Yes, my assailant was caught. Was determined to be "unfit to stand trial." Inpatient care in mental health facility. Eventual probation.

Wiix, Sorry about damage from a stroke and related symptoms.

DejaVu

A stroke is an ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) as opposed to a concussion, which is a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). The important thing is that both are brain injuries. The mechanism is different, but the consequences are often similar. You are a member of our little brain boo boo club.

Even though ABI and mTBI/concussions can have lots of overlap, strokes often have more severe dysfunctions in the damaged area with less to no dysfunction in the other areas. Some strokes can have symptoms similar to a penetrating TBI due to the localized damage.

Many concussions include diffuse injuries such as diffuse axonal injuries.

That is why concussions can have such wide ranging symptoms without a specific severe symptom.

True enough. With a stroke, it's location, location, location. My uncle, who had a stroke, struggles mostly with his speech. Me, with a diffuse axonal injury, has a bevy of deficits.

Back to the topic of conversations, I, too, get overwhelmed trying to talk/listen in rooms where there's too much noise and/or overlapping conversations.

However, my biggest communication issue is talking on the telephone. I will do just about anything to avoid a phone conversation. I just can't stay focused on a disembodied voice. In one way that's doubly odd because, being averse to eye contact, I rarely look at people when I'm conversing face to face.

Are any of the rest of you phone phobic?

Yea, I was wondering why I never answer the phone. I used to but not now. I just hate it.

As with many posters prior to myself, I too struggle with long conversations, particularly when I need to focus. Also as mentioned, meetings with counsellors/pyschologists/doctors/etc. tend to be very difficult and intense for me.

Just yesterday I met with a child psychologist for 60 min. I had difficulty focusing, needed to ask her to slow down, and sometimes completely got lost on what was being said. I also went through phases where I squint and my blink rate goes insanely high. When all was said and done, my mind was exhausted. It'll take me about 7 days of worse headaches and mood change to recover from this.

There was an interesting post on "mental flooding" recently (http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread224171.html). It's worth a look as there are a couple links that are fantastic and relate to this thread.

I agree. most appointments are exhausting. An hour is more than enough.
One of my specialists likes to go for 2-3 hours. It used to be "fun," as we'd both get to talking about published studies, possible studies, etc. Now, it's too much. I saw her recently and asked if we could go 45 minutes and re-schedule in order to continue. She'd agreed to this, of course.

I don't make phone calls anymore in order to visit. It's too difficult to stay focused. I lose track of the conversation and then likely seem disinterested. I am interested, yet in over my head as far as tolerance goes. I cannot converse as easily now. I feel very "duh" a lot of the time.

To our healing,
DejaVu

You don't seem "Duh" here. As a matter of fact you seem very "Un Duh".

I am "un-duh" pressure.

Wiix,

I am getting better at writing. I have had great difficulty writing. I was too foggy all of the time. I had no thoughts, no reactions to something someone else might write, etc. I wasn't even sure of what anyone had meant in their posts or writing. I could not remember the beginning of a sentence in order to write the rest of the sentence. My vocabulary was very limited. Still is, yet improving.

I still hit huge walls and have to stop, as my brain shuts down. I try to find the cues to this before it happens.

DejaVu