I used to skate and do a lot of really stupid shit but never hurt myself much. Except one time when I was about 14.

While waiting to go to Blockbuster with the family, I decided to go into the backyard and try to "surf" the hammock. I jumped onto the hammock, totally hands-free, and began pumping to gain momentum like you would on a half-pipe or a swing. I got the hammock swinging up to a full 180 degrees, with my body almost at a flat horizontal at the height of the swing. After a couple of minutes, thought I better not push my luck so I slowed down to almost a stop, but when I went to jump off, my foot got stuck, causing my feet to stay with the hammock and my skull to accelerate rapidly into the bricks.

My family said they heard a sickening crack from inside the house. They ran out and saw me just standing, looking all vacant. They led me inside to lie on the couch, despite my oddly extreme determination to make it to Blockbuster. It was early afternoon, but I fell asleep instantly until the next morning. Decided not to go to school and slept through that day too. Worst part was, my parents thought I was faking the whole thing for some reason.

I took me months to remember that I was even on the hammock, and years to piece together the finer details. But one thing that I never forgot was the sensation of the concussion in the 3 or so seconds it took for my family to find me standing. I don't know how to describe it. My entire being felt like an intensely vibrating void.

These days, 15+ years on, and my brain is a mess. I have poor levels of cognition, have trouble holding any kind of train of thought, have trouble holding conversations, my memory is atrocious, I'm chronically depressed, and I get a lot of headaches. I am always doing stupid shit like putting the milk in the pantry and cutlery in the bin. It makes me so angry. I'm unemployed right now because I'm so sick of fucking everything up at work.

A few years ago my psychiatrist sent me to a university to take part in a day-long psych evaluation which was kinda like a giant IQ test. Weirdly, I smashed it, and was in the 95th-98th percentile for most tests. Yet in day-to-day life I'm a total fucking moron. A real-life Homer Simpson.

So whether these cognitive deficits are concussion-related, I don't know. But I was fine before the hammock incident, and now, not so much.

I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say so I'll stop blathering. Here's to an early dementia, yay :(