Final Diagnosis. Who am I now?

There is a great danger in assigning who we are to what we do.
What we accomplish. What our profession is, what our successes are and even
what we fail at. I am now living proof of that. My entire life was geared toward
what I do. What I accomplish. What I am going to achieve.
There was always that unspoken feeling of not being enough by 'just being'.
So from an early age of 12, I started to push myself to my limits. I decided I didn't earn the
privilege of eating so I assigned myself goals to earn it. I could eat one cookie
if I ran around the block a certain number of times. I could have french fries if I did
100 sit ups. I could watch a movie if I reached a certain weight on my bench press.
I didn't feel worthy enough to allow myself to have these simple luxuries unless
I did something to earn it. I eventually channeled that type of thinking in my
career aspirations. I would set a goal and not feel worth anything until I accomplished
it. Some saw this as being driven. In a way that was correct. But when you're driven and
don't feel valuable until or unless you succeed that is a dangerous tightrope to walk.
What I didn't know 45 years ago that I know now is I've been walking around
with a brain that wasn't formed correctly from the start. I didn't know that it was
just a matter of time before the rug would be pulled out from underneath me. I would
no longer be the person I was nor would I be capable of achieving what used to come
naturally. To a person that has identified themselves by what they accomplish,
hearing the words 'Major Neurocognitive Disorder' from a Psychologist is devastating.
I walked around in a daze for a couple of weeks. I went through the stages of grief-
denial, anger, apathy, sadness and I'd like to say I'm at acceptance but I don't think
I am there yet. I am breathing. I am getting out of bed, getting dressed and trying
to be ok with my new normal. I've felt the way I do now for a year at least but now
it has a label. Now the thing I have been feeling is undeniable. It has been exposed,
I have been exposed. The world now sees. So who am I now?
I don't have that answer yet.
I had a conversation with my step son today. He told me that when he first met
me 4 years ago, he didn't think I was capable of much. (Gotta love the honesty of an
8 year old) He continued to say that hearing stories of what I accomplished in the past
has surprised him and changed his view of me. He says that I am stronger than he thought
I was in the beginning. This prompted me to tell him more stories and reminisce of things
I have achieved. But then, I go into a room where it's quiet and the voice inside me asks,
"Who are you now?"
I am a woman that was born with a damaged brain. I am a woman that was born with
fetal alcohol syndrome, hydrocephalus, brain atrophy and a partial corpus collasum and
I survived. I made it through birth, infancy, the terrible twos, teenage angst, tumultuous
adulthood to a half of a century. I am no longer wheelchair bound, I am not bed bound as before, I am
not comatose, I am not in a vegetative state.
I am that once in a life time type of miracle.
So now, when I think of all that I have accomplished,
I realize that sometimes 'just being'
really is enough.