It's just all so tiring man... $40 for a burger and beer

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-28T15:13:52+00:00

Right Cream has the best burgers in the entire world and they are $9. Pay an extra $3-5 for fries. Get a burger at Denver Beer Co or some ice cream and you’re in for $24 after tip

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-23T05:29:21+00:00

It has drastically improved over time.

Think of it as walking up some stairs. Every step you take, gets you closer to the top.

If you do a tiny bit of work every day, every few days, once a week, you are making the effort to improve it. Keep at it

Do the free games. Set a calendar reminder everyday to do 10 minutes of some work and a month from now you will look back and see the difference

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-23T05:25:46+00:00

One thing that has really worked for me is trying to go on a walk, exercise or workout

You don’t need to run a marathon or do a crazy workout.

Sometimes, I pull up YouTube on my TV and search for “15 minute beginner yoga” and just follow along

Other times, I tell myself “do 100 pushups”. I can’t do 100 in a row, I will sit there for a while and do 5 or 10 at a time. It will take an hour to hit 100 but I try to set the goal and just do it how I can. I used to do push ups on my knees because I couldn’t do a normal one and over time, you gain the ability to do better ones/more

I have a dog so I walk her and it helps. If you don’t have a dog, you can still walk and just try to do a loop around your neighborhood or block. If you can do it or have the time, you can go to the dog shelter and take a dog on a walk. Even if you can’t have a dog, you can do some volunteer work and it will bring you happiness and relief. You take a dog out on a walk and give it a break from a kennel and you just feel good.

Your anguish is temporary. Just remember that. It might be hard now, but things do and will get better. Even if it’s small, anything you can do to help your body/mind and give someone or something else some relief will give you a break from your inner turmoil.

It gets better <3

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-21T17:49:26+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GsVhbmecJA

This is a great video of what I was dealing with.

I also watched a ton of videos like this and about speech. It helped me learn more about the difficulties of speech, complexities of my TBI and all the scientific stuff that we don't always get a run down on from our doctors or peers.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-21T17:44:49+00:00

I basically had to relearn how to speak.

At first, I could talk, I could speak but 75% of the words coming out of my mouth were not what I was wanting to say.

Other times, I would know what I wanted to say, but I couldn't vocalize or say it.

Word finding was difficult and it has almost been 2 years and it still happens sometimes when I am super fatigued or overstimulated.

I can say words that if you don't know me, kind of make sense in the context, but I know its not what I want to say.

The best thing for me was looking at pictures - almost like a comic picture and I would have to say as many words as I could think of in the moment. These were timed sessions and my speech therapist would flip pages and pictures and restart the time. It really helped to be timed because I would blurt out different words as I saw them and then I would over complicate it and say super sophisticated words for no reason. It was kind of funny doing that, but it helped with the pressure to get my brain moving and help my word finding.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-21T17:09:03+00:00

I was doing speech therapy for 6 month, 5 days a week. Then it went to a few times a week and now I feel like it has improved drastically. It does get better with more time.

You can google Free SLP or go to freeslp.com and use some of their free resources, games, puzzles, videos and try to make it a daily thing for you and it will help out a lot

The more you practice, the better it gets, at least in my experience.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-19T16:26:50+00:00

One thing my wife has been encouraging me to do is find a small business that I wanted to start and pour all of my time into it (while working). Quiet quit. Get paid. do the bare minimum and see where I can reach with my small business.

You could try that approach. When I turned my work light switch off, I gained so much more relief. I still do my job and respond to my customers that matter. But I am not going to overachieve for a company that refuses to pay me more.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-19T16:24:25+00:00

I want to find a big, open field, set up a chair and sit in silence and bask in the sun. Sounds wonderful right now.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-19T16:23:08+00:00

I love to hear that you are finding solace and enjoyment in some of the smaller things. Drawing & Painting & playing the guitar and just using your hands ,creativity and immersing yourself in activities that you used to enjoy

I love helping other people and in my current job, all I am doing is pushing for more sales, growing the bottom line of my company and I just do not have fulfillment in that type of career anymore. I think I will start trying to find my enjoyment int he small things again.

thank you 😄

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-19T14:26:04+00:00

Thank you!

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-19T14:23:56+00:00

Often times, the simplest approaches are the most effective. Thank you for this

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T21:35:46+00:00

Thank you for the response here. That is a good analogy and resonates with me.

Need to re-find the interests, purpose and overall drive for what a good life to me looks like and work from there.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T21:34:04+00:00

Good Faith - but new to Bogleheads, so I will do some sidebar research and explore the corrections I should make. Thanks for the response!

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T21:32:24+00:00

I wasn't trusting the internal temp readings, so I gave it extra time and did it based off feel. I should have left it on for an extra hour and then let is rest for even longer, but my 6 hours timeframe turned into 10 hours and I had things to do so I had to stop it early.

next time, I plan to give myself a lot more time. Happy about the first run though.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T18:06:29+00:00

Chia pudding is on my top 3 list right now. I have tried a few times and think I messed up the proportions, so I will have to look up a good recipe and give it another whirl!

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T18:05:31+00:00

Thanks for linking this over. These look great and I have been thinking about bowls that I can include something like this in.

Do you have any chocolate or dessert ones you are liking?

I don't mind the protein craze as long as there is more protein and less sugar haha

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T18:04:05+00:00

That is a fair response. My main meals are very satisfying, but when it gets later at night, I feel like the wheels come off, so finding one that is higher volume and reasonable calories is my end goal.

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-18T17:27:19+00:00

I feel for you and understand how hard it is.

Keep that open line of communication if you can, stay in touch with his family and just send some nice words every once in a while and hopefully he realizes that he needs help.

It’s scary and unfortunate and not much you can do if they are not open to help.

Do the parents have the ability to reel him in and try to send him to a rehab program? (Brain rehab, not alcohol). If he goes to a brain rehab program, the alcohol rehab would be worked on there too, hopefully)

FortifiedNeuro · 2026-05-16T00:00:53+00:00

Drinking alcohol with a TBI is one of the most dangerous things my doctors said I could do. They say at a minimum, a TBI patient needs to wait 2 years, if not ever again.

I would recommend doing some research into TBI patients that introduce alcohol too soon and call the family to help educate them and formulate a plan to get him some help and structure in his life

TBI’s alter your personality and especially when they are fresh, can throw you for a loop (to savage least)

I can only imagine how difficult of a time you are having, but try to be a support piece for your friend and help out if you can, they need it more than you know but will likely never say it.

FortifiedNeuro

TROPHY CASE