Objects in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear

In this insightful and entertaining memoir, a corporate manager, flung into short-term memory loss from a car accident, struggles with self-identity and underdiagnosis of her condition.

“It is one matter to forget things when you have a million thoughts flooding your mind and quite another to forget when your head is as empty as a looted store.”—from Remind Me Why I’m Here

In the spring of 1996, Diana Lund was a top-ranked project manager in her mid-thirties when a car accident instantly changed her personality and her life’s direction. Thrust into short-term memory loss and cognitive deficit, knowing herself was like knowing a ghost. Each time she grabbed for the illusion, self-perception collided into reality. Neurologists underestimated her difficulties; they sent her back to work, to manage multi-million dollar contracts, in a mentally compromised state. Outside of work, her marriage-minded boyfriend kept expecting more than she could give.

Beyond an account of devastating internal transformation, Remind Me delves into neurological research and trends. Lund pushes her intellect to its limit to unravel mysteries surrounding the brain and the accident, and to critically examine the practices of the very institution—the neurological community—set up to help her. Remind Me brings humor, healing, and hope to one woman’s quest to become whole again and to understand the world.

Chapter 1: Sandwiched
Chapter 2: Dazed
Chapter 3: Beyond Reason
Chapter 4: Diagnosed
Chapter 5: Mildly Sick
Chapter 6: The Evacuation Upstairs
Chapter 7: Gray Matter
Chapter 8: Brain Images and Waves
Chapter 9: No Savant Idiot

Chapter 12: The Winds of Autumn
Chapter 13: Thanksgiving Meltdown
Chapter 14: Subtraction of Self
Chapter 15: Breeding Brain Injury

Appendix A: Faculties Returned Timeline
Appendix B: Strategies and Rules
Appendix C: Funeral Lists

From Chapter 1: Sandwiched

Transformation would occur in an instant; injected into my soul, an imposter would slip quietly and insidiously into me and associate my face to uncharacteristic clumsy, dim-witted, and emotional acts. From one body I would live two lives, one right after the other, and my recollection of having lived these lives would be clearer than others’ murky memories of past incarnations. Once I knew, really knew two me’s, I could unravel and then reconstruct my beliefs about illness, intelligence, God, friendship, perception, judgment, prejudice and alcohol. I’d be able to write about my changed views well before I could discuss them clearly.

Anybody’s day can include driving to work, to the store, to a movie—nothing seemingly unsafe, until BAM, the driver is reissued a life of struggle. A car accident which results in brain injury happens to somebody in the US every 42 seconds.

What befell in an instant would take years to disentangle.

From Chapter 6: The Evacuation Upstairs

When my brain wasn’t interacting with the environment or my brain was tired, my neurons would shut down and seamlessly, I would stare into space. I’d think that a few minutes had passed, but in actuality, a vacuous hour had swept by; five minutes is five minutes is an hour. I think of this state of mind as my black hole.

When I slipped down the black hole, I had no thoughts. I sensed nothing. Even if my eyes were open, there was no light. The mood was as quiet as snow falling on a mountain slope. Zero happened. My mind escaped to complete, utter oblivion. I wasn’t turned into ashes, but into nothingness. I was annulled; I never existed. I didn’t have control over my mind. With the force of a river, I floated where the current took me and if nature was forgiving, it wouldn’t send me over a waterfall.

When I awoke, I wasn’t sprawled on the floor, but sitting in a chair. I didn’t necessarily know where I was, how I’d gotten there, or what was happening. The accumulation of how much time I spent each day in this obliterative state was substantial. That first half year, I slipped down the black hole about every fifteen minutes of consciousness unless I was engaged, say, with driving.

Diana Lund holds a B.A. in psychology and an M.A. in mathematics. For seven years she taught college mathematics, and for thirteen years she was a computer science project manager. After brain injury sidelined her career, she began creative nonfiction writing. Today she speaks in the Chicago area about mild traumatic brain injury and is penning a second memoir.