The Stranger Inside of Me

By Randal H. Flutur

The phenomena of closed head injury have plagued our society since
its inception.

From the stress and horror of our wars (now Iran and Iraq), with the violent impacts in our most aggressive sports, to the mundane trauma of falling off a bike or getting hit in the head by a swing or a bat or a ball, the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) have become such an accepted way of life, that many do not even know that they have suffered a closed head injury and how dramatically it influences their everyday actions and reactions.

Its often frequent companion, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is now so recognized that public violence and catastrophic natural disasters demand psychologists to minimize the effects of this recognized condition.

For twenty-seven years, the author has had to fight his horrible battle with TBI and PTSD alone, with little help from even the most informed.

In the last five years, these maladies have become widely recognized. Only recently has the medical profession and the news media discussed TBI and PTSD openly in televised documentaries.

The author, in a deeply personal and poignant way, has put into words the gamut of feelings, which so many others who suffer and deal with TBI and PTSD have been unable to articulate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481773287

Randal H. Flutur

Born in Detroit, Michigan, and residing in a small northern Michigan town for forty years after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Michigan State University, he has been a college professor, a psychologist, a registered tree farmer, and an entrepreneur. He is also a master photographer, concert pianist, and author of three books. He has had seven children and lost three, and he currently enjoys seven grandchildren. He has traveled halfway around the world and back and loves the beauty, peace, and solitude of nature. He has cheated death four times and has known joy beyond words. He believes that the truest and most positive qualities in life are beauty and kindness. He is a self-awareness advocate and believes that it produces great personal power in those who have it and use it. Finally, he believes that the road to God is through a relationship with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Please enjoy and embrace the personal revelations in this book.

Book preview

LIFE WITH A HEAD INJURY

Forgive me - -

when I forget your name,

when I forget what day it is, or what place I am in,

when I sleep too long, fade away, or pass you by unattended,

when I ask you something that you have explained to me

      five times before.

I am sorry for angry words

or the rage that makes me strike out

in ways that make me feel ashamed and estranged.

You see - -

I am just trying to find myself

in the memory of me that got lost

a tragic night ago.

My emotions are all confused.

They tell my body of things that cannot be.

So I try in vain

   to be someone who is strange to me,

   to be someone who I do not like

   but now have to take as my own

   because of a choice that is no longer mine.

A long sleep would be better - -

   a sleep from which I did not wake.

There is no pain in sleep,

   as there was no pain in the shock of the accident

   that took my self away some fatal three years ago.

I cannot try harder - -

   I am trying just as hard as I can

      to live today.

I sleep so much to take away the pain.

   There is not a minute of an hour in a day

      that I am free of pain.

Inside, outside - - it is always there

   as a reminder of the frailty of life.

I long for peace - -

   the heat and the cold hurt my bones;

too much to see makes me confused so I have to turn away;

   noise beats me down and makes me run for quiet;

odors turn my stomach sour and make it hard for me to eat.

I know now that I will never be the same - -

   I am constantly fighting for things

      that used to come naturally.

To yield means to give up to me.

There was nothing before that I could not

   conquer, master, or control.

I now am fighting for my life - -

   firstly, not to take it,

   secondly, to accept what I have left of me,

   thirdly, to try to grow into a person

whose life will again have some meaning and purpose.

A NEW ME

I am sorry that I turned away

   when your eyes caught mine today.

I have been looking at pictures of who I used to be

   before my self was crushed into little pieces

   a fatal night ago.

My eyes were filled with life and love and hope and joy

   of a baby son soon to arrive and make my life complete.

I was in total control.

My life was written like a poem,

   only to be acted out in time,

   perfectly orchestrated and carefully sequenced,

   with all of the players ready and rehearsed.

Life had been hard and lived hard with no restraints or

   reservations. I was almost there - -

and then I hit the wall that I had been walking on for so long.

Head injured and unconscious, totally unaware

   of who I was, where I was, why I was,

I was thrown into a new me

   that I have to take, but do not like or understand.

I no longer feel - - I think my feelings.

I no longer act - - I react.

I no longer smile - - I cry out in my emotional pain

in the still small hours of the morning.

I no longer make love - - I just have sex.

I no longer relate - - I have confrontations.

I no longer control - - I am controlled.

I no longer know me - - I am lost in a new self

   that desperately tries to protect itself

   without any regard for the other.

That is why I can let you pass by,

   not wanting