Really sad and I don't feel like there's anyone I can talk to about it. So I'll write about it here and share it with anyone in the world who wants to read this stuff, whilst still not getting any kind of relief. Irony.

He thinks that I am too easily shaken up, upset, reactive. He wants me to be stronger, to be happy in my own right, to be strong enough that even if things fell apart between us, I'd be OK. He does not want to feel as if he is of critical importance in my life.

I can see what he means. But it's like asking a person who's recently spent two years in the ICU fighting for their life, following getting hit by a train, to be OK with prancing along on railroad tracks, because if I get hit again, I'll live through it, again. Trains make me nervous now, not merely nervous- paralyzed with terror. Prancing on railroad tracks isn't fun anymore. I would like to walk somewhere safer, with him.

In addition to all this, it is becoming apparent to me that I simply am not the same person I used to be. I try, I go through all the motions of doing all the stuff I used to like so well, and I enjoy it, somewhat. But it's like my psyche has suffered a massive heart attack, leaving me with big areas of scar tissue. Sometimes I don't know who I am anymore, and it's more than a little unnerving. I know that I used to have friends. I used to do all kinds of stuff. But the person my friends were friends with, isn't here anymore. There's this other person that I am now, and this one is fragile, tires out, doesn't get as much done, requires a lot of TLC and patience, and has forgotten all kinds of stuff, even before the concussion. There are chunks of my life, like at least a year and a half, that are pretty much blanked out and erased, and there are other pieces that if I remember them, feel surreal, as if they happened to a completely different person who happened to live in this same body. I don't know how to talk about these things with people. I don't know how to explain it.

So yeah, I am afraid. I cannot afford to get broken again. I already know how not okay things can be. Whatever parts of me are left, my children need for them to be there.

But the fear ruins things. It makes life less fun. And it's not his fault that I'm like this.

Desmond Morris on Territorial behavior in Homo sapiens

Science blog, same topic

This appears to be for a course or class

It's an interesting and inadequately addressed subject, considering how pervasive territorial behavior is among humans. I engage in territorial behavior. You do. Everyone who has enough consciousness to perceive personal space and who grasps the concept of personal property engages in territorial behavior. However, most of us, including myself, invariably will deny engaging in such behavior if called on it in reference to a specific incident. We will claim that territorial behavior is for animals, that we are civilized....and then go on to be thoroughly outraged when the boundaries of our territory are breached.

Social mores, niceness, sociable behavior in general, are the counterpoint to territoriality. There cannot be niceness/good behavior when territory is disregarded, and tactful/polite behavior is what makes navigating territory not only manageable, but worthwhile and rewarding.

What this head injury feels like, when it's bad (and I say it this way because it isn't a constant; I have good days and bad days and mixed bag days):

It's like bouncing, except "bouncing" sounds like fun, and this is not a fun sensation. It's more like sinking down to the bottom of a murky pond, groggily, and then, with some difficulty, surfacing again into awareness...like not having the strength to swim anymore and just sinking, surfacing, repeatedly. It's so tiring.

Noises hurt. OK, I'm on the autism spectrum, and having sensory issues is an integral part of Asperger's...but now, it's worse. Sharp, sudden sounds feel sharper, more jarring, hard and abrupt and painfully startling. Such sounds are several times harder to endure than they used to be. They are almost physically painful.

Things get blurry, bleary feeling, nonsensical, they don't add up like they should. People talk and it makes no sense, or if their verbal sounds do make sense, I have significant difficulty holding onto what they said. They tell me that they had told me things previously, and I have absolutely no recollection of ever hearing it. Even when I hear and comprehend, it's much harder to follow a conversation or remember what was said. My short term memory and speech decoding appears to have been impacted.

Reality feels less real and less continuous. It's the only way I can describe it. There are times when blank spots appear in the present or near past. Time isn't fluid, it doesn't always flow, it skips sometimes. And I have no idea what happens in those blank spots.

There's a horrible sense of helplessness, despair, a sense of being useless, panic at not feeling better, embarrassment, that goes along with it. Of needing, desperately, to rest, to sleep, to lay down anywhere at all. An awareness that my mind is not working correctly, and there's nothing at all I can do about it, except to rest and to hope that eventually, it will get better. The exhaustion is debilitating. And guilt! I feel so guilty about still feeling like shit, as though there were anything at all I could do about it! I feel so bad for not being able to walk right, for slurring or not making enough sense when I talk, for needing to sleep so much, for not being able to get much of anything done, for being barely able to drive 25 miles every morning and afternoon, and nothing besides that. My goal, every school day, is to rest enough to be able to drive back responsibly.

And speaking of being tired, of needing to sleep....good night.

The doctor says it is probably axonal injury.