but I don't want to give up. So I'm going on a plan to regain my abilities slowly.
I'm doing tasks from simpler to more complicated. I've started with some unix (linux/OpenBSD) admin, scripting... etc... and it's been a bit of a challenge to focus, but I'm trying over and over, until I get it, because I want my mind to focus so bad to get T de-prioritized by my brain.
Get on a plan and execute, until you get it. Start simple, and increase complexity. The more you will manage to achieve, the more confident you will get, and the more you'll be able to cope with this nasty predicament.
Good luck.
A few years ago, I had the great fun and fortune to have a six-month correspondence with a gifted writer/newspaper columnist who I grew up reading. He left the local paper (they forced buyouts - their loss!), then began to write for a small weekly. His column was wildly popular and exquisitely original. Loved it!
All of a sudden, the columns stopped. I was so enmeshed in life that I sort of noticed but didn't track down the reason why.
Well, about two years later, he appeared again. The first column back explained that he'd suffered a MASSIVE STROKE. Probably should've killed him, but didn't.
In the interim, he'd been COMPLETELY out of it, in a nursing facility, no control of bodily functions, no speech, right side fully paralyzed, etc.
In about a year and some months, he was able to go home, with assistance. Still couldn't talk. Still couldn't walk.
Or ... write. WRITE. The activity that was his shining brilliance, the core of his being, his soul.
And you know what that man did?
Sat himself at a computer and with his left index finger, began to try to write again.
He described his first attempt as trying to write one word and forty minutes later, typing a completely different word.
He persevered.
Months later, he had woken up these well-worn pathways in his brain, and was on his shining track again.
The columns came again, weekly, still full of the fire and grace of his truly gifted writing. Every column was typed letter by letter, word by word, with his left index finger. (This old-time newspaperman, who formerly had Olympic touchtyping skills. But hey - he found a way!).
I was so moved, I wrote to him about it, and he wrote back, and we kept that up for six months. All the while, he could type and write but not talk or walk. He was getting therapies for this.
It was SO worthwhile that after he got knocked down, he came back. There was SO much he had left to give.
THIS is what LIFE is REALLY all about. We really don't get to pick our lives like we book a trip from a travel brochure. Stuff happens. We DO get to find our ways, and to define our response to the journey.
Hey - just wanted to tell you about this.