Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain
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Read between March 4 - August 17, 2020
10%
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I had just been told I had suffered a mild traumatic brain injury, but even in my brain-damaged state, the words “mild” and “traumatic” seemed contradictory. If my injury was mild, why couldn’t I return to my job and resume my former life?
14%
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Dogs never give up on us, even after we have given up on ourselves. They accept us as we are, love us without conditions, and do not cast judgments.
25%
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No one is ever thought to be a fool by keeping quiet.
53%
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My graduate diploma in HR had not prepared me for any such incidents, so I made things up as I went along. That was the fun part of my new job.
54%
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and I discovered the line between sadness and anger was a flimsy one.
57%
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I bet the angriest people of all work in jobs like mine that require regular, constant, unrelenting contact with other people.
68%
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There was both good and bad in having an injury, the effects of which weren’t discernible to anyone else. I had done such a thorough job of disguising the signs of my brain damage, I had managed to fool the world. That disguise had given me a fellowship, a career, a few friends, and a relationship. The downside was that those closest to me often refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong. My head injury solicited zero sympathy, because no one could see the ways I struggled, the ways I’d changed. It was my word versus their observations.
79%
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Once you convince yourself you’ll be dead by Christmas, the idea of another few years of life can take some getting used to.