If you have ever been in therapy, whether we talk physical, occupational, or good old-fashioned psych, there are moments of clarity that stick with you.  Something that this expert in their field imparts upon you at the exact moment in the perfect way to hit a message home, and it smacks you either right between the eyes, or deep in the gut.

Not surprising, the first few years after my TBI, I was in all sorts of therapy.  I had the fortune to be accepted into a fantastic outpatient clinic at HCMC where I was touched by many amazing professionals.  These people changed my life.   My speech, occupational, and physical therapists became my mentors, my life line, my zen masters.

There were so many moments that inspired and directed me, but there is one moment that was so profound it has lived on my fridge for the better part of the last three years.

I had a private session with Dr. Danielle Potokar, one of the clinical psychologists.  I do not remember why we were meeting, only that it was unusual.  She was not my normal therapist.  She was the facilitator of my group therapy sessions, however, so she knew me, and knew me well.  I had been attending group for over a year.

In this session she talked about the all over consuming affect the brain injury had on my life. She told me it would not always be this way.  She drew a circle on her note pad, off to the side she wrote the words “your life” and inside the circle very large she wrote “TBI”.

She showed it to me. “This is what your life is right now.  This is how it has felt for over two years.”  She talked about how with recovery and therapy and relearning life and myself my entire circle is filled solely with my brain injury.  This is my focus, this is all I have.  And she was right.  It was indeed all-consuming.

The brain injury had stolen things from me, driven things away, or simply just didn’t leave any time or any energy left for things that use to make me who I was, the things that used to be important.

She turns her legal pad back to herself, flips a to a new page and starts drawing a new circle.  After a second, she turns it to me.

“This is what the goal is.” The brain injury, she tells me, will eventually be the tiniest part of my life. It will always be there, but it will not always be everything there is. The rest of the circle I get to fill in. Fill it with the things I love, the things that are important to me, the things that make me me.

She tears off the piece of paper and hands it to me. I fold it up and slip it into my purse and take it home. I am motivated by this concept. I am driven by the idea that I will indeed one day get to fill my life with other things. So I write down a list of what I want those things to be.

Then I cut out a large circle from white tag board. Wrote “My Life” really large in the center. And off to the side way at the bottom I wrote “TBI” just like on the piece of paper my therapist gave me. On another piece of tag board I wrote all those words from the list I just wrote. I cut them out and attached them to magnets. The whole thing went right onto my refridgerator.

Some of these words were things that had never truly gone away. “Determined”, “good friend”, “educated”, and “intelligent”. I realized that slowly over time. Also in time, word by word, things were added to my life, to my circle, as I improved. My life was getting full again. And the TBI wasnt feeling as all-consuming.

SEE?!

It wasnt an easy road, and symbolically, the magnets didn’t always stick either. The tag board was thick, and the magnets were cheap. Words kept falling to the floor.

Especially the word “Successful”! Because the Universe has a wicked sense of humor.

So my father suggested I just permanently attach them to the circle. This idea was sheer brilliance! So Today I sat down with a cheep dollar store knock off bottle of Elmer’s glue and permanently adhered those suckers to my circle. This makes me happy.

But I changed something else about my circle today that makes me even happier. I added a couple of things.

Four months ago I met the most amazing man. Jeremy, for some reason, decided that I was cool enough to fall in love with. I was up front and honest about the brain injury, and he has taken it like a champ. In our short amount of time together we have braved a road trip, had total neurological shut down due to fireworks on the Fourth of July, had to leave restaurants before even getting our waters, and had to take a nap on the side of the road. There ahave been many adventures of my brain injury these last four months, and through every incident and every accommodation, Jeremy has demonstrated patience, caring, flexibility, and a capacity for love I never imagined would ever be directed toward me.

Have I mention he’s amazing?

But he is human. And last weekend for the first time Jeremy exhibited frustration regarding my injury. He was upset at the situation and not me. And we both agree that it takes time to adjust to my life. However, my knee jerk reaction to his frustration was to shut down. Because I had always been convinced this road was not something anyone else deserved to be dragged down. That my injury precluded me from ever forming a lasting romantic relationship. And his one moment of weakness was PROOF that I deserved to be alone, that this was too hard and too much to ask. So I withdrew.

Two days later he called me out on it. And he basically told me I had to make a choice. That he was worthy enough to walk that road with me. He handed me a sticky note with his name on it. “I’m the only thing that’s not on your fridge,” he said.

I did not understand the reference right away. Whatever was he talking about. I have a picture of him and I on the fridge. . .

Oh, my! My Life! My Circle!!! He was referring my circle on the fridge. Damn, but that man does pay attention to things!

And he was right. He had not been included within, or without, my circle. I had never created a word for him, or for a relationship. It did not exist. Maybe because I never felt I needed one or wanted one. . . more likely because I never felt I could have one after the accident.

I stood right up, walked to the fridge and slapped that post-it right in the very middle of my life.

And today, as I was gluing my life together, I knew there was more than just Jeremy missing. That it was really about my feeling worthy. So I grabbed a permanent marker and wrote the words “Worthy” and “Love” directly on the circle.

It’s all up on the fridge, feeling a bit more complete. There are still a few words that have yet to be added to my life, but I think the really important ones are there.