The Opportunity of Obstacles!

FAILING TO FAIL!

Joseph Brann

Today, to try and help you, I’ll talk about a few of the 113 brain damaged challenges I’ve faced and work to overcome since my wreck, but please don’t feel sorry for me. Remember, these obstacles are my opportunity to hopefully help you realize you can be positive no matter what you face, even though you might not always feel positive. Also, I hope you’ll learn from my accident, and not from having one yourself, that you need to be careful so you don’t end up like me, or worse, facing more challenges than you’d ever want to, so PLEASE be careful!

Due to a stroke, the peripheral vision I had in my right eye is completely gone and some vision in my left eye is gone too so I have “tunnel vision” and I don’t drive. I have a condition called prosopagnosia, yep that’s A BIG word from someone with brain damage! Prosopagnosia’s also known as “face blindness” and means I can’t recognize faces, so I usually recognize people by their voices. Miraculously I’ve been able to recognize more faces but once I saw a picture of myself and thought it was my brother-in-law who looks NOTHING like me, he’s NOWHERE near as attractive as I am! Just kidding, he’s a good looking guy, but we look NOTHING alike. I don’t recognize the face in the mirror LITERALLY! That’s just crazy!

I’m in pain almost NONSTOP all over my entire body but it’s the worst in the most sensitive places, such as my eyes. The last of my trials I’ll speak specifically about today is going to be depression. I battle depression just about daily for multiple reasons. First of all, in a split second I lost my entire life and everything I’d worked so hard for in my first 17 years of being alive. I’ve been told the part of my brain controlling depression has been damaged so I technically "should be" depressed. Sometimes I get depressed, sometimes severely depressed, but I still decide to fight it. People usually have NO IDEA I’m fighting depression because I don’t want it to be known. I overcome depression by pushing on, even when I feel like I’m just a brain damaged freak, I know I’m much more than that. I hope you know how incredible you truly are. If you’re facing depression, I’m sorry but KEEP going and you will overcome it!

As I’ve said, all of my obstacles are opportunities to hopefully help you. So THANK YOU for helping me find the positive in spite of the negative. Though I’ve spent many years afraid to wake up to my reality, you’ve helped me to find the good in and even love my situation, thanks again. If you want good in life, BE THE GOOD IN LIFE! If you want to be happy, BE HAPPY! It’s your decision. Until reading my next blog and even after, remember keep FAILING TO FAIL!