The picture on the lift is of my television. Actually it is a framed print but my television is behind it.  My husband Michael and I don’t watch television but we have one so we can play DVDs or watch special programs.  He’s really involved with bird watching and he found this print but he hasn’t hung it yet. Since we rarely watch television, this seemed as good a place as any to put it. The funny part is, we kind of like it there because it hides the television!

What is it with our society and televisions?  They seem to be every where.  At one point the post office even had one so we’d have something to watch as we waited in line. Yesterday after swimming at the Y, I was getting dressed when someone turned on the television in the locker room.  It was some stupid daytime show and I wasn’t interested in it at all.

My inability to filter out sound makes a blaring television really difficult for me.  People say they just like the background noise but I can’t have background noise and still function.  My brain no longer allows me to divide my attention so its not just background noise to me.  I turned on my hair dryer and the woman promptly turned the volume up so she could hear it.  

When I get over stimulated, which is what was happening to me, I become tense and short tempered.  I can only remain in that environment for a short time.  If it is a setting where I can turn the television off, I do so.  If not, I remain in the environment for as little as possible.

If you have a brain injury, do noisy televisions bother you? What about other sorts of stimulation: noisy rooms, music at dinner, or anything else?  Feel free to comment here or email me directly at I’m in the process of switching this blog to word press since commenting is much easier there. I had hoped brain injury survivors could share their challenges here but commenting is too difficult.