I was born on September 20th, 1976 . When I was 6 weeks old I suffered from meningitis. I got sick and almost died. I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if the meningitis did not occur. Sometimes I wish I could turn back time or have some supernatural powers. Well after seeing the Butterfly effect those kind of ideas can run though my mind.
Over the years they did not know what I had and later I was put on Ritalin to calm me down. Later In life I found out I had epilepsy. I would have Petit-mal seizures. It drove me crazy because I could not drive and stuff when i turned 16. I knew after I took care of my seizures my life would get back on track. I played sports and a couple times during the games I would have seizures and blackout. Like on the basketball court or the football field. After high school I had been going to Cleveland for tests where they hooked up wires to my head but each time I went I would not have a seizure when the time i needed to have one would arise. They needed to know the exact spot they were coming from which later they confirmed was from my left temporal lobe caused from the meningitis that left scar tissue.
I had this conversation with my dad one day and it sort of dawned on me. I was talking to him and asked, so you mean it is like people see and hear everyone and it is normal.” He shook his head sort of in a way that sort of confirmed my suspicions. I just didn’t know what to think at the time, My world like turned upside down everywhere I went people had tears in there eyes. I wouldn’t say a word but it was like they could tell what I was thinking and what I would talk about earlier and what I knew. But after it sunk in I felt on top of the world, I had the song by John Cougar Mellencamp’ Thrill of living “with Jack and Diane, that song lol. I would start putting on performances by myself and recording songs using brooms as guitars and lamps as microphones in my basement the kind of lamps that sit on the floor. Then I would walk up to work and they thought I was nuts but in a good way. They would laugh about it and were like get some sleep or something. The songs were older songs no one would sing and only I did but as I turned on the radio afterwards the song would be played like, here goes let’s play it, from the DJ. I would go to work knowing all this new information and try to communicate with everybody I couldn’t hear but everyone else could, like people in distances. My co workers would sort of relay the message that they took for granted and wasn’t a big deal to them. Later there were managers at McDonalds I would sort of think to myself use Morse code and they would tap the fry thing a couple times. Crazy huh. It was fun for a while though like a little game.
What I did not know was how powerful the brain really is. The things that I have experienced after the surgery opened up a surreal life. It is almost like the whole world is fake in a way. After I had the surgery and had part removed, I found that I was using parts of my brain that I never knew I could use sort of. Before the surgery it was a normal everyday thing. After the surgery a whole world opened that I had no idea about. I Wonder sometimes if something were to happen to me having to do with my brain what the different outlooks would be. Would the things I think of be non real in a sense where the communications would be meaningless again. Or would I have some other powers that I never knew existed? These things are what make me wonder everyday why It was me who goes through certain things that no one else does.
Anyways the surgery opened up a whole new world for me. i was now able to drive since I went 6 months with out a seizure. So I drove to work and where ever I needed to go. I all of sudden talked to people that I knew. I realized all these thoughts running through my head was like noticeable to the exact thought or something for the whole world to hear and see, so it seemed. It was like I lived in a glass wall my whole life, like on the movie The Truman show. I believe today that everyone is sorta a god that looks over me and can do things you wouldnt imagine like change the weather or send shock waves through that sorta have a signal to get through to you. The whole world was sort of able to hear and see me. Sort of my world turned upside down like in Back to the Future two where he goes back to 1955 and then gets back to 1985 after he changed everything in his past already. So I was thinking like my life was a story for the whole world to see and i was just confused. I went delirious or something right after I found this out.
I remember one time i wrote this letter to my gf and then i was going to go into work and give her like a proposal letter then all of a sudden it is like my mom knew what i was doing. It was late at night i knew i was the only one awake but somehow she sort of knew I was not thinking in my right mind and came down and told me to go to bed knowing i wasnt myself. The question I asked myself is How did she know to come down then? It is so facinating to figure out this stuff. If anyone can explain i am up for opinions and different views on how things are known but not known.
There was this big festival here and my ex gf who i knew was in school in a totally different state was talking to me in these voices, at that time I couldn’t hear or make out the voices but still trying to communicate. I would sort of communicate with her through other people , sort of like in the movie Ghost. People sorta would relay her message to me, Knowing it was just stupid to try to communicate with her and the song they would play is the Brandi song "The Boy is Mine". I knew they were trying to tell me to give up on her but still i just couldn't hold back trying for her at the time.
I was on this road trip in the car one time where my mom was driving. I swear to god i saw this A with a halo on top of it. It was like a message from above that there was angels or something like the Anaheim Angels sign on there uniform. it was freaky because i knew it was time that sorta set it up to send the message or God or a higher power. One time i saw a shooting star, the only time i saw that was with my gf at the time and it was another sign from above
So as time went by I started hearing the voices more clearly. I started to make out who's voice it was i was hearing. i really thought these voices were telling me where to find or locate them. It was like the voices were so loud they seemed like they were so close to me like in the same room. It was like people would know my faults and accommodate different things to help me communicate like knock on something a certain amout of time like Morse code. Right now my head where i had brain surgery is spasming right where i had brain surgery , a sign they are saying it is just my surgery that is causing it. More less it is a whisper of things that I couldn't hear so i could sorta understand what they were trying to get across to me.
So I drove my car around town to every place I could think of. I worked at McDonald's at the time and drove to every McDonald's in town listening to "Delilah,Love someone tonight" on 103.1FM. I ended up looking at every McDonald's in town for this person because I could hear her. I went to the on the waterfront festival which was the biggest festival in Rockford and walked in circles looking for her. Then I drove somewhere or everywhere around every side of town i could think of and locked my keys in the car. So i punched the window and broke my finger. I remember driving to bowling alleys and houses omg looking back.Anyways I locked my keys in the car and broke my finger trying to break the window, of course I borrowed a hammer from the guy and broke the front window so glass went all over the place I should of broke the back lol so glass wasn’t all over the front seat. Keep in mind I was majorly confused. So when my Dad realized I wasn’t thinking right I was forced to stay with him a few days. He was so worried about me he told me to go to the insane asylum later on .
Before earlier that night I went to the grocery store and bought way over 100 dollars in grocery’s but I knew before I walked in the store it was going to be 100 dollars exactly because everything was such a coincidence. Sure enough it wasn’t 101 dollars or 99 dollars and not any odd amount of cents added on it was 100 dollars exactly. It was a whole new thing for me because I felt I had these supernatural powers or something.
The next day after I found this out i was shocked and felt like my whole life was an open book . I was with my aunt and couldnt even think straight for weeks. It was like every secret was out in the open and i saw tears running down the face of people who knew me before this nappened. It was like They knew i would find this out sometime and never knew how i would take it. The way I took it was sort of sad but i Somehow got through it difficultly.
Since i knew what had happened I would try to change the way i thought of things. It turned out to backfire because i would remember numbers and if i saw a clock i would use the time as a date in the year. Sorta goofy but i dont even know why i manipulate numbers in my head. I guess i wanted to remember certain people or something but over time You sort of want to forget them and to see that number brings them back.
So anyways where was I, had to light a cigarette lmao. I bought a 32 pistol and was so close to committing suicide. I had a gun card and I tore it up and then I bought and ordered another duplicate. I was tempted at times to shoot myself to get rid of the confusion and give the world of bad opinions of me a break from the chaos I felt I caused.
I bought a wonderful house, See when I started hearing these voices I then determined that I did not have “psychological time” not to get u confused with clock time. So in a way I was deaf and blind like Helen Keller. But later I figured out that it doesn’t matter if u don’t hear things you still can get messages from seeing Time” but still I guess I am just blind lol. So when I bought my house I tried to shoot myself in the head but the safety was on so I sort of was lucky, and blessed. A few months before I would go out to my car and want to shoot myself while I would sit in the car. Later on, a few months later I got the gun to work, after going to the gun shop and asking how.
I shot myself in the heart and yelled HELP really loud. Luckily for me the neighbor was outside my door walking around. She came in because I left the door unlocked. I woke up in the ICU unit a day and a half later paralyzed because the bullet nicked my spinal cord. Right before that I was working two jobs at McDonalds and UPS and I was struggling to make ends meet. I felt I accomplished more then a lot of people so my life was complete. I do not know why I did not ask for help but I wish I would have.I guess i tried to ask for help but there was no one who would understand except later on in life my friend from canada who i dated and went out with understood like i was hoping everyone in this world would.
I saw the difference from what my surgery did. When i took this class i could feel the good side of my head (right Side) sorta twitching or pulsating. It was like my brain is a computer and the left side is on idle and the right drive is all that is working sometimes. Takes longer to comprehend things for me. it is like i am missing a few wires that i need to get through.
I joined this epilepsy support group recently in the hopes of understanding more about what it is that makes me this way from my surgery. I got a message that explains a lot to me. They said it sounds a lot like Dissociative Disorders. The link i went to explained a lot to me. I am not totally understanding it but as days go by i learn new things about what the side effects were of the surgery.
http://www.sidran.org/didbr.html
After I was a paraplegic I was on Zoloft and Seroquil. Man does the seroquil help me sleep , I wish I would of found it a long time ago. I met this girl who I went out with for a while and we still talk. She helped me a lot. I finally got my life on track. I feel like a since my surgery I had to start all over so I get more confident as the days go bye. Still though when I try to explain to people they do not understand sometimes and thing I am on drugs or something. As I get older I know the more that time passes I feel I am adapting and learning new ideas with this world I discovered.
I had another girlfriend in Canada for about a year we have known each other for about 4 years now or longer. I sort of wanted it to work but things just did not Well another thing occurred at this time I went to Niagara Falls with her and took the bus there. It was a sense of independence again, although I made everyone worried and pissed I knew it didn’t matter I was 27 years old. This just proved to me I can do anything I set my mind too. When I met her in Niagara Falls it was so nice to not have to deal and listen to people’s influences or opinions on how I should live my life.
I learned that I was totally wrong and there were so many places to see still. For example, I went on a cruise, to Nashville , South Dakota , Las Vegas a few times, and of course Niagara Falls all after I was in a wheelchair,along with get my Associates degree in College. All these things and future experiences I would have missed out on.
Still Nowadays my legs start to spasm out of nowhere and it is only when I am thinking about certain people lmao. People may say it isn’t anything but a spasm but the spasms I get seem to me to be coming from some spirit or something basically having to do with my thoughts. I try to get even but have no clue how lmao. It gets irritating but I don’t let it bother me I drop it quick and move on. Sometimes the spasms are good. I hear from the voices that I can be rude , crazy, weird is a very common but I know I am just being myself and wouldn’t want to be any other way most of the time. I love when someone is talking on TV live and they stop whatever they are saying all of sudden because they lost there train of thought. I mean is my life that interesting to them or am I that loud at times I do not have a clue but hey.
I found that the best thing is to ignore it and when I go to sleep I look forward to dreaming because it seems I am in the world I grew up in and myself not hearing anything and no one is being noisy with what I am doing, Oh by the way I don’t hear anything when I put earplugs in it is like a radio frequency or TV frequency so it gets drowned out proving it isnt all in my head it is from the outside. I am like so what does it matter to you? I think sometimes they think I am dangerous with the way I think or something. It is like I watch shows and put myself as the character,and it doesn’t look good when it is a weird character or person or feels too good to think about.
In the truman show he goes to see the woman of his dreams. It reminds me when i defeated all adds and did what i wanted to do for myself. It was the trip to Niagara falls that sorta made me feel like I finally traveled as far as i could to see the person that i wanted to see. It was such a great experience and it was one of the funnest trips i ever took. The most important part is i went by myself and didnt let anyone talk me out of it. It sort of was a big turning point in my life. It is crazy what you will do for the woman of your dreams. People can try and stop you from doing what You want but i learned you have to tell people that you are going to do it and not say no because of peer pressure. That was one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.
I am doing great though in the big picture of things and trying to help people so they can understand this a little better and not have to explain it to everyone, like I need to explain anything to anybody anyways but I am an open person. I wrote a lot of poems and things, some poems in groups I joined explained what my aspect on life is. When I die it seems it will be a total blackout like when I would have a seizure but no one really knows what is in store.
I played wheelchair basketball for the past 7 years since the accident. It is fun to feel part of the team and contribute . It is a good sport to play. Recently I started playing Field Hockey. Next year is going to be the first season that i Play all year long if they have it. I been going swimming a lot too when it is warm outside.
Things now are getting even better. I got a chair in november 2007 which allows me to stand up. I feel like my old self again in a way because i can do more things than i did before. at work i can reach things again which is awesome along as make keys which is hard when it is up higher. I feel blessed about that.
