For some reason I found this line particularly funny and poignant: "But did you know that you can eat whole grains and still get hit by a truck?"
The smokers excuse eh!
I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
11–20 of 131 posts
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#12What a well-written story. I don't have much to add, but I can say her humour or writing talent seems to be quite sharp for someone that feels she has not completely regained her mental faculties. Also the joke about opening a spa where she whacks stressed people with a bat so they find respite from our busy world: we already do that ourselves when we reach mental burnout. I did, and in some ways, I feel that years l…
> Perhaps burnout is as traumatic to the brain as a massive brain injury
Wouldn’t surprise me.
I had a massive psychotic break 5 years ago. I’m pretty sure it came with physical brain damage. My memory isn’t what it used to be. There are holes in it. Apparently some of it is so completely gone, I don’t know I’ve forgotten it. Usually I know if I forgot something because there is a dangling pointer to it.
Brain damage feels distinctly different. The problems from being bipolar has very sharp lines in my brain. It’s known territory. Damage is foggy, indistinct.
Things have definitely healed and I’m getting function and a few memories back. The foggy areas have mostly cleared up. It’s been an odd experience.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#13She and her family were hit by a wrong way truck probably going 70 mph. It completely shattered their bodies, lives and shows how precious our moments are. This almost feels personal to me because of how well written her account is. I’ve had terrible chronic migraines for as long as i can remember. Apparently they can be associated with brain lesions, too. I’ll clearly never know how they’ve impacted my personality.
After decades of migraines I was diagnosed with Chronic Daily Migraines. I was prescribed a 'under the tongue' triptan which if the migraine aura arrived during the day worked some of the time. If I woke with the migraine at 10/10 pain level than I lost the full day. One of my daughters also had weekly migraines, lost a day at work each time. I got a Daith piercing in my right ear - my migraines originated on the rig…
Did you get the piercing because you expected it might help (and if that's the case, would you mind sharing why), or did you get the piercing just for aesthetics and then discovered it helped?
I'm not looking to pick apart your story, just curious.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#14For some reason I found this line particularly funny and poignant: "But did you know that you can eat whole grains and still get hit by a truck?"
As I get older, more and more people around me get ill and die: many of them super healthy, not smoking or drinking, sporty all their lives, wealthy, health food nuts and no family histories get diagnosed with cancer and heart disease. In my group more healthy than unhealthy receive terrible outcomes at too young an age. It seems indeed it is not fair; do not believe or think it is, there is no reason to do so. Oh and another one is: you can have cancer and still get hit by a truck. Or; statistics don’t mean so much if it’s you ‘winning’ that lottery.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#15That reads as somebody experiencing PTSD in addition to the injury. The "am I me" and new perspective on work and life happens as a consequence of life altering tragedy.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#16Amazing recount.
I was fortunate to learn in 2018, at a relatively young age, that my mental faculties are the most precious thing I have in life (after my wife ofcourse). It was a very simple accident; chasing a high I let my bike get too fast going downhill on a wet road, a car on the other side was oncoming, I break, the back wheel slips out from under me, I hit my head on the road (with a helmet on). A bruised knee, elbow and shoulder, bit of pain, no damage to the bike, so I get up and continue. 15 minutes later I get home, a sharp migraine sets in, and suddenly, I realize, I can't remember how I got home. In fact, I can't remember most of last week. Luckily an MRI, an OK from a doctor and a couple of weeks later my memory returns and I'm no worse for the wear.
In that moment, when I realized I couldn't recall how I got home, the worst panic I have ever had set in. I've had two close calls with drowning and was in a car crash in the past, and have never felt the panic I had felt in that moment, just sitting comfortably at home, realizing my brain no longer works. I wasn't scared I had a brain bleed or something and would die, I was scared I would lose my mental faculties.
Since then my outlook on life has taken a complete turn. I've become a lot more cognizant of how I spend my time and what issues I engage with mentally.
What we have is precious, it can dissapear in a second, on an otherwise perfect day.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#17This sounds like an head-on collision that happened on a high speed rural two-lane road with an impatient driver thinking they could complete a tight pass in time. I absolutely hate these roads, for this reason.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#18She and her family were hit by a wrong way truck probably going 70 mph. It completely shattered their bodies, lives and shows how precious our moments are. This almost feels personal to me because of how well written her account is. I’ve had terrible chronic migraines for as long as i can remember. Apparently they can be associated with brain lesions, too. I’ll clearly never know how they’ve impacted my personality.
As horrible as this accident is, this is also a testament to modern automotive safety. If this had happened in the 70s or 80s, they all would've been done for. I've seen reports of recent model year cars surviving these kinds of accidents while leaving their drivers unscathed.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#19For some reason I found this line particularly funny and poignant: "But did you know that you can eat whole grains and still get hit by a truck?"
As I get older, more and more people around me get ill and die: many of them super healthy, not smoking or drinking, sporty all their lives, wealthy, health food nuts and no family histories get diagnosed with cancer and heart disease. In my group more healthy than unhealthy receive terrible outcomes at too young an age. It seems indeed it is not fair; do not believe or think it is, there is no reason to do so. Oh an…
Another data point: We got a Peloton last year and have rode with lots of instructors. All of them are fit as hell. One of them had a stroke and another is battling breast cancer. Life waits for no one.
Re: I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)
#20She and her family were hit by a wrong way truck probably going 70 mph. It completely shattered their bodies, lives and shows how precious our moments are. This almost feels personal to me because of how well written her account is. I’ve had terrible chronic migraines for as long as i can remember. Apparently they can be associated with brain lesions, too. I’ll clearly never know how they’ve impacted my personality.
As horrible as this accident is, this is also a testament to modern automotive safety. If this had happened in the 70s or 80s, they all would've been done for. I've seen reports of recent model year cars surviving these kinds of accidents while leaving their drivers unscathed.
My partner occasionally fawns over the idea of buying a vintage Jeep, "just to drive around town, not on the highways". Safety has always been my #1 point of pushback, and when we looked into what can happen even in a low speed accident without modern safety systems, that idea was put to rest pretty quickly.