RJam and others,

Everything you are experiencing is common to PCS and very real. The basis for these struggles are simple. The concussed brain often is damaged in a specific area that provides the processing for filtering sensory information and maintaining focus. Normal functioning brains can easily shut out (filter out) the 90+ percent of our environment that is not relevant to our current thought processes. For those of us with PCS, this filtering often does not work effectively, it at all.

So, when in a room with 3 different conversations going on, the brain is at overload trying to make sense of all three at the same time, even if we are not interested in any of those conversations. This leaves the brain acting like the metal ball in a pin ball machine. It gets caught bouncing from one sensory input to another with little, if any control.

AndromedaJulie has fortunately figure this out and has the support of her husband.

There are ways to function better with this problem. Our family and friends need to know that unless they have eye contact, they are not going to be heard. If they do have eye contact, they will be able to tell that/when we are being distracted by other things in the room.

They also need to understand that multitasking is not in our game plan. We can either chop lettuce and not talk to them or we can talked to them with a knife in our hands and chop fingers along with the lettuce.

So, if someone wants to have a conversation with us, they need to be looking at our eyes as we look at theirs. It may even help if they touch our hand. It will also help if there are no background sounds, TV, radio, others speaking, etc. Even a muted TV can be a distraction as the picture changes and our eyes and attention want to see what that movement is about.

People need to know, we are not being disrespectful. Our brains are just not working as well as theirs are. We have little control over this problem except to say, "I can only do one thing at a time. I can feed my turtles or I can listen to you. I can't do both. "

This is why many of us should be very careful about our choice to drive. This distractability can cause accidents with dire consequences.

I've lived with these issues for 15 years. For some of us, they get better. For others, we have to learn ways to live with and work around these struggles.

My best to you all.