I have so few real whole memories left. The rest consist of faded snapshots. I’m tired of feeling ethereal, incomplete, broken. I’m tired of walking around in a fog.
Before, I had little problem focusing on my writing. In fact, I had so many stories busting out of my brain, I couldn’t keep up with them. I’d write for hours, helping my characters along their paths. Now I feel like a piece of paper crumpled up too many times. No matter how many times I smooth it, there will never be a clean surface to work with.
I read tonight about some of the things I might possibly suffer from in the future, and the terms are frightening to say the least. One in particular caught my eye.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Dementia pugilistica (DP), also called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), chronic boxer’s encephalopathy, traumatic boxer’s encephalopathy, boxer’s dementia, and punch-drunk syndrome (‘punchy’), is a neurological disorder which may affect career boxers, wrestlers, mixed martial artists, and football players who receive multiple dazing blows to the head. Dementia pugilistica, the severe form of chronic traumatic brain injury, commonly manifests as declining mental and physical abilities such as dementia and parkinsonism.
It’s a mouthful isn’t it. A scary mouthful of possibilities, but it comes down to not being able to afford one more head injury.
The condition, which occurs in people who have suffered multiple concussions, commonly manifests as dementia, or declining mental ability, problems with memory, and parkinsonism, or tremors and lack of coordination. It can also cause speech problems and an unsteady gait. Patients with CTE may be prone to inappropriate or explosive behavior and may display pathological jealousy or paranoia. Individuals displaying these symptoms also can be characterized as “punchy,” another term for a person suffering from dementia pugilistica.
The brains of dementia pugilistica patients atrophy and lose neurons, for example in the cerebellum. The pyramidal tract dysfunctions.
The glass is shattered.
My only hope now is to keep the pieces from disintegrating.
Sometimes this is how I feel lately. I dedicated myself to career non-fiction writing, and now that I am in a position to breathe some life into my fiction again, it just isn’t there. Where were the beautiful, complex plots I used to weave? Where is the realism? It makes me sad.
You do have a scary collection of words there. I really hope that you can let go of what might be and live in the moment (carefully). It is terrible living with a sentence over your head.