As a sorta-distant friend – OK, OK, acquaintance – said to me recently, “You can’t expect to go through so much trauma and not be different.” And I absolutely dismissed his opinion, coz hey – I hardly know the fucker, so who is he to opine?

Plus, I’m totally of the opinion that I’m the same – please see the fifty references in earlier posts about not being retarded and being fine.

But, just like how people didn’t tell me that I was beginning to look to buff before the accident, I now get accounts like, “Oh yeah, you were still pretty fucked up when you got out of rehab.” So they may be on to something.

The thing is, I feel exactly the same now as I did then, when I was discharged. But, according to reports, I was definitely ‘slow’, and ‘disconnected’ back then. I quizzed my mum, and apparently yeah I was a little bit slow, she says.

A friend has told me that I’ve ‘lost the spark in my voice’. And another friend has told me, in a roundabout fashion, that I’m now a bit of a cunt, so have I had counseling?

Being analytical has always been one of my strengths – or dismissively analytical as the case may be, because I dismissed most ‘complaints’ due to what I’ve perceived as environmental factors. I’m not working; I’m not doing anything; so of course I’m a bit flat.

I do feel like I’m progressively more of myself back though, not that I’d ever admit that a part of me was ‘missing’. The cunt remark, for example, I’ve established is due to the fact that I’ve always been a bit of a cunt (to the point where my old nickname was ‘The Cunt’), but I would dress it up a bit and probably make a joke. That power recently went walkabout, so I would just come out with a cunty comment and leave it hanging thickly in the air.

I hadn’t really identified it earlier, but in a way I knew I was doing it; or, more to the point, I knew social interactions weren’t as fun for me as they used to be. (Being a plain old cunt in nowhere near as good as being a funny cunt.) I feel like I’m getting back on track now though, but as always my friends will be happy to report back if there’s any discrepancies.

I have changed emotionally though, and this I totally put down to environmental factors (feel free to step in and correct me at any point here).

My best mate and I now call me ‘needy’. I’m not asking for heaps from people or anything, it’s just that I’m at home all day while they’re at work, so when they’re free to do something, I treat it as a given that they should do something with me. Which, obviously, is not apparent to all. Or anyone.

I’m pretty vulnerable. I met a guy that I fancied pretty hardcore back in December, and even though we “just” had an awesome chat and swapped numbers, I thought I was in. Like, totally in. So, I sent him a text message. Then waited a couple of days, didn’t hear back, so texted again. Gave that one a couple of days, then – shock, horror – in a totally not gen-Y move, I tried calling him. It rang out to voicemail. Long story short, even though by this point I figured the guy wasn’t interested, I had to be rejected before I could move on. Thanks to stalking him on Facebook, I finally got it sometime in February. Poor fucker.

Stil on the vulnerability, I’m very open to persuasion. My sister has been reading the blog, and after one entry (part 12, from memory) she texted me to ask if I’m OK, because I “sound depressed”. I wasn’t, but immediately I thought, OH MY GOD MAYBE I’M DEPRESSED. I also use my Facebook status to update when I put up a new chapter to this series, and a friend commented on a recent one and put, “YAAAAAAAAAWN.” And I thought, am I… am I boring people? She maintains she was being a smart arse, but that kinda stuff does hit me quite effectively now.

I am having memory problems though – to the point where I totally forgot to mention it when I originally posted this entry, so this is a hasty addition. They warned me my short-term memory would be shonky in rehab. They were right. I don’t forget anything significant, but stupid little things. For example, I forgot that my sister, her husband and I had played Guitar Hero together, until I suggested playing it again, only to be told we already had a few weeks ago. My counselors suggest making a diary to help me keep track of goings on, but I just would never write “We played Guitar Hero” in a diary due to its insignificance. I’m am quite hard on myself for my memory though – if I’m watching TV and there’s a guest star, I’ll beat myself up if I can’t remember their name. My long term memory should be unaffected though, so check me out beating myself up all Catholic-style for no reason.

Physically, I have no hangovers. Sure, I was wearing a neck collar to help my collarbone heal for a while, and district nurses had to come to my house every day to change over the lining, but beyond that, there’s not a lot. I can’t jog due to my ankle pin, though I’ve only attempted to do so once which resulted in a bit of pain. I have some weird numbness above my left knee but it’s too vague to describe to even ask for assistance with, especially considering I have no damage on that side of my body.

It’s also disheartening to note that I now have no particular affliction to crossing the road or being generally more aware of vehicles. It defies belief, but I haven’t managed to walk away from the whole experience with any grand life lessons.

The problem being: amnesia. Everything that’s reported back to me is everything funny that happened – the shit I was talking while in PTA, that sorta thing. It’s hard for me to grasp that it was probably a gravely traumatising experience for most involved, especially for my family and the friends that were either on the scene, or waited patiently for me to come out of a coma. But I called my sister a yuppie cunt to her face, isn’t that hilarious!