family's, and that I should be looking for someone my age who is good enough for me, unlike he is. And he in turn could eventually move on and maybe start a family of his own. With his aggressive and anxious behavior increasing in the past month, I actually have agreed with him on the fact that we should just call it quits. But then we talk further and end up in tears...both he and I, and don't know how we would actually go through with a break-up, even if it WAS for the best. Danny has always been a jagged pill to swallow, but I am so in love with the golden parts of our relationship...the closeness, the conversation, the crazy silly fun we have. We've always understood each other and make each other laugh. Yes, he also drives me insane...but I love his heart and soul. I feel deep down we belong together.
However...things are not going well for him. He is at a stuck point. One of his doctors and I convinced him to hospitalize himself last week to see if his medication could be adjusted, which they did. He has been much better since, but continues toying with the idea of letting each other go...maybe getting an apartment with his mom. I would continue getting him to his doctors and all I suppose since his family has no means of doing it. I just don't know what's next. His neuropsychologist is still pulling for the brain injury rehab to accept him. He really needs it. His delusioned thinking tells him he can just pick himself up, dust himself off and walk into the sunset.
An added complication is that he was approved for disability, and with a small wad of back-owed money he wants to buy a car, even though he does not have a license and won't be able to get one for some time. His checks come in my name and I am faced with monitoring his spending. How in the world can I do that? I may have to have someone else appointed to do that.
He is the victim of a double-edged sword...
Traumatic brain injury is a monster who can't be figured out, and I fear never conquered. All I can do now is continue to pray for guidance.
My faith is waning at times... my patience, and on some days here and there even my love.
Traumatic brain injury changes brain chemistry...some of it anyway. In the past months we have switched from making slow progress, and have slipped onto a downward spiral. Danny's mixed bag of predisposing issues further complicated by brain injury, has become a nightmare that no one seems to be able to rescue us from.
His lack of motivation has been a detriment. The medications which helped him so much over a year ago no longer work. Its become a routine of trudging from doctor to doctor hoping for some light to be shed. The attitudes caused by his personality disorders, and the attitudes caused by brain injury, are blended together and nearly inseperable. He needs psychiatric guidance, perhaps before additional brain injury treatment has any hope of being successful...but by the same token, its likely that without brain injury rehabilitation, he won't have the ability to absorb any of the psychiatric help offered.
I don't know what is going on alot of the time. It has all become so complicated. So often I don't even recognize this person that brain injury has made Danny become, and I really feel sometimes that he no longer recognizes me as well. He knows that our near two years before the accident happened, but it is sketchy and sometimes only recalled by me giving reminders and clues...then it seems to come back as a memory. But I feel as though he is "on the outside looking in" alot of the time and can not really feel, or remember how we felt. Sometimes I feel I've become a stranger to him, or a "new" person and that what we had is gone. He continues living in the past and pining for an ex in Germany who has gone on with her life and writes asking me to please have Danny stop emailing and calling. Its painful for me feeling as though she is who he remembers most. And where our age difference made no difference to him before, he is looking at it at absurd now. He says it doesn't matter much to him, but he worries about what others think.
In the past weeks we have been discussing perhaps moving on. He feels he is wasting my time and my family's, and that I should be looking for someone my age who is good enough for me, unlike he is. And he in turn could eventually move on and maybe start a family of his own. With his aggressive and anxious behavior increasing in the past month, I actually have agreed with him on the fact that we should just call it quits. But then we talk further and end up in tears...both he and I, and don't know how we would actually go through with a break-up, even if it WAS for the best. Danny has always been a jagged pill to swallow, but I am so in love with the golden parts of our relationship...the closeness, the conversation, the crazy silly fun we have. We've always understood each other and make each other laugh. Yes, he also drives me insane...but I love his heart and soul. I feel deep down we belong together.
However...things are not going well for him. He is at a stuck point. One of his doctors and I convinced him to hospitalize himself last week to see if his medication could be adjusted, which they did. He has been much better since, but continues toying with the idea of letting each other go...maybe getting an apartment with his mom. I would continue getting him to his doctors and all I suppose since his family has no means of doing it. I just don't know what's next. His neuropsychologist is still pulling for the brain injury rehab to accept him. He really needs it. His delusioned thinking tells him he can just pick himself up, dust himself off and walk into the sunset.
An added complication is that he was approved for disability, and with a small wad of back-owed money he wants to buy a car, even though he does not have a license and won't be able to get one for some time. His checks come in my name and I am faced with monitoring his spending. How in the world can I do that? I may have to have someone else appointed to do that.
He is the victim of a double-edged sword...
Traumatic brain injury is a monster who can't be figured out, and I fear never conquered. All I can do now is continue to pray for guidance.
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