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Me VS the world…

*Sigh*

What a week… It feels like it’s been me VS the world. I say feel because in reality it probably hasn’t and I’m just overthinking everything. I think I’ve been playing the ‘victim’ card and just letting myself get upset, which let’s be honest… I’m allowed to do once in a while, right?

I feel like people are sick of me talking about my brain injury and the problems I have relating to it. It’s probably happened previously but I just haven’t noticed or it hasn’t upset me. This time it’s upsetting me because it’s my friends. I’ve always been so grateful of friends who understand and who I can talk to, but for the first time in my life I feel like an outcast, like a burden, like I’m bringing everyone down if I bring it up. I’ve started to turn down plans, rather than ignoring the invite I’ll say why I can’t make it *insert brain injury problem here* but I don’t receive a response… An ‘ok’ would suffice.

Then there’s the people who say something to me and it’s really upsetting, but they don’t know they’ve upset me and they didn’t mean to. Am I overreacting if I say something back to them? Should I ignore it and wallow in self pity? Should I just move past it and not think about what they said ever again? Most of all… Am I going to be struggling with these moments for the rest of my life? Sadly, I think so.

There’s been times when I’ve overreacted and not thought before I speak, upsetting someone in return:

It was the first New Years Eve after my accident and I was at a party playing Cards Against Humanity. While reading one of the cards out all my words got mixed up and I was stuttering. Someone I’d never met before stated to mimic me and I snapped at him “If you knew why I had a speech impediment you wouldn’t be taking the piss”, everyone went quiet and just looked at me then started to say things like “You can’t say that!” “There’s no need for that!”

So as much as I meant what I had said to him, everyone made me feel like I shouldn’t have said anything. It worked out ok in the end, I told him about my injury and he apologised and said “If I’d have known I wouldn’t have said anything” Later that night we had a long conversation. I think, looking back it was a heart to heart.

There’s also been times when I haven’t reacted at all.. When I should have. I once overheard “Brain Injury isn’t really a disability” that really upset me, well actually it made me very angry but I didn’t say anything. Why? Because I still felt bad for how I responded at the New Years Eve party. I came home and blogged about the situation instead.

When is the right time to respond and when is the wrong time to respond? I still don’t know.

When these situations happen I’m so upset that I don’t have time to think about a nice response so I just say the first thing that comes to mind, I think that may be worse than staying quiet. At the same time though I can’t stay quiet forever can I?

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