Tried to work - it just didn't work.

I tried to Skype with my team during a session they were having, and I couldn't really contribute, and now I feel not useful, and I really miss working.

They were all together in a really cool-looking working environment. They were being productive and having fresh ideas... they tried to tell me about them and I just couldn't take it in. It was just words to me. I tried hard to follow. I couldn't.

After several moments of hearing the words they were saying but not being able to take in the meaning, I said a warm goodbye.

I don't feel like I can tell them things they want to hear - not even encouragement because I can't ascertain what they need to hear right now, and I can't give them genuine compliments because I don't understand what they've been doing.

I can't have an opinion on what they're saying because I can't remember what my ways of doing things are.

Maybe I can do a bit of one-on-one conversation... I did that for a few mins last week with one of them on the phone. But with several of them, over Skype, jumping around across many different topics... I just can't. This stuff used to be what I enjoyed the most, what they're doing today.

I cried when I got off the call. I stopped working in November, after weeks of not being able to get myself to do small tasks.

It's so strange how I can do emotional conversations, but I can't pull together lots of information/factors to come to ideas or decisions easily. I can't jump around between ideas. Maybe there's other planes of understanding of what the problem is... I don't understand why I found it so difficult to understand them. Maybe it's that I can't take 'imaginative leaps' or assume other information when they say sophisticated things...

If I ask a question and don't get a straight answer, I don't understand what they've said. Maybe that's why I find therapy so difficult to understand at the moment. Maybe I need to hear within the bounds of what I'm expecting to hear. It sounds like I'm narrow minded! I don't want to be this way. It's not an emotional block. It's like... a meaning block.

I feel like I have brain damage. My brain just isn't working. It did used to work!

I'm worried that they're not doing the right things but I'm not even sure if I know what the right things are - I'm not in a mental place where I'm able to direct them. I wish I could do this.

Well, this experience has really brought home why I'm not working now. It's been enough time since I haven't worked for me to have forgotten that my brain just won't let me.

I suppose that if I stay within my limits, I won't get upsetting moments like this where I feel inadequate. Maybe when I'm a bit better, Skype calls like that would be something to build up to, not something to start with. One-on-one stuff might be a better starting point, when I get to a point where I feel capable of building up stamina.

I'm sad I'm not working. I'm sad that being ill has taken away the joys I took from building relationships and building my career and my business. And my income, too. Maybe I'll get some of that back one day. But it's already been a few months since I've been missing out on this significant part of my life. I wish I knew how long I was going to stay ill for - then I could prepare myself.
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Oh I know that too well. Sometimes I stare at my family - I can hear them, the words are coming in but it doesn't make sense to me. It's really scary. I used to teach college and I was a workaholic - so much lost to time now. I've been doing a lot of brain exercises and meditation lately - trying to heal over the bad spots or rewire things.
 
I found this article, it's me to a T
https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/individuals/effects-of-brain-injury/executive-dysfunction/
I'm not sure it's you, but wanted to share it encase it rang a bell.
 

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