April Fool's day is very stressful for me. It is hard enough to follow what people are saying. Oftentimes I find myself stretching to grasp where people are coming from when the say something to me. Very often things don't quite make sense or seem right.
And then you get a day where people are purposely trying to catch one another off their guard.
"Did you hear we're supposed to get a foot of snow today?"
"Really!?"
"April Fools!"
Ordinarily that's just good fun, but when a person with a brain injury is the victim it can be quite mean. Everybody feels like a fool when they fall for something like that, and the joker feels quite clever to have put one over on somebody. But it is a painful reminder to a person with a brain injury that they have problems with processing information. Sure, it can happen to anybody, that's the spirit of the April Fools holiday, but for a person with a brain injury everyday seems like that and to have a day that is specifically meant to do that fills them with dread.
So, if you don't have a brain injury, imagine this; What if every day was like April Fool's Day? What if every conversation you were in had the potential of ending in a "Gotcha!" Imagine how that would fill your day with trepidation. You have to admit that it would get quite tiresome. On April first it is hard for anyone to keep up their guard, sooner or later somebody is going to yell, "April Fool's!" and they will be caught. If it happens too often it gets very tiresome very quickly.
That's what brain injury is like every day. Except people aren't even trying to pull one over on you, it just feels like it. They might as well yell, April Fool's life!"
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