Paul,

Your last paragraph is so spot on with my experience, I get hit with the same thunderbolt and of course our instinct is to just push through! That in no way works now. I have had trouble with public because I don't know when it will hit and my best offense against it is as you say....lay down and close my eyes or pull my bible out.

Bud

Yes, absolutely. Time out is the only solution. Pushing through makes a very bad situation even worse.

On the positive side, I eventually found that I could get fairly well restored by even a short episode of "doze time". Of course, any dozing would depend on where you are. If a doze is possible, I was surprised to find that even a few minutes was great. ...Though, if some dozable peace/quiet is possible, there's a risk of sleeping long, (which may disrupt the day-night cycle, if that's got settled).

... Just finding that a short doze could be a remedy was a big morale-booster, I found.

And by the way, I always went everywhere with earplugs and an airline eyes-mask. Not that I really used them all that much, but having them in my pocket was a comfort somehow, and I suppose I did use them a fair bit. After TBI, as you very probably will have experienced, we're not able to screen out or filter all the sounds and sights coming in order to auto-select just the ones we want to attend to. I think that all the stimuli crashing in (particularly the sounds, even smaller ones) contributes to tiredness (and anxiety, itself tiring too). Earplugs don't insulate enough but they help. ...I finally don't currently still have earplugs/mask in my pocket the whole time; I think the difficulty (mine and others I've talked with) does get better.

Paul,

I am currently becoming less worried about a nap....the sleep issue really had me quite scared to take a nap or rest fearing I would lose even more sleep.

I am doing better at slowing down now and calming the anxiety.

Bud