Confessions of a Concussed Cyclist: 6 years

August 19, 2020

Six years. 2,190 days. Often it doesn’t feel like it has only been six years, it feels more like I have been living in this hell for six decades.  My life is nothing like I worked so hard for it to be.  It is nothing like I dreamed it would be. I’m alive, so I have that going for me, but the rest is all wrong.

Since I was 8 years old I knew I wanted to be a special education teacher.  In my 2nd grade classroom I had to fill out an “About Me” questionnaire with questions such as favorite color, best friend, middle name, and what I wanted to be when I grew up.  In my imperfect 8 year old scribble I answered “special education teacher”.  My Nana saved that questionnaire and gave it back to me when I graduated high school.  My proof that from an early age I knew what I wanted to do as a grown up.  I was a paraprofessional for seven years while working on my undergrad and my teaching certifications.  I taught as a special education teacher for 6 years before I lost my job.  In my first year of officially teaching, I earned my Masters Degree in Special Education.  A $50,000 piece of paper now collecting dust.  For 24 years I dedicated my life to being a teacher and in the blink of an eye I lost it all.  I can’t bring myself to get rid of the three huge totes I have in my apartment filled with all my teaching materials.  I like to dream that someday, I can return to it.  

I always wanted to be a wife.  I knew that when I got married I wanted to get married at a look out at Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth Maine.  Two Lights is my favorite place to be and growing up I had witnessed wedding receptions there and I realized that my dream could come true; I could be married with the ocean right beside us.  In my twenties I was engaged but our relationship ended.  I dated after but I never found “the one”.  Truth be told, I’ve never really enjoyed dating.  It seems like a game to me and it’s a game I do not enjoy playing.  After my TBI I dated three guys over the course of three years.  All three guys knew about my TBI and all three claimed to understand but over time the truth came out, they did not really understand; they were not as patient with me and my rattled brain as they once claimed they could be. After the 3rd guy and I broke up, I gave up dating. I stopped looking for the right guy.  I stopped agreeing to go out on dates.  I was done.  Living with a TBI is hard enough as it is without adding someone else into my world that can’t understand, sympathize, or empathize with what I’m going through.  I understand, I truly do…this new world is a pain, but I’m stuck here!  I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to voluntarily be a part of it. I cancel plans last minute. I sleep/rest a lot, I get overwhelmed and overstimulated in busy places.  I have to be careful of noise and lights.  That is not conducive to going on dates.  So, with a broken heart, I accept that I most likely will never marry  (hard to find a guy to marry when you won’t even go on dates).

Of course with my dreams of being a wife, came dreams of being a mother.  I loved being a “mom” to my baby dolls when I was little.  In my late teens I created a list of names that I would want to use for my children.  I was certain that I would adopt a little girl from China. But living with a brain injury and having children around all the time do not go well together. My head cannot handle the demands of a child, the noise they create, the time they require. I got dealt a new hand in life when I survived being hit, but children weren’t part of the cards.  Due to damage of my body from getting hit, I can’t even get pregnant now. I’ll never get to feel my child kicking inside me.   I’ll never witness my own child walking for the first time, saying their first words, calling me mom, or watching them grow.  

Forty-five days before I was hit I pedaled 200 miles in one day.  I had been training for it all season and I wanted to see if I could actually do it.  Two months before I was hit I rode 140 miles by myself.  I now struggle to ride 20 miles and it makes me so angry, sad, and frustrated.  When I got hit that was the fittest, strongest, and fastest I had been as a cyclist.  I got into cycling in 2010.  I quickly learned that I loved it; I loved how easy it was to increase your miles, I loved how we as cyclists push ourselves over the edge just to see if we can.  I loved the friends I found.  I loved how it made me feel emotionally, physically and mentally.  Cycling quickly became my haven…but sadly it was involved in me entering hell.  Each day I work with very limited energy and that energy is used to just function (cook meals, clean, work, run errands, etc) and that leaves me with little to no energy for exercise. I require exercise;  I crave it and I need it to continue to feel sane.  What once was an enjoyable challenge was now a frustrating challenge.  What once made me feel free now made me feel frightened (thank you PTSD).  The one thing I needed to now survive living life with a TBI and all the emotions that came with it, was now one of the hardest things for me to do.  

Over the past six years I’ve lost friends, either by them quickly walking away from me or by slowly disappearing into the shadows.  I’ve even had friends tell me how hard I am to be around now, that they cannot be the friend that I need, that they no longer know how to relate to me.  I don’t ask for help.  I rarely talk about my TBI, the crash, etc.  So I’m honestly flabbergasted when I’m told that, but maybe the “new me” truly is too hard to be around now.  

When I was hit some TBI symptoms presented themselves immediately.  Others took months and years to show their ugly faces.  Over the past six years some symptoms have improved and some have stayed the same.  Six years later and we are still discovering new problems that arise then you get hit going 30 miles per hour, by a SUV.  One issue gets treated just in time to find out that something else is wrong that was being overlooked.  I’m considered an “unhealthy person” now…not because I don’t eat right or exercise, but because my body is a mess.  Our bodies are not meant to be taken out by a vehicle, so when they do of course there is damage.

When you get hit by a car, a brain injury is not the only thing that can happen.  TBI symptoms are not the worst part of my day, as debilitating as they can be and as painful as they can be, often the worst part of my day is the emotional damage done when the life you were living gets ripped from your grasp, never to return again.  The husband that doesn’t exist, the friends I’ve lost, the kids I’ll never have.  The dream job that I was supposed to do until retirement.  

Six years down and a lifetime left.