Can you hear that? Listen! It is the beautiful sound of silence!!! Silence is my happy place. Actually, in my bed, sleeping, is my happy place, but the sweet sound of silence is a close second. Noise doesn't trigger my rage, but it definitely doesn't help control it.
I almost consider my brain to be like a different being than from me now. Not in a schizophrenic way because I don't hear voices or believe someone else is controlling my mind and wants to harm me or anything like that but I can envision how different areas of my brain work. I see how the neurons begin to get excited and start to spark and start waking up other areas of the brain. Then other parts of the brain start waking up it is
So my brain is the machine and my body is the factory. The machine needs to run at a consistent pace in order for the factory to stay in business. If I try to be overzealous and run the machine too fast, then I risk parts getting overheated and worn down and ultimately breaking. If I run the machine too slowly, then I don't produce enough energy to keep the lights and the power of the factory on. As the machine runs, I see how one part of it controls another.
My brain is similar to the chocolate factory in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original version). If I run the machine too fast it and it gets too excited I become Veruca Salt. My brain becomes Veruca Salt when I get and angry, and if I don’t calm it down and walk away from whatever is triggering it to run too fast then just like Veruca Salt, I lose control. If I lose control then I will fall down that egg shoot like a rotten egg and can end-up in the furnace.
So they key is to never let my brain become Veruca Salt and that is where the issue is. Where most people have the ability to prevent their brains from becoming Veruca Salt, I don’t so the only way I can prevent it is to completely avoid the triggers that would cause it to reach that point.
Most TBI Survivor’s lack the ability to prevent a Veruca Salt and so when a TBI Survivor says “STOP!” You stop! Immediately! Everything! There is no, “one more minute,” there is no, “one more time,” there is no partial stoppage. You stop everything, completely right away. TBI Survivors need to know what their triggers are and avoid them and family and friends of a TBI Survivor need to learn and recognize what these triggers are and do their best to prevent them.
After 18 years, I know what my triggers are and I need to be responsible for my own well being and to avoid them, to walk away when they manifest. I need to either power down that machine and close the factory until everything returns to normal or I need to remove Veruca Salt from the factory and let her go crazy someplace else and my way of doing that is to take Veruca on a very very long run and wear her ass out!!
