Adult Life after a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Hello, my name's Jenn. I am a year and a half out from a tractor accident that left me with "permanent severe brain damage." Prior to the accident I was a single mom of 3 boys. I had 3 jobs, coached my kids in baseball, football and basketball. I have no idea how i managed that. Since my injuries and man, a heck of a lot goes along with brain damage, I need help, all the time. I've had to learn to ask for help from my parents, my now boyfriend and my kids. It's been a long road but my only saving Grace is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for the disruptive behavior, OCD, Anxiety, depression and PTSD. As for everything now, minimalism and structure are important for me to strive. I cannot work and I struggle horribly with my only achievement each day is handling the minimal responsibility I have. Sometimes it's just getting dressed. There are days where I want to go back to work so badly and there are days that prove it's not a possibility. I love my family deeply but the desire to be a normal 33 year old sucks. I have to take naps a lot but my naps are special because they are called "cognitive breaks". Gold star for taking a nap today Jenn. My memory is barely there and there is no rhyme or reason to what I remember. We just call what I can't remember the "lost files". If you are from up in the cities or don't mind going there, there is a neurologist at the U of M named Thomas Henry. He is fantastic and was able to diagnose my epilepsy and help me manage my seizures.

It is hard for others to understand how it is that one simply cannot do what might seem like an unchallenging task but seems insurmountable to a TBI person. I was elected to an office last year in a women's charity group and found that I could not go to the meetings or fulfill my duties. That would have been unthinkable before my accident. I felt such guilt and shame but just could not do what was expected of me. I still do not know why that happened.

Hello, @oceanfun1 and @micekja. Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect.

@oceanfun1 — I'm glad you've been following the posts and saying "exactly right!" I can envision it would feel normalizing and comforting that there are people who "get it" in a way nobody else can, having had traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) themselves. You've described a number of very hard things I'd imagine other TBI patients in this discussion can relate to:

- Thinking you feel so much better and embarking on a task, only to be brought back to a new limitation or reemergence of an old one
- Having to forgo an event on your bucket list with the difficulty of being around noise
- Embarrassment and frustration when others cannot understand your limitations
- Stress causing your cognitive ability to go down.

I'm guessing that @lrbrush @lakelifelady @david33 @treyaj @micekja and others may be able to identify with some of these experiences.

You shared that a hour of brain challenging games or puzzles each day really helps your level of functioning, @oceanfun1. Will you share a little more about what you've seen in your functioning due to working with these?

@micekja — I can only imagine that going from having three jobs; coaching your kids in baseball, football and basketball; and functioning as a single mom to now needing help all the time since your brain damage from the tractor accident has got to be a radical change, and very difficult. Wanting to go back to work and just be a normal 33-year-old — yet not feeling that is possible — must feel incredibly disappointing.

Will you talk more about what was involved in your dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and how that has helped you?

It is hard for others to understand how it is that one simply cannot do what might seem like an unchallenging task but seems insurmountable to a TBI person. I was elected to an office last year in a women's charity group and found that I could not go to the meetings or fulfill my duties. That would have been unthinkable before my accident. I felt such guilt and shame but just could not do what was expected of me. I still do not know why that happened.

I have to say "WOW", I have found someone I can truly relate to without someone calling me crazy. My experience started 2 1/2 years ago. I was helping my husband and friend unload a trailer full of split wood, and my husband threw one and I raised up at the same time, and the wood hit my right temple.
Now I get angry over stupid things, and I have no energy to do anything. My family would say I have done or said things that I truly don't remember, so now I sit in my own corner, and only try to speak when needed because I'm scared of the outburst of anger and not knowing the cause.
I went to counseling and they put me on medicine, but all the medicine did was make my symptoms worse, so I told the doctors I was taking any more of them. I'm trying to go back to school, (online) to see if staying to one thing while others here at home take care of everything will help. My husband tells me he understands why I'm ignoring everything and everyone and he wishes he could help, but he also has issues also with a shunt in his head that is changing his personality, which doctors tell us it's all in our heads and nothing is wrong with us and we all just want to have something to complain about.
So I stopped talking to the doctors, and pray every night for my symptoms to get better, as well for my husband to get the help he deserves.

Thank you again for this post, I know it wasn't easy for you to post this. It helped me and left me to know I'm not alone.

Hi, all. I’m new to this discussion and have experienced some of the same things as you. I have a brain lesion not a TBI. Anyway, I saw a show on public television tonight that gave me hope. It was Going the Distance:Journeys of Recovery. The show followed 4 people from injury through recovery (somewhat). Talked about cognitive therapy being so valuable. If you can find the show on a local PBS station, it’s well worth watching!