I’m fortunate that my vision was not damaged when I acquired my brain injury and prevent me from reading like some people. (More about reading problems after a TBI.) While sleep improves my fatigue which allows me to concentrate longer, reading improves my attention so that I can better focus on what I’m doing.
I needed to start small with everything I did, reading is no exception. I began with the newspaper comics. Before my brain injury I enjoyed reading the comics while eating breakfast and relaxing before the day began. This was something I could still do; with all the activities I could no longer participate in, the simple things I could do became treasured more. After the comics, I’d read small newspaper articles for a few minutes until I became tired. I enjoy reading since nobody knows the difficulty I have with pronunciation, understanding or how slow I read, besides, I can always re-read if needed.
I feel that I’m learning and improving myself. I have a perception that people and maybe even myself have no expectation of me, that I won’t amount to anything. Damn that’s painful. I want to prove these people wrong. Another advantage of reading is that it doesn’t require any physical activity, I can rest my legs on the couch or bed. However I do become mentally fatigued.
Eventually, I started reading the books I read in high school and then classic novels. I can’t retain the details, but I can remember overall story.
I’ve tried reading text books, but I become overloaded with information and after reading a few pages, there are too many things to remember, I have no more concentration and I needed to sleep.
Reading the stories of fictional characters was the incentive for creating this blog. My thought was that I have something to share that might benefit other people and I would benefit from making the blog.