Time confusion after my brain surgery

Note: This post has been moved from my old Wordpress blog, which I don’t expect to update anymore.

I think one of the most difficult to explain consequence of my brain injury is time confusion. If someone asks you what day we are on, you’ll probably be able to answer with security and confidence in just milliseconds, or at least seconds.

I know It’s maybe difficult to understand, but I wasn’t able to answer with that confidence the first weeks after my surgery. I know this sounds rare, but I wasn’t even able to know what year I was on. Yes, I knew how to look for the day and the year in my smartphone’s calendar, but It’s like one part of my brain was pretty sure of having already lived in that year (say 2021), and the other part of my brain saw that year like the future. Somehow I felt like Marty McFly, travelling through time.

At first, my neuropsychologist made me draw a lot of timelines, both about personal events and about world events and news. She probably made me do them with the best of the intentions to evaluate my memory damage, but I hated that exercise (probably because it made me realize how lost I was).

I’ve now realized that this is a common sequel after a brain injury, but believe me, it’s a very rare feeling.