City/State: Williamsburg

Brain Injury: Motor Vehicle Accident, 1977

Explanation of mask: Most people can’t see my chronic injuries and neither could I for many years. My brain injury was diagnosed 26 years after I totaled by baby blue Volkswagen Beetle. By that time, the lowlevel pain from emotional and physical injuries had left me tired-to-thebone, angry, and suicidal. For years, no doctors could help me, I couldn’t understand what was wrong, and I thought I was crazy. Finally, in 2003, I saw a neuropsychologist. Slowly, slowly, I have learned that my difficulties are real, brain-based, and chronic. My mask is divided to illustrate that I have left-sided upper motor neuron damage. This neurological damage resulted in conditions with many names: hemiparesis (weakness), hemiparesthesia (loss of normal sensation, “pins and needles” or “sandpaper” skin), spasticity (muscles continuously contracted). I also have tinnitus (ear-ringing) and central auditory processing delay (left ear hears slightly behind the right). In addition to this physical damage, the blow to my brain’s frontal lobe damaged “executive skills” needed to solve-problems on the fly and make good decisions quickly. I have been clinically depressed, anxious, and impulsive. I am a slow processor. I’ve taken lots of pills for these things, but I have finally found the best medicines of all: meditation and yoga (represented by the third eye) and a little rescue dog named Cici, whose sweet love has rescued me. My life’s purpose is to be present, to practice loving kindness, and to put one foot in front of the other on the bodhisattva path.