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Dawn Pereda avatar

Adult Life after a Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) | Last Active: Oct 2 10:47am | Replies (226)

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Regarding stripped emotional filters, give yourself time and space to recover. If the world is crowding in on you then find escapes into books, TV, music, exercise, or wherever you feel safe. If someone is confrontational (a low bar with TBIs) then back off rather than engaging. Find people or TBI counselors that you can talk with about what you are going through.

My filters are all in place. The emotional filters took 1.5 years, and corresponded to completing my dissertation and graduating with a PhD. I realized that I was beating up on myself for not doing well enough, and it didn't hit me (so to speak) that I accomplished a lot under difficult conditions. To recover from TBIs takes a lot of mental, physical, and emotional work and one doesn't always see how hard it is until it is in the rearview mirror.
The only lasting damage from my TBI was minor balance (damage to left inner ear), possibly slightly suppressed smell and taste (olfactory bulbs), and some aphasia: finding and remembering words and numbers. Considering that I wrote papers as a research scientist, it isn't bad enough to limit me. The longest recovery was driving and tasting beef, getting back to 100% on driving took about 8 years because I could see the subtle differences between before and after. Driving is surprisingly complicated, juggling a lot of info and stimuli at the same time.

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Replies to "Regarding stripped emotional filters, give yourself time and space to recover. If the world is crowding..."

Hi Kay,
You are a superstar! I hope you don’t think aphasia is ok just because you don’t need to use big words anyway. Felling “Normal” is relative to your normal, no one elses, and you deserve to reach for it on most days! Thank you for sharing your story in years. So many facts do not include “years” of recovery.
I have been recovering, and you’re right that it’s hard to see progress until it’s hindsight. But those moments are great when they happen!