My biggest wish as a kid was to write media tie-in novels. Not to make money or for general fame—I just wanted to write a story with my favorite characters that other people could read if they wanted to. I hadn’t realized that I’ve already been doing just that sort of dream since I wrote my first fanfiction for Due South when I was a kid.

Reading and writing fanfiction is the only thing that isn’t difficult right now. Putting my thoughts into words out loud is so hard because of how fast my brain is and how hard it is to translate that thought process from the image in my mind to what I’m trying to explain. It takes me a long time to form an original thought that can be understood without too much context.

Writing is easier.

I can go back and read this over and over until the grammar makes sense; but after I’ve edited everything, I feel like people will think I’m lying about my post-concussion syndrome because I make any sense at all. I forget that I grew up with the stigma of brain injuries creating a loss of intelligence.

I’m pretty sure I tangled the skein in my brain just a bit and I need to move slower to get rid of the knot. Writing gives me that time to slow down whereas speaking just makes me knot things up worse.

I got some advice to keep writing from my fourth grade teacher, Joyce Cassidy, and I never stopped. It’s helped me through so much.

Being able to order my thoughts with writing drew me to a conclusion about head injuries.

No one’s reaction to a concussion is the same because no one has the same brain.

What I mean to say is that no one who has a traumatic brain injury is going to have the exact same symptoms. No one has the same brain and no one thinks the same way as anyone else. I’m nursing a headache from 2014, but someone else with post-concussion syndrome could be way less prone to headaches and still meet the criteria for a diagnosis. The recovery rates of post-concussion syndrome cases can vary quite a lot—from weeks to years to never.

Post-concussion syndrome is a strange beast. As I said, I’ve had a headache since 2014 that moves around and worsens, I experience cluster headaches every day, I will have periodic nausea and a lack of balance, double vision, involuntary tics that either stick around (jerking my head “away” from a cluster headache because it feels like I’m being hit with a bat is a tic I’ve had ever since the concussion) or go away (involuntary jaw movement and various words), and a lot more that I’ll get to.

I think I’ve always been a pragmatist. I prefer to observe a situation and imagine what could theoretically go wrong and how to counteract that in order to have a more favorable outcome.

I’m not an optimist or a pessimist—there will always be pitfalls and hiccups in life—so I want to be realistic about my expectations in life and not get discouraged if I don’t have a skill that’s required in any specific situation. Because, if anything, living in a modern age where the answer to a question can be found by asking that question online and having responses come from reputable sources makes our world seem much less frightening than it could be.

We have access to so much knowledge and the more we learn, the more changes I can see that make me feel a little better about things.

Seeing kids these days who learn about how to actually talk to each other and who aren’t afraid to show vulnerability with their emotions makes me feel hopeful.

That’s why I’m writing this. To talk about my experiences with multiple concussions and how I’ve journeyed through all of those Kübler-Ross stages of grief when dealing with a disability brought on by traumatic brain injuries.

I think there’s a lesson to be learned from my grief for the person I used to be before my post-concussion syndrome diagnosis, and how the new me has accepted my disability.

I only wish I could include a bunch of images and gifs that I have on my phone to represent what that day’s headache felt like. It’s frustrating that people can’t be in my head to see my thought processes, so people have either no idea what I’m talking about or their understanding of it is not the exact same as mine. It’s easier to post a gif than to say: “feels like I’m Oberyn Martell and the Mountain is crushing my entire head and digging his big gross thumbs into my eyes”.

(I don’t ever post a gif of that scene, but I do post the one where Pedro Pascal does the same move on a tomato that’s far less traumatizing than watching him get his head crushed like a watermelon.)

…this is certainly a good example of what you’re in for with the rest of this book. I’ve got chronic pain, so of course my humor is dark. I kind of have to find the funny things in all the bad things, or else I’d focus on how much I constantly hurt.

The ironic thing is—I have never felt more sure about my identity until now.