I am that scaredy-cat

I say I can’t do stuff because of my head injury and that’s partly true, but I can move past that like my former psychologist told me.I think I can but it’s very, very scary and I don’t want to be brave sometimes because I don’t want to get hurt again, I want to protect my head. I don’t know if this is a common thing for brain injury survivors, but just the thought of hitting my head again won’t let me even cross some streets alone; I can’t go through that again.

I thought it was just the brain injury that made me a scaredy-cat, but I was one before the accident, it’s just that now I have more reason to be one. I found some pictures from 6 years ago when my cousins were all here to celebrate my grandparent’s 50^th anniversary. We were visiting a pond, where all my cousins, even the girls who are 7 and 11 years younger than me, joined the boys jumping off a rock into the pond. I am the only one who was not jumping, I was across the pond taking pictures of it.

Why didn’t I join them? I was too scared, but I didn’t know at that moment that I wouldn’t get the chance to do that later when I wasn’t scared, because two years later I would have a brain injury. Why did I miss that chance? It looks like a lot of fun and now my head really can’t take that.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself, but now I’m wondering why I didn’t take that chance when I had it. It still scared me, but it was nice being able to decide if I wanted to do it or not. I don’t have a choice anymore, I just can’t.

If I could go back I think I would have done it, it was a safe jump and nobody got hurt, but I would only do it knowing that it was safe. I am not interested in doing anything dangerous, wasn’t interested them, I’m not interested now.

So even though I have been through and survived some pretty scary stuff, that have made me stronger, don’t think it has made me braver. I think I might be more scared now.