Adult Life after a Traumatic Brain Injury

@dawnpereda I love your statement “day by day, it’s a new path. Keep looking forward”. If you’re OK, I might write it out and post it around my house!

My losses become worse when I am tired, hungry, and anxious too. If too much is happening I get anxious and exhausted. The anxiety makes it really difficult to rest. I just keep walking around. Walking around outside helps, if I remember to go out! "Pushing forward too hard is a problem for me too at times. We are both RNs, I think that is a nurse related behavior. When I hear myself use the wrong word, (at first I didnt even hear it) I work with immediately correcting it and relating it in someway to what I was trying to say. I correct it with emotion and emphatic energy and with the correct word. Somewhere I read that increased emotion with the correct word, reprograms the brain. It has helped slowly. Thank you Dawn for your support. You are so therapeutic! I love getting to know you!!

Day by day it's a new path. Keep looking forward!
Dawn

So glad to hear that you're trying the singing! My deficits become much worse when I am tired. Often my body will try to tell me ahead of time that I need to take a break. This is usually in the form of a headache. When I keep pushing forward, too hard, I end up paying the price and then I have to rest. I also have issues with using the wrong word in my speech. So Annoying!! Hang in there and lets keep supporting one another!
Dawn

You so clearly describe this process. I still keep believing that I will heal and be myself again. But this week was the three year anniversary of my being rear ended and seriously injured and all I seem to be doing is comparing the past to what is now. Some days are strong and moving forward, other days stuck or moving backwards. But I am constantly in awe of how I took my brain for granted! Everything was so easy, now...not so much.

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.

I have been following your posts with interest and often find myself saying exactly right ! My original Tbi was about 11 years ago and have had two freak accidents since which have brought the pain and symptoms of the first tbi back and more. My latest tbi was in August of this year. I find it challenging to access my level of functioning. I think I am so much better and feel great about it then a task will emerge that I simply cannot do and I am brought back to a new limitation or reemergence of an old one. I have a bucket list, got tickets to a concert that was on my bucket list and then forced with the difficulty of being around noise realized two weeks before i simply could not go. Limitations have caused embarrassment and frustration when people like a transit clerk cannot understand why I cannot buy a ticket and yells at me for it. I am in my sixties and of course if I could do it I would. Stress really causes my cognitive function to go down. I have bad migraines, fibromyalgia, neuropathy and balance issues which I have been told are connected to the neurological impact of the tbi. Together they make daily living a challenge. It would be easy to spend all my days resting which I did for several years. The pain can be brutal. I find a hour of brain challenging games or puzzles each day really helps my level of functioning. It really has made a positive impact over the past two years that I have been doing them. Faith as someone mentioned earlier is such help in reaching some level of acceptance and peace with my condition. This site is such an inspiration and helps me feel like I am not going crazy and there are people who get it in a way that nobody else can. Look forward to hear more from fellow travelers.

Yes we are still alive and as a different person. A favorite song I sing for self support is Getting to Know You, and So Lucky to Be Loving You! Maybe singing will help you too.

Thank you to everyone for sharing. There is strength and great healing that comes from not feeling alone and experiencing a sense of belongingness again. I also continue to grieve the loss of the past me, but with time and acceptance of the now me, I find my awareness focusing more on the future now and much less on how I used to be. Thanks to a group member who suggested singing or playing a musical instrument. Singing has helped my speech problems immensely. Remembering all or most of the lyrics has increased self confidence, improved my word finding problem, and increased my joy and sense of humor when I make mistakes or simply sound weird. My social anxiety has decreased as has isolating myself so much. Strangely, I no longer feel less whole. I feel more whole. I now know a different experience of change, loss, rebuilding, and regaining. I know more about life, loss, suffering, possibility and the deeply spiritual importance of valuing and supporting my own will to live. Life matters, things unplanned happen, but I can love and choose the quality of my life.

@treyaj @david33 Because of my profession and past life experiments, I can reassure you that we are not alone and so many people need help.

I have had 14 loss-of-conscious concussions throughout my active life, 6 of which occurred during my senior year in college over a five month period. I have experienced most every symptom associated with TBIs except balance issues (uncontrollable rage, lack of focus, headaches, memory loss, light sensitivity, anxiety, ringing in ears, depression, etc).

It took about four years of experiencing issues before I reached out for any help. My first experience with the medical profession was not what I had hoped but in all fairness I did not follow up on their advice. I was just asked recently why I have not sought follow up care and I could not explain it to someone who has not experienced the inability to get out of bed, flash-rage towards everything and everyone.,,simply “white-knuckling” every second of the day. The associated shame, guilt and fear are overwhelming and effect every aspect of my life.

I am still here today because of:
Faith-Medication-Faith.

My faith kept me alive until I was able to get on the right medication. The medication put me in a place where I could begin to heal. My faith is changing my rage into love and my other sysmptoms seem to be fading.

I believe you can only heal to the level of what you believe in. If you believe in yourself, you will only heal to the level you believe you can. This is where I think the medical profession fails.

Whatever you believe in, grasp onto it and live it...eliminate the battles in your brain. I believe the fancy medical name of it is congestive dissonance.

BTW- if a doctor tells you “it is only in your mind”, run. He/she can’t help you. Just my POV.