Reinventing Our Family

A blog by Abby Maslin about loving and learning after TBI

My name is Abby Maslin and the experience of caring for someone with a brain injury has taught me much about living fully and the power of gratitude. Being a caregiver is more than a full-time job. It’s a terrifying and exhilarating rollercoaster ride. By sharing our experiences honestly — both the good and the bad — caregivers can work to support each other in a more authentic and meaningful way.

No one asks to be impacted by brain injury, but with tenacity we are capable of so much more than we ever dreamed. There is a life beyond brain injury for those who are willing to stretch their mind. Learn more about Abby >

The Latest from Abby

Love You Hard

It is impossible to deny that my husband is now a stranger. Despite everything we learned at the hospital, I don’t know how much to help TC and how much to get out of his way. Every morning, I wake up still a little bit shocked that doctors let me take him home at all. Who am I to be trusted with something so fragile?

The Long Haul

It’s been six and a half years since I began this brain injury journey. Or, to compute, 2,372 days, 56,928 hours, 3,415,680 minutes. As I think back, I take pride in each of those days (the bad ones included), remembering too vividly a time in which I was convinced we couldn’t make it at all.

Man, Woman, Caregiver

I Am You: How Caregiving Forces Us to Rethink Gender & Identity

It’s time for a broader, braver dialogue around gender and caregiving. It’s time to start talking about the transformation in identity that occurs when one spouse adopts the role of the other. It’s time to recognize that caregiving is a role that requires the revision of gender norms and the acceptance of power transfers.

You are Not a Burden

Brain injury has changed you. It has broken you, rebuilt you, strengthened you, and humbled you. Sometimes it does all of this in the span of one day. I don’t know that I have the words to make this journey easier for you, but I can offer this...

I’m Sorry Your Life Got Ruined

“I’m sorry your life got ruined,” a well-meaning friend sympathized one day. Her words landed like bricks. Wait, I thought to myself, was she right? Was my life really ruined? Was I the last to know of my own obvious fate?

Life Without Silver Linings

When my husband suffered a catastrophic brain injury at age 29, I rarely appreciated being told that God had a plan for us. I certainly didn’t want to be coached to keep my eye on the prize or to search for those silver linings. I wanted to cry out in pain and to sit in it for a moment. I simply wanted it to be what it was: hard. And I wanted that to be OK with everyone else too.

Keep It Real

What do readers in the brain injury world want? I can only guess that like me; they want it all: practical solutions, resources & references, a place to vent, a place to grieve, a place to interact with people who "get it."

Guilty as Charged

Here comes another caregiver confession: sometimes I feel guilty. No matter how hard my day has been, no matter how much my body hurts, or how overwhelmed my head feels, I know it will never compare to the challenges my husband faces in navigating this complicated world as a TBI survivor.

Abby Maslin on Teaching Her Injured Husband Who He Was

When her husband was first home from the hospital, Abby Maslin realized she would have to teach him who he was before he was hurt -- from someone who liked to shower daily to reading the paper on Sunday mornings.

You’re a Survivor Too

If I could make one sweeping statement about the many caregivers I’ve met, it would be this: we are too hard on ourselves.

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Drawing the Line

When to stay? When to go? When to get professional help? These are some of the hardest questions we will face in our post-TBI lives. These are gut-wrenching decisions to make. I know that not only from my own experience, but from the network of caregivers I communicate with everyday.

Is Brain Injury to Blame?

As caregivers, we have to tread very delicately in interpreting our loved one’s behavior. When our default assumption is to blame brain injury, we run the risk of creating self-doubt in the survivor.

Back at Work

I never wish to glamorize the process of returning to work, nor unfairly claim credit for it. TC was at the helm for most of this journey. With that said, there are a few pieces of wisdom I’ve gathered from the experience...

We Can Do Hard Things

Brain injury has been a type of boot camp for our family, a crash course in thickening our skins and tackling struggle head-on. And although none of us signed up for it willingly, I think we can all agree it’s been strenuous and valuable preparation for whatever challenges lie ahead.

Compassion with a Catch

Immediately following a brain injury, outsiders often reiterate to survivors how grateful they are for that person’s survival and how accepting they plan to b. But when put to the test in everyday life, we quickly discover it’s tough to respond with unwavering compassion.

This Is Your Story

Whether you choose to share your brain injury story publicly or document it privately for yourself, it can be surprisingly therapeutic to seize the narrative of your life. If I had kept my struggle inside, hidden from the world, I don’t know how I ever would have healed and moved on.

Switching Roles

We often hear how differently survivors emerge from their experience, but one of the most unexpected outcomes in our post-TBI life is how vastly I have changed too. Why is it that caregivers, like survivors, also feel like new people?

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No Such Thing as Fair

In the world of brain injury, the closest we will ever get to fairness is achieving balance. Some days you get what you need and other days you don’t.

A Delicate Pendulum

As TC and I prepare for the upcoming birth of our second child, my head is filled with all the anticipation and questions you’d expect from any new parent. But it’s also filled with the unique worries that can only accompany the experience of expanding your family in the aftermath of brain injury.

What We Carry Forward

When I think about the role post-traumatic stress has played in our post-TBI lives, it hasn’t been present in the way many might assume. As awful and shocking as the assault was, we know that it is illogical to blame a neighborhood or even a city...

On the Road Again

Becoming a parent and a caregiver at nearly the same time has taught me much about learning to hold on and let go in life. In some ways, the demands of these two roles are not so different. In other subtle ways, they are quite distinct.

Shout-out to All the Superheroes

Since his injury, my husband and I have come to agree on one point: we will never fully understand each other’s struggle in this mess. And while we can never hope to fully appreciate the depth or complexity of each other’s experiences, we do our best to stay constantly respectful of the hard work that keeps us going.

Land of Lost Dreams

Grief is a complicated process, particularly in the case of TBI when it takes the form of ambiguous grief. Quite obviously there hasn’t been a real death, yet we find ourselves cloaked in a profound sense of loss, one that is enormously difficult to articulate to others.

Empowerment in the New Year

January is among my favorite months because it’s an annual restart button for our lives - a chance to forgive ourselves for our imperfections in the past year and an opportunity to decide who we want to be and how we want to live in the year ahead.

Let It Be

During a season that often seems to uncover and amplify old wounds, it is especially important to remember that brain injury has left us each with our own post-traumatic scars. Caregivers struggle to understand survivors. Survivors struggle to understand caregivers. The best we can do is to allow ourselves an extra breath to ask, “What’s really important at this moment?