soccer,

That is the nature of a brain injury. There is no possible way of predicting when one of these times is going to pop up. I call them "brain farts" or when I all of a sudden get confused, it is "spaghetti brains." Often, I will realize the screw up right after I do it. Ohter times, my wife will pull me aside.

My worst problem is getting my right and left hands to stay coordinated. I can use each hand individually with out a problem. If I need to use both hands at the same time, I can be doing fine until all of a sudden, it is like they have become connected to different brains.

I have tasks I do to try to exercise my brain at doing two handed tasks. Typing is one. I can be doing great then all of a sudden, my right hand is typing faster that my left hand. 'And' becomes 'nad' I will capitalize the second letter when the first was supposed to be capitalized.

These are all common symptoms of the brain losing its timing or processing out of sync. Sometimes, it will appear that my environment has sped up and I am stuck on slow motion.

soccer, this is just your brain telling you that it is struggling. There is nothing you can do to change this or prevent it from happening. The best way to handle it is to learn to recognize it and take a break from the action. The sooner you stop and take a break, the sooner you can get back to normal. The longer you fight it, the greater your chance of it getting worse. Then you will need a more serious break or may put yourself or others at risk.

I was building a garage at my cabin in the mountains. My wife would watch me from the window. She commented how she would see me just looking at the project and she would wonder what I was designing. In the past, I would get stuck in deep though designing a fix to something. She thought this was the case. I corrected her misconception. Now, it usually means I am stuck trying to get my brain back on track. I have lost my place in my task and am trying to figure out what I was doing.

I had these struggles in 5th and 6th grade. My teachers thought I was daydreaming. I know it was getting caught in a brain fog.

By helping others understand this, they hopefully learn that I am not ignoring them. A friend commented to my wife asking, " Does Mark sometimes 'go inside himself'?" He was referring to those looks where I was not connecting to my surroundings. She knew how to respond. She told him that this was when my brain was struggling to make sense of what was going on.

I am more prone to this if the environment gets real busy or chaotic. I will easily zone out if too many people are talking or there is too much activity.

I really think this is what is happening in your brain. It is just overloaded and needs to slow down to sort things out.

This can be a dangerous situation if it happens when you are driving. It happened to me when a driving therapist was trying to help me with driving. I was driving through a busy intersection. There were pedestrians, bicycles, and numerous cars. By the time I got across the intersection, it was all I could do to pull to the curb and stop. My brain was spinning.

This is life with a brain injury. There are plenty of skills that can be learned to overcome some of these events or to avoid them. First, one needs to accept that they are real events and not just imagined.

Three years ago, I cut off a finger with a power saw when I got overwhelmed with too much stimuli. Fortunately, it was just my pinky on my left hand. It is not as important as an index finger or thumb.

You need to have a good sit down talk with your coach. She needs to be watching out for you. You can decide on some secret words or signals to communicate without having to reveal everything to your team mates.

Do you have an athletic trainer at school? If so, she would be a good start for this discussion. Does your school use the ImPACT system for concussions? If so, it means your school has at least a basic understanding of the risks of concussion in sports.

Trying to push through it will not solve your struggles. You need to make some changes. These changes are what was referred to as Plan B and Plan C.

I hope you understand what we are saying.