I’ve told about the beginning of my convalescence and how I used my (entirely) free time to regain my ability to read, write, and translate – in short, my ability to think. I would sit in front of the computer screen and type on my keyboard, constantly looking up words in online dictionaries or consulting correct uses of the English language. I would sit on the deck, with my notebook on the table and pen in hand, jotting down ideas. I would write and rewrite and rewrite. I’ve told how, after much practice, I felt I was comfortable with a language that had become foreign to me after my injury.
But as comfortable as I am writing in English, I can’t finish a sentence I’ve started: I stop; I hesitate; I have to make great effort to come up with the right word. It takes me so long to utter a full sentence, that I’m afraid it’s the prelude to a seizure. I can’t even come up with the first word. I sound exactly as characters of movies that paint the common image of a ”mentally disabled” person. And perfectionist and self-demanding that I am when dealing with thoughts, trying to relate an event or voice the simplest request feels like a challenge – how can it be so hard for me, when I swim through the most intricate reasoning? If thinking is so easy, how come speaking is so arduous? And the more tired I am, the harder it is for me to say what I’m trying to say or fill the gap between words.
This particular type of disability is a (healthy) injury to a warped sense of self that I’d been carrying for many years until my hemangiomas started bleeding: that I’m very smart. And along with my sense of self came another erroneous conception (which still somewhat persists): that intelligence is a first-rate quality. It might be a heavy burden to carry and cause me no end of grief, but I think that this disability is a positive flip side to my injury – and, for this reason, one to remember when the endless journey I embarked on since my hemorrhage gets me down.
But as comfortable as I am writing in English, I can’t finish a sentence I’ve started: I stop; I hesitate; I have to make great effort to come up with the right word. It takes me so long to utter a full sentence, that I’m afraid it’s the prelude to a seizure. I can’t even come up with the first word. I sound exactly as characters of movies that paint the common image of a ”mentally disabled” person. And perfectionist and self-demanding that I am when dealing with thoughts, trying to relate an event or voice the simplest request feels like a challenge – how can it be so hard for me, when I swim through the most intricate reasoning? If thinking is so easy, how come speaking is so arduous? And the more tired I am, the harder it is for me to say what I’m trying to say or fill the gap between words.
This particular type of disability is a (healthy) injury to a warped sense of self that I’d been carrying for many years until my hemangiomas started bleeding: that I’m very smart. And along with my sense of self came another erroneous conception (which still somewhat persists): that intelligence is a first-rate quality. It might be a heavy burden to carry and cause me no end of grief, but I think that this disability is a positive flip side to my injury – and, for this reason, one to remember when the endless journey I embarked on since my hemorrhage gets me down.
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