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Cracked: Recovering After Traumatic Brain Injury Lynsey Calderwood, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (page 2 of 2) Page 2 of 2

— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 2

Sometimes at night I would retreat to my room, look at my school photographs and read poems I had written. But instead of feeling closer to my past, I felt encumbered by the details of someone else’s life.

‘I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I.’

— Alice’s Adventures inWonderland, Chapter 2

I keep a stash of memories on the tip of my tongue, in case I am in strange company that requires me to talk about my childhood and I don’t want to explain myself: my invisible friends were called Christopher and Treebarcha; I had an eye operation when I was seven; children at school used to call me ‘Barbara Taylor Bradford’ on account of the pages of stories I used to write.

One of my favourite ‘memories’ is a story told to me by my younger sister, Nikki. She says that when we were younger I was the well-behaved child and she was the naughty one. She never misses an opportunity to tell me about the time when I poured a bowl of cornflakes over my own head. She had been annoying me, and I wanted to get her back. I was believed and Nikki was sent to her room but I think, in retrospect, I would have preferred her punishment to feeling my mother’s fingers raking through my hair as she washed out all the soggy cornflakes.

My life was complicated: at fourteen years old I became public property. Everyone thought they were entitled to know who I was because of my disability. I hated this most of all. No one has the right to divulge my life history without my consent. But I didn’t really have a choice. I was like some curious glass artefact. Everyone was afraid to handle me in case I broke; they didn’t even know what was wrong with me. I’d look at myself in the mirror, and wonder who I was staring at.

It can’t possibly be me. I wish I would just wake up…and pretend that nothing ever happened…and that all of this, was just a nightmare…

But I couldn’t seem to wake up.

The inside of my skull vibrated like jelly. Words came to me slowly and fuzzily. I kept forgetting the names of things, and I constantly described objects that I had forgotten the names for. I used more difficult words to name simple things. Long, elaborate and complicated words were easier to remember. I became very frustrated, often shaking my head and saying ‘I don’t know’. My memory loss embarrassed me. I didn’t like the way people looked at me as I stumbled over the words to describe a bike or a car.

‘Ok. Take your time. Just one more test,’ said the psychologist woman. She placed a blank piece of paper and took the little picture cards away. ‘Can you draw the bike for me?’ I sat squinting, trying to remember the simple image. Trying to remember what a bike looked like

…mmm…wheels, I know it has wheels…and handlebars…

I draw two round circles for wheels then collapse in tears, as I can’t remember the rest. ‘Ok. That’s fine. That’s enough,’ she soothed. Abysmally, I had failed yet again.

* * *

All my life, I’ve sought recognition and understanding. Ever hungry for admiration, all I’ve ever wanted is for people to like me. My insecurity and insatiable appetite for praise sprang from the ambition to live up to the memory of the other Lynsey. She died seven years ago, on exactly the same day as I was born. Everyone adored the other Lynsey. At first I longed to be just like her. I tried to adopt her personality, her likes and dislikes. I just wanted everyone to accept me. My family would tell countless stories about their other daughter, how wonderful she was, how flawless.

* * *

I was going to be called Lynn, Lynda or Lynsey. ‘Eventually,’ said my mum, ‘we just picked your name out of a hat!’ Lynsay, Lyndsay, Lindsay, Linsay, Linsey and Linzi — these are just a few of the befuddled variations that I’ve been graced with over the years. Even my closest friends fail to spell my name correctly on birthday and Christmas cards. The one I really, especially, hate being called, though, is ‘Lesley’.

At school, I hated sharing my name with two other girls and I resigned myself to being called by my surname: Calderwood. Of course, to complicate matters further, our class had two Donnas and three Garys.

After three years of living at 74c High Street, I became quite used to misspellings and mistaken identities but nothing had prepared me for the day when I received a letter addressed to: Mr Wendy Auldwood, 74 Sea-High Street.

Excerpted from Cracked: Recovering After Traumatic Brain Injury by Lynsey Calderwood. © 2003 Lynsey Calderwood. Reprinted with permission from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Third-party printing prohibited. For more information, go to www.jkp.com/catalogue/book/9781843100652.

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