Developing Effective Adaptive Strategies After Brain Injury

I think as survivors we really learn to compensate as we reengage in life. At times I forget about my challenges, then something will throw me completely off and remind me. I forget now becasue I have gotten used to my new normal. Ive finally gotten to a place where I can stop and instead of being thrown into a spiral I remember what happened, who I am and how far I have come. It took many years to get here, but all of the joy now is not what I thought was going to happen during those years of hell. Its a slow process. I love your writing because it shows that we struggle, but we go on.

Nice article,  Living with a TBI..gets a little easier as the years go forward.  There are still those challenges.  It's good to be able to see other people out there making it work! It's not great that we have to endure head injuries that are not visible. The people who spend the most time with you pick up on it. . . They know you need that extra nap. Being able to say, yep.. I've experienced that.. makes it just a little easier to deal with it. 

Thank you David. It is indeed a great way to relieve the frustration of not remembering events. My husband is one week short of 10 months post TBI. He was attacked violently while out for a walk (Police have never found who was responsible). He has a severe TBI (bi-lateral damage), no physical issues at all now). He underwent a six hour op and remained in a medically induced coma for 22 days. His overall stay in hospital was 5 months and now he is an out- patient. His Neurologist says that if one were to look at his MRI they would never associate it with Nicolas. His MRI says he should not have survived. He has defied everyone to make a remarkable recovery (and it's still early days). Of course there have been some really difficult moments but as you know they fade into the distant memory when so much progress is being made. He works as a web designer and maintains that his rehab has helped him break down his job and reconstruct everything in a new and even more organised manner that is fool proof; he can't forget with this new system. Without his Neuropsychologist he would never have reached this point so soon and for us having this specialist therapy has changed so many aspects of his recovery. I would urge all survivors who have not yet sought or been given this treatment, to arrange it asap. We live in the south of Spain and when this happened I discovered there are no facilities for people who have suffered brain damage here. My Husband was discharged from hospital a week after coming out of the ICU, he couldn't even walk. I was expected to take care of him at home, his family spent a week with us in Spain but left before he came out of the coma. I had to learn the hard way but I did it. After a week at home and unable to cope because as those of you will testify; we are never prepared for this I transferred him to a University hospital in the north of Spain where I was lucky enough to find the best team of Doctors anyone could wish to find. He came back to life there and I can only thank God and the internet for my discovery. Sorry to ramble. Regards to everyone caring and surviving, Sophie x

thank you so much for sharing this its so true i get so frustrated with myself at times but its always good to hear someone elses strategies to help with this

I kept thinking about what you wrote today and I read for the first time something that is one of the most bothersome consequences I live with. You said, "Events that passed a month ago, feel like last week.... thinking that it was a relatively recent occurrence — only to be told that I was talking about an event from a year ago — or even longer." I often think I am imagining things confusing events combining them to try to make sense of the order of what, when, who, and how. Your admission of the long-term effect of this constant struggle undermining your self-concept and self-esteem which seems all too familiar. I feel your pain.

Andi

As a survivor of 17.5 years, I too am plagued by those common threads. As you said that, "every brain injury is different," so are we as individuals. Everything that makes us who we are provides that individuality. How well we cope and recover are determined by as many factors as the consequences we live with. You are "paying it forward," by writing as you have done, educating the non-brain injured community and providing survivors an accommodatiin/strategy that you have created for yourself. Hopefully, survivors will use your experience to find ways to accommodate for themselves. Peace brother, Andi