When I was a kid, I had a photographic memory. I could stare at a map and recreate it accurately later, and I would draw my own maps of routes we took to get places and landmasses that came from my imagination.

After a few too many concussions, I can no longer do this. That eidetic memory is gone.

At least I’m never truly bored because of the Wheel Of Misfortunate Symptoms. Every day is different.

Aphasia is the worst one.

I have so many words trapped in my head already—when aphasia happens, all of those words turn into soup. Nothing will come out of my mouth and I end up having to either shrug and decide that it’s not worth trying to untwist or I can use ASL if the person who I’m speaking to also knows how to use sign language.

I have nightmares where I scream myself awake because I’m so frustrated this no one can understand me.

My brain feels like mush today. Like there’s just a glob of steaming mashed potatoes in my skull.

I’m having a difficult time ordering my thoughts and making them understandable when I speak. I’ll sometimes repeat myself without realizing it and occasionally stutter.

The stutter is the first symptom I have of aphasia. As soon as I start repeating the first syllable of a word, I know I soon won’t be able to get any out clearly. I once recorded myself during an episode and posted it to TikTok for TBI awareness, and watching myself struggle through a thought is slightly unsettling. But I felt that it was an important symptom to show what it looks like in someone with a head injury.

Thankfully, aphasia isn’t super frequent.

What is frequent (daily) is the cluster headaches that feel like I’m being stabbed either in the temple or the one side of my head—usually the right side—or my eyes. Cluster headaches are accompanied by a droopy right eyelid and watering eyes. It’s a quick sharp pain that lingers for up to a minute that leaves me disoriented and more sensitive to light.

I lie down in the dark a lot to prevent them. Certain lighting—like fluorescent bulbs—increases my chances of experiencing a cluster headache. I can’t walk through a Target for ten minutes without experiencing at least one headache attack.

Thankfully, delta-8 helps to prevent migraines for me. I’ve tried all the triptan medications and they didn’t work nearly as well as vaping does. They certainly had more side effects than delta-8. For a while there, I had weekly migraines.

My unending symptom is a headache that changes intensity and location constantly. It moves around day to day but it’s always there. Currently, I feel like my head is in a vice. Yesterday, it felt like I’d been hit in the back of the head. Tomorrow, it’ll be different.

Over time, I’ve also lost the ability to feel hungry. I either vape delta-8 to give myself the munchies, or I have to be reminded to eat. My stomach and my brain don’t talk much anymore.

My balance is iffy some days. Sometimes I’ll have a drunk gait.