Gerry the Punk

Welcome to Head Injury Support Family. Get a cover and get ready for the crack with our inspirational podcast about how we've learned to live with our life-changing and acquired brain injuries. As we share our stories, there's lots of laughs. Learn how our brain injuries have impacted on us. We will inspire you, we will help and we sure have we survived a tragedy today. They actually came because I wanted to get a tattoo on my arm for the longest time. I then eventually I was living in Scotland before my accident. I think I was there for about nine years. And I thought of different aspects of my life. I could put into it tattoo. So they kind of started off with a pocket watch which is almost quite generic tattoo. As they say, you see it quite a lot. But the time on it is basically a time when I was unbelievably depressed and I emailed a charity organisation called SoSat, save our sons and daughters. To get help, so when I thought I should have a specific time on it, I thought I'd go for that because that's really my first step to improve my mental health. I was just nice having somewhere to go and chat openly about things which I find is quite great at best place because you can chat to people going through something very similar. On my first day when I came into Head Injury, first time I know those people laughing and joking, so after spent so long in magical facilities in Scotland, it's kind of nervous, like even waiting rooms I felt when I was at a dentist for a month's go sit in the waiting room. I just felt very uncomfortable because I'd been around that scenario negatively, so long waiting for one check up, one appointment, not normal, what was coming next. And I was just very uncomfortable, here I was very relaxed and I was the atmosphere and people laughing and joking, just kind of made it more. I don't want to say normal, but I just more welcoming. So when I left that day I knew I was going to come back here because I just wanted to, it's also something I look forward to during the week which is nice because some days very little look forward to but it just all becomes like, everything seems like I'm not Jerry anymore, I'm my accident, everything's based around my accident, so sometimes I feel like, first conversation I had when I was here was about feeling uncomfortable around family and friends because you feel like a burden, I've been able to, it sounds sadficient away but I've been able to talk to people where it's similar ideology because everything seems based around what happened to you or based around your injury but it's just kind of just slowly trying to get back to just having normal conversations or not having everything based around yourself, just being able to spend day by day and here I know you could come in and you could just complain about, like, could be just going to a shop that day, the line in queue was a bit long but it's not about how you were struggling because of your brain injury, just very generic day to day things and that is what I really found helped me, I just placed like this, so beneficial because they do save lives in a way because the same mental health when you talk to a friend and open up about your depression anxiety, you always feel so much better that day because you could be open and honest and talking does help, sounds very obvious but it really does and for a facility like this to come in and everyone's being through a similar scenario or felt the same thing, you know, sometimes the tiniest noise could just really upset you, you know, but here the loudest noise tends to be laughter which is fantastic really and that's what I really just really enjoyed about this place and like yesterday I was sitting at home having a cup of tea just thinking how much I'm looking forward to coming back here today because you know it is something I get so much from and they offer so much for you and I like the idea that it's a drop-in as well so you don't have to make an appointment, you don't have to be here at a specific time, you can just if you're in the area you can drop in and chat to people, you can do some crafts, you know, sometimes there's music, sometimes the funniest thing for me was how much I got into the bingo because even last week I'd won for a few weeks in a row and last week I met some friends that's like I'm really annoyed today and they were like why? I didn't win the bingo and for me it's just growing up playing in punk bands and just kind of doing things I shouldn't have done. My friends found a very entertaining that are now Jerry's upset because he didn't win bingo and I kind of enjoyed that aspect myself because you can just enjoy things you never thought you were going to enjoy and that's probably the only positive you get out of having a brain injury, you know, you start to appreciate the little things I was talking to a friend yesterday and it's just a lot of people asked me because it was such after my brain injury when I arrived at the Royal Enfermerie Scotland, they had told my partner that my chances of survival was 2%, so a lot of people asked me, "What do you remember from your coma or you know how much do you have any advice of what people should do going forward?" And the only advice I said to people is just enjoy the boring moments because when your life flips upside down that's what you miss and it could just be making your coffee in the morning, I hope so people splurge for the more expensive coffee by yourself and novelty mug or stupid mug which people say you shouldn't spend that much money on a mug but make that little moment in time and fish for you. When I get started even don't get annoyed because it's getting darker earlier coming to winter, look at the buildings around you, they might just seem like normal buildings or might have just seemed like normal things but look at the little beauty in the mundane because it's the little tiniest things you want to get back to and you forget you didn't realize at the time they were some of the most important moments of your life and it's slowly trying to get back into that and what I always say to people if you can try today pet a dog it does help, it does help. So I started volunteering in a dog rescue just outside the area I live and just trying to because I felt like if I have a second chance at life I should try and do something more positive for it and I found the amount I get from that volunteering helps me so much as well plus I got to see the 22 dogs in one day which is just fantastic. I was put into it an induced coma for seven months so when I was conscious again I was being informed by other people what had happened so when I arrived back to Ireland when I met people I used to get really annoyed because I shouldn't have got annoyed because they were all some people break down crying in front of me because they all got the word that our Jerry's not going to make it like at one point my family got a call from my ex partner now that they're chosen to switch off my life support because I chose no positive signs and so my family flew over to Scotland where I was living to essentially plan my funeral so from that aspect it's kind of I was unlucky but I was lucky in a way that I never had lived day by day seeing that so my family just went through my friends were here and this was going to happen so people were just getting excited when they see me or common phrase like people saying you're doing so well it's marital you're doing but when my mental health is suffering I don't feel that way and what you used to say to people okay I might seem well because you've seen me in a cafe drink a cup of coffee with you but you haven't seen me try to put a pair of socks on the morning or putting my jacket on and struggling with my left side so it's always like social media that you show or you let people know the best parts of your day by day but you don't ever take a photo of your worst parts or you don't explain to people and this is why this place really helps because everyone is so honest I know ones are embarrassed but we've all been through similar situations you know and kind of been aware like for me it was tough just trying to realise that things I struggle with now I might struggle with 10 years deadline but trying to ignore it isn't going to help anything but just open it up and chatting to people here who've been through similar scenarios and no one really offers advice but we do talk about it and that does help a lot because when I got out of hospital I just wanted to ignore the whole aspect of I wanted to get back to it where I was but got asked really interesting question yesterday and was like where was Jerry before he asked him can you explain myself a year ago as I was just like I have no idea I can't remember I really just where I could think was well I was just writing myself before y'all since I wanted to be which is probably not exactly where I wasn't but I was thinking of all my positive things about me at the time but you know day by day you're not thinking about that you know I'm out of hospital you're thinking about the worst aspects you in the moment or you're struggling making the cup of tea in the morning well I found well I found quite not silly but so I wake up in the morning I have a cup of coffee and then I have this stress ball and I'm about to turn off the ground with my left hand and try to catch up with my left hand I might spend 30 minutes in the morning chasing this ball around my kitchen and I think to myself as well just so stupid or I get frustrated and angry at myself in the moment but it's also like apart from there's people around the world would love to be in that scenario because they might be missing a limb but me two months conscious in the hospital I would have dreamt to be able to run around chasing ball you know even to be able to hold something in my left hand because I remember of just knocks things over on my left side is my numb side because when I was in a coma I had a stroke I last left my left side very numb at times I have bad tremors but also my mindset because I've had several seizures my first seizure I had I apologize to the people in hospital with me that time because I felt bad for like I felt this guilt so when I'm thinking like I've worried I have a seizure I'm all worried about being a chore or just being a burden on people around me I'm not worried my therapist a few weeks you just told me to say to myself look this is from an accident I've had an accident it's not my fault this become I was quite it's something I say out loud every so often so if I'm holding remote control then I'm trying to change channel I drop the remote I just have to say out loud look Jared you've had an accident this is just something from your accident don't let bother you but you do let the smallest things bother you and you really shouldn't look I've went through this it was a bad scenario I should be more grateful that I'm alive and speaking to you right now this is something I've seen very for the longest part this didn't seem possible I lay in rehabilitation hospital bed miserable but you know I got to walk around the corner this morning and walk into this place which I really love and the people here straight away ask me do you want to cut TV want to copy do you want to sit down and we were playing I guess the county game so we all had to pick a county in Ireland on the map and then try and guess what it was and I got three years think right now this could be debatable if you ask other people played in the game sure more people here was and says they got more correct but no but from the outside perspective people might think that sounds very little or very small this is something Jerry a year ago would have thought impossible but now it's a really fun part of my day which I will talk to friends and family later on about like a good day today because I did this and honestly people think that's smaller pathetic fuck them sorry for sure I die day of pop punk seemed ridiculous at the time but it seemed to be my ex who lived in Scotland with me it was quite funny because I've talked about growing up and like if you wore a blink 182 hoodie people make fun of you it just seemed ridiculous to like them but myself my best pal used to love them but my ex that was what they dropped the music we listened to and that wasn't heavy enough it wasn't metal enough for other people friends in school it was what was popular for her and her friends just seemed like they were living where we want to live like if you were on a skateboard going through my town you would be called there's that weirdo on the skateboard like you'd be known as that odd person who skateboards to town but from her few that was what was considered cool but thinking about punk rock for me it was something I've always come back to and when I was in the hospital I found I listened to it so the nurses used to say I'm always wearing headphones and that was the music I always listened to so yeah my first band we tried to be punk rock and one thing I've taken from it is sometimes I'm very conscious that if I'm tramring slightly or if I'm stumbling walking somewhere people might be looking at me and think I'm what wrong with that guy but then I used to dye my hair I used to have a pink mohawk so you know I didn't care then so why do I care now because now is actually a medical condition and I was chatting to a friend of mine who lives in Holland now in high school and he said the same thing I met him for a coffee and I had this hat on and I had two big bunny rabbit ears on it he's like why are you wearing that and I was like well people look at me anyway because I'm walking straight into the packet I'm just gonna I made this a gift and excuse the look at me now so it's something I always love about their movement and then in hospital I listened to it a lot more and then I moved on to playing in a more grunge metal band and then called play dead song drums butterfly so check them out make no money for once for you to see me so for me non he was just it's not no rules it's not breaking the law breaking rules it was just open expression because when I was growing off it was very not very no one got political but it was very this is the way things should be or my family wasn't overly religious or anything but it was very like corporate and you know this is the way things should be done but for me to open up and be rebellious child it was like that was everything about punk rock it was just to be different this is okay but it was just so much more progressive and I love that aspect it was like you know it seems very rebellious and do the opposite of what you should do but it was very more open than anything it was like no be yourself so like when people see maybe a singer-songwriter do a cheesy love song to me that punk rock do what you want do what's healthy for you to me this brain injury place that's punk rock no we're all going to be different everyone but you know we're come here we're inspired to be ourselves and if I walk through here a pink mohawk no one's going to be singing what's off with Jerry let's wait no they're gonna be like go that's cool I'm guaranteed the following week you'll see four other people in here at pink bohawks I'm not recommending the pink bohawk to myself so I had a normal day from what I remember I want to work and I lived in a flat in Edinburgh and we concrete spiral stairs leading up and then what happened to me corn paramedic is I fell down M staves and Dave and Kendrick's paramedics are very professional so apparently 18 steps they worked out is what I fell down and I fractured my skull and I fractured my eyes socket and I fractured all my ribs but my now ex she's a nurse as she heard false she ran down called 999 and sat wet me until the paramedics came and then I was taken to a red infirmary so I really so often I'll scratch my head I always still feel a crack in my skull parts of my skull penetrate in my brain so the only thing they could do when I was in hospital is to induce me into a coma I was apparently in on her seven months this is something like what I got informed and then when I was coming back to Ireland I had to read through the NHS files to tell my doctor here and so then I remember first memory I have is sitting in ICU up in the bed and I remember my ex sitting to the left of me and my mother sitting to write of me and then I made it joke about something and then my mother just says if he loses he says his sense of humor it's not him because if you're going to make an inappropriate joke but any moment that's me he's so and then I've just day by day after that and visitors and stuff but all I remember is I knew I was in hospital I knew the noises the beeps from this machine that machine and then the thing sticking up my nose they're my throat I just wanted to pull out and apparently I did that one time when I was asleep I got told after it and then I had a what I ever called a trackie through my throat I just remember that was ear-titting it felt like I just had a flame caught my throat constantly and then they used to come in with like the dentist vacuum ducting and they would clean it around it and I just remember that was horrible and I hated that I got so annoying that one day I just goes can I just try it myself and they let me switch the machine switch on I could do it myself which it wasn't any better but just when I had some control and knew I could stop it any second it helped me much more and then I've just different friends from rock fishing me every day but the strangest part for me was that stairwell where I fell the marsh before my accident I got stabbed by a junkie in the same stairwell so I lived in the least it was kind of cliché it has very bad drug problem and I was left to flat one day and there was a couple of heron actors trying to get into the flat across from me I had asked them what they were doing and there was a small bit of aggro I'm one them reached in their pocket and kind of knew what was coming and he swung for me with the knife and I blocked it with my arm and it only caught me a little bit and I just for me it was just denim shirt denim jacket that's what helped me in this scenario and I even call in sick for work that day as I was holding a tea towel over my arm stopped a wooden from leading which I used in a week afterwards in a job interview where I was asked can you remember in time where you're under a stressful situation where you handled it professionally so I was like I've got a good one for this and I got the job as well just when that happened after being in hospital for a day and it was very small wound on my arm to be honest one of them wins we almost in bar school the hospital vibes like I want to get a blood test and I got told by a doctor that day that unless he had stabbed someone or cut someone about 30 minutes earlier before stopped me it's very unlikely and I was like well I don't want to roll the dice I don't know what he was doing with his knife we weren't really chatting for too long it's very quick and counter-fetched I thought it wasn't a very traumatic experience for me but when I woke up in hospital that was one of my that was the last thing I could remember and I told friends I told family about why I was in hospital until they all would have to correct me and then some of them had hurt us so many times did roll my rolled their eyes and be like no Jerry that's not why you're in hospital even some people who came over from Ireland I told us and they were like did this happen and they were shocked with this scenario of what I thought was the truth they just thought of maybe he doesn't know and I can remember them moments clearly I'm kind of embarrassed a bit their moments because I was I remember telling people that but obviously it wasn't what happened but it did happen but it wasn't why it was in hospital it's very unlucky stairwell and he was so hyperdense for me is hiking in the rain true as far as and that was something I loved when I was in Scotland and I haven't got capability to do here as much but I will get back there is I just I adored hiking and I'm vogue to have a holiday in Scotland we were drive up north and we'd go hiking in Scotland and people used to get very confused going look why are you just staying in Scotland why do you do something so small like that and I would just my holidays were just walking off in their hills and that was it so much so that my birthday last year it wasn't August and my friends would want to see what did they want to do did they want to go to a show in Edinburgh and I used to I want to walk in the Patlands and we end up walking the highest peak in the Patlands which I wouldn't physically be able to do now and when we were at the top my ex-fiancé told me that it was exactly 10 months after she had been told I'll probably never walk again for me that punk rock to go back to your question or like I love that I was up with my friends we had my dog with me and it was just like the weather was like no I loved that and just being able to be on a peak of something staring out and just knowing even the troublesome bits where I was slipping a little bit as more stubborn and I remember a nurse saying to me quite early on as conscious again that from what she seemed to her career it's always at least 56% stubbornness and I was like oh no better guy tell me I can't do something I will do enjoy the boring things in life because one day there'll be the most important thing to you like I'm not saying that in a way like I hope none of you have to go true and traumatic brain injury but just enjoy the boring things and I copy something as little as looking out your kitchen window in the morning as your kettle's boiling and seeing a tree in a back garden or plants coming off and spring but just enjoy the tiny things in your life the normal things and every see friends give them a hug but yeah you don't know the next time you'll see them again but really and have good people around you you know and be honest dear friends and if that's too much for them fuck them but yeah all I can really say to people is just enjoy the little things I wake up most days and I just remember walking to work and what I would look at in the morning walking then leap walk and how much I just talk it for granted but yeah and that's really something I miss just to walk to work which stands so mundane but find a beauty in the mundane thank you for listening to our stories we hope to even spag you