roadrunner,

For me, I had to do an inventory of my god and reliable functions, those functions that are hit and miss, and those functions that are just not there anymore.

With this information, one can start to build a life and personality.

I know that I can not trust my gut responses most of the time. This limitation must also be combined with my flat affect. This it the characteristic of me that others see the most. I have to almost assemble a person and choose to live as that person. It means that I set some additional limits on myself as I interact with others.

For me, that means I need to avoid persons who tend to cause conflict, like two neighbors who are cops. They have very domineering personalities.

I have other acquaintances that I can interact with but know I need to be cautious. If they are in a controlling mood, I tread lightly. If/when they are more personable, I can speak more openly and candidly.

I also know that there are days when I need to limit my interaction with others.

As my wife recognized, I will categorize my days as to whether they are driving days or not. Same goes for interpersonal relationships.

Try to be ready to tell a friend in response to an invitation or other request, "Today's not a good day for that."

Those friends who have witnessed you struggle can be given the full explanation so that they can understand the simple "Today's not a good day."

For me, I have a number of factors that I combine to come to a decision. For example, my daughter is having a "gender reveal party" on Monday evening to announce the gender of the 'buns in the oven.' I know that there will be too many voices with one of them being overly domineering and another being too annoyingly cackling. I will likely be staying home.

I also limit the other tasks or activities based on a accumulation of factors. There are days when I don't use power saws. Again, a 'no driving' day.

In many cases, it just means I need to schedule my days so that I do not have too many busy days in a row.

Next Brain Injury Support Group get together, we will be having a bowling party. I will be laying low during to day so I have the energy for the evening activities.

I go to the movies when the theater has less people, especially less noisy kids.

So, you may find that you have a few different personalities to 'manage.'

Think of it as a monthly budget. There is only so much in the bank to draw from to spend. A little bit of planning and you can still make it to the end of the month with something left.

Hope this makes sense.

I am currently trying to decide how much effort I want to commit to for some future goals and opportunities.

We had a special speaker at Support Group last month. She lives by a motto.

"It's not how you survive the storm, but how you dance in the rain."

She suffered a severe brain injury while training for the Olympics that ended her Olympic goals. She now has traveled the world competing in the Paralympics and has won Gold twice. She does some motivational speaking and has not let her injury stop her. Her continuing disabilities are very similar to those of us with permanent PCS, word finding, over-stimulation, memory, personality issues, etc.

So, we can still dance in the rain. We just need to stay away from the thunderstorms and tornadoes.