Page 62 - A Soldiers Exposition

Executive functioning may involve abilities such as:

• Envisioning outcomes
• Perceiving and estimating time, distance, and force
• Anticipating consequences
• Performing tasks necessary to carry out decisions
• Analyzing sights, sounds, and physical sensory information.

People with executive functioning problems do not perform these tasks intuitively.

They have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time and space.

They also show weakness with working memory.

People without executive functioning problems perform these tasks rapidly in the subconscious often
without their perception.

“One of the most important things to remember about executive functioning disorders is that this is as
much of a disorder as any other. Although it is an invisible disability, it can have a profound effect on all
aspects of a person's life.”

http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/eh/a/executive_funct.htm

You can learn more about this subject at http://www.ncld.org

Reduced Executive Skills contributed to the lengthy period of time it took me (with my wife’s assistance)
to write this exposition. I am fortunate in that my language skills remain mostly intact.

What would you do and how would you react if instantly, without warning, you could not remember:

• How to add 12 + 23 for example, really
• The names of the students sitting in your college accounting class
• Your own name
• Where you were
• What day it was
• Where your car was, or that you even had a car
• The fact that you were the well-respected Business Studies Division Manager of that college
• That you taught college-level math and science and were very good at it.

That is exactly what happened to me.

The ghosts from my military service were always ever-present. Like the “combatants” not being able to
adjust to a “non-combatant” role, I was experiencing complications adjusting or assimilating into civilian
life. Thankfully most of the difficulties abated. But, with the loss of my Executive Mathematics Skills, I
was finished. I was finished as a teacher and for a long period of time, I was finished as a functioning
human being.

Years of counseling at VA Medical Centers and the support and understanding of my wife led me back to
a life of tolerations - hers and mine. I was able to get back on my life’s horse and ride again; ever so
slightly.