April Fool's day is very stressful
for me. It is hard enough to follow what people are saying. Oftentimes I find
myself stretching to grasp where people are coming from when the say something
to me. Very often things don't quite make sense or seem right.
And then you get a day where people
are purposely trying to catch one another off their guard.
"Did
you hear we're supposed to get a foot of snow today?"
"Really!?"
"April
Fools!"
Ordinarily that's just good fun, but
when a person with a brain injury is the victim it can be quite mean. Everybody
feels like a fool when they fall for something like that, and the joker feels
quite clever to have put one over on somebody. But it is a painful reminder to
a person with a brain injury that they have problems with processing
information. Sure, it can happen to anybody, that's the spirit of the April
Fools holiday, but for a person with a brain injury everyday seems like that
and to have a day that is specifically meant to do that fills them with dread.
So, if you don't have a brain injury,
imagine this; What if every day was like April Fool's Day? What if every
conversation you were in had the potential of ending in a "Gotcha!"
Imagine how that would fill your day with trepidation. You have to admit that
it would get quite tiresome. On April first it is hard for anyone to keep up
their guard, sooner or later somebody is going to yell, "April Fool's!"
and they will be caught. If it happens too often it gets very tiresome very
quickly.
That's what brain injury is like every
day. Except people aren't even trying to pull one over on you, it just feels
like it. They might as well yell, April Fool's life!"
