Latent beginnings

Today is the 19th of February 2009. I had to run some errands today, most importantly going to the med. mgmt doc. We talked about how different my life is from before the accident. And that there is a lot of guilt, reservation(what if's), frustration, anger, thankfullness, blessings, and other assorted feelings and emotions. It has been hard to recognize that, like before the accident when I was on "top of my game" (Doc's words, not mine), that I am no longer in control of much of anythings, except basic things. No, it is not easy to see my disabilities, my hearing is defunct at best, and there are no hearing aids that can help me, and I am not a candidate for CI, either, so at this time, I was telling her that I was considering being "openly deaf", instead of always trying to head it off at the pass. I can no longer do that with seriousness and/or a straight face. I am not able to concentrate all my marbles(what's left of them), in one place at a time, can be done, but only for short periods. Listening involves "active hearing and processing", which I am no longer good at. No one can understand what it is like to be disabled physically, mentally and my audio perception sensory serverly damaged. It is so unnerving and a knock in the eye of confidence. Every thing I do that has communicative parts to it, I have to manuever and plan out my execution of that communication. Going into stores, "Hi, how are you, how may I help you?" is what I have to LOOK for continually, which when I am looking to hear, causes me to stumble, or become dizzy, if going down stairs. I hear loud zaps when I go into stores that have the little "bell ringer" at the door, or buzzer. Sometimes my hearing sounds normal for that particular sound, but sometimes it sounds like a sonic boom in my ears, then I hear lots of noise like subway trains in the far, or airplanes landing, the gear coming down in inside my head Help! This battle is not cancer or anything that takes your life away from you, it just takes the life out of you, where you want to crawl into your shell and stay there until it is safe, which may be never. Or just try to deal with it, and keep as much silence around you as possible, keep your blood pressure and tension and stress down, I find that helps alot. I also take anti-depressants to take the edge off, it helps most of the time. I have been trying not to seclude myself, but sometimes it is hard not to, I feel safe in my own little world, and it feels more comfortable to me, I wish it weren't that way, but it is...