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Illusions One day I'm going to design a small machine that will fit into my pocket. It will sniff the air and attempt to detect any hostile or potentially threatening situations and it will play that ominous shark music from the movie, Jaws. It would start out ever so quietly and then increase in volume as I got closer .. du du du du dudu DuDu DUDU. Just to be on the safe side, I'd have it give me a stiff electrical shock if I chose to ignore it. At any rate, I recently attended a conference where I was doing several workshops. Besides my ear plugs and other chaos-controlling accessories and strategies, I also stay very much in the background with my room key firmly in hand (just in case full retreat is necessary). I'm pretty good at knowing my limits and keeping to myself when I've reached them. Since I was feeling pretty functional, I decided to attend the day's luncheon. I had friends at this conference so I, of course, gravitated to their table and sat down. (My little machine would have been working overtime at this point.) As the crowd settled down and grew quiet, I was able to interact with the people I didn't know. There was an elderly woman sitting at the table and, when the chair next became vacant, she came and sat next to me. Since she'd been in my workshop, I figured she was just coming over to say what she thought of it. However, she reached over and patted my hand and said, I just can't believe that you are able to do so much. You're such a role model. You're .... blah blah blah. She continued praising me and, as she did, I let my mind wander a bit. I was seeing this character take shape in my mind .. a superhero with cape and everything .. able to step over very small boxes, faster than her aging and overweight poodle, able to boil water in the microwave without burning herself. As my table mate continued to talk, I watched as the superhero went to a mirror and looked intently at her reflection. Finally, with shoulders bowed and tears on her cheeks, she asked the mirror, If I'm such a superhero, how come I can't fly? I was drawn back into the conversation as the woman began her summation, "How nice that you've recovered from your injury and no longer have to deal with any of the problems other survivors contend with. However, don't you feel guilty talking from a survivor's perspective now? After all .. you're cured!" There were no crashing cymbals, no sounds of shattering glass .. but there should have been .. because that was how I was feeling. My friends held their breath as I tried to catch mine. I don't know that I had an answer for her and probably mumbled something trivial before getting up and retreating to the safety of my room. More important than what I said to her was what I was thinking to myself,"Illusions .. they will kill me yet!" We work so hard to create them and work equally hard to hold onto them. I struggled very hard to create an illusion of myself. I have spent six years defining my strengths, finding my limits, developing ways and methods of making myself appear as functional as possible. I'll be the first to confess that much of it is smoke and mirrors. I don't answer phones when my speech is not good. I don't handle correspondence when my cognitive functions are so scrambled that I barely know my name. I don't go out when I'm disoriented. I keep my environment dark when I have light strobing in my head making it impossible for me to think. I have to take naps. I have any number of avoidance tricks up my sleeve to keep the world at bay when I'm having problems. Unfortunately, I do such a good job at creating the illusion that people have a hard time realizing that it is just that .. an illusion. So, their expectations of me are greater and so is their confusion, disappointment and frustration when what 'is' doesn't agree with what appears to be.' The costs of those illusions are high .. both the effort of creating them and, when the time comes, letting them go. I had to do that just weeks before this particular conference. For six years, I've kept a secret illusion in the closet .. all trimmed up nicely in shiny ribbons and fancy paper. For six years, I've done such a good job at creating illusions for other people that I bought into it myself. All these years I've hung onto that secret illusion knowing that when I was ready, I could bring it out, unwrap it and put it on. As I've fine-tuned my ability to live and function in a cloistered, protected environment, I've believed that I was also fine-tuning my ability to live and function in an open, unprotected environment. I believed it was just a matter of time (or desire) before I went back to work. I can't tell you how much comfort this illusion gave me. So sure was I of this illusion, I decided to test it. The move to Mobile put me in close range of a very big hospital. I knew they had to have a lot of volunteer opportunities. Sure enough, after going in for a lengthy interview and paying $11 dollars for an unattractive pink volunteer's smock, I was given my first assignment. Each Wednesday for four hours .. simple work, tedious, monotonous and routine .. no big problems like solving world hunger or running from the laboratory to the operating room with life- altering test results .. just plain old boring stuff that I could have done with my eyes closed in my former' life. I unwrapped my illusion and threw it across my shoulders. Unfortunately, it wasn't a mink stole .. it was a mill stone and I sank under its weight. Each week they tried giving me a different assignment and each week I failed. Each week I came home physically and mentally exhausted and each week my grasp on my secret illusion loosened. When I talked to my husband or to my mother, each would say something encouraging. Words that were intended to support and uplift: "It will get better next week." "Give it a little time." "Well, at least you're trying." Finally, when it was obvious that things weren't going to work out, Well, at least you tried. While I know that I should take something positive from the experience and I should, in fact, revel in the knowledge that I did make the best effort I could, a part of me has been crushed by the loss of that illusion. It's been shoved into a box along with the unattractive pink smock and all those dreams that if I just tried a little harder and a little longer, if I just wanted it more .. I could overcome all those obstacles this damn brain injury has stuck in my way and take back my life. For now, however, the box must go back into the closet. Maybe I'll drag it out again some time and dust off that unattractive pink smock. Yes .. maybe I'll just do that when it doesn't hurt so bad and my failings don't seem so many and my successes so few. It isn't an easy job stuffing that box back into the closet. It doesn't want to go in easily because I've already overfilled the closet with so many other lost dreams and illusions so I must shove it hard and then quickly slam the door shut. It's been a while since the conference. I've had time to breathe and to think. I finally have an answer for that woman. I know that she wouldn't have a clue what it meant but I would. She would say, How nice that you've recovered from your injury and no longer have to deal with any of the problems other survivors contend with. However, don't you feel guilty talking from a survivor's perspective now? After all, you're cured! With a heavy sigh and a wry smile, I'd reply, Well, I'd fly for you but my cape appears to be caught in the closet door! Survive with Pride! |
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