Figures of speech can be used to share deep feelings or emotions, that may be otherwise inexpressible. I never thought much about it, just part of our language, but now I use it daily as an aid to communicate after my stroke.
From the Bible to modern-day writers, we use metaphors – for the sake of comparison, it equates one thing to another thing, but not literally (is there really a black sheep in your family? – no, unless your farmer uncle had an unnatural relationship with a black sheep, although he says he really loves nature and sheep). I know a stroke survivor who once used a figure of speech, with which I agree, “If I had a dollar for the amount of times people say I don’t look like I’ve had a stroke. I wish I could explain what I’m feeling, I’m alone with my feelings”.
I once trekked in the vast Annapurna Region in Nepal, in the footsteps of the Buddha 2600 years ago. I can see myself sitting on a rocky outcrop, munching on Nepalis Chai biscuits, looking at clouds rolling through the Annapurna’s. I was young, sort-of handsome, still with lots of hair that hadn’t seen a barber for many months. That endless vista seemed as wide open as my future – yes, there are many figures of speech in this paragraph.
I was making my way towards Annapurna II when it suddenly appeared, in the middle of the trek, seemingly right in front of me, like a magician who twirled a cape with a flourish to reveal something out of thin air. Click, click, click intruding the silence – you take lots of photos to share that moment with your friends; and then add your narration to create a travelogue.
Try and describe the Annapurna II without pictures – “well, it is a big mountain…”. Hmm. Add a metaphor: snow-capped; ghostly mountain; as I turn around it took my breath away…Is that enough to describe the Annapurna massif? Your friend will say, “Show me pictures.” To create a travelogue, we need photos, a narration and an atlas (nowadays Google Maps) to show exactly where you were.
To share your journey after a stroke with your friend, who is unfamiliar with the terrain, we need to describe where you are, as precisely as possible – in other words, to map the landscape of a survivor stroke. A brain MRI (I have mine on a disc) is certainly a visual record, but useless to capture individual experiences of a stroke survivor. That is why metaphors are crucial. It allows you and your friend to co-create a “brainologue”, otherwise your journey will be an unsolvable riddle for your friend.
Last year, in a photograph in a newspaper, I saw an ideal metaphor for a brain injury. In that photo there were two cavers photographed from a ledge far away in the cave. It gives the observer the perspective of how large – actually mammoth – the cave is, the darkness pierced from torches held by the two cavers. The walls above them arched hundreds of feet up covered with giant stalactites. I believe it is the biggest underground cave in the world, that would easily fit forty 747s, wing-to-wing.
I thought immediately: my brain is that black cave. Cavernous, numbness frigid, the impenetrable blackness; broken rocks that will never be repaired, as are my obliterated neurons are irreparable; the torch light flickering far away in the darkness is like the first light, a possibility for renewal of my brain.
I am frightened of bats, to me those scary cave-dwelling bats that can only be seen in shadows roosting and flying, as though they were roosting within the shadow contours of my broken brain, along with crazy ideas flying around in my head. People say that darkness presses in, but I think it is far more. My brain was dark and dank and musty. Within the darkness landscape of my brain, it concealed the isolation, secrecy, bizarre visions.
To take your friend into your journey, you both can learn to think visually. I wish I could explain what I’m feeling, said my stroke survivor friend. Metaphor is the language of the stroke survivors.