Most people cannot imagine what it would be like to suddenly not be able to remember many of the things you have known your entire life. In 1989, I was in a car wreck and suffered a brain injury. Everything I knew as my normal life changed in one instant. I struggled daily with feelings of confusion, fear, sadness, embarrassment, self doubt and hopelessness. The experience was devastating and life altering.
I’ve always heard people say, “Once you learn how to ride a bicycle you never forget.” Nothing is further from the truth. People with brain injury can forget how to ride a bicycle, how to drive, their address, and even their own name. You can forget what somebody said to you five minutes ago and you can forget what you read in the paragraph just above this one.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is sometimes called “the silent epidemic” because the problem can’t easily be seen by other people. If you fall and break your arm, you get a cast put on it and people can see you have an injury. The person with the broken arm can use their brain to think of ways to prevent further injury (avoiding lifting, etc.). But when the injured part of your body is the brain, you can’t use your brain to think of ways to cope.
In 1989, my injury was called a Closed Head Injury. Some people mistakenly think that a Closed Head Injury (meaning the skull wasn’t cracked), isn’t a serious one. They think the injury is not serious unless you spent a lot of time in the hospital or you were in a coma. That is not true.
Today, a Closed Head Injury is mostly referred to as a Traumatic Brain Injury. Traumatic Brain Injury occurs when an external force injures the brain.
There is a stigma attached to the words “brain injury.” For years I felt sadness and embarrassment when discussing what happened to me. It is almost impossible as you are going through something so traumatic to understand it at the time.
Over the years, I spent a lot of time attempting to understand my brain injury and the symptoms I experienced. I learned coping skills that helped me return to a very fulfilling life. Today I speak these words freely: I am a person with a brain injury.
I want to use the experiences I went through to help other people. I want to bring comfort to someone else who might be going through the same thing.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
