Accepting Acceptance and Gentle Lies

When I first left the hospital in 2013 I had lists and lists of lists of all the things I either knew or thought that I should know. The basic information about who I had been and what he had been doing that morning was actually the hardest to get. I knew who everyone thought I was but that is just a name or a label that had no context for me in the hospital. I knew the very pretty lady who visited me often was my boss and the other lady who was always in consultation with one or more of my doctors was my mother. Again simply labels that I didn't know the context of. I kept most of my thoughts and questions to my self out of fear. They kept calling me by his name. I knew that I was new and hadn't lived for over fifty years in this or any world. For whatever reason I felt that I would be disposed of if it became known that I was not John.

The whole time I was in the hospital I never once heard the term traumatic brain injury aka TBI. The neurologist said several times that I would get everything back in about six months. Was that a gentle lie or something else? He was the one who told my mom that I would never be able to talk or walk again due to the extensive damage done to my brain. He had just spent eighteen hours repairing the brain and skull as well as a ruptured artery. A year or two after that operation an audiologist remarked that he should have removed the blockage from the ear canal and done this other thing etc... I told her that he was busy saving my life and that he had done an excellent job of that. He had taken his own life and could not defend himself.