“I am terrified of cooking now”, I told a friend last year. “Why? You are a great cook!”. "I am not afraid of people judging my cooking, I am afraid of the act of cooking." The positive side is that by avoiding cooking, I have avoided serving Alpo to dinner guests like a friend with a brain injury once did.
I used to be a good cook, and cooked dinner for my family every night for 20 years. I was a foodie. I grew up in a french house where food and meals are the center of life. My mom had a french restaurant in San Francisco and I was waiting tables by the age of 14, and prep cook by 16. I have every restaurant job there is from dishwasher to sommelier. Post-brain injury, I never cook. Cooking creates a state of high anxiety that always ends in exhaustion and irritability. I wasn’t sure why cooking was so terrifying until Vision Therapy showed me where I was having difficulties. I has taken almost three years to break it down. Finally I understand!
First, cooking requires decision making and planning. What will you make? That is an executive function skill of anticipating and planning for a future moment. My mind goes completely blank and I don’t know where to look for an answer. I know it’s in there somewhere! But how do you get there from here?? I dunno. The neuro-connections are missing.
Second, my eyes don’t converge at a distance of the kitchen counter or closer. When I look down at the cutting board, it takes a lot of work to not see double, and that constant strain exhausts my brain, eventually rendering it into jello.
Combine that with my hand-eye coordination being off an inch or two, and skewed depth perception, and you have a great risk of sliced finger for dinner. Cutting the actual vegetable not myself requires tremendous focus and concentration.
Next mix in a lack of fine motor skills. My right hand feels like a club and is very clumsy, so spillage happens, and a dash of spice becomes ¼ bottle of spice, not to mention what lands on the floor.
Now add a touch of multi-tasking, because that what cooking requires. You are always chopping vegetables when water is boiling or chicken is cooking. Multi-tasking with a TBI is like juggling way too many balls in the air. It doesn’t end well.
Now throw in a large serving of not being able to move your eyes without complete dizziness and disorientation, and mix with the least amount of spinning around between sink, stove, and refrigerator necessary. Which if you have never noticed, is a LOT! Now you are completely drunk. (Remember don’t slice your finger.)
Now toss in a pinch of your kids trying to talk to you while you do all this, and try not to scream or cry. ....They know better now.
Finally top it off with memory issues and you will forget all about that pot on the stove. “Everything Brulee” is your new specialty unless you have bungee corded yourself to the stove, like you learned in Occupational Therapy.
TBI Cooking: It’s an interesting recipe for disaster.
I think I will try it and watch those neurons grow.
